Guidelines

Fanfiction
Title:	Guidelines
Author(s):	LitGal
Date(s):	2005 - 2006
Length:	135,546 words
Genre(s):	Slash, Sentinels and Guides are Known
Fandom(s):	The Sentinel
Relationship(s):	Jim/Blair
External Links:	Guidelines: Beginnings, Guidelines: Regulations, Guidelines: Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Guidelines: Power Play on LitGal's website Guidelines on AO3 Cover by LitGal
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Guidelines is a Jim/Blair story by LitGal. It is split into four parts: Beginnings, Regulations, Don't Ask Don't Tell, and Power Play.

Summary

Guidelines:

• Beginnings: Jim is a sentinel who failed the U.S. Sentinel Program under questionable circumstances. Blair is the graduate student challenging the entire philosophy of the Sentinel Program in a world already nervous in the aftermath of terrorist attacks. The USSP would just like to see both men disappear. Unfortunately for them, neither Jim nor Blair is planning to give up easily.

• Regulations: Jim and Blair are ready to take on a system that has treated both of them unfairly. However, the system is not ready to just give up.

• Don't Ask, Don't Tell: The relationship between Jim and Blair continues to develop and deepen, but Jim is carrying wounds that have never healed.

• Power Play: In this conclusion, it's time for Jim and Blair to change the world, or try at least.

Awards and Nominations

• Angst (Slash) Nominee at the Light My Fire Awards 2005
• AU (Slash) Nominee at the Light My Fire Awards 2005
• Use of Sentinel & Guide (Slash) Nominee at the Light My Fire Awards 2005
• Series (Slash) Nominee at the Light My Fire Awards 2005
• Chopec Award - Use of Sentinel & Guide at the Light My Fire Awards 2006

Author's Comments

Not all kink is sexual... For Jim in Guidelines, he has to tie Blair up before having sex. It's not a sexual kink at all. Jim doesn't want to do it and feels deeply guilty about it. But he's a Sentinel with highly developed and vulnerable senses, and after nearly being raped by a man who manipulated his senses, Jim has trouble trusting. It's not even that he doesn't trust Blair; it's that he has flashbacks. So kinkiness is not always sexual. Sometimes it fills an emotional need/hole that nothing else can quite touch.

Reactions and Reviews

2010

[jane_elliot]
Sentinels and guides are known and Blair thinks he has some revelatory new information about guides. At which point he's abducted by the military, strip searched, and framed for major criminal activity... and that's the point I stopped reading.

This is probably a great fic. It's in my possible rec folder, so at some point in the last several years I read this fic and enjoyed it. Unfortunately, during those years my aversion to sentinels-are-known stories has gotten so great that I literally had to force myself to start the re-read of this fic and once the military came in and started abusing people I just couldn't take it anymore. Sentinels-are-known fics traditionally revel in the torture, enslavement, and mistreatment of people and not only do all of those things completely turn me off (and turn my stomach), but the very idea of a happy ending in these types of stories requires that the good guys somehow manage to completely overthrow the government, change societal expectations, and dismantle the military and my disbelief just doesn't suspend that high anymore.

It's possible this fic doesn't include any of those things but, honestly, I'm 99% sure I remember rape or attempted rape in this fic so my hopes aren't high that this is one of those rare sentinels-are-known fics that manage to avoid the trauma porn that is the norm for the genre. If you like sentinels-are-known fics and don't share my squicks, you should check this one out. If not, I'd steer clear.

[jenna_marianne]
I really like litgal's writing style, but she tends to write pretty dark and hit some people's squicks/kinks pretty hard.

[jane_elliot]
LitGal is one of those folks who I recced in the past (when I hadn't been quite so traumatized by fandom and thus was less of a wuss) that I almost never read anymore. She's recced to me a lot, but the general darkness of her stories makes me wary about trying something new.

[bookworm_2005]
I liked this story well enough, although I don't remember any specific details.

I don't remember if there was rape/attempted rape, because, as you pointed out, it's pretty common for this storyline.

You know what would be really cool? If someone wrote a story like this where the military wasn't the bad guy. 'Cause, honestly, the military isn't stupid. Making them the good guys would be new and different.

2015

Super plot. Your getting Blair arrested for protesting his own program was so funny; I've never chuckled so much at a fanfic. I've loved Charlie's character and I'm going to see if you have written a story for him. I think you smartly used tidbits of science and anthropology to really spice up the plot and really give readers more in-depth info on Blair's personality (like his idea to use a children's book to create change social views in the next generation). You got a lot of bang for your buck with these tidbits. You made Jim and Blair's characters more complex and a bit more human than the typical Sentinel fanfic. Anyway, I liked your story very very much. Thanks.

2018

I have just revisited this story and still enjoy it immensely. I really do like the other characters you introduced from Charlie to the USSP people to the villains-they all seem very fleshed out and believable (within the context of the story). I would also have liked to hear more about Rob (there's a closure story-did he really just leave or was it something that was cooked up by the reigning (evil) commander) and Jamal and Wilkes' meeting and subsequent bonding aided and abetted by Karn. Anyway, my own imagination will be enough to write those interludes although they will have less of your way of writing what I enjoy so much. Thanks.

Fanworks Inpsired by the Story

• Saving Jamal by tootallforyou on LiveJournal