- In a future where guides are little more than slaves, one man decided to make a difference.
The GDP stories
by Susan Foster is an alternate universe Sentinel Fan Fic series in which sentinels and guides are common and well-known to the public. Sentinels are widely respected due to their positions as protectors of society, and are given a status which is (largely) above the law. Their empathic guides, however, are treated as property, by the general public, sentinels — and by the sinister Guide Development Program, a Government Agency of Fiction in charge of training, organizing, and policing guides. The series follows Jim, a sentinel who never wanted a guide due to the inherently problematic nature of the thing, and Blair, who never wanted to be a guide for obvious reasons and who has about two years of serious trauma to work through (including rape and torture, so be warned, although very little actually occurs on-screen), as they try to make the most of their recent empathic bonding, and of their Crapsack World.
It's one of the most influential fics in The Sentinel fandom, having introduced numerous concepts and terms to fanon. Also, it has loads of characters. Loads and loads of them.
This fanfic contains examples of:
- Berserk Button: Jim has a plethora of these, most revolving around Blair. Combine this with the fact that he's a sentinel who, a.) tends to go feral whenever any given button is pushed, and b.) is largely above the law where his guide is concerned, and it's a wonder he hasn't killed more or less everyone he knows. This is a trait of sentinels in general.
- Blessed with Suck: Guides. What with the slavery and all.
- Brainwash Residue: Jim (and numerous other friendly characters) has to help Blair overcome the fear responses conditioned into him by Alex and by Wilson and his cronies. Said responses mostly involve the observation of draconian guide etiquette, including kneeling in public and not eating without permission.
- Fantastic Racism: Against guides. They're continually referred to (by bad guys) as "nothing more than tools," as being like dogs, or, at the very best, as being too flightly and emotional to handle the real world if their sentinels weren't in charge. They eat after their sentinels, and are expected to kneel to "show [their] respect."
- Fate Worse than Death: The corrections facility, where all rogue guides are sent. While inside, they're subjected to all manner of human depravity, all in the name of teaching them their place in society. Note that being classified as "rogue" does not take an awful lot of work.
- Happiness in Slavery: Sort of. It's not that Blair doesn't want to be free, but he is exceedingly loyal to Jim, despite the fact that Jim owns him. Of course, Jim isn't very happy about that arrangement, either, but it is what it is.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Blair and Jim, even more than the show, thanks in large part to the fact that their souls are literally bound together.
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Ho Yay: So much. As much as the characters keep insisting "there's nothing sexual about the bond"... well. Jim and Blair are in near-constant physical contact whenever they're in the same room, and the actual bonding process is... intimate. Oh, yeah, and they danced the tango. - Made a Slave: Blair, after spending most of his life trying desperately to avoid being found out as an empath, has this happen to him. Hence the story.
- Power Incontinence: Caused by the bonding. When a sentinel and guide form a permanent empathic link (as all sentinels and guides are expected to eventually, although this is only enforced for guides), the guide's "empathic pathways" are fried, and they lose the ability to maintain barriers against the onslaught of emotion around them without their sentinel's help. Blair's ability to maintain barriers for several hours away from Jim is very unusual. Because of this, the fact that some sentinels don't want to bother with their guides 24/7 and instead house them in GDP-run hostels (where the guides won't have any access to their sentinels' empathic protection) is particularly cruel.
- Sentinels also have this, which is why they need guides in the first place.
- Rape Is Okay When Its Female On Male: Averted. Blair spent two years at the mercy of Alex Barnes, a psychopath who forced him to guide her, stripped him of his name and his dignity, tortured him routinely, and both raped him and had him raped. This not treated as being any less horrific than it would've been if Alex had been a man and Blair a woman.
- Serial Killer: David Lash, here re-envisioned as a sort of psychic vampire who goes around killing — wait for it — guides.
- Sex Slave: Blair, first to Alex, then to Wilson and his lackies in the corrections facility. Jim has to convince him he won't do the same thing.
- Slave Race: Guides, again.
- Super-Senses: Sentinels, obviously. They need guides to keep them from using them incorrectly and killing themselves.
