AO3 just routed a gift from Petra: And whence do they rise, the cycles of changes, a 2006 short fic, part of an AU-ish DCU series from Petra and Te around... Well, if you know the authors you know enough, and if you don't, who am I to spoil you?

Spoiler alert: POV'd and masterminded by the Barbara Gordon that's not just the Barbara Gordon in my mind and heart, but also an archetype for something that I can only describe by reference to her.

This has been the best surprise ever.

If you only read one column on tennis this year, I suggest this one: Wïmbledämmerung. If nothing else, it has the most interesting choice of images I've ever seen in this kind of article...

Artistic inconsistency aside (his apparent age keeps shifting between 10 and 17), I love Amadeus Cho, and Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #2, just as the first issue, showed him at his best. He's smart, yes, and he often shows Jimmy Woo levels of common sense, but more than anything, he's driven by love. Herc was his best friend, that's what matters, and that's what dictates what he does and will do, gods be damned.

Besides the obvious mythical component, they remind me of Xena and Gabrielle, and the slippery, nonlinear slope of friendship becoming love becoming something else. Whether you slash them or not is almost immaterial. Sex or romance would add another facet to their relationship, but wouldn't add any depth that wasn't already there.

Rec: Next Avengers: Illuminati is a very interesting read (and very surprisingly, *not* a What If?, despite the feeling of it). Recommended to DCU people, to be read keeping in mind that Marvel!Earth never had its own Superman or equivalent.

Whine: I claimed Tim Drake (DC Comics) for psych_30, but Transference would be such a lovely (read: creepy) thing to write with *toon*!Tim. Comics!Tim doesn't lack issues, of course, but I don't want to dilute the concept of transference as taking place in other than a patient-therapist context (I did take two semesters of psych in a thoroughly Freudian college, but that's another tale), and... argh.