osprey_archer | Happy Honeytrap Release Day

Today is Honeytrap’s release day! Go forth and read!!!

The pandemic has for obvious reasons cut back on possibly release day celebrations - no dinner at St. Elmo’s etc. - but I HAVE treated myself to a grande hot chocolate from Starbucks, and soon I will drive to my hometown to take care of various small errands, acquire ice cream, and also get myself away from the computer, because otherwise I will spend the day doing the Amazon equivalent of refreshing the AO3 page every five minutes and wailing "WHY AREN’T THERE ANY KUDOS YET?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

missroserose

I just posted a story to AO3 last night, so I will (in some small way) join you on the "trying not to obsess" train :D

Congratulations!

From:

osprey_archer

Trying not to obsess is TRUE HARDSHIP. Good grief. (Fortunately I've got another story that I need to finish for a soon due date to distract me.)

From:

kore

I HAVE REACHED THE PERFECTION SALAD

(OMG, I forgot Daniel doesn't think Gennady is handsome. Also OMG, the high school marching band playing the Marseillaise.)

From:

osprey_archer

I was SO HAPPY when I didn't have to cut the perfection salad after all. It truly broke my heart when I thought I'd have to leave it out.

Daniel, a fool: He's not good-looking! This will be no problem at all!

(Of course by the end of part one we've got the bit where he describes Gennady as "painfully beautiful.")

From:

kore

It would ALSO have broken my heart not to have Gennady encounter the perfection salad!

the bit where he describes Gennady as "painfully beautiful."

Yeah, I got to that part, THANKS. //cries (I knew what I was getting myself into....)

From:

minutia_r

I read it! It was great!

I actually do have some specific thoughts but they're kind of spoilery and I don't know if this is the right place to post them?

From:

osprey_archer

Two thoughts: IIRC you have my email address, so that's a possibility?

Alternatively: rot13 your thoughts?

From:

kore

I KNOW, I'm dying to babble but I don't want to spoil the book for other people!

From:

osprey_archer

kore suggested a discussion post, so I have made that a thing. Share your thoughts! All spoilers welcome!

From:

kore

This is such QUALITY h/c, it's GORGEOUS, I am gobbling it way too fast

OMG Gennady is such a heartbreaker. So is Daniel. I still love when Gennady has the inner monologue when he's shown around the house at Christmas and what he says about Stalin, it's so great.

From:

osprey_archer

Gennady's internal monologue about the house was SO fun to write. Also the Stalin bits, but those were a little bit harder.

From:

kore

Also Gennady's big come to ~~Jesus~~ Marx moment where he goes off on how the US was never invaded (which even slipped in as a joke beforehand, about the map!) and Russia got blasted to hell repeatedly? Ouch ouch ouch.

I do really like how you deftly integrated the politics into their personalities and situations, so it doesn't stick out and we don't get a lot of canned speeches. Like, the bit with the napkins was like that. You get napkins with every takeout meal! What do the Americans do, just throw them away? Gennady loading up with Hemingway and thinking of what he could get for two whole copies of Bell back home was maybe my favorite bit in the whole book. ~~Except for the h/c parts.~~

Daniel's inability to realize HE HIMSELF is actually oppressed because of his sexuality, because of his own convictions about himself, is also really well done. Otherwise he'd be a lot more smug and self-righteous, even if he is naive and sweet.

From:

osprey_archer

I suspect that Daniel is going to be thinking of that moment for quite some time. (Gennady may or may not have been too drunk to remember that whole speech.)

Gennady is going to squeeze every single drop of value out of those copies of For Whom the Bell Tolls. Tickets to foreign films! A crack at this month's issue of Foreign Literature! BANANAS for God's sake! The possibilities are limited only by the fact that the books are, alas, in English, which limits the number of people in Moscow who can read them.

I feel like if someone pointed out to Daniel (in part one) that he is oppressed because of his sexuality, he would go all (butterfly meme guy) "Is this oppression?" and then just get stuck there for like the next six weeks, because it does not compute.

From:

kore

Gennady is going to squeeze every single drop of value out of those copies of For Whom the Bell Tolls. Tickets to foreign films! A crack at this month's issue of Foreign Literature! BANANAS for God's sake! The possibilities are limited only by the fact that the books are, alas, in English, which limits the number of people in Moscow who can read them.

OMG, SOMEONE WRITE THE FIC. It is too bad Gennady was never able to get the USSR to send him to the Hemingway Museum in Cuba!

I feel like if someone pointed out to Daniel (in part one) that he is oppressed because of his sexuality, he would go all (butterfly meme guy) "Is this oppression?" and then just get stuck there for like the next six weeks, because it does not compute.

Yeah, he seemed to kind of get it in that much later convo with Elizabeth (LOVE Elizabeth btw) but he also immediately goes "but it's illegal to be gay everywhere," which I don't think was quite true then and is also just how he thinks of his sexuality.

Also you managed to make Daniel's boss not really a villain! I was impressed. Is he really kind-of threatening Daniel in that last scene? Or does he just suspect? I loved his cover of "scary sharp boss who puts on a front of just staring at his pretty paperweights and being vague."

From:

osprey_archer

I'm pretty sure that if someone told Daniel "actually, there are places where homosexual activity is less illegal!" I'm sure there would be a record scratch in his brain. He really does kind of think that the US is on the forefront of everything.

Re: Mr. Gilman, I don't think he suspects about Daniel and Gennady, if that's what you're asking. If he did he'd feel duty bound to find out for sure and fire Daniel, because in his mind that would be a major security breach, because of course he'd see it as a honeytrap.

From:

kore

He really does kind of think that the US is on the forefront of everything.

//facedesk (Well right now we do seem to be witnessing the downfall of American exceptionalism....in the personage of someone who is a raving idiot and thinks he's a very stable genius. Lord.)

Re: Mr. Gilman, I don't think he suspects about Daniel and Gennady, if that's what you're asking.

Yeah, I didn't think he suspected actually, but when you have a secret, sometimes everything seems so transparent....Paul is such a shadow self for him. (I didn't much like Paul but in the end I did feel sympathy for him. The descriptions of the pictures, and Daniel's reaction to them....especially when he rips them up and knows from his boss's non-reaction they're probably copies. AUGH.)

From:

kore

Ooh I don't think I saw any of this second part at all

....AUGH

From:

osprey_archer

All the snippets I posted were from part one, so all the pain & suffering in parts two and three is brand new! :D

From:

kore

SO I SEE

//clutches chest dramatically

Also omg how do we talk about that in comments without spoilers. Maybe a discussion post?

From:

osprey_archer

As per request I have made a discussion post. Go forth and discuss!

From:

kore

YAY, danke

From:

littlerhymes

Congratulations! SHE'S HERE, FINALLY!!!

From:

osprey_archer

It's the end of an era!!!

From:

thawrecka

I find the way to distract myself from refreshing Amazon stats is to post something on AO3 the same day so I'm refreshing AO3 stats instead.

From:

osprey_archer

This is a good scheme for the future! Fight stats with stats!

From:

asakiyume

I love this story so much, and/but I think in a different way from most of your fans? Not that it matters--all love is good love. But I mostly love both the guys--but especially Gennady--individually. **I** love them [but especially G]. Like, I get that they are into each other. But I like them [esp. G] for ME.

And mainly I love when G is saying powerful things about poetry or America or love. DUDE. You slay me.

I have to put some of these thoughts together so that I can leave the equivalent of kudos in various spots ;-)

From:

osprey_archer

All love is good love! (Gennady does seem to be the general fan favorite, anyway.)

From:

kore

Did you have anyone in mind for his looks, like an actor or someone? I know he's shorter than Daniel, I picture him as sort of dark and craggy. I keep trying to remember an English character actor from the eighties, he might've been in the Prime Suspect series....

From:

osprey_archer

I've always kind of pictured Gennady looking like the main character in Ya Shagayu po Moskve - the video quality on this link is not great, but it's the final song in the movie, which our hero is singing as he walks through a Moscow subway station. (The title means something like "I'm walking through Moscow," which is basically the plot of the movie.)

From:

kore

He is PERF. I had no idea that film existed at all! I feel like I learn so much stuff from your books.

I Walk Around Moscow (1964) Daneliia's delightful film about young people in early 1960s Moscow is distilled into this final scene, in which the young Nikita Mikhalkov sings the lighthearted song that became a theme for his generation

CUTE.

But when I googled, I also got results for "Russian gay couple film abuse walking through Moscow. Jul 13, 2015." Fuckedy.

From:

kore

(GENNADY IS SO GREAT) (So cynical! So thoughtful underneath it all! Such an Iron Woobie about EVERYTHING. And OMG, when he starts off "Your interstates are very boring" and it turns into a declaration of love....I just love him.)