I really like princessofg’s Jack and Daniel. This story is set in early season 7 while Daniel is freshly de-ascended and is still regaining his memories. Lovely details.

Time Is An Arrow, Time Is A River

15.000 words + graphics, audio, and video. Utterly engaging. A gorgeous, gorgeous telling of the story of John Sheppard, World War II test fighter pilot and Dr. Roney McKay, airplane engineer. This is well worth more than two read throughs, it’s lovingly detailed throughout and put together so well.

Missed the Saturday Dance

I have no idea how I missed this story on the first go-round because I’m about 7 months late now, but anyways, perhaps there are still some people who haven’t read this either. I should preface with the fact that I do not always love Helen’s writing. I often find her style to be a little to sparse for my tastes. This story, however, breaks the pattern in fabulous ways. It’s complex, and just slightly painful, and very subtly character driven and I adore it. Also, the title is wonderfully misleading.

Your Inevitable Unhappy Ending

Some fandoms lend themselves better to AUs than others. For me, SGA is one of those fandoms in which I cannot read enough AUs. This story is AU to a point: John is still in the Air Force, at least at the beginning of the story, and Rodney is still a physicist, but they never go to Atlantis. Instead, John finishes out his tour in Antarctica and goes to Iowa to live on the farm his grandfather left him when he died. And Rodney meets him there after his tire blows out near John’s farm. What I like most about this are the details and the slow build of their friendship. Good characterization and solid pacing.

A Farm in Iowa

So I don’t read a ton of gen in this fandom (or any other really) because I’m OTP enough to prefer to see Sam and Dean be SamandDean, but Trollprincess is one of those authors whose fic is guaranteed to be good no matter what. In this one Dean gets cursed with that ancient proverb: May you live in interesting times. This is almost a five Sam’s that didn’t exist type story and it’s really fucking awesome. The kind of story which would make for a damned interesting episode.

Interesting Times

Dude. Oneupmanship is one of my very favorite things in fic. And Dean and Sam are perfect for it because they’re brothers and they compete and play practical jokes and bicker. And I’m pretty sure I was just waiting for someone to write this story. I’m very pleased that was the one to do it too, because she pretty much guarantees a good read.

people livin’ in competition

Set during one of the months Lyra wrote about in In Miles, In Laughter, In Strife this story is a brilliant, fun piece about what happens when a Satanist’s spell gives Dean angelic powers and Sam demonic powers for one month.

And we are here as on a darkling plain

So canon tells us that a year passed from the beginning of the season to the end of it. And Lyra fills in the blanks between all of the episodes we saw and all of the other stuff that must have gone on off screen. At times funny and at times serious, but always imaginative. I think that’s probably how I would describe all of Lyra’s writing actually: imaginative. And the Supernatural universe lends itself to that perfectly.

In Miles, In Laughter, In Strife

A short, lovely story about Jared’s jealousies, there’s Christian and Steve and it’s fabulous, as one should expect from Estrella.

Heart Shaped Bruise

Artful, plotty and well characterized. This is set in the near future probably, and is slightly AU as it has no mentions of the season 1 finale events. Sam’s powers are developing more, the boys take a case in Michigan. It’s creepy and detailed and well characterized; basically everything you can ask for in a Supernatural story, with a lovely slow burn of relationship building.

The Flow of Darkness

This is fantastic; I love the slow reveal of what’s really going on, and Dean and Sam’s subtle shifts in personality and action as time passes. Also, I am a huge sucker for unreliable narrators and this story totally rocked that; I loved Dean’s perspective and how we learn what’s going on at the same time he does. It’s just such an effective narrative style for a story like this; wonderfully suspenseful. Plus! Werewolves!

On the Banks of the Tiber

I am totally obsessed with stories that get into the circumstances around Sam leaving for college, and while I don’t often buy the idea that Dean and Sam ever had sex in the pre-college days, this is the kind of story I can buy it in. A refreshingly original take on the situation that so many fic writers have tackled. Much less about the sex than the relationship, this story is both heartbreaking and powerful enough to leave an imprint.

Light of a Match

Omg. while this whole story is perfect in its sleepy, you can feel and taste and hear everything that’s going on style, it also rocks my world for making me actually burtst out laughing with the last lines. Oh man. I am still giggling when I look back at the title. (You’ll get it once you read the story.)

Blowjobs Are Key

This is just a short vignette without much plot to speak of but it’s just to cool. Logan and Dean, while not the first combination of characters that come to mind when imagining Supernatural crossovers, play off each other in some really interesting ways. This whole story is just delightfully inventive. And it all takes place at the Fitzpatrick bar, The River Stix, which is so wonderfully Dean to have picked that bar when he goes to Neptune.

In Harm’s Way

Also from the smutbox challenge, this is a hilarious bit of drunken debauchery.

Snoops

This is such an entertaining and fascinating amnesia fic (which, by the way, like pretty much every other fanfic cliché, I am a huge fan of when it’s done right.)

Memories of Me

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. I love sleepy, just woken up sex, and I love it even more when it’s really not so much about the sex as it is about the characters. This is exactly that.

Through the Long Night

Raw, angsty and intense. I like that this doesn’t shy away from the sheer fucked-upness that Sam and Dean’s relationship could be like.

Maybe in some weird way they’re both broken, and they can’t be fixed but they can be broken together.

On The Snap

I am such a sucker for crossovers and this one is awesome. Seth Cohen is Sam’s Stanford roommate and it just goes from there. I love this a lot.

On Taking It Like A Bitch And Ten Other Ways to Say I Love You

I don’t read a ton in this fandom because I’m picky and fickle about my House/Wilson fic but this is a great one. Snappy dialogue and lengthy enough to really work for me (about 10,000 words for those of you who like to count.)

Synchronicity