froxyn has tagged me to list my top five favorite stories, my best-loved ones, not necessarily the ones I think are best. I have an author's favorite tag on my fic archive, but I'm not going to hold myself to that list because I reserve the right to change my mind at any time. E.g., when I sneeze."Dust on his hands from the sky" - Giles/Xander, hurt/comfort and angst in a season 6 AU. I take a bunch of canonical events and remix them in a way that makes more sense to me. There's character death, suicide attempts, Ethan as Giles's friend, more character death, and perhaps a hopeful ending. This one touches personal issues about grief.
"Gas-Ring Alchemy" and its sequels - Giles/Ethan, pre-series mostly. Giles and Ethan before it went bad. I love the world I've built for these and long to write more in it. Or to finish the reams of stuff I have half-written in it already.
"Fenrisulfr" - Dawn/Ethan, sort of, post-series, in the Helios Hyperion verse. Dawn gets a summer job and comes into her power and it's not entirely clear that's a good thing. Ethan's bookshop came to be a real place in my head while I was writing this. I can still walk around it if I need to. Rothko on his walls, Satie on his stereo, power on his mind.
"Thusia" - Giles/Buffy, post-S1. Virgin sacrifice and a young Buffy in a wild AU that makes the Watchers out to be something like the Sacred Band of Thebes. I've got a lot more backstory here than you guys have seen. The Cruciamentum story is going to be a corker.
Ars Draconis - gen, swords and sworcery in a season 5 twist-up. I solemnly swear I will finish writing this. I know how it ends. And no, it's not Giles/Buffy relationshippy-- it's a Giles/Buffy partnership story. The Watcher and the Slayer doing their thing together and readjusting because of, er, changes.
Tagging. Um.
glimmergirl, penwiper26, kivrin, drsquidlove, and violetisblue, please tell us what your favorite five stories are! 