Okay, I keep promising Sara I'm going to reply to this thread and then forgetting/putting it off because it's so hard to choose and feels disloyal to my other stories. But here we go anyway!
My favorite stories from first go 'round in the fandom is the Playing Series. It's just so fun. There's basically zero angst, and it has all my favorite fluffy fanfic tropes -- friends to lovers! fake boyfriend! only one bed! Also each of the four stories is mid-length and can be pretty easily binged in one sitting, but all together the series is an epic that I could get lost in for days. I had SO much fun writing it and it meant so much to me at the time that everyone else loved it too. Playing the Part and Playing for Keeps each won an individual Kerth for Best Mid-length Story (2003 and 2004) and the series won Best Series in 2004.
Playing the PartPlaying to WinPlaying for KeepsPlaying by HeartMy other favorite story from back in the day is Tea Totaled -- both because it's an adorable, hilarious story and because it was the first story I ever wrote with Kathy, and is the most fun I've ever had writing anything. We laughed ourselves sick and still routinely reminisce about the nights we stayed up way too late writing and laughing until our stomachs hurt. Recently Kathy unearthed some IRC chat logs from when we were plotting this, and we howled with laughter both at the content and how our nightly chats still sound almost the same nearly twenty years later. It won the Kerth for Best Comedy in 2004, and it will forever be my favorite comedy. In fact, I might just go reread it right now.
Tea TotaledMy favorite new story is Come to Me. It's the story that brought me back to the fandom 15 years after drifting away, and the story that opened the floodgates and got me writing again after more than a decade. It's a much more mature story than my early stories both in content/characterization and in writing style. I'm really proud of the writing I did on that story, especially given how scared I was that after so much time without writing, I wasn't capable of doing it anymore. I think some readers have shied away from reading it because of the premise -- the fact that the story opens with Lois and Clark divorced. But I hope that anyone who was hesitant to try it for that reason will give it a shot, because it's absolutely an epic love story for our favorite characters that proves nothing can keep them apart, even themselves. And the focus of the story is not on them being separated but on how they are able and willing to do the work to repair their relationship and rebuild their family. A heartfelt thanks to everyone who nominated it for a Kerth this year. That meant so much to me. I love this version of the characters -- and their children -- so much, and I'm glad they resonated with readers too! It's not archived yet, but here's the link to the TOC.
Come to Me TOCAnd a special bonus PS -- the story I'm working on now, just might be my all-time favorite story. I'm writing with Kathy again, and this time we've created an elseworld epic that has completely stolen our hearts and imaginations. We are still hard at work on it, but hopefully it will be done in a couple months and we'll be ready to share.
