#wait sentinel aus are based on an actual show???#I thought they were just one of those inexplicable Fandom Things - im WHEEZING, i love this so much
never Once have I ever seen a reference to an actual extant intellectual property, itās always āwhat if we had this super complicated codependent pseudo-magic sci-fi thing going onā and then just running with it OTL
i do not have the spoons to FULLY get into it, as it demands, but the one with the military haircut (heās a cop, aĀ āprotectorā, cāest la vie) is Jim Ellison, former Army Ranger, repressed fool. curly haired bb isĀ Blair Sandburg, an anthropology grad student who realizes Jim is a Sentinel of legend, latches onto him like a remora, and Jim basically leans on Blair like a crutch all the while pretending he doesnāt care for him in a veryĀ āI made you a friendship braceletāĀ āugh grossāĀ āwell you donāt have to---āĀ āshut up Iām gonna wear itā way
they were handsyĀ
HANDSY I SAY
they STARTED handsyĀ
they moved in togetherĀ in like. ep one.Ā
they become partners in the cop sense, they do a lot of gift of the magi shit for each other, every time I start to think of the stupid shit they do for another I remember More Weird Shit, codependent fucking weirdosĀ
Okay, I absolutely MUST chime in For The Sentinel which NEVER gets the respect of its peers just because "the plots were a little convoluted" and the "central premise wore a little thin as the seasons went on." those men were in love. THOSE MEN WERE LOVERS!!!!!
What you need to know about The Sentinel is that the very first episode is about Jim Ellison acquiring mystical powers. YES I want to be clear, the way he acquires these powers is "problematical" and "not great, respecting indigenous cultures wise" but okay, so he's got these powers that make all of his senses amped up to dangeous levels. he can hear things no one else can hear, he can see things like he's fucking legolas, you get the deal.
so he goes to the doctor to be like "i feel weird" because of course, and Blair Sandberg, twink anthropologist to the stars, BREAKS SEVERAL LAWS to get in Jim's exam room and sayāi know how to help you. i know what's wrong with you. i know how to make life better. and jim ellison looked at the little twink man and said yes....YES to love YES to life YES to living in a 1 bedroom LOFT apartment together. YES to being soulmates and life partners! YES I'LL MARRY YOU!!!!!!
This is the ORIGINAL big gruff german sheppard/lil yapping chihuahua pairing. And fandom looked at this show and said "this is good. i will build a kingdom upon this land. from now on, these are the two genders: big, angry, powerful, forced to their knees by circumstances beyond their control AND small, jokester, has skills INVALUABLE to Big, bad self worth. And then so the sentinel/guide aus RULED the pervert community, and everyone rejoiced.
And then SPN looked at this, and said "but what if the guides also had wet butts" and u kno what? innovation is CRUCIAL.
my friend had Sentinel VHS tapes acquired from someone on the internet and basically every episode featured tough military man Jim being driven to his knees in agony verging on madness bc of his mystical senses being overwhelmed and tiny commie academic Blair soothing him and healing his agonies by touching him (and communicating with him via psychic leopards????) so they could save lives and the show wasnāt GOOD but my god it was something
It's also the little black dress of AUs for other fandoms - Mulder/Scully, Clark/Lex, Derek/Stiles. It goes with everything! :)
So today I learned that The Sentinel was a show, and so what is the term for when you get un-Goncharoved?
I THOUGHT IT WAS A FANDOM TROPE LIKE OMEGAVERSE
God this was such an important fandom to me. My Sentinel friends are my family now, more than a quarter of a century later. Merryish, who first offered my fanfic a home* in ā1997? 1998?ātaught my kid to snorkel 20 years later. Flummery are my kidās fairy godmothers. I basically married astolat 25 years ago. And every time I see one of you Sentinel people online (waves to a bunch of you who reblogged this) I feel like Iāve run into someone from the old country! That fandom literally changed my life.
But also, fannishly, so inventive! Some of the first vids I ever saw back before there were computers āVHS vids, wonderful ones. (Shout out to GloRo!) Great great fanfic and art. I still have gorgeous zines from this period. And the loft tape! Go to fanlore and look up the loft tape you guys!!
*before the AO3! When you needed someone to host your fic! This is part of why we built the AO3! So many (so many!!!) Sentinel people involved in building the AO3! Astolat built the Sentinel archive, 852 Prospect, a decade before the AO3, that was our first practice archive software. That software was adapted and used in other fandoms like due South. Seah and I were both DS archivists. This is all part of the story of how the AO3 came about. The sentinel/guide trope is the least of it. The Sentinelās impact on fandom is totally outsized considering what a minor show it was. But it had a great concept that it did not fully exploit, which I think is in fact, what an amazing fandom needs.
Yes, The Sentinel was a real show in the 1990s, and gave us one of the classic fandom tropes, please check out The Sentinel, Jim/Blair, and Sentinel AU pages on Fanlore!
There are published Chinese novels that'd just fully use this trope, and I love it. May copyright law never find them š
This show really went the distance in cultural influence.
