#sentinel au

[hoshgay]

willmack sentinel au where will is the most desired sentinel of his age, all guides are biting at his heels to guide him aka. wsh harem and mack is the unconventional guide who no body wants to guide them.

until an emergency makes mack the only one who can help will and will has never felt better in his entire life, and the guide must be his.

this also works beautifully the other way around, yum yum yum!

[obslimession]

Here, have an excerpt from my sentinel AU outline

[obslimession]

Trying to decide what place sentinels hold in society, exactly. I think all sentinels get made into knights, whether they have a guide or not, but are they universally well regarded? Do some people revile them? Do families of guides side-eye them for taking their family members away? How much agency to guides and sentinels really have in this world?

I'm kind of leaning towards guides having a little less agency than sentinels, which is why Derek is so hesitant to bond with Avery. He doesn't want to be a noose around Avery's neck, especially after promising to bring Avery home once it's all over.

Much to think about.

[obslimession]

I'm outlining sentinel AU and I cannot stop thinking about Derek and Avery bonding as a sentinel/guide pair and what that means for both of them. I also can't decide if Derek should be human or a mob hybrid. After reading DON'T LOOK AT ME, I can't help but think about Derek having some Ender ancestry, but another of my friends is lobbying for him to be human. Idk Tumblr, what do y'all think?

[obslimession]

I am chewing at the bars of my cage, I am so ill over the concept of a slimeknight fantasy sentinel AU. Derek as a knight who is also a sentinel trying to save Avery, who is a guide (but not HIS guide, not yet anyway). Derek not wanting to bond with Avery because he doesn't want to be a yoke around Avery's neck. Avery just wanting to do everything he can to help Derek. Derek zoning out because of the infinite knowledge and Avery pulling him back from the brink. UGH

[snoopishane]

Okay not to let the 2010’s jump out but what about sentinel!Shane and guide!Ilya?

Shane needs routine and structure and bland foods and gets overwhelmed when there’s lots of stimuli

Ilya is the bisexual terminator empath, need I say more honestly? But, he calms Shane down so easily like no one else can! He clocks everyone’s mental health but his own

[harmonic-intervention]

Sentinel Sunday

I started what was hopefully actually the last chapter of my Sentinel AU this time! Yay! And while I'm at it, I also started outlining a second Sentinel AU because I fucking love this setting so much. Let's try to finish this one before I start anything new, shall we.

np tags: @bibibibuckleykinard @beanarie @curlyboys @a-mel0n @thecarrott @corporatebanana @bidisasterevankinard @cliophilyra @stars-inthe-sky and everyone who reads this. Yes, everyone.

They did four of these exercises in total, only for ten minutes at a time and with breaks in between, until Buck had gone through smell, touch, taste, and hearing. And despite the fact that after a snack and some more water, Buck felt energized and ready to tackle the next thing, Tommy didn’t go for five senses at once. He cautioned Buck and instead let him go through the same exercises again, playing around with how much Buck focused on what senses.

They took another break, and tried again afterwards, and when Buck had gone through all four exercises again – they were much easier the third time around – they called for another break.

And then, something happened.

It wasn’t like going feral. It wasn’t like the zones. It didn’t hurt, first and foremost. It was comfortable. Tommy told Buck, “Break three, I think,” and from one moment to the next, Buck slipped into an entirely new state.

His eyes were open, but he didn’t see anything. The air around him was brushing against the hair on his arms, but he barely felt it at all. The scent of coffee had been so present in the room, but now, Buck couldn’t find it. He’d been able to hear the sounds of the birds outside, but none of that was left. He couldn’t even taste the residue of the coffee he’d had at breakfast. There was nothing.

It was a lot like that bad zone he’d had, where he’d felt too much and nothing at all at once. But this time, he didn’t feel too much. He drifted. His head rolled against the back of the couch.

“Look at me, Evan,” Tommy said, his voice pulling Buck’s hearing back into the world for a moment, but then, sound disappeared again.

Buck did as Tommy had asked. He looked. Tommy had gotten up, standing behind the back of the couch, right above Buck. His pupils were big, and Buck wondered what his own looked like. A Guide didn’t have heightened senses, but they understood it, and Buck had read about bonded Guides sometimes getting something like an echo. Since Guides were in tune with Sentinels – able to feel them close by, when they were zoning, when their senses were open – it made sense that they would get something like feedback from a Sentinel they were closely working with.

“Focus,” Tommy told him, and Buck did immediately, zeroing in on his eyes more. Tommy’s face was shadowed. If Buck tried to look anywhere but his eyes, he’d lose focus, he believed, until Tommy repeated, “Focus.”

Buck did, until Tommy said, “Good. You can stop now. Relax.”

And like that, Buck’s sight did that thing like when he went slightly cross-eyed, becoming almost blurry. He slid back into the old state, focusing on nothing, just waiting for Tommy to pull him into the next direction. For a time that Buck couldn’t define, Tommy kept him there, in that wondrous place where nothing hurt.

He was skirting along the edge of a zone, but he never did, and it still didn’t hurt like the beginnings of a zone usually did. Just a word from Tommy was enough to bring Buck’s focus back to a sense, and even if there was a moment he was at a risk of losing himself too quickly, too hard, Tommy was holding him still.

And the best part was that when Tommy pulled him out of this state entirely, Buck wasn’t exhausted. He felt refreshed, even, as if he’d had a nap.

Buck blinked up at Tommy, still standing behind him, a hand in Buck’s hair now. He knew his eyes were huge, and he dropped his mouth open. For a moment, he couldn’t form words.

“How?” he finally asked. “What- what was that?”

Tommy gave him a half-shrug. “I- I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I can’t really describe guiding. But it’s like- like I took a detour.”

Which was a nice visual metaphor, but it didn’t really explain to Buck what that was.

“It felt nice,” he said.

To that, Tommy gave him a smile. “Wonder if we can use that thing to get you out of zones. Or prevent zones. It felt similar.” Tommy spread his fingers out as if Buck’s senses were something he could physically feel.

Buck sat up properly, rolling his neck out. “Think we have time to research this?” he asked.

[harmonic-intervention]

I just read all your snippets and I'm so curious about this sentinel show au, the dynamic is so intriguing. can you explain the zoning thing a little bit? 💕💕

Hello! Yes, of course!

So, the AU is inspired by the TV show and the fanon that was based off on it, but it's mostly its own thing at this point. So, zoning might be different in the show, but I'm gonna explain how I wrote it in the fic.

Sentinels are people with their senses heightened. They're more sensitive to stimuli, and they can use their senses for greater feats.

Zoning is when the person reacts to a stimulation and just feels too much. It's essentially a bad case of sensory overload where one or more senses become too much to bear. Sentinels often times lose focus for everything else. This can be painful, or cause physical reactions like grinding teeth, irritability, seizures, and more.

Sentinels either resurface from zones on their own which isn't exactly good for them, or with the help of a Guide (those are pretty much entirely fanon). They are uniquely equipped to help Sentinels use their senses, and to handle their zones and help them steady themselves.

In the fic, Buck is a recently discovered Sentinel, so he's still learning how to deal with his new senses, and as such has more problems with zoning. A trained, guided Sentinel tends to zone less.

Hope this made any sense 😅 Thank you for your question, I love yapping about this 💜💜