Ins, Winners

A retro-rec; I mentioned it in my blog, so I thought I'd better give it a permanent place here. What sells this story for me is not just the cleverness of the premise (because you can work it out before the end with a little effort) but the subtle characterization work. A fic to remember fondly.

Te, Past Grief

Some of the plotting in this story really frustrates me--it depends heavily on a stupid and incautious Lionel. However, that consideration aside, ohhhhh, it hurts so good. I don't know why this should be so after all this time, but Te can still surprise me with how intelligent her stories are (as well as evocative and affecting). This satisfied my need for sad SV fic for weeks.

Livia, Callaesthetics

I'm thrilled to actually get a chance to be a dissenting voice in favor of a story. I'm constantly wondering about how SV's future Lex is going to conceptualize Clark and Superman; this gives one satisfying answer.

Rach L., Mezzanine

This one's a little less polished than many others on this page, but it's an all-too-plausible imagining of what might cause the enmity between Clark and Lex, and the Chloe/Clark is very sweet.