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Comments

Re: Hidden Gems

[(Anonymous)]

DA I'm not sure whether the author actually meant it that way, although I very much get why subthread OP read it that way.

Based on this comment response from the author, it seems like some of what was going on in the author's head might not have made it on the page:

Yes, very much a sacred responsibility. I think that's part of why she moved to the country - so she would have the space inside & out to do that for people. In the city, she was getting confined, hemmed in, also inside & out, and she knew that if she stayed, her magick would fade for good.

There is nothing at all about magick (or magic) in the work. Just in the comment response. Is the "magick" her ability to do pin-up work? Actual magic? Am confused.

Re: Hidden Gems

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

But they explicitly said baby photos and the men that liked them (in contrast to her adult work) were a ~different clientele. What else could that be? Parental types???

As to her magic, being...making dudes horny from pedos to grannyfuckers?

Re: Hidden Gems

[(Anonymous)]

cyrt The fact that it's specifically a baby photo that was included in one of her adult pinups, and not photos of her as a little girl, is what makes me think the author may not have intended this to read as Hilda deliberately appealing to pedos. That, and the fact that it's just so left-field from the rest of the work. I have to wonder if the author is one of those people with a very clean mind, like the people who insist that anyone who sees incest in the Folgers commercial has a horrible dirty mind.

But you're right that there's no clear reading of what the guys who like the baby pic are if *not* pedos. It's paralleled in the narrative with the guys who respond to the won't-you-be-my-Valentine photo. Maybe, like, paternal guys? Guys who need a friend/someone to feel like a father to? Guys who respect that Hilda has a past and was a baby once?

(like I said, I definitely get why subthread OP read it that way.)

As for the "magick" -- there's a lot in there about Hilda being a good influence -- "Men admired the bikinis of Spring and, she hoped, also took in the lessons about being kind to one’s fellow creatures", "she hoped to show that there was more than one way to do things, if one were willing to be open to new ideas and ways", etc. I have the sense (from those and from the author's comment response -- "Why not combine an eyeful with a gentle lesson? Rewards help the lessons stick sometimes") that their intention was to write Hilda as a better sort of pinup, one who's inspiring her audience to be better people.

Re: Hidden Gems

[(Anonymous)]

I have no idea what the writer meant by the line in the fic, which feels weird and out-of-place at best, but "Hilda showing a baby picture" is an actual piece of artwork from one of the sources linked in the A/N:

https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/plus-size-pinup-girl-hilda-duane-bryers-62-58a1779582389__605.jpg

Not remotely child-porn-y, IMO; adult Hilda is wearing barely-buttoned red long johns, and the photo she's holding up has a trace of baby buttcrack, but the photo is small and not detailed and it's not drawn in a sexualized way. It's a pretty standard baby-on-stomach pose.

I mostly went looking through the linked galleries out of curiosity, because "showing off baby pictures" was such a weirdly specific detail it sounded like it was thrown in as a callback. It's #51 in the gallery here: https://www.boredpanda.com/plus-size-pinup-girl-hilda-duane-bryers/

There's a comment on the photo there about how intimate it is with Hilda looking directly at the viewer while showing off the baby pic, so that's my best guess for an innocent read. It still feels like a weird take, since Hilda's expression in that photo reads to me more like "yep, I've been chunky since before I could crawl, what are you gonna do," than the "magickal love goddess in flower bikinis" that the writer seemed to be seeing.

(Not trying for fatwank! Hilda's awesome! But the tone of the art is a lot more goofy and wry than the tone of the story.)