The Sentinel

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Fandom
Name: The Sentinel
Abbreviation(s): TS
Creator: Danny Bilson, Paul DeMeo
Date(s): March 20, 1996 – May 24, 1999
Medium: television series
Country of Origin: USA
External Links: at IMDb
at Wikipedia
Official Website
at EpGuides
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.
running black cat seen on many Sentinel fan sites during the late 1990s. A still image of this gif was also used in many print zines, usually as chapter breaks

The Sentinel is an 65-episodes over four seasons American television. Follows Jim Ellison is a cop with super-heightened senses in the fictional United States Pacific Northwest city of Cascade, and Blair Sandburg an anthropology student who can teach Jim how to use those senses to his advantage. Together, they (live) and fight crime!

The show is generally considered to be a fairly classic buddy cop fandom, though one with extra added science-fictional and/or mystical canon. The Sentinel also attracted many slash fans because the big hot chemistry between the main characters Jim and Blair, in addition to the canonical connection of both throughout the show and the evolution of their close coexistence.

Canon Overview

Jim Ellison was a US Army Ranger who spent 18 months in the Peruvian jungle after the rest of his unit was killed. He developed hyperacute senses from surviving in the wild, but repressed them when he returned to civilization. His sensory abilities re-manifested five years later, while conducting an extended stakeout in the forest as a detective in the Major Crimes Unit of the Cascade, Washington, police department. He went to a hospital for an examination where he met Blair Sandburg, an anthropologist from Rainier University, whom Ellison initially mistook for a physician. Upon hearing Ellison's story, Sandburg declares that Ellison is a "Sentinel": in ancient tribes, Sentinels used their enhanced senses to protect their village. For Jim, Cascade is his village. Blair had been studying Sentinel mythology for years. While he found many individuals with one or two hyperactive senses, he had never before found a person with all five senses enhanced, a "true" Sentinel.

Blair helps Jim control his senses and joins Jim as a police observer. Their unlikely partnership works, and together they fight crime in the streets of Cascade. The only person aside from Sandburg who knows Jim's secret is his captain and friend, Simon Banks.

Characters

The Fandom

From a fan in 1997:

Sentinel is definitely a fandom in SPITE of the show, a chance for good writers to flex their pens, pick up the bits and pieces of lint they've given us to work with, and weave some lovely blankets for the rest of us to share. [1]

Awards

Conventions

In terms of conventions, there were two types: the "official" for-profit conventions, including the first all-Sentinel con Sentinel '98, that had actors and writers as guests and the more traditional fan-run convention with fan produced panels and activities. SentiCon was one of these fan-run conventions and ran from 2000-2006, although in later years the convention organizers broadened the convention's focus in an attempt to attract and retain membership.

There were also informal 'gatherings' held in 1998 and 1999 by Nightowl in which fans would meet at a pre-arranged hotel and rent a party suite. These were also called "house parties," or 'relax-a-cons" and were held in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada, where the Sentinel TV show was produced. These more informal gatherings became "A Weekend with The Nightowl" in 2000 and continued until 2003.[note 1]

Fan Campaign: Support Our Sentinel

The Sentinel was cancelled after 3 seasons by UPN, with a last episode ending with Blair's life in the balance. An intense fan campaign Support Our Sentinel (SOS) was a coordinated effort conducted in late 1997 through June 1998 via mailing lists and a SOS website to save the show from permanent cancellation. Ads were placed in industry magazines such as Variety and TV Guide with financing from fans to help garner continued interest in the show, which had been one of UPN's highest rated shows, both in the US and internationally. Fans with websites were urged to put SOS banners on their sites, linking back to the SOS website.

The show suffered from a lack of promotion and badly targeted ads which failed to promote its strengths or its sci-fi/fantasy angle. SOS outlined a detailed plan for fans, set up a mailing list, raised funds, placed ads and successfully convinced UPN to give the series a season of eight episodes to end the series properly -- for which SOS promptly thanked them in ads in the same forums as the previous efforts.

Looking Out For The Sentinel is an article about the successful campaign.

Pairings

Jim/Blair is by far the most prevalent pairing.

Other pairings are Blair/Rafe, Jim/Other, Blair/Other, Jim/Alex, Simon/Jim, Blair/Megan and Jim/Megan, and Simon/Blair.

The fandom is split between gen and slash, for the most part amicably; while some gen lists (such as Cascade Times) have strict no-slash policies, a lot of fans are bi-fictional -- possibly because a lot of what was called genfic in Sentinel fandom would have been read as g-rated slash in other fandoms. The earliest Sentinel non-fiction discussion list, Sentries, had a no-slash policy and forbade adult discussion posts with more than a PG-13 rating in the common fandom setup of the time to keep both adult and slash content contained in separate, usually age restricted, forums.

The now-defunct Guide Posts gen archive included het fic in among its 3,000 stories, but there was no category for it, and how many stories, it's hard to say now. Most of the fic and vids in the fandom is generally focused on Jim and Blair in some fashion, and while canon put them with different women throughout the course of the show, the relationships tended to end in failure. As a result, there's remarkably little het fiction; as of October 2008, the 852 Prospect adult-fiction archive search engine returned only 119 stories containing m/f pairings, out of 6,437 total stories.[2] The introduction of Megan as a regular on the show resulted in a small following for both Blair/Megan and Jim/Megan, and pages like Megan's Room.

Tropes and Sentinel-Specific Glossary Terms

Sentinel fandom developed its own tropes and glossary terms, some of them variations on familiar fanfic themes. See also: The Sentinel Fandom Glossary.

  • Blair as a Cop
  • Blair's Compromised Lungs
  • Blair's Father
  • Blair's Hair
  • Blair's Heartbeat
  • Blairbabe
  • Blairscent
  • Blessed Protector
  • Guide Voice
  • Sentinel and Guide - Note the capital letters. In Sentinel and Guide fic, the terms aren't just descriptions, they're an almost mystical calling, with Jim and Blair destined to find each other and be together. Sometimes they're the only Sentinel and Guide; sometimes it's a societal institution. When it's institutionalized, one is usually higher-class than the other, who may be little more than a slave. The trope appears in both gen and slash fiction, and may or may not include a soul bond. The role of "Guide" stems from episode 7 of the first season, when Blair is referred to as Jim's guide.[3] This trope has become a popular fusion one in other fandoms.
  • Sentinel and Guides are Known, closely related to the above, has also widely spread to other fandoms.
  • Canonical Soulbonding via spirit animals
    Spirit animals This one has its roots in the show. Canonically, both Jim and Blair have spirit animals (a black panther and a wolf, respectively). Fanfic plays with that, and with the soul-bonded nature of the pair (again based in canon -- canonically, their spirit animals merged while Jim was saving Blair's life). This is often another soul bond trope.
  • Post-TSbyBS (The Sentinel by Blair Sandburg, the series finale) the finale introduced some massive changes to the characters' lives, massive enough that many fans weren't sure how the characters could move forward. So they wrote fanfic. Lots and lots of fanfic.
  • Historical AUs
  • The Sandburg Zone - a phrase used to denote the amazing confluence of strange happenings that occur when Blair Sandburg is around -- a kind of shorthand method of saying Murphy's Law applies
  • Elves-- Blair Sandburg was frequently written as an elf.
  • Bestiality Due to the above-referenced spirit animals, bestiality fics became a part of the fandom, although still relatively rare.
  • Shapeshifting Canon has the spirit animals shapeshifting into human form. Some fans extended this to Jim and Blair.
  • Domestic discipline (DD) This isn't specific to TS fandom, but it was the first place a lot of fans came across it. It's almost always gen, and consists of a story where one of the men (usually Jim) decides that the other one (usually Blair) isn't capable of running his own life properly, and begins making decisions for him. This is with the second man's consent, in a negotiated situation where the first man has the right to punish the second man for "infractions" of the agreed-upon rules. The stories are based on a RL lifestyle (where, most often, a woman obeys a man who tells her how she should be behaving, and "corrects" her if she fails to live up to his expectations). Despite DD fans' protests that the trope is not a sexual one, and that it has nothing to do with BDSM, it's rare to find a story where the punishment is, say, writing lines; most often in TS fanfic, it's spanking.
In a June 2001 update, the Cascade Library site stated in reference to DD:
the Library has chosen to no longer archive stories involving domestic discipline or corporal punishment. For the Library's purposes, domestic discipline/corporal punishment includes relationships involving physical punishment or discipline (spankings, etc.) between two adult characters.[4]

Fanworks

CDs

See A Senti-mental Christmas.

Fanart

Traditionally, Sentinel fanart has focused on story illustration, with a few artists such as Jean Kluge also creating art for sale.

Fanvids

Sentinel fans have been vidding since the first season, but most of the vids are still offline, available only on tape or DVD. Notable producers of Sentinel fanvids include GloRug Productions and Media Cannibals. There is no central source or list of Sentinel vids - either from the VCR or the computer era. In 2007, one fan attempted to encourage more recent vidders to list their vids at the Cascade Library: Look! There is a thing! - Vid page is a go!, Archived version

A notable fanvid was Possession by Remi d'Brebant; after premiering at Escapade in 2002, it was featured in Vividcon's "Breaking the Rules" and "Experimental" vidshows, among others, for its use of still shots combined with video, creating what some fans at the Escapade Vid Review panel called a "video painting"[5]. It also used a song, "Possession", that at time was strongly associated with another fandom, due South[5].

Fanzines

See the following categories:

Virtual Seasons

"The Sentinel" fandom has more virtual seasons than any other show.

Gen

Slash

Fanfiction

For pages about individual stories, see Category:Sentinel Fanfiction.

While there are many Sentinel print zines, this is a fandom that was born online.

The first fanfic posted online in the fandom, Sacrifice, was posted July 1996 by Laura Schomberg.[note 2]

The first season of "The Sentinel" resulted in mainly upbeat stories, matching the tone of the show. One major exception was the slash story The BS Factor by Jen Riddler, which was posted toward the end of the season and which had a much darker tone, and ended on a horrifying note. The reaction on Senad was immediate and shocked, not just because of the story itself, but because Jen had woven it seamlessly into canon, making what at the time were logical assumptions about the characters as they had been seen to date. The story was a plausible explanation for everything that had happened in first season.

As "The Sentinel" fandom hit its peak before the advent of Livejournal-based fandom and the popularization of RPS, there is almost no real-person-based fiction in the fandom, with the exception of the mostly unserious Garrettverse.

Jim and Blair on the gen zine, Knitted Souls #3

Kristine Williams was a very early and influential Sentinel fan fiction writer, one of the first to have posted her fanworks to the Internet. Her fiction was posted sometime prior to January 1997, which was sometime in the first season.

Gen Fandom

cover of the gen zine Bonds of Friendship

Gen fandom as a whole tends to focus in on the friendship and other canon aspects of the characters. There is a subset of the fandom where Jim and Blair are seen as "brothers". It also includes any traditional relationships the characters may have or develop, i.e. a long-term romance with a female character.

One of the influential series in TS gen fandom are the alternate universes created by Susan Foster, in which Dark Sentinels, Dark Guides, and a Guide Development Project (GDP) exist -- and in which Sentinels and Guides are not only known, but studied, controlled, and in some cases, feared due to the presumed/documented primal nature of Sentinels and Guides. The concept of a reality in which Sentinels and Guides are known has since become a staple of the fandom in both gen and slash.

Sentinel gen fandom also became semi-infamous for the proliferation of smarm.

Slash Fandom

cover of the slash zine Come to Your Senses #28

A fan's comments (2004):

'The Sentinel'. It's a gateway drug. While it's not the first fandom I became involved in, it is the one that grabbed me, chained me to my computer, and has ever since refused to let me go. The premise of a cop with hyperactive senses hit my science fiction interest, and is probably what drew me into the fandom when I'd never seen an episode of the show. But what caught me and keeps me in the fandom is that Jim and Blair are just so easy. Unlike many fandoms where it takes a slash-colored view to even begin to see a couple as possible, Jim and Blair come across as well on their way to a relationship, if not already involved in one, in canon. My mother, five minutes into her first ever viewing of the show, asked me if they were lovers. All the ease of canon, without the pesky canon getting in the way!...

Admittedly, I saw a picture of RB as Jim and said wow. And followed that with a picture of GM as Blair and said WOW. Most important to me of all, though, is the characterization. Plots are automatically second fiddle to the people on any given show I watch, which helps a great deal in Sentinel fandom. What TS lacks in well-planned plot, research, and logic, it more than makes up for in terms of inner demons, depth of character, and armchair psychoanalysis of the main (and even supporting) characters. Jim's got a list of issues a mile long, which opens with the retelling of his tragic loss of his entire Army Ranger unit, leaving him the sole survivor, in the first moments of the first episode. But Blair, too, has issues, and though his aren't explored as much (the show's called 'The Sentinel' after all, not 'The Guide'), eventually they come out, and prove to be just as far reaching as Jim's own. That, for me, is the draw of 'The Sentinel', what will keep me coming back for more fic, no matter how illogical the canon plots or frustrating the dropped plot-lines. [6]

A fan's comments (2004):

In the slash circles I inhabit, 'The Sentinel' seems to have been everyone else's wading pool. It's the fandom where you get your toes wet, because the actual show is like Intro to Slash 101. Jim and Blair are one of the most married m/m couples I've ever seen, and compared to some of the other subtexts I work with, providing evidence for their relationship is a walk in the park. Unfortunately, since I never got to see the show in its original run, TS actually has turned out to be my fourth slash fandom, one I've only been in for about eight months. However, it's one of the most fun to write, and it helps that they're just so damned cute together....

I first started reading large quantities of Sentinel fanfic before I got my hands on the actual show, and I was immediately intrigued by the premise of the geeky intellectual paired with the tough cop. How would that work? Why did it work? After watching the show, I was completely and irrevocably hooked, because--well, because of a dozen reasons, but most of all because these characters were so much more than geeky intellectual and tough cop, and suddenly it was crystal clear why they worked. Blair was tough and courageous, like Jim, and Jim was goofy at times and strangely vulnerable, like Blair, and they were not always doing what you might expect them to do. As characters, that makes them a lot of fun to read and write about.

From a romantic standpoint, they work because they each give things to the other, ingredients the other is lacking. Blair gives Jim a handle on his senses, a safety net, a sympathetic ear, and a partner who (despite his fears to the contrary) will not desert him, even when the temptation seems irresistible. Jim gives Blair stability, a chance to "ride the roller coaster" of police work, and an opportunity to become someone upon whom others depend. Jim and Blair clearly understand and care deeply about another, and there's lots of opportunity there for a writer to explore their relationship. [7]

Some fannish drift: When a small group of slash fans on Senfic grew too large for the side email loop they'd been using among themselves, two members started up a new slash mailing list, Senad [1], in late 1996. It was originally for discussion and fic, but by February 1997, there was enough fiction to merit a separate fic list, and on February 16, 1997, Senad's listowner (James Walkswithwind) launched SXF [2], a companion over-18 list that accepted both het and slash erotica [8].

By 2000, Senad had been handed over to Ann Teitelbaum and developed a list culture that, in many people's opinions, stifled fic discussion (other than praise), and the pressure cooker that resulted caused the nearly simultaneous creation of two new slash-focused lists, both allowing critical discussion of fanfic, albeit to different degrees: SaFicDic [3] and Prospect-L [4].

This was more fraught than it might sound. At the time, fandoms tended to congregate around one main discussion list (or two, one gen/het and one slash). New lists were generally small and very focused -- on a character, a pairing, a kink, crossovers, etc. -- and generally served as additions to the main list, rather than replacements. Splitting off a main list -- or two -- from Senad was effectively splitting the slash fandom, and there were a lot of arguments both leading up to and after the split about that as well as about fic discussion.

Warnings

cover of the zine, I'm Not Cutting My Hair

As Senad developed a list culture that tried to keep from offending anyone, Sentinel slash fiction developed a growing list of warnings. The trend peaked in late 1999 or early 2000, when during a Senad discussion about warnings -- with many people suggesting things that should be warned for -- one fan asked that people warn for stories where Blair cuts his hair, which she personally found traumatic. The idea was quickly shouted down and the fan withdrew her request, but it was such an extreme one that word spread out to other fandoms, cementing Sentinel fandom's reputation at the time as the most-warned-for fandom ever.

Some comments on the history and context of warnings in "The Sentinel" fandom, with a focus on Blair's hair as a flashpoint:

I can't find the links for the history of warning debates that people who've been in Sentinel fandom for this bring with them, but in case you're interested I can try to explain where this "warning for haircuts" thing used as shortcut in debates comes from. Personally I think it's a bit misleading as reference, because even in the warning culture of TS fandom of that time, I don't actually recall anyone arguing it was more than what in today's terms would be called a "squick" they wanted to know about, but at the time in TS there wasn't always a distinction being made between warning, labels, even pairings and genre indicators.

TS the late 90s was centralized, both in lists and in archives on both the gen and the slash side (het was mostly non-existent), and all common publication venues to distribute fanfic outside of personal websites (and that included announcements of websites on lists, iirc) expected warnings, and provided examples what to warn about. These lists usually made no distinction between warnings for triggery things, kinks, spoilers, or some genres, for example the mail with the list rules of SXF, the major slash fic list, from 1999 said:

"Many people want to be warned about certain content categories, and courteous authors heed those wishes. We've tried to think of all the categories one can warn against, and they have expanded to include:

Rape (or non-consensual sex)
Death of a major character
Episode spoilers (name episode)
Alternate Universe (historical, otherworldly, future/sci fi)
Bondage/domination scenes
Sado/masochistic scenes
Extreme violence
Betrayal of J or B by the other
Multiple partners
Hurt/comfort
Bestiality
Extreme angst
Crossovers
Song lyrics used
Male/female sex
Female/female sex
Song lyrics used
Male/female sex
Female/female sex
Male/male sex (remember, we are the "adult list", not the "slash list")

There is also the option to say "Other: see story notes", and then explain more fully in the author's notes. You may also choose "None"."

Most people used the "other" field for child abuse and eating disorders, iirc. While SXF had iirc a mandatory warning policy, the gen fic list Senfic in theory allowed to just warn that you don't warn, but few ever did that. Also the warning examples the Senfic list rules gave were framed thus:

"b) Warnings and Ratings

If you are posting a story, we ask the following: Please place appropriate warnings and ratings on your works. These warnings and ratings should either be placed at the beginning of your story, or in a separate post that precedes your story to the list. Some examples:

RATED R for violence and language
WARNING - Death Story
WARNING - Not beta-read
WARNING- Cassie story

And no, you don't need to warn us that a story contains a high pollen count, and may be offensive to people who suffer from allergies. But many of the list members dislike reading a story and discovering that it is a death story, or some other topic that they wish to avoid. Warnings are a courtesy to your readers, so help them out when possible.

However, if you feel that placing a warning on your story will ruin the plot for some reason or another, or you object to the notion of warnings, then we ask that you label your story:

CAVEAT LECTOR: Let the Reader Beware

In order to let the reader know they read at their own risk. And readers, if you ignore a warning or a caveat lector - you did so of your own free will."

So on the side of the formal rules this wasn't actually all that overbearing as the reputation TS fandom got later might make it seem and haircuts are nowhere in evidence, but the social pressure at the time was a lot in favor of giving detailed "warnings" of all kinds (including as you notice above warnings for the mere inclusion of certain female minor characters in form of the "Cassie" warning). Of course as this is a more general labelling approach rather than something that makes distinctions between triggers or other content labels, people on SXF (the one above with the more specific checklist) sort of lobbied sometimes to get that list expanded, to make sorting through fic easier for themselves.

The "haircut" (referring to Blair Sandburg cutting his hair) stood for a kind of story that many people disliked, firstly because his hair was fetishized (think like Sheppard in SGA) but also because it stood for a position in a fandom kerfuffle about how the series ended, whether it was fair to Blair about Jim's behavior towards Blair, etc. as it indicated whether the author was pro or against Blair becoming a cop at the end of the series. Some people liked reading only stories that were positioned on a certain characterization spectrum and the haircut was a symbol for that. Similar to the TPM trend at the time to warn for stories that were canon-compliant in that Qui-Gon died, and thus a warning for a canon death became standard in TPM fandom, some TS readers would have liked to be warned if a story accepted the series ending.

Other people thought this was ludicrous and a symptom for everything they saw wrong in TS fandom at the time (there were overlapping kerfuffles over fanfic criticism, list etiquette and so on that led to certain camps and splits in the fandom) and used it as a symbol in return, to illustrate how they saw TS fandom as needlessly coddling and stifling in that everything was warned against to avoid upsetting readers in any way, on the flip side no negative feedback or even general criticism could be uttered because it might upset authors. [9]

Are you familiar with the background to the "Blair cuts his hair" thing? I know, it's awful the way it's constantly brought up. I guess I'm guilty of that myself, but it is actually relevant. It was one of the earliest debates about warnings in fandom, and it came about because of the exact issue we're all discussing: triggers from experience of sexual violence.

Sentinel fandom is kinda fetishistic about Blair and his hair; partly because there's (a small amount of) canon to support it. So the haircut thing isn't something you'd expect to see in a fic. Or wasn't, back in the height of the fandom. Blair is also the very stereotype of the abuse-magnet character; physically smaller than his butch partner, some "feminine" characteristics, intellectual and let's not forget attractive. So extreme hurt-fic involving Blair being abused was -and still is - very common in the fandom.

The fan who originally requested the haircut warning enjoyed hurt/comfort fics, but was herself a survivor of an abusive relationship. The haircut thing in a specific story triggered her, massively, in a way that descriptions of fictional rape and abuse never had. I heard the details of the incident she flashed back on second hand, so I won't repeat them, but it makes perfect sense of her request.

But, of course, if you just say "you've got to warn everyone if Blair gets a haircut" it sounds ridiculous. It's certainly true that no one, least of all the writer, could have anticipated a warning like that being needed, and I'm not advocating warning for every little thing. But far from derailing I think understanding the original incident serves as an example of why warnings are so necessary. [10]

Fan Comments

2000

The show is off the air, no one can remember who starred in it and not many people watched it in the first place, but The Sentinel fandom just keeps on plugging. I would estimate it to be at least the size of the Buffy fandom, which is for a show that is still on the air, has a gay relationship and is actually good. They just keep coming up with new story ideas, working that same pairing, doing their thing. I've read some huge stretches, like one where Jim and Blair head to the carnival and see a unicorn. That's so nice. [11]

2003

Sentinel fandom was born largely online. The Internet provided the connection between fans all over the world. [12]

2006

It goes without saying that The Sentinel offers up endless possibilities for fic writers. The show is, after all, many things all at the same time: a cop show; a buddy show; a sci-fi show where spirit guides, hallucinations, Shamanism, and heightened senses all have their place; a show where New Age gets familiar, and conservative archetypes get less stodgy; and multi-culturalism is completely subtle and pervasive. There can be hush-hush spy-types stories because of Jim’s Special Ops past, and there can be stories that play on the social structure and dynamics found in academia because of Blair. To say nothing of the secondary characters, who are so integral to this universe that mention of them crops up in almost any story. Central, of course, to the show, and to most of the fics out there, are stories that feature Jim and Blair, Sentinel and Guide; two guys, who on the surface, seem to be complete opposites, but underneath it all, turn out to have enough similarities to find common ground together, and really need each other. It also doesn’t hurt that there’s enough UST and touching and grabbing on-screen to give rise to a fandom capable of writing stories that can ignite panties across America. “Partners” by Josephine Darcy is an amazing story that manages to do the near-impossible: bring in just about every single aspect there is to The Sentinel—it’s a cop story; a bizarre case story; a Blair, the anthropology expert story; a 'Sentinel being possessive of his Guide' story; and a story showcasing the second bananas—and filters it all through a fine, mesh sieve of canon and fanon (i.e., Blair being a magnet for trouble in Cascade, which, as we know, is the most dangerous city in America, etc.). It’s laugh out loud funny, to boot, and contains one of the hottest and most hilarious first-time scenes out there! [13]

2007

[allaire mikháil]
While Highlander: The Series was the show that introduced me to slash, The Sentinel was the one that introduced me to fandom. The Sentinel was huge, central and well-organized with its archive and the mailing lists [Senad] and [SXF] and in its heyday reeled in pretty much everybody. Its most dedicated and prolific authors are now BNFs one encounters sooner or later in a variety of other fandoms. It also introduced a lot of additional fannish features such as unofficial continuations of the show in form of virtual seasons, themed e-zines, writer critique (the disputed [Prospect-L]) and generally provided a structured online environment in which newcomers felt quickly welcomed. In contrast the show itself was not much to write home about with its mediocre writing, harebrained plots, superficial dialogue and "babes of the week". Nonetheless, the two main characters, Jim and Blair, had an undeniable rapport that jumped off the screen and intrigued its female audience, largely thanks to their actors who were well aware of the homoerotic subtext and jokingly played up to it in the show's bloopers. The buff, self-contained cop and the "hippy witchdoctor punk" anthropologist managed to transcend their archetypes and invited the creation of what is today still the internet's largest slash fandom.[14]

Communities & Resources

Archives and Websites

The original gen archive was Guide Posts, which closed down in 2002 when the archivist moved on from the fandom. The secondary gen archive, Cascade Library, started up in 1999 and is still actively adding stories.

The original slash archive started up in 1996. After a long period of inactivity, a backup/interim archive, 852 Prospect, was started, and eventually became the primary adult (accepting both slash and het) archive when server issues took down the defunct original. It has changed hands and moved servers a few times since then, but is still active and accepting submissions. In May 2012, 852 Prospect and the Archive of Our Own jointly announced that 852 would be moving to the AO3 later that year as an active collection to keep it stable, since the standalone archive was difficult to maintain under its old code.[15][16]

Some archives:

Personal websites for fanfic and small multi-author archives were common in the late 1990s when Sentinel fandom was in its heyday. Here are some collections of links:

The Nightowl's Nest: The Sentinel Resource Site has been a resource website since 1997, that collected both show and fandom information in a central location. Often referenced in discussions was its "Canon or Fanon?" page. See: Canon or Fanon?, Archived version.

Other places to find fic:

See also The Sentinel/Fansites for a longer list of Sentinel fansites and GeoCities/Fansites for a list of Sentinel fansites specifically hosted on GeoCities.

Rec Sites

See also Category:Sentinel Websites

Mailing Lists

See List of Sentinel Mailing Lists.

As a fandom of the 1990s, Sentinel was most active on mailing lists, although it also has a small, active livejournal presence. The fandom also has a long zine tradition, although fewer zines are being published now than in the fandom's heyday.

The original TS mailing list was Senfic [5], for both gen fiction and discussion.

Another early list was The Raft, a list for "in depth discussions on all sorts of subjects related to The Sentinel -- the characters, the "subtext" of the episodes, series trends, the science and history of the show, fandom and fanfic".[17] It was moderated by Ursula and Kaz, and existed until 1999, when it was succeeded by the Rainier list on Onelist, created by Nightowl in October 1999 until she discontinued it in May 2002, because there was little discussion anymore and the list traffic mostly announcements. However, even before Rainier had been not very active.[18]

LJ Communities

Because many fans used to mailing lists were initially wary of LJ and its growing popularity in fandom, and because the activity and popularity of Sentinel fandom itself was waning by the time LJ became one of the fannish online centers, there isn't as big a Sentinel fandom presence on LJ as it used to be on mailing lists.

Possibly the earliest popular Sentinel LJ community was Sentinel Thursday, a weekly flashfiction challenge community, founded in July 2003 by castalie aka. mouse and turps33 aka. Terri[19] in addition to the related archive.

VHS Tapes and Tape Circles

Episodes: During the heyday of TS fandom, 1996-1999, when the show was still running, the only way to get back episodes of the show was fan-made VHS cassettes; several fans would send you the back episodes for the cost of tape and shipping.

Bloopers: The Sentinel had a particularly famous blooper reel, which was also distributed via fannish tape circle. These bloopers featured not only many hilarious outtakes by all cast members, but was particularly known for its slashy vibe. The two main actors near-kissed and flirted a lot, often breaking up laughing during the show's homoerotic scenes or making the show's subtext into text. For instance, in one notable outtake from "Dead Drop," in which Blair and others are trapped in a sabotaged elevator, Richard Burgi abandons his script to ask, "Blair, honey? Is that you? I don't care about the others, let them all die, crushed like little ants, but are you okay?"[20]

button worn by fans attending Couver Con in 1998

Con tapes: Fans circulated VHS footage of the A Weekend with The Nightowl 1998 and Couver Con 1999 tapes, which contain including hilarious question-and-answer sessions with Richard Burgi and Garett Maggart as well as auctions where the actors auctioned off props (Blair's vest from Switchman, Jim's badge, etc.) for charity. See MegaRed's Sentinel Con 98 Footage.

CPAC Tape -- A ~2 hour Canadian documentary about producing a TV show was made using The Sentinel crew, sets and actors during the production of Foreign Exchange (3rd season). Most of the crew, Danny Bilson, Richard Burgi, Garett Maggart, Bruce A. Young, and Anna Galvin are interviewed.

The Loft Tape: This was a pimping tool, made by slash fans, that edited together all the scenes where Jim and Blair were at home in the loft onto one tape, cutting out the rest of the show.

Fan Clubs and Charity Auctions

Sentinel fans, particularly superfan Bert Hayling, also established the The Official Richard Burgi Fan Club.

A fannish charity auction at Moonridge supports the Moonridge Wildlife Park in Garett Maggart's name.

A scholarship in anthropology was established by fans at the University of British Columbia, where the show shot the university scenes.

Meta/Further Reading

  • Multiple Choice, Archived version, satirical, "'The opportunities for confusion in fanfic are boundless. It was as I was reading the Cosmo quiz that the solution came to me... So, here, without further ado, is the answer to all my, and I hope your, Sentinel fanfic problems." (not dated)

Notes & References

Notes

  1. ^ This evolution and meld of the events can be seen in the way they are referred to: the first "Weekend" in 2000 was referred to as the "4th annual," and the official "Weekend" in 2003 was referred to as the "3rd annual."
  2. ^ as per a post to Cascade Times Yahoo!Groups list dated November 13, 2008.

References

  1. ^ comments by Jane Mailander from Virgule-L, quoted with permission (22 Jul 1997)
  2. ^ Search results choosing the warning "m/f" on 852 Prospect, accessed October 10, 2008.
  3. ^ Becky (2001-08-07). "Episode Transcripts -- Episode #7 -- Rogue". Becky's Sentinel Site. Archived from the original on 2003-12-20. Retrieved 2008-11-15.
  4. ^ "Site Information". Cascade Library. 2005-06-01. Archived from the original on 2006-02-09. Retrieved 2008-10-13.
  5. ^ a b Email sent to the Vidder mailing list, March 3, 2002. Accessed October 15, 2008.
  6. ^ The Shipper's Manifesto: Jim/Blair, comments by misanthrope September 1, 2004
  7. ^ The Shipper's Manifesto: Jim/Blair, comments by lamardeuse September 1, 2004
  8. ^ Saved copy of the original email, accessed August 27, 2008
  9. ^ June 2009 comments by ratcreature at Warnings (2009 post by zvi)
  10. ^ comment by briarwood in June 2009 at Again? we're having this debate again?
  11. ^ a tongue-in-cheek review at: The 2000 CABS Awards, Archived version
  12. ^ from The Pits Mailing List, quoted anonymously (Apr 14, 2003)
  13. ^ a 2006 comment at Crack Van
  14. ^ allaire mikháil (2007-10-14). "the sentinel fan fiction". storyteller's campsite. Archived from the original on 2007-10-26.
  15. ^ "The Sentinel Adult Fiction Archive : THE ARCHIVE IS MOVING TO ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN". 852 Prospect. Archived from the original on 2013-01-19. Retrieved 2012-07-08.
  16. ^ "852 Prospect Moves In With the AO3". AO3. 2012-05-08. Archived from the original on 2013-08-10. Retrieved 2012-07-08.
  17. ^ "The Raft Mailing List". Archived from the original on 1998-12-06. Retrieved 2008-10-31.
  18. ^ "Rainier · A discussion list for 'The Sentinel' …". Yahoo!Groups. Archived from the original on 2001-05-16. Retrieved 2008-10-31.
  19. ^ castalie aka. mouse and turps33 aka. Terri. "sentinel_thurs - Community Info". LiveJournal. Archived from the original on 2007-05-15. Retrieved 2001-10-31.
  20. ^ See Sentinel Bloopers on Youtube, clip posted by rodneyscat. (Accessed 15 August 2009)
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