Trying my best and failing miserably

29, she/they, writer, dreamer, and wish believer. anything goes, come enjoy the ride.

[haunted-monsters]

Thinking about the song Francesca and how she & her lover are trapped in a spinning vortex for all eternity & how there must to be a moment where they meet for the briefest of moments and they reach out to touch each other & in that instance what they did was worth it, because no matter what they get to spend eternity together even if they're apart.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=fV5WSN0YHGk&si=s4A5DPOiHEpysdrt

[haunted-monsters]

Was trying to see if my dog wanted to sleep with me today and realized how creepy it probably would look from his perspective looking down into a dark void so naturally I started laughing at the idea of it & wanted to crudely draw what it probably looked like

[haunted-monsters]

Can't wait to buy the most expensive potato of my life

[haunted-monsters]

I for sure thought that The Worst Jax Moment ™️ was going to be in this episode, honestly I thought he'd sell out Kinger to make Caine stop torturing him.

I don't think it was ep 7 but who knows...

[haunted-monsters]

Is it okay to write a book out of pure spite? Can I do it just because I am outraged at what I've read from an author that I thought it was so horrifically bad that I know I can write their story better?

[vadersaber]

I read If Not For My Baby so you don't have to! seriously, you don't have to; it's a published Hozier fanfiction and it's SHIT. so, here are all the reasons to convince you to NOT waste your time reading this so buckle up❤️

this is NOT "inspired" by Hozier. THIS IS ABOUT HOZIER HIMSELF. aside from the shit ass name (Thomas Patrick Flynn O'Halloran) and the lack of passion for any real life issues that matter, there is no actual distinction between this MMC and Hozier. matter of fact, Halloran is just the sexualized & fetishized version of Hozier. these are all points from the book to describe Halloran:

he has curly, long, chocolate hair, green eyes, red beard (which appears even redder in the sun) is 6'6", lives in Killarney (you know, Hozier's hometown)

constant mentions of bog father, forest god, a lot of forest, mystical, fae themes going on that go hand in hand with the fetishization of the Irish in general ("I heard you were a forest god")

explains a song by saying "this is less about ridin'" which is essentially how Hozier described Take Me To Church in one radio interview

"presses his hands to his heart in genuine appreciation" oh you mean like THIS?

"it's probably just your hair" / "Surely it is. In fact, if you cut this off I'll actually lose the ability to out together poor metaphors." again, another Hozier rip-off interview in which he jokes about his hair being the source of his songwriting ability

Halloran attented Trinity as well because why not

"Tom's a bit controlling in the kitchen. Mostly we just leave him to it" oh so like Hozier then? got it!

"The video she shows me is a fifteen second clip playing on a loop of Halloran jamming at some music festival. It's golden hour, and he's awash in soft summer light. His eyes are obscured by round John Lennon-style sunglasses, and his long, curly brown hair falls across his face as he plays. He's wearing a pair of sensible navy slacks, white high-tops, and a casual button down. No man jewelry. No dumb tattoos. He looks more like a classics professor than a rockstar." YALL I CANT DO YOU MEAN THIS???

so the MMC is basically Hozier. there is no real distinction. oh, and the author actually WRITES OUT the Irish accent. "does it bother ye?". "those eyes of ye", "Jaysus fokin' Christ" (all actual quotes from the book btw!) Here are more actual quotes from the book:

“I feel like Cinderella, running out of this absurd mansion party, hoisting my too-big silky dress up so I don’t trip right over it. Past ice-cream cones of fish and through clouds of fake laughter and cologne until the fresh summer air outside drowns out the car alarm-level annoyance of the music."

"I drink water from the faucet like a thirsty little hamster and splash my face until I feel marginally more human."

"I can feel his brutal length flexing and thickening against his zipper."

"Rolling to my other side offers no comfort and neither does rubbing my feet together like a giddy cricket."

"sandwiched between his humongous knees I am a Tiny Girl™."

"he's hard like granite"

"he makes a noise like his lung has been punctured / like he's being strung up on a medieval rack."

"I think you got my tank top pregnant."

"he's a mountain lion and I'm flitting candy wrapper in the wind left behind by littering hikers."

"Conor's Irish brogue is so thick I have to nod along to half the words he says and just hope I've not agree to some kind of Satan-worshipping orgy."

"he's a kind, soft-spoken woodsman who still knows his way around an axe."

"He's more of a man than any I've met. If he told me he ate tree bark and slept in caves, I'd believe him."

"He smells phenomenal - more male than all other men combined."

"I read the text fifteen times at least - I can hear his thick, Irish accent. Husky and rough in the quiet blackness of his bed. 'Jaysus fokin' Christ, Clementine'."

"I am a human male. I play video games."

"I'd slice out of my tongue, offer it to my baby in hands cupped, just to taste the perfect crookedness of her smile when she swallows me up."

"Thank God you're here! Oh, she's kinda hot." / "I know, right? I had the same thought" (mind you, this was said about a stranger RIGHT in front of her by 2 other people)

"C'mere. an Irish phrase meaning listen, or listen to me." girl this is just the abbreviation for COME HERE.

"He watched me go through high school with a mom that was only sixteen years older than me and significantly hotter. Even now, she's leggy with a perfect bum." (the FMC said about HER OWN MOTHER)

"I have the willpower of a grapefruit"

"the V lines are called cum gutters."

"I'm like a cookie in an oven - golden and proud."

Yeah, so this was a mess, and not even the hot mess you can slightly still enjoy. it's very very weird, the Irish in general are fetishized to a strange degree where they're just these mystical fae creatures and not real people, Halloran is just the sexualized version of Hozier stripped of any advocacy for humanity, none of the actual passion (and he hates being a musician for some reason even if he said he can't imagine not doing this???) and the 3rd act somehow gets worse.

there's no actual chemistry developed, it's all insta-love, and they basically start hooking up during the tour and that's it. I could understand if they were like hell, let's just hook up bc I'm attracted to you, but NO, it's being said time and time again that they fell in love and that they have feelings for each other but there's no actual yearning, no developing of feelings. there's a random and dumb as fuck breakup in the 3rd act which serves NO PURPOSE and the characters go through no character development whatsoever (although to be fair, they had no actual personalities anyway).

If you have read it and have a Goodreads account, I will encourage you to leave negative reviews because I feel like publishing fanfiction about a real person and marketing it as "Hozier inspired" is beyond weird and invasive (just like writing sex scenes having this real person in mind while doing so) and also because the author was deleting comments and blocking people on Instagram who called her out and said this is weird, so she deserves it ❤️I'm hoping you find this weird tbh bc if this feels innocent and romantic to you... good for you I guess, but I would not trust you to recommend good books to me.

[haunted-monsters]

So I haven't watched/interacted with anything Supernatural related in years, but seeing Mark Pellegrino say some zionistic shit is a gut punch I wasn't expecting.

[haunted-monsters]

I saw your posts about Drake Henning/CatchingYourClouds being a groomer. My relationship with him is something that has haunted me for years, so I occasionally looked him up to see what he was doing now. And finally, finally I find this, and everything I experienced feels validated. Thank you for putting the word out there. You have no idea how vindicated I feel after years of him living rent free in my head.

I hope he dies forgotten & unloved while you're thriving

[haunted-monsters]

Hey I found your old post about drakestopher and I wanted to send you this

https://youtu.be/U0y2GpyaITQ?si=S0cDaHQhN_HYTQED

Thank you so much for sending me this, I sent it to my friends to look over

[spiderweb-bf]

I don't think I could be trusted with shapeshifting powers bc I would just turn into a bear and attack things with my claws at any minor inconvenience. it would be my go-to solution for everything

[moribundanchor]

The Pelle/Dani Receipts, Post Twelve: Runes

Big, huge Hårga hugs and thanks again to @daydreamers for expertise and editing on this post!

So. Runes. Specifically, the Elder Futhark runes, as Pelle tells Dani in the Director’s Cut, the “special little language” of the Hårgans. Throughout the film, runes are insinuated into basically every surface of Hårga and its people. So many tattoo opportunities, y’all. And it doesn’t even technically start in Sweden. Ari stuck a board featuring the whole Elder Futhark alphabet in Christian and Mark’s apartment. You can see it on the bookcase to Pelle’s right in the couch scenes. So, the film’s usage of the Elder Futhark is a deep, deep rabbit hole full of all the multivalent subtext we crave from this film, but they’re also absolutely blaring evidence for the Dani/Pelle ship. Throughout the film, like many of the background details we’ve discussed, the runes serve as a repetitive chorus of their fatedness for each other, but better still, the runes footnote the film’s ambiguous resolution as their genuine happy ending. So let’s dig in.

Dani has two main runes associated with her, Raidho and Dagaz, and they are both merkstave versions, that is backwards, lending them a negative reading. Oooooh, scary. Except negative readings aren’t necessarily negative either. All runic readings are subjective and contextual, which is why we decided to talk about these last. Let’s not forget that Dani begins the movie at the bottom of an emotional well.

Raidho, literally ride or wheel, refers to a journey. Yeah, Dani’s on one of those, seems legit. This is the only rune that Ari takes care to point out the meaning of within the film itself, when the elder Arne shows the Rubi Radr to Josh, pointing to Raidho on its side and telling him that that one stands for grief. Grief is a legitimate reading of Raidho merkstave, so let’s just take that interpretation at Arne’s word and combine it with Dagaz, Dani’s second rune. 

Dagaz is the last rune in the Elder Futhark, and it means day, symbolizing accomplishment, fulfillment, and new beginnings. As a symmetrical rune, it’s questionable whether it can be merkstave, but Dani’s Dagaz rune (technically runes, as she also has them on her shoes) does lie in opposition. Its negative reading in that case would be hopelessness, blindness, or cataclysmic change. Not fairytale stuff, right?

But Raidho and Dagaz appear together on Pelle’s drawing and on Dani’s dress. Also note that runic inscriptions are read right to left, and the tapestry of the “little love story” is an in-film clue to that reading order. With that in mind, together Raidho merkstave and Dagaz merkstave tell of a big change, even an ending, yes, but an ending to Dani’s grief, and that is what her journey in this film describes. Here, two “negative” readings equal out to a positive in the sense of Dani’s ultimate growth and transcendence. But wait, there’s more.

You will notice the runes on the Hårgans’ clothing, of course, as though they are their personal cult cutie marks, but the embroidered runes are often surrounded by other symbols, esoteric symbols and more complex runic talismans, which deepen the reading of the central rune, like footnotes. In Dani’s dress example, Raidho and Dagaz are flanked by merkstaved Tiwaz runes, with sun symbols above and below. Tiwaz (literally “the god Tyr,” the god of law and justice) is one of the runes featured on Christian’s robe during the sex ritual, and it describes justice, honor, authority, self-sacrifice. Its merkstave meaning then reads as conflict, imbalance, lack of communication…separation. And so, in the specific context of the dance competition, while Dani’s main runes shown in Pelle’s drawing forecast (or possibly straight-up spellcast, depending on your interpretation) an end to her grief, the more complex version she wears for the dance tells of that happening through a conflict and a break…but the sun will come out tomorrow, tomorrow. It is a new dawn for Dani as the May Queen.

Her shoes, which we only see during the dance, are more complicated. First, the embroidery is done in faded red thread, and we know that red appears very selectively on Hårgan garments. Siv wears a ton of red throughout the festival. Maja and Inga also wear striking red additions to their costumes at the Fire Temple ceremony. Ingemar has a single red button on his waistcoat. So red may convey authority, fertility, sacrifice, or even be a brand of shame, but it always seems to mean something.

As for the symbols on her shoes, again we see the merkstave-ish Dagaz rune, but it is alone in the center, no Raidho. So we’re looking at a big change or an ending again. Instead of suns, we have snowflakes, recalling the Spoiler Tapestry in the beginning, the way it began in frosty dark death skullhead weather and ends in summer dinner and dancing beneath the scariest sun since Teletubbies. To the right, we have a bind of three Tiwaz runes, and to the left, we have an Ingwaz (seed) rune, combined with a merkstave Kenaz. The triple Tiwaz is a victory rune, taken from an Old Norse poem where a Valkyrie was woken from her slumber. Three is a holy number, and that’s definitely something we know the 9-multiple-loving Hårgans pay attention to. This rune means the sleeper Dani is about to be awoken through a victory. Meanwhile the Ingwaz rune refers to coming into harmony and reaching potential. It’s also a fertility rune. Kenaz (torch) is a rune that normally describes transformation, knowledge, and the harnessing of light; merkstave, it speaks to darkness, lack of illumination and a relationship breakdown. Taken together, reading right to left, Dani’s shoes basically say: there will be a great change where she will be awoken from her slumber through a victory, she will have a breakup and/or her illusions will be shattered, but that will bring her ultimately into harmony, and there is the added implication of her fertility, bolstered by the red thread, being part of this. THAT IS ON HER SHOES. 

For what it’s worth, you will also notice Hanna wearing Dagaz in opposition, like Dani, and the elder Sten wears a merkstave Raidho, in yellow no less. You can peep merkstave Raidho and Dagaz elements on the temple doors, too. So even if you eschew our deep dive here, these runes cannot be looked at superficially, as merkstave = bad = Dani doom. If Dani’s doomed, so is Sten and Hanna and the whole damn Hårga, and you may think that, but it’s not terribly likely they’d write it on themselves, is it? Sten doesn’t look doomed to us. Sten looks quite jolly, actually.

OK, time to obsess on Pelle. Pelle has one rune on his Hårgan tunic that he wears for the majority of the film, Fehu, and this seems more straightforward. Fehu means wealth, specifically mobile wealth, specifically cattle. As we mentioned earlier: moo, Dani; moo, sacrifices. And since Pelle’s the one bringing new blood and their new queen, the association of Pelle with prosperity is quite fitting. Add to that the way Fehu and Raidho tend to pop up all over the village, particularly on the maypole. The maypole combination of Raidho (not merkstave) and Fehu speaks to the way the Hårgans believe the dance around the maypole enacts (and reenacts) a ceremony that brings them prosperity, and having Dani and Pelle as Raidho Barbie and Fehu Ken is just kind of perfect in that light.

Pelle’s Fehu is surrounded by four symbols. Let’s have a crack at those, too. First we have what looks like a closed eye up top. At the bottom, we have a cross. The cross is not actually a cross; it’s a combination of four Isa (ice) runes, and we know this because there are four dots arranged around them, telling us, hey, these are four symbols not one. Then to the right, we have another talisman that looks like a crucified diamond with five dots. Again, the dots mean that these are individual runes drawn as one symbol as a kind of shorthand, so this symbol is actually Ingwaz again, quartered by four Isa runes. Finally, to the left, there is another Isa rune crossing a Tiwaz, and the absence of dots here means that they are a bind, or they are meant to be read as one thing (or are a spell for one thing).

The closed eye symbol is a bit of a guess here; it might represent Pelle’s unclouded intuition or maybe, in view of Dani’s suns and the association of Raidho with the summer solstice, it is meant to symbolize Fehu’s complementary association with the winter solstice. We prefer the association with his intuition given the events of the film. But what about the other symbols? Isa is a rune that describes the self or the ego. On the positive side, it is about will and focus, but on the other side, it is everything bad about ice: rigidity, blindness and self-preoccupation, being frozen. Again, symmetrical runes like Isa don’t merkstave, but they can lie in opposition, and so we have two pairs of Isa indicating, at the right, self-fulfillment, with the added implication of fertility, and coming into unity with the family after the will breaks through the metaphorical ice. At the bottom it is the same reading, only without Ingwaz. Will and self-control overcomes lassitude. And then again, one last time, Tiwaz crossed with Isa, read as one thing, not a series like the previous shorthand symbols, invoking justice and male energy to, again, break through the metaphorical ice. Taken together, it’s a formula for Pelle and the family’s triumph. Governed by his unclouded intuition, Pelle’s will overcomes that of his four differently-blind friends, bringing new blood and justice and unity with the family for the betterment of all, and the two breaks in the rightmost configuration carry the added implication of Pelle bringing into the family Christian’s and Dani’s new blood.

Finally, as discussed briefly in posts 10 and 11, Pelle changes his shirt on the morning of the dance competition, swapping Fehu for Wunjo (joy). There do appear to be a couple flanking symbols on this shirt, too, but we never get close enough to see, so we’ll just have to go with Wunjo’s face value. Again, this is the rune that emphasizes harmony, family, and the art of correct wishing, i.e. wanting (and getting) what is good for you. Pelle wearing Wunjo when he kisses Dani is a sign that he, the anti-Christian if you will, is her wish come true. This choice is not only incredibly positive for his relationship with Dani, but illustrative that there is a difference between Dani/Pelle and Dani/Hårga by virtue of the fact that he changes back into the Fehu shirt for the Fire Temple ceremony. Insofar as Dani is part of the family after the ceremony, the prosperity spelled on his Fehu-emblazoned tunic applies to her, too, but the Wunjo shirt is for her and for her victory…and his victory over Christian for her sake. The implication is that their story will not simply end with Dani assimilated into Hårga. They have special, personal significance for each other. While the ending shots of the film are a little ambiguous, the runes promise the May Queen and her consort are going to be just fine, y’all.

Again, would you like to see our fanfics?

Of course, there’s tons more to explore in the film that doesn’t speak specifically to Dani and Pelle’s love story, and even while we compiled this list, we were continually noticing and discovering the significance of new things. There’s no reason to think that will stop just because we’ve posted the Receipts. Still, we hope that you will enjoy the evidence we have compiled here for not only the legitimacy of the Dani/Pelle ship, but its promise of a happy ending for the OTP because, by Ari’s own admission, for better or worse, Midsommar is a wish fulfillment fantasy.

For more, click on The Pelle/Dani Receipts Masterpost

[moribundanchor]

The Pelle/Dani Receipts, Post 11: The May Queen

The last lap of the film is the culmination of two separate tracks: one, Dani breaking with Christian, coming to terms with her grief, and sloughing off her old life, and two, Dani being embraced by her new family and, with that final, slightly-mad smile, finding joy with them. Much as in the “Do you feel held by him?” scene, Ari masterfully keeps the final scenes of Midsommar walking that tightrope between validating the Pelle/Dani romance and minimizing it in order to center Dani’s broader character arc and story, and to that end, he doesn’t even wobble. Still, he can’t get out of this without some explicit (though not explicit) mushy stuff for the OTP, and that, of course, is why we’re here.

We already mentioned the dance competition in the context of Pelle and Team Hårga winnowing Christian real good so he can be Maja’s baby daddy, but this is yet another opportunity for Pelle to demonstrate to Dani the contrast between him and Christian. As Dani begins to dance, Pelle is right up front, attentively, patiently, smilingly watching. She has every bit of his attention and support. Meanwhile, Christian stumbles into the audience late, burdened and internally roiling after his meeting with Siv. 

Now, we don’t know how Christian ultimately answered the Matriarch when she asked if he would mate with Maja. Ari, the imp, cuts away. Not to taint our favorite scene with comparison, but very like Dani’s protests in “Do you feel held by him?” Christian’s evasions, more pronounced in the Director’s Cut (“I’m here with somebody,” “We haven’t even talked.”) are frail, toothless things against the truth joined with temptation. He doesn’t love Dani. And he does want Maja. By the time he comes to watch the dance competition, Dani dancing is the furthest thing from Christian’s mind, even though betraying her is the crux of his dilemma.

And do please remember that Siv proposes this ritual snuggling to Christian as something Dani will not know about, so he really is contemplating betraying her, as opposed to what Pelle suggests to Dani. 

This is the contrast that waits for Dani during a break in the dance. Pelle smiles at her flirtatiously, even proudly, and silently applauds–totally here for you, Dani–while Christian is literally looking the other direction, back towards where Maja–oops, I got myself eliminated, teehee!–has taken her seat. During the dance, Dani is, yes, tripping balls and speaking gibberish, but she is still having the best time ever. So, initially exhilarated, Dani wilts the moment she sees Christian, and if we were going to argue that Dani doesn’t reciprocate Pelle’s feelings, the visible heartbreak on her face here would be Exhibit A. Except people are more complicated than that. Relationships are more complicated than that. Dani is definitely more complicated than that. Letting go still can hurt long after you know it’s over.

All that being said, even the most complicated relationship stuff can get simple real quick with a grand, unambiguously romantic gesture, and as Dani is crowned May Queen, finally, finally, finally, we get one. No evasions, no apophasis. Stunned, still kind of high, Dani’s new family washes her away in a tide of congratulations. Odd welcomes her home again, in Swedish this time, and it’s just a lovebomb lovefest all the way down. The only ones who don’t hug and/or paw at Dani are hallucinations (or are they) of her parents in Hårgan garb, her mom laying one surrendering caress on Dani’s shoulder as she passes by, and, of course, Christian, poor dope, standing by the maypole, looking every bit as alone and lost as Dani probably has felt up to this point. The Fire Temple is a ways off, but he will never again be allowed close to her. They are over.

At the end of the procession, for maximum dramatic effect, Dani’s happy Hårgan sisters tilt her toward OHAI PELLE. As Pelle bends down to her, initially he appears to be in supportive friend mode, (“My God, Dani! May Queen!”), but then he just sweeps Dani up in a kiss that isn’t long enough to stop the ceremony, but just long enough to be undeniably romantic. In the script, the kiss is actually described as a “blunt, passionate kiss.” While so much of the Pelle/Dani ship is not scripted, here it is plain: Pelle, now wearing the Wunjo rune, is Dani’s wish for an understanding, loving partner come true, and for the minute she can be spared from the procession, he is kissing her for all he’s worth. Let’s just watch this on a loop for a while.

This is the moment that has launched several thousand “Did Pelle like Dani?” Google searches, and it looks like a freaking wedding because it kind of is. Look at all the Hårgans bursting with happiness, not just for Dani, but for them. We are all Hårgans because all Hårgans are clearly Pelle/Dani shippers. (Okay, there’s something going on with Inga, but that’s a different analysis post.) Dagny in particular looks like she’s going to cry. My sweet brother birthmate found him a newblood and they are the cutest. Both Pelle and Dani are in full Hårgan dress for this kiss, as though their relationship always had to be consummated with Dani fully planted in the fifth panel of the spoiler tapestry. Also note that the pink flower in Dani’s crown reflects her heartbeat. Notice how it speeds right on up while she’s in Pelle’s arms. At this point, Dani might yet equivocate–not that she’s very equivocal in the moment–but crown flowers don’t lie.

Christian probably doesn’t see this moment. In addition to succumbing to “the tea with special properties,” he’s watching from the maypole, and Dani and Pelle would have been obscured from that vantage by a few dozen white-clad bodies. But if he cared enough about Dani to celebrate her triumph instead of blankly witness it, if he had been able to refuse the tea…but then, if he cared that much, we wouldn’t have had a movie.

Once Pelle surrenders Dani, the happiest and proudest of all possible soft cult boys, she’s urged toward a litter in the shape of the sun and lifted high off the ground. The Hårgans serenade their queen in a procession to the dinner table, Pelle prominent among them, his hands arranged in a cradling gesture previously seen when the Hårgans burned Dan’s body. This is an assumption, but it seems a fair one, that the gesture conveys Pelle bearing Dani’s spirit, even if he’s not one of those physically carrying her litter. In the wide shot, you will notice they are sailing Dani right past an image of Terri hidden in the trees. In this scene, Dani is very literally leaving her birth family and Christian behind. When Dani takes her throne at the head of the mirrored banquet table, Pelle will placidly sketch the moment, and as previously mentioned, we’ll see him reflected in the table surface, indicating how he’s still plotting even in that idyllic moment which would seem to be the culmination of all his hopes and dreams. After all, Christian’s still breathing.

Sadly, this concludes the dramatized Dani/Pelle content. We know. We’re sad, too. In the major scenes around the kiss itself–the serenade, the photograph, the dinner after her crowning–Pelle is near Dani, but not next to Dani. No more close communicating reaction shots. We can see Pelle enthusiastically toast Dani at the dinner table, and she seems to trade a sly, flirty smile with him immediately afterward, but that’s it. We can’t even see Pelle’s reaction when Dani gags on the pickled herring. In the final ceremony, Pelle’s crowned, too, just as the movie has been promising all along, but he and Dani don’t share the stage or even a single shot. Blocking and camerawork, so suggestive of their love story up to the point Pelle lays a good ‘un on her, suddenly becomes a blue-nosed chaperone. But consider what the film would be like, what it would have to become, otherwise. Midsommar isn’t primarily a romance anymore than it’s primarily a horror movie. Nope, it’s not a horror movie either, not really. It’s Dani’s story; it just happens to have smooches and blood eagles in it. So the kiss is a great moment, but it’s going to have to last you. (Hey, would you like to see our fanfics?) 

Green Man/May King or not, it would appear there’s more post-canon wooing for Mr. Pelle to do (though Ari has confirmed more than once that Pelle has an excellent chance with Dani, wink.) The script specifies that Pelle is one of the Hårgans that bears Dani’s throne to scoop her up after she stumbles in her May Queen raiment before the film’s final shot, but like so much Dani/Pelle content in the script, that doesn’t actually end up on film. The last we see of Pelle, he’s on his knees scream/crying as the Fire Temple burns, and the last we see of Dani…well, the last we see of Dani is the final, iconic shot of the film. Insane? Eh, maybe. She’s synced up with her new family and having her unholy affekts burned away. Probably should check back later for that one. Happy? Definitely. Ever after? Sure looks like. And why not? Girl got her wish.

Oh, but there’s one more topic we have not quite explored. The writing on the wall. And the ceilings and the tapestries and the clothes and the footwear and the decorative flourishes and the furniture and the tables and plinths and the…

For more, click on The Pelle/Dani Receipts Masterpost

[moribundanchor]

The Pelle/Dani Receipts, Post Ten: Plots

After the Ättestupa, stuff moves very, very quickly. Team Hårga ASSEMBLE. Dani has been broken down both by witnessing a gruesome senicide and being forced to look into Pelle’s earnest blue eyes and confront that not only does Christian not love her, but maybe, just maaaaaaybe, she might could love somebody else. Christian is being broken down both by contending with Josh for his mcguffin thesis and being seduced by a cute underage redhead (SO GROSS CHRISTIAN YOU HAVEN’T EVEN TALKED). Plus Simon and Connie, by virtue of completely flipping out and demanding to leave after the Ättestupa, have unwittingly nominated themselves to be off(er)ed first. Once newbloods start disappearing, they disappear at a pretty rapid clip.

Simon and Connie’s disappearances, and Christian’s shrugging indifference to both, trigger Dani big time, as she confronts both how self-absorbed Christian is and how little credit he gives Dani’s thoughts. At lunch, after an upset Connie vanishes, Dani is, as usual, seated between Christian and Pelle. As the scene opens, Dani’s back is to Christian and we can’t even see her face because she is looking into Pelle’s smiling eyes. For several seconds. They’re not talking. Just…looking. Like you do. With your buddy what was holding you on your bed and telling you how you deserved better than Christian. And this is the first time we see them since Ari’s impish smash cut from Dani hesitating on the verge of something to Dan’s crushed head.

Dani does eventually ask after Connie, prompting Jarl to give her the super believable official story that she was driven to the train station. Sure, Jarl. And Dani is still having a hard time buying that Simon would just leave without Connie. Especially in the Director’s Cut, we see how Dani notices how devoted they are to each other. But Christian is dismissive, and Dani goes cold. “I could see you possibly doing that,” she says. YASSSS QUEEN. She’s looking straight ahead, jaw set and eyes flinty, as Christian asks her, “What that’s supposed to mean?” She doesn’t answer and Christian should be grateful because the energy is very FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT. As it is, we just see Pelle notice and quickly look away, hiding a spreading smile that is practically another hit of the sunshine motif. Meanwhile, Mark is lured away by Inga, a different kind of fool for love.

Simon, Connie, and Mark down; who’s next? Josh! Thesis Goggles strapped on tight, Josh sneaks into the temple to take pictures of the Rubi Radr and is summarily dispatched by an unknown Hårgan male. (2000 quatloos on Ingemar.) We do get a little gratuitous Pelle shirt changing the next morning (which Dani notices and quickly looks away from), and that’s important, but not as a hint that Pelle killed Josh. To begin with, there’s a bunch of reasons Pelle is unlikely to have killed Josh, not least of which our theory about why he isn’t sacrificed at the end: a) We see Pelle in bed when Josh sneaks out, b) even assuming there’s a secret door, Pelle really would have had to book it to get in there behind Josh and we see Josh make it to the temple without any indication of being followed, and c) assuming Pelle was involved in murdering or butchering Josh, we think he probably would have brought a spare shirt. Come on. He did the cake thing.

Pelle changing his shirt is not just eye candy/misdirection though. It’s actually a clever direction from Ari. If you notice, from this point until the Fire Temple ceremony, Pelle is wearing a different shirt with a different rune, Wunjo in black thread, NOT Fehu in blue. We will get more into this in Post Twelve, but Wunjo (”joy”) is an incredibly positive rune that represents everything we know Dani craves: joy, perfection, harmony, overcoming alienation, kinship and family. It literally describes positive, healthy wishes coming true. Pelle wearing this rune on the day Dani wins the dance competition and he kisses her is incredibly significant and indicates not just his intentions, but it shades the meanings of Dani’s runes as well. He is practically wearing a nametag that says, Hi, my name is Dani’s True Love.

At breakfast, Christian is icy about Josh, butthurt that Josh isn’t letting him steal his thesis with good humor, and Elder Sten announces the Rubi Radr is missing. Pelle, as usual, sneaks a look at Dani, presumably to see whether she’s buying it. The real Pelle/Dani content comes afterward, when Sten and Arne question them about Josh and Mark’s whereabouts and make insinuations about the missing Rubi Radr. (Everyone just step back and consider for a second this is all really for Dani’s benefit. While Christian’s [sort of] consent clearly is important, they could have drugged him and gotten what they wanted from him at any point here. Dani is the one they want for keeps, and all these elaborate ruses only further isolate Dani from Christian and cushion her absorption into the family.) Everybody just…sort of assumes Mark is snuggling Inga still, I guess, but Christian cannot sell out Josh fast enough, and Dani and Pelle both look at him with undisguised revulsion. Meanwhile, Pelle does take responsibility for his missing friends and the missing holy text, and thus Odd magically appears (Pelle might be fidgeting his fingers or he might be affekting a secret message to Arne during this scene, too) and he’s given leave to go…look for them. [shifty eyes] 

It’s much like the birthday plot. Pelle gives Christian an opportunity to basically be himself, which makes Pelle doing the right thing, even something as simple and baseline human as not immediately forsaking your friend, a total repudiation.

Speaking of Christian being himself, while we don’t believe Pelle killed anyone, he’s laser focused on helping Christian get himself sacrificed. He takes every chance to stoke Christian’s most selfish impulses from his very first line, and more than that, he really seems to enjoy Christian’s fall. Again, Ari Aster doesn’t make many things in this film simple and plain, but Pelle’s delight in Christian’s corruption is one of those things. We already talked about the smirking in the Director’s Cut version of the car scene and the birthday setup, but once the plots start spinning, we get so much more. 

First, Pelle encourages Christian to think of Maja sexually by teasing him about her “taking a liking” to him and informing him she is of the age of consent. His affect is so permissive and tempting, as though Dani doesn’t exist and Pelle is only being his wingman, and when Christian replies “Good for her” a little too grumpily, we know Pelle’s aim was true. Pelle visibly savors Christian’s predicament. And he’s aware of every bit of the spellcasting on Maja’s end. When Christian eats and drinks the pie and beverage with (ahem) a little love story added by Maja, Pelle restrains a smile and a laugh. (This is the same lunch scene where Dani snipes at Christian, so he must have been high-fiving Ingemar behind the chicken coop afterward.) Later, Pelle smirks and watches from the corner of his eye as Ulla tempts Christian with special tea during the dance competition. This scene is particularly loaded in the Director’s Cut, where Siv has made it explicit to Christian that Pelle showed Maja his picture prior to their arrival in Hårga. Yet when Christian takes a seat next to Pelle, he says nothing, knowing everything, and neither does Pelle. The masks are all but off. Christian knows what he’s going to do, and he’s ashamed; Pelle knows what Christian is going to do, and he’s triumphant.

And most sexily damningly, when Christian succumbs to a nice puff of paralysis powder courtesy of Father Odd, we see (and Christian sees) Pelle peep in through the chicken coop door. In the script, Pelle is described as looking away in shame, but that’s definitely not the Pelle we have on film. Film Pelle is HERE FOR IT. Film Pelle is gloating. And we think he really wants Christian to know it was him in the end, not out in front, but behind the scenes. While one could look at all of this as a refutation of Vilhelm Blomgren’s emphasis in interviews that Pelle is full of love or proof positive that Pelle is actually a (gasp) villain, consider that, flashes of annoyance at Mark aside, he doesn’t show that kind of animosity toward the others. Mark is willfully ignorant and gross; Josh is disrespectful in the sense that he wants to mine Hårga for his own gratification and ambition. But Christian is the only one he clearly delights in destroying, and that destruction is consonant with his love. Because of Dani. Soft, love-filled Hårgan boy loves Dani enough to hate someone for her sake, and that is a fucked-up wish fulfillment fantasy, make no mistake, but…it is still a very valid and common and powerful wish-fulfillment fantasy. That chicken coop smirk is, at its core, just as much an act of love as the birthday sketch. Dani is one of his family. He will lure his friends to their deaths for all of them, but he will scheme Christian to death just for her.

What? Just because it’s unhealthy doesn’t make it less true.

For more, click on The Pelle/Dani Receipts Masterpost

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The Pelle/Dani Receipts, Post Nine: “Do You Feel Held by Him?”

HERE WE FUCKING GO.

(Nine is the Hårgan holy number, you know…)

We left our cultboy disconcerted at having broken Dani a little too much as a result of his deliberate traumatizing, now walking into the Youth House to find her packing. As we’ve established, Pelle meant to upset Dani with the Ättestupa, but not so much that–oh, shit, she wants to leave?

This is the most upset we will ever see Pelle. He launches into what sounds like a pre-planned spiel that attempts to explain his not warning her: “I know I shouldn’t have let you stay for that. I mean, I know it looks extreme, but we only–” But then Dani bursts out with a tearful, distraught, “I don’t know why I’m here, Pelle!” And Pelle’s face drains of assurance–he looks scared–and he drops the planned speech and hurries to get physically close to Dani, putting his hands on her arms to comfort and calm her and even to pull her down onto the bed with him.

She shrugs him off and turns even briefly turns her back to him. Not good, cultboy. As he pleads with her to sit down with him, his voice modulates between several different tones–firm, begging, commanding, soft. It’s like he’s spinning through all possible approaches to try and find one that works. His hand rests on the spot where Dani is meant to sit, almost like if he can’t touch her, he’ll touch where he wants her to be.

Now, this scene’s dialogue, as we all know, will essentially amount to a declaration of love from Pelle. The more important thing to uncover is how much this scene reveals about Dani’s feelings and the romantic implications of what happened before, which result in the dynamic in this scene. We mentioned in an earlier post that many Dani/Pelle scenes mirror Dani/Christian scenes in their framing and body positions, as though the Dani/Pelle scenes are overt, wish-fulfillment revisions of the Dani/Christian ones. This moment recalls the scene at the beginning of the film, when Dani begs Christian to sit and talk with her after she finds out about the Sweden trip, but the difference here is Dani does sit at Pelle’s behest.

Several times in this scene, Dani’s reactions to Pelle’s dialogue indicate the same kind of sublimated relationship which we saw earlier in the movie, when Pelle gives her the birthday portrait. First off, Pelle includes Dani as one of his “friends who I knew would appreciate it,” and she doesn’t question this. Their awkwardness in the couch scene–and the fact that Pelle can believably pretend he doesn’t know Dani’s academic field–seem to indicate that they haven’t spent a lot of time with each other post-tragedy, so why doesn’t Dani question being categorized by Pelle as an appreciative friend? She assents, “Okay, but I’m not an anthropologist, and I don’t understand any of this,” to which Pelle responds, “And yet I was most excited for you to come,” a statement which even more blatantly goes unremarked upon by Dani. Let’s spell this out: This rather bald declaration from Pelle that he was most excited for his good friend’s girlfriend to come visit his home–which, by the way, he supposedly didn’t know she was going to do until only a few weeks ago–does not provoke any kind of retort or question from Dani, suggesting that this might not be wholly strange or unexpected to her.

So Pelle has recovered a bit from overzealously breaking Dani: He’s gotten her to sit down with him (very close together on the end of a tiny little bed) and has all but said, “I wanted to show you specifically this place that is special to me because I knew you would get it on a deeper level than my silly anthropologist friends.” But then he miscalculates again and attempts to entice Dani into smelling a “calming” herb sachet, which he seems to use just as much to calm himself as he takes a deep inhalation. We interpret this as a miscalculation on Pelle’s part because it’s such an uncharacteristically tonedeaf thing to do. Like, dude, she is only about 24 hours away from a hellishly bad mushroom trip, she does not want more questionable hippie substances. Also, attempting to placate trauma with aromatic herbs seems oddly insensitive and not-well-thought-through for our master of manipulation, Mr. Pelle. Dani actually knocks his hand away, rejecting the sachet with an offended roll of her eyes. Pelle seems a little at a loss, asking, “Are you sure?” Still so discombobulated at having found her on the verge of leaving.

Okay, she won’t let him touch her, won’t smell the calming herbs, time to just cut straight to the point. “I know what you’re going through, Dani.” She wouldn’t engage with this topic on the couch back in New York, but just as Pelle made her endure the Ättestupa, he’s going to make her talk about her family’s death. And Dani ruptures. But this is the right kind of rupturing. The cultboy is in his element now: emotional honesty. As Dani denies and avoids, he insists and pushes through, placing his hand on her back even as she wails, “No, I don’t want to talk about that.” And–this is key–even in this moment where she verbally pushes him away, she accepts his hand on her back, which lingers and even begins to caress her as the scene goes on. Whereas she shrugged off his hands on her arms and batted away his herb sachet, now she allows a much more intimate touch.

And during this most famous monologue in the film, Pelle’s body language is intensely keyed in on Dani. He is hunched so his face is level with hers, his torso is angled to her, and his eye contact is unrelenting. His voice breaks with emotion over “by a family,” his eyes glossing with empathetic, unshed tears. This is all capped with a straightforward enclosure of her hand in his, after which, finally, there is no more pretending, no more plausible deniability. This is romantic, and Dani can’t hide from it. Her objection, “Pelle, Christian could walk in,” is quite feeble, as is her “push” of his hand off of hers, which doesn’t actually make for a sincere attempt to extricate herself. We saw her unhesitatingly physically remove Pelle’s touch before, but she doesn’t do it now. The line itself is also revealing. If Christian did walk in, couldn’t Dani simply explain, “Pelle took my hand, but I didn’t want him to”? Why would that not suffice? Because Dani is complicit in what is happening. She has essentially now acknowledged the emotional affair that was already underway.

And, notably, “Christian could walk in” is the only moment at which Dani and Pelle are shot from a distance in this scene, through the Youth House door, as though the cinematography is asking us, the viewers, to step into Christian’s hypothetical shoes here. And, be honest, if you were Christian, what would you think of this sight?

On another level, it’s as though the mere mention of Christian has brought with it all the alienation of the shots that feature the fraying couple. But only momentarily. Because now Pelle is laying it all out before her, and for that we are back to a very close close-up. “Do you feel held by him?” Pelle asks while literally holding Dani’s hand. “Does he feel like home to you?” Pelle, master rhetorician, makes his verbal checkmate. These are pinnacle examples of suggestive questions whose answers ring out without needing to be spoken. You don’t feel held by him, but here I am holding you. He does not feel like home to you, but I do.

And, cruelly, we are cut off in that moment, just as we see Dani’s eyes change with dawning realization. Ari Aster does not let the romance take center stage. But guess who we see carrying that herb sachet and smelling it, in a later scene?

So between “Does he feel like home to you?” and cooking meat tarts with the ladies, Dani changed her mind about that herb sachet. How did that happen, we wonder?

For more, click on The Pelle/Dani Receipts Masterpost

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The Pelle/Dani Receipts: Post Eight, “Ättestupa”

So, as mentioned in our last post, Pelle reaches new heights of cultboy calculatingness with his handling of the Ättestupa. Beyond his avoidant throat-slash “joke” about what happens at age seventy-two, as the young folks are settling in for “beauty rest” on their first night in Hårga, Pelle dangles the fact that “the first of the big ceremonies” is happening tomorrow (in the trailer version of the scene, which didn’t end up in either the theatrical or director’s cut, he flashes a mischievous, teasing expression at Dani–pictured below). Of course, Josh takes the bait and asks for specifics, and Pelle sobers performatively but only replies, “Ättestupa.” Now, our cultboy must know full well that Josh is the only one who knows wtf that is, and he clearly is counting on the fact that Josh will enjoy lording his secret knowledge over Christian and thus not spill the beans about what the ceremony actually entails–for he declines to explain even after directly asked by Christian.

Now, the reason we are fixating on Pelle’s obfuscation here is that it goes beyond simply keeping his American friends from finding out just how extreme Hårgan beliefs are for as long as possible. No, no, this strategy is all about getting to Dani, and we can prove it. First of all, it’s a major change from the original script, in which Pelle, anticipating how much it will upset Dani, actually warns her about what Ättestupa entails.

As you can see, in the original envisioning of this scene, Dani chooses to witness the Ättestupa, knowing what it is, as though trying to prove something to herself (as well as Christian). However, in the film, Pelle does not warn Dani and in fact treats the whole thing rather lightly, joking and teasing the day before as though it’s no big deal. So what happened between the script and the film? Did Pelle somehow become less emotionally sensitive and empathetic, thus not realizing how traumatizing it would be for Dani to witness a double suicide? OF COURSE NOT. Pelle deliberately hides what Ättestupa is from Dani in order to traumatize her.

“AnonLady and Rimanez!” we hear you gasping in shock. “I thought this whole series was about proving that Dani/Pelle is canonical! Why are you making the ship sound ~problematic~?” And to that, friends, we say–what did you expect? This is a horror film. This is a horror romance. Pelle is a soft, sweet, murderous cultboy. But let us explain how this tactic fits in with what Vilhelm Blomgren deemed Pelle’s “totally loving” character: 

First of all, it’s worth noting that, in Vilhelm’s words, “His [Pelle’s] view of death is that it is a great honor. To be able to experience death and everything that is death is a privilege that not everyone gets to experience, until they are 72, obviously, and they jump from the cliff… …” So, at least from the perspective of the actor who plays him, Pelle’s not really looking at the spectacle of double suicide as something horrific in and of itself, just that Dani’s experiences will make it painful for her.

Second–and more crucially–Pelle’s (and all the Hårgans’) entire modus operandi is emotional openness. They are anti-repression, and Dani is nothing if not repressed. Not in a Victorian stiff-upper-lip way, but in a modern-Western-society-won’t-let-you-grieve way (and a your-boyfriend-can’t-handle-the-intensity-of-your-emotions way). She is entirely self-conscious about how vulnerable she is (a quality which, in the original script, Pelle calls “beautiful” and “rare”) and is ashamed of the level of support which she needs, so she’s always fleeing to cry and break down in private. Her sense of being a burden and her compulsion to repress are so strong, she won’t even take support when it’s offered by someone who is not our culture’s Sole Designated Support-Giver, the Significant Other (remember back to the couch scene, when Pelle attempts to connect with Dani over being orphaned and she flees from the emotional intimacy). So, if you’re a cultboy in love with a beautifully vulnerable woman who refuses to be vulnerable to you (and how else do people form genuine connections?), what are you to do? Why, you make her emotionally vulnerable. And, as always with Pelle, this serves both a personal purpose (bringing Dani closer to him, specifically) and a collective, “greater-good” purpose, creating the conditions under which he can graphically show Dani that it is safe and in fact valued to be vulnerable in Hårga. Let’s get back into the action to illustrate exactly how this works…

On the morning of the Ättestupa, prior to the ceremony, we see Dani pleasantly transfixed by Maja singing and people dancing to the same kulning–the livestock-calling song–we heard at the film’s opening. The woman leading the dance is Ylva, one of the elders who will die in the Ättestupa. Remember, the kulning is all about calling the wayward home. Ylva is about to go “home,” rejoining with Everything, and so is Dani, perhaps taking her most significant step in the very next scene…

As everyone assembles in the canyon to witness the ceremony, Pelle gives Dani a very deliberate, lingering look, showing us that it is no accident that Pelle has not warned her about what’s about to happen; he is observing her, noting her reactions out of all the others’. 

When Ylva, the first elder, steps to the cliff’s ledge, she makes unnerving eye contact with Dani, and then when she takes her plunge, Dani actually performs the Hårgan exhale-inhale gasp–a clue to her already-belonging. (She also grabs for Christian, who does not grab back.) The next elder to take the plunge is Dan. Note the name, because by the time Dan gets malleted, Dani has stopped reacting like an outsider and started reacting like a Hårgan. Specifically, she mirrors Pelle’s facial expressions and body language: neither wincing nor looking away from Dan’s malleting, both of them facing forward, upset by the gore but not cringing away from it as Josh and Christian do. Note how Josh and Christian both violently flinch while Pelle and Dani remain stationary.

It seems quite significant that Dani’s induction-by-trauma into her first proper Hårgan ceremony comes through the gruesome death of an elder named Dan, when the Hårgans believe–as Siv explains to the horrified Simon and Connie–that their dead, if not outright reincarnated, are at least honored in namesake in the next generation of children. Siv points out a pregnant woman and says that her child will be named Ylva if it’s a girl. And Dan? Perhaps he already has a next-generational namesake: Perhaps Dan-i is already part of the great cycle that Siv valorizes at one point specifically to her, turning fully around to address her instead of Simon and Connie. (Pelle, while this is happening, takes a step toward Dani before halting, as though disciplining himself not to reach out to her–it’s not time yet.)

Connie and Simon’s freakout also provides a strong piece of evidence for Pelle’s calculation to obfuscate Ättestupa: As Simon is swearing up a storm, Siv asks Ingemar if he warned them, to which Ingemar balefully responds that he “tried.” Now, this conversation is in Swedish, meaning we can presume that it’s a genuine one, with Siv expressing real frustration that Ingemar didn’t properly warn his guests and Ingemar expressing real remorse (he later apologizes both to Siv and to Simon and Connie… poor bb). So Pelle’s choice not to warn Dani did not arise out of a widespread effort to traumatize all the outsiders–which, after all, would have served no real purpose and in fact might jeopardize the broader Hårgan plan, for almost immediately after this, Simon and Connie attempt to leave. The Hårgans don’t let that happen, of course, but it kind of forces their hand when it comes to the timing of the first two kills. In other words, Pelle’s tactic is all about specifically traumatizing Dani, not something intended for all the outsiders.

However, Pelle’s scheme slightly goes awry, for while he intended to break Dani a little in order to open her up and give him space to flow in, highlighting Christian’s comparative inadequacy–look how much better I am at holding you than your boyfriend, Dani–Dani ends up breaking a little too much. On the walk back to the main cluster of buildings, Dani stops numbly dissociating and starts to have a panic attack. Pelle mutters “shit” to himself in Swedish, watching her break away from everyone to go scream-cry at the foot–appropriately enough–of the Fire Temple. 

We know that Pelle is knocked off-kilter by the severity of Dani’s freakout, because the next time we see him, the usually silver-tongued, smooth Pelle actually fumbles his lie to Josh about Christian approaching him about the thesis topic first. Josh catches him in the inconsistency, questions him, and Pelle stammers and swears before stomping moodily off, directly to the Youth House, seemingly in search of Dani.

And he finds her–packing. Oh, shit.

For more, click on The Pelle/Dani Receipts Masterpost

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The Pelle/Dani Receipts: Post Seven, “Making Dani at Home”

[Previously on The Pelle/Dani Receipts, Post Six: Dani’s Birthday Plot]  

Jumping back to just before the birthday setup reaches full fruition: As Ingemar and Pelle graciously lead their guests on a foot tour of Hårga, we see Pelle continuing to move physically closer to Dani, dropping more of the layers that used to conceal his investment in her. He once again directs information about the community’s customs to Dani, telling her about the children dreaming about runes’ power. Pelle and Dani also walk side-by-side and in step until Pelle, Ingemar, Christian, and Josh move off to look at the runestone. We also see more evidence for how Ingemar is in on the romantic plot: As he informs the group that Connie and Simon are engaged, he looks immediately to Dani for her reaction to the news, then when she has the biggest reaction of anybody, Ingemar nods animatedly as though to say, “Yes, imagine that–they’re already engaged, while you’ve been dating Christian for four years with no proposal…” Ingemar wingmanning again, already informed about and tapping into the emotional undercurrent seething among the Americans.

This is followed by the telling moment in the Youth House, when Pelle and Dani are the only ones on the same emotional wavelength during Pelle’s throat-slash “joke” about “what happens at seventy-two” in his family; no one else smiles or laughs, and in a visually striking contrast, for a few seconds after the joke, both Pelle and Christian gaze at Dani, Pelle smirking flirtatiously and Christian with an utterly blank and sober expression. Pelle’s gaze then lingers on Dani after she turns away and after Christian asks him a question. (The wall behind Pelle also depicts several naked couples tangled together in all sorts of sex positions–you can see them by Josh’s head in the gif below.) Of course, considering the fact that the “joke” is no joke at all, Pelle taking this as an opportunity not only to obfuscate but to do so quite flirtatiously is just icing on the cultboy cake. Pelle’s entire approach to Ättestupa betrays one of his most nefarious calculations when it comes to bringing Dani into the fold and into his arms–but more on that later.

In this series of scenes prior to Ättestupa, the artwork stops being subtle (if it ever was subtle) and starts getting very pointed. The “love story” on the painted cloth hanging from the clothesline depicts a brown-haired man bewitched by a blonde woman using a menstrual-blood and pubic-hair based love spell. Now, of course this refers literally to Maja spiking Christian’s meat tart and drink, but it’s perhaps worth noting that in all the Youth House murals depicting sex (and there are quite a few), all the men are blond. In the “love story,” the swirly-eyed, lovestruck man’s hairstyle as well as hair color resembles Pelle’s… so perhaps even though Pelle is our favorite mastermind, he too is subject to the May Queen’s enchanting power. Most significantly, note the merkstaved Dagaz rune in the panel where the blonde woman serves the brown-haired man. Merkstaved Dagaz (loosely, new beginnings) is, of course, one of Dani’s signature runes. Fehu also appears in the heart in the far left panel; Fehu (again, loosely, success) is one of Pelle’s signature runes. More on these runes in a later post…

And speaking of the Youth House murals: Like the Spoiler Tapestry, they show us everything. Honing in only on the ones that come to bear on Dani/Pelle, we can see that the mural over Dani’s bed (which is, of course, positioned between Pelle’s and Christian’s) depicts Ättestupa; just as the mural over Christian’s bed depicts his role/fate in the sex ritual, this may be interpreted as Dani’s ultimate fate, becoming a member of the Hårgans and dying in this ritual at age seventy-two.

But this isn’t the only noteworthy detail about Dani’s bed: Her blanket pattern is a reference to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), in which Danny Torrence is sought by the ghostly denizens of the Overlook Hotel to join them and increase their power, making this a possible oblique indication of the Hårgans’ intentions for Dani. (Plus, check out those very phallic pink flowers on the wall behind Christian’s bed.)

Finally, in perhaps the most direct instance of visual symbolism provided by the murals, two crowns will appear directly over Dani’s and Pelle’s heads in the “Do you feel held?” scene.

One final note from the Youth House, whose walls not only depict painted symbols, histories, and rituals but also host photographs of the May Queens from the past several decades: When Dani asks Pelle, “Are these the May Queens?” Pelle gives another one of his lines whose double meaning is only revealed upon a second (or third or tenth) viewing: “Yeah, you’ll actually be here for that.” Yes, Dani–you will actually be here, on this wall, when you’re crowned. Your cultboy’s swirly destiny-eyes have seen it.

[Post Eight: Ättestupa]

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The Pelle/Dani Receipts, Post Six: Dani’s Birthday Plot

[tents fingers]

Now, Pelle finally has Dani all to himself. Yessssss. And he wastes exactly NO TIME passing to her an unfolded piece of paper he’s been keeping tucked away, with a nose scrunch (I’m sorry, it’s adorable) and a soft, surprise “Hey. Happy birthday.” Yes, Dani, someone remembered. Actually, someone spent a good deal of time carefully drawing a beautifully realized pencil portrait of you, complete with a flower crown and runes. Someone has been thinking about you kind of a lot, girlfriend of someone’s friend. How do you think he drew that? From memory? Do you think he has pictures of you? Anyway, Dani is thrilled and surprised and just so happy, which is also kind of telling. Real talk: he has effectively cornered her and privately given her a fairly personal gift, which he will encourage her to keep secret (more on that in a second). If she weren’t receptive, it could be creepy or at least awkward. If she weren’t into it, can you imagine how weird the rest of the festival could be? And this is the first day. But you are into it, aren’t you, Dani?

“It’s just something I do for birthdays,” Pelle smiles, and then he hesitates, as though the thought has just occurred to him. “Maybe it’s not appropriate?” Okay, Pelle, sweetie, forgiving the fact that were you actually concerned about whether it was appropriate to give her this, you probably would have mentioned it to Christian and/or not taken scrupulous care to give it to her on the downlow, why wouldn’t it be appropriate to give this gift? Because it could be construed as romantic, of course. Because it is pretty darn romantic. This is how I see you, Dani. But in asking Dani whether it’s appropriate, master manipulator Pelle is using the rhetorical device of apophasis, suggesting something by not suggesting it, basically, “Here’s a romantic thing, Dani. Do you mind? It’s not romantic.” SURE, PELLE. And then he suggests that they keep it “just between us.” Okay, Pelle, so if it’s an appropriate gift, offered purely in the spirit of friendship, no big, you’d do it for Ingemar or Josh, why keep it secret? His rhetorical moves here swing from denial to affirmation, throwing out mixed signals like a motherfucker to both assure Dani of his feelings and continue to provide plausible deniability. 

But then, Dani gamely accepts his terms, agreeing to keep the portrait between them…like that’s no big deal. Consider for a moment what is implicit there. Christian can’t know. Why can’t Christian know? Is it because Christian is unusually jealous? There’s no evidence of that; he just left his girl alone with Pelle. It’s because this is the first (that we know of) exchange in an emotional affair, and while Pelle has given her plenty of plausible deniability, Dani isn’t even tentative about it. Yes, this is our secret. Remember how happy she was talking to Pelle on the couch in New York.

Then Dani, smiling as genuinely as she only does for Pelle, confides in him that Christian forgot anyway. So, not only does she alleviate Pelle of any suggestion of inappropriateness–which is less accepting that it isn’t a romantic gift and more that she tacitly accepts the gift with all its implications–she directly compares Pelle remembering her birthday to Christian forgetting it. This moment gets glossed over in favor of Pelle’s much more overt seduction of Dani, but please notice: Dani is comfortable with admitting something that personal about her relationship with Christian to Pelle. If he were just an acquaintance, if he were closer to Christian than Dani, why would she tell him that? It would be embarrassing to her and awkward for him as Christian’s buddy. Exact words: “Christian forgot anyway so this [portrait] is amazing.” Christian forgot, you remembered, 1 point to Team Hårga. Not to mention telegraphing your relationship woes to a man who just gave you a romantic gift is a considerably less subtle signal than Pelle’s apophasis. We’re not suggesting that Dani is unambiguously, consciously, deliberately lighting her signal fire for Pelle here…but witness. The signal fire done got lit. 

One more important bit about this scene. As we will point out over and over, Dani mirrors Pelle and the other Hårgans a lot, but also notice that when Dani shares that Christian forgot, Pelle perfectly mirrors Dani’s stunned/upset “oh” when he failed to condole her on the couch in New York. Like her “oh,” Pelle’s clunks loudly to the floor between them, interrupting their whole ambiguously flirty groove, but, for Dani/Christian severance purposes, it’s important he does this. Constitutionally empathetic as he is, Pelle could easily buffer the awkwardness of the moment, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t do anything to help Dani rationalize Christian forgetting. He simply reflects back to her discomfort and shock that Christian could be so callous of her feelings, leaving Dani to inadequately flail for excuses. In the end, she can’t excuse him, and so she re-ups her appreciation for Pelle’s gift once again, but she will leave that scene not only knowing Pelle cares, but having been forced to acknowledge, if only to herself, that Christian apparently doesn’t. Nice work, Mr. Pelle.

But Pelle is not done. Not our soft sweet cultboy. Skipping ahead to Pelle showing everyone the Youth House, he takes Christian aside at his first opportunity. We aren’t privy to a lot of his conversation, as the camera follows Dani to the wall of portraits of the May Queens, but we do catch the very end, up close and out of focus, as Dani also seems to key in on their talking covertly. Christian is aghast, as Pelle is telling him that he has forgotten Dani’s birthday. He asks Pelle if Dani said anything. And this is when Pelle tells one of his very few direct lies in all of Midsommar, assuring Christian that Dani didn’t mention it. This is important. Ari Aster blurs a lot of what Pelle knows when, but he wants us to know something unambiguously here, a rarity for this film: this isn’t a kindness gone awry. Pelle is setting Christian up. [grabs megaphone] PELLE IS SETTING CHRISTIAN UP. When Dani interrupts them with a question, Pelle nods and gestures significantly toward the bed before joining her, showing Christian something we can’t see.

As Pelle explains the May Queen dance competition, Christian gathers himself and then he asks Dani if she can join him outside, hiding something behind his back. Cue off-key happy birthday serenade and Christian trying to light a candle with a bad lighter. The cake, candle, and lighter could only have been provided by Pelle. That is presumably what he’s pointing out to Christian on the bed before he moves over to Dani by the May Queen photographs. It’s orchestrated to be obvious to Dani that Pelle is the real person behind the gesture, because Christian would have had no opportunity to arrange it. And of course, she saw them talking right before. After Pelle’s thoughtfulness, it will be obvious to her, and Pelle’s cover-story of arranging this to save Christian’s forgetful hide just makes it all the more apparent that he forgot. So Pelle might look like he tried to be a good friend to Christian, but he’s clearly presenting himself as a much better friend, maybe more, to Dani. 

We also headcanon that Pelle made the lighter intentionally bad by emptying most of the fluid, thus making Christian’s insincere gesture all the shittier. The fact that he has to flounder with the bad lighter just underlines that he hasn’t prepared at all. Meanwhile, in the background, several Hårgan women sway and soothe a baby, foreshadowing the way Dani will be comforted when Christian betrays her in the Maja impregnating ritual.

For more, click on The Pelle/Dani Receipts Masterpost