Something Rotten pt II & Fic Rec

[neadods]

From the Something Rotten CD liner notes (which I bought walking into the place, because hello, they had me at "Original Broadway soundtrack") "Never forget: Shakes wasn't above a dick joke." And indeed, the lusty hand of the clock is now upon the prick of noon. (Romeo and Juliet)

A short fic rec for a long fic, as I would have done that were I doing a weekly wrapup: The Gilded Cage by Beautifulfiction. Unfortunately, the moment I say "Johnlock omegaverse casefic" most of you will stop reading before you see "casefic" and that's a pity because the main drive of the story isn't about sex at all; it's the ramifications of a society where omegas are (in theory) pampered harem members and (in reality) sex slaves. What happens when an omega tries to regain agency and autonomy in a world where they are biologically tied as property to an owner and manumission isn't even a word?

Apparently this is the topic of the latest 3 Patch Podcast too (the fic, not slavery per se) but I haven't listened to it.

Comments

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

I came across a comment online about how hard Shakespeare would laugh if he knew we considered his plays great literature, since it was "mostly sword fights and dick jokes."

Let me throw in some praise for something that isn't a dick joke, that I've never seen anyone else mention. When Lady Capulet asks Juliet (still the obedient daughter who hasn't met Romeo) if Juliet can like Count Paris, who wants to marry her, Juliet says,

I'll look to like, if looking liking move,
But no more deep will I endart mine eye
Than thy consent gives strength to make it fly.

Beautiful elegant lines. To say it any other way would be a lessening.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

"mostly sword fights and dick jokes."

An extremely accurate summary. I once got an A on a college paper that had no thesis and no point; just listed all the dirty jokes in the first two acts of As You Like It.

I once tried to make a slang version of Shakespeare. I had to give up on the line "I cannot conceive him." "His mother did and had a babe for her cradle ere a husband for her bed." You can't DO anything else with that; you lose the joke!

[badgermirlacca.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for this rec. I did not think it was possible for me to find a fic like this that I really liked; I wasn't that far into it before I found myself thinking, "This reminds me of The Left Hand of God."

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Just know that you're in it for the long haul. That thing's about 327,000 words long.

[badgermirlacca.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I put it on my Kindle. Makes it easier to carry around.