EG: Meek Shall Inherit by switchknife (Dink/Ender)

Orson Scott Card's homophobic fucktardedness makes me snicker, because I thought Ender's Game was some seriously slashy stuff. So how happy was I to find out that the LJ community enderslash exists? Very happy. There's some great Ender/Alai being posted, predictably, but I discovered the community through switchknife's Dink/Ender what-if, Meek Shall Inherit. The story, as complex and cerebral as the source material is, also perfectly captures Ender's despair and hopelessness, and how his inner nature won't let him succumb to the same.

HP: art by sherant (Hermione/Ginny, Parvati/Padma)

I've never recommended fanart before, but this picture by sherant, drawn for the Three Kinks challenge at pornish_pixies (Harry Potter), damn near set my monitor on fire. Hermione/Ginny, Parvati/Padma. The details are exquisitely done: facial expressions, setting, props (hee!), concept. Blazingly hot.

ETA: As of January 2012, this appears to be locked down.

HP: Dissipate by Pogrebin (Parvati, Padma)

Dissipate by Pogrebin is a story about Parvati and Padma. The twins go to India, and find it's a very different world from the United Kingdom. Pogrebin knows how to spin poetry, and offers an intriguing take on magic in another culture and the divide between two girls who are not at all the same person.

HP: A Thousand Wishes by _hannelore (Neville, Hermione)

Everyone's recommending A Thousand Wishes by _hannelore. This is a Neville fic I was dreading the end of, because I don't like schmoop, but oh, how thankfully (and painfully) wrong I was: instead, it broke my heart.

HP: Bed and Board by Resonant (Harry/Ron/Hermione)

The hottest thing I've read in HP lately is Bed and Board by Resonant. Trio smut. Room of Requirement. Resonant. What more do you need? But also, there's a clever backstory in which the rest of the wizarding world succumbs to a particular brand of insanity, which kicks everything else into much-more-than-PWP territory.

HP: Close Enough by Helen (Harry/Ron)

A story that's been making the rounds is Close Enough by Helen. Harry/Ron, with the two characters about as fucked up as they ought to be after being forced into war as teenagers. I found the memories and flashbacks fascinating, and the relationships between the various principle characters added poignancy to the one in the foreground.

SV: Mercy by Koi (Clark/Lex)

The other day I was in the mood for fucked up Clark/Lex, and realized I hadn't yet read the revised version of Koi's Mercy. This is risk-taking like you don't often see in fanfic, taking the characters to extremes, saying what-if and braving all the dark places the answers require. Lex finds out Clark is an alien, and it turns out to be one lie too many. The ending is quietly horrific. I read it through my fingers every time.

Lotrips: Memorandum by sparcck (Sean B, Orlando)

I think the best story I read from slashababy was actually posted just after I last updated: Memorandum by sparcck (Sean Bean/Orlando Bloom). Reading this was an experience: the beginning of it so disorienting, the prose full of missed moments and déjà vu, each new memory sifting into the narrative and allowing the reader to piece the clues together in terms of both chronology and character. And again, I talk about an ending, because this one is perfect in every way, as an ending and as an arrival at answers.

FS: No Easy Way Down by Mosca (John/Aeryn)

I attended a panel once at ConneXions on alien sex, where the very apt question of "How exactly do aliens have sex?" was discussed in rather interesting detail. I wish Mosca's No Easy Way Down (Farscape) had been written then, or if it had been, that I'd known about it. John Crichton learns that Sebaceans and humans are Just Not The Same, and I almost bust a gut laughing.

FS: Prime Meridian by Thea (Aeryn/Sikozu)

Prime Meridian by Thea, is a more recent FS fic, written for the femslash04 challenge. It's a disturbingly hot Aeryn/Sikozu encounter: disturbing because it allows Aeryn to be menacing and ruthless, and because Thea really gets inside Sikozu's head, her sense of alienation, her alienating purpose. Together, both women come off as frighteningly dangerous.

Alias: Another Girl's Paradise by Thuvia Ptarth (Sydney/Lauren)

Another Girl's Paradise by Thuvia Ptarth (Alias) is the only Lauren Reed I will ever see onscreen from now on, and this version of events during Sydney's missing two years, if I can't have Julia Thorne, is what I'm just going to accept as my personal canon. Yeah.

The Faculty: Birthright by Baylor (various)

Birthright by Baylor (The Faculty, with small X-Files crossover) made me realize no matter how awful the source material is, a good fanfic writer can still elevate it to dizzying heights.