Set Me as a Seal Part 3

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dongregg
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Set Me as a Seal Part 3

Post by dongregg » Wed Oct 21, 2015 5:07 pm

Discussion area for Set Me as a Seal Upon Your Heart Part 3

“They are not your children then.”

“No," Mr. Ávila answers and starts to say more, but the professor holds up his hand.

"How long have you known that they are vampires, Señor Ávila?"


http://let-the-right-one-in.com/fancont ... art-part-3
Last edited by dongregg on Tue Mar 27, 2018 9:19 pm, edited 14 times in total.
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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PeteMork
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Re: Set Me as a Seal upon Your Heart Part 3

Post by PeteMork » Thu Oct 22, 2015 2:58 am

dongregg wrote:Being moderated. Wait...wait...
Oh, the horror....

(copyright, Heart of Darkness)
We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain. (Roberto Bolaño)

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Re: Set Me as a Seal Part 3

Post by dongregg » Sat Oct 24, 2015 1:50 pm

Yay! Here it is at last. I hope everyone enjoys spending some more time with our little vampire pals.
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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Re: Set Me as a Seal Part 3

Post by dongregg » Sun Oct 25, 2015 1:01 am

PeteMork wrote:I love the idea of photography as a hobby for them. As you point out it covers their activity at night, and provides an excuse for their covered window in the daytime. Nice one!

And the money. No egg necessary. :D

Of course, I also love Eli's tear-filled conversation with Avila. :wub: (My tears, too.) ;)
And I'm looking forward to sometime in the future when they visit Eli's old hideouts to recover the silver she left all over the place whenever she got tired of lugging it around. It will get turned into a Swiss trust fund for Oskar and Eli, like in the "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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metoo
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Re: Set Me as a Seal Part 3

Post by metoo » Sun Oct 25, 2015 5:50 am

Hmm. A thought: Second-hand photo equipment.
  • Less conspicuous to carry around for kids of twelve.
  • Less pricey to buy.
  • Easier to purchase after dark (from private persons, who wouldn't be at home at daytime anyway.)
I had a second-hand pro-level Canon SLR (new F1) that I bought second-hand in the early eighties. I also had an enlarger purchased the same way. You found such stuff in the ads in the local newspapers, in Photo magazines (Foto, Aktuell fotografi), and in Gula Tidningen, a paper devoted to private ads. You could get the magazines at most supermarkets, and at Pressbyrån.

But I guess you needed a way to introduce Professor Grigore...
But from the beginning Eli was just Eli. Nothing. Anything. And he is still a mystery to me. John Ajvide Lindqvist

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Re: Set Me as a Seal Part 3

Post by dongregg » Sun Oct 25, 2015 4:27 pm

metoo wrote:Hmm. A thought: Second-hand photo equipment.
  • Less conspicuous to carry around for kids of twelve.
  • Less pricey to buy.
  • Easier to purchase after dark (from private persons, who wouldn't be at home at daytime anyway.)
I had a second-hand pro-level Canon SLR (new F1) that I bought second-hand in the early eighties. I also had an enlarger purchased the same way. You found such stuff in the ads in the local newspapers, in Photo magazines (Foto, Aktuell fotografi), and in Gula Tidningen, a paper devoted to private ads. You could get the magazines at most supermarkets, and at Pressbyrån.

But I guess you needed a way to introduce Professor Grigore...
All good points. My first serious camera was a used Nikon SP II (range finder) that I bought in 1967 at a camera store I was working at in Queens, NY. My first SLR was a new Honeywell Pentax I got in Berkeley, California, after a junky stole my SP II in 1971 or so.

Several things bother me about the kids having new Nikons. One, they are larger than other available SLRs, and the kids are only 12 (and Eli is particularly diminutive). Also, a large single purchase like that is odd -- like the camera shop's biggest sale all year. A police inquiry of photo shops would yield their address! And the kids in this story are more pale than in the film, so should the camera shop employees be allowed to see them? Plus, there is a contrast between this expensive equipment and the small, old Fiat they are loading the stuff into.

However, Ávila is very focused on creating a good cover for the kids, and the "darkroom" is central to that. He knows by law that the kids should be in school, so that stands out in his mind. He feels a great urgency to move fast. He isn't on top of forensic considerations of the conspicuous purchase, so Part 4 will bring Grigore's expertise more to the front. I've already started a vignette that fills in both of the adult's background, and we find that Grigore is hand-in-glove with the Malmö police. Even some of the beat constables know his name. He was able to easily travel from Iron Curtain Romania as a forensic consultant and ended up staying! Ávila's family is still in Barcelona, so he uses them to supply dummy report cards to establish that the kids are not Swedish residents. The kids will pre-enroll in an international school for the fall semester. You may be able to tell the real school I used as a model by the name of it -- it's a take-off on an actual international school's crest, which has a lily in it ("Lilja School for International Students").

Meanwhile, Ávila want the kids to at least look normal to outsiders, so the hobby is a good cover. And the attic is secured by a bolt from the inside. During the day, their Do Not Enter sign and red light is something he can work with to make any official inquirers return later.

It's all shaky, of course, but that is what the danger of trying to live a normal life entails. Otherwise, you would almost need a ruined castle in Transylvania! In the end, if a real threat emerges, Ávila only has to stall until dusk, when the kids could disappear into the night for parts unknown.

You know how much help you've already been for Part 3 (the bridge goof up comes to mind). Since you live near Malmö, PM me (or post here) with any other stuff and I will fix it or work it in. Part 4 is on the back burner and will be for a while.

Thanks again!
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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Re: Set Me as a Seal Part 3

Post by metoo » Sun Oct 25, 2015 6:12 pm

dongregg wrote:Several things bother me about the kids having new Nikons. One, they are larger than other available SLRs, and the kids are only 12 (and Eli is particularly diminutive).
Olympus OM-1 was astonisingly small for an SLR, as I recall. Many pros used OM-1s, so two of those would be fine.

Otherwise, if you like to spend money, the Leica M4 was small, top notch quality, and top notch price. Rather inconspicuous too, it doesn't look very fancy.

About the international school you plan to put the kind in: Have you checked that it existed in the early 1980s? The Swedish school system has changed a lot since then, most notably because of the so-called free school reform (friskolereformen) in 1992, which opened up for private schools to receive the tax-based school money that previously had been available only to schools organised by the authorities.

The kids need identity papers in order to enroll in the school, but I guess a couple of false passports would fix that.

However, the requirement for kids to be in school is precisely that. It does not suffice that they are enrolled, they need to take part of the tuition. Therefore, I don't see what use it would be to enroll the kids to any school - it would just expose them unnecessarily. Better then to keep them away from the eyes of the authorities as much as possible. But perhaps you have a solution for that?
But from the beginning Eli was just Eli. Nothing. Anything. And he is still a mystery to me. John Ajvide Lindqvist

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Re: Set Me as a Seal Part 3

Post by dongregg » Sun Oct 25, 2015 7:50 pm

That's the kind of feedback that helps with the verisimilitude of the story.

First the school, then the cameras.

The school I used as a model existed in 1983 (it's a very old, actual school), but it didn't have a separate section for children of foreign, temporarily resident parents until the 1992 law. The international section is small compared to the rest of the school, and the school (IRL) regularly posts the top grades of any school in Sweden. We'll just have to allow that 9-year gap to stand as a bit of fantasy. The school takes advantage of the law to get tax kronor, but it also uses a section of the law that allows foreign students to NOT take tax money. IRL, the school is very protective of its finances, and there is an ongoing conflict with parents (but not the state) about the school's refusal to make its finances public.

By pre-enrolling for fall and by having tutors coming to the house before then, Ávila has a talking point that he can use to stall inquirers. (All for nothing. The state never gets around to inquiring!) As for the school itself, with its secretive attitude, the director is happy to take the money and show the kids as registered and attending even though it will be tutors from the school who will actually be coming to the house (double dipping). Ávila's Spanish passport and last year's Barcelona report cards for the kids provide the director the cover he needs to buy in.

How about the fact that Eli is in no way prepared for middle school work? Won't that be obvious to the state when she takes the annual tests? She ("Elena Ruiz") and Oskar ("Óscar McKay") won't take the tests. The family will be ready to move to another country, so their enrollment will terminate before the tests are administered.

This not a true picture of Malmö, but it doesn't grossly distort the picture, does it? Even the Swedish government today doesn't get the full picture of what goes on at the imaginary "Lilja School for International Students" and has pressed for proof that a disproportionate amount of tax money is not being used to support the international section, for example, by having a better teacher/student classroom ratio compared to the classrooms of regular students.

Anyway, Part 4 (also imaginary at this point) slides blithely past all the technical considerations. Money talks, so they are enrolled without physically attending. Again, it's all precautionary. Nobody from state agencies ever comes to check on them.

The cameras. I went with Nikon for the name. Present-day readers will know "Nikon" because of the awesome success of Nikon's digital line. Most may not know what a Nikon SLR film camera looked like. I like Nikon's range of lenses (as I recall them) so the kids don't have to go with Sigma or other less expensive lenses.

But whether smaller cameras or not, the kids are certainly going to attract a lot of attention. They act very grownup as they go about Malmö for their photo essays. Imagine how cute it will seem to grownups -- two kids encumbered with cameras, camera bags stuffed with lenses, tripods dangling from their shoulders or set up already, and taking light meter readings like a director on the set of a major motion picture. Normal reaction -- "How cute!"

The kids may attract the wrong kind of attention, too. God help the muggers or "purse" snatchers who think they've got a soft target. Yum. (dongregg's stomach rumbles ominously.)

Anyway, your facts on the ground got Part 3 off to a good start, especially the schedule of the ferries to Copenhagen and the photos of real ferries and the terminal area as it would have looked in 1983. I want to use the long colonnade for the kids to find out about the uses of depth of field. Good for perspective, too. And different lenses, including fisheye for that unique distortion.

How could they have gotten so good at photography so fast? It's all they've got going until the tutors start showing up. They are hungry to learn stuff, any stuff.
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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Re: Set Me as a Seal Part 3

Post by metoo » Sun Oct 25, 2015 9:24 pm

dongregg wrote:How about the fact that Eli is in no way prepared for middle school work? Won't that be obvious to the state when she takes the annual tests?
As far as I remember those tests were not taken every year (and certainly not in all subjects). Alas, I've not been able to verify this. However, they were generally taken the last year of any stage (lower, middle, and higher stages), so in case Oskar and Eli were to appear as twelve year old kids, they would be put in sixth class which is the last year of the middle stage. Thus, they would have to take the tests.

Now, those tests did not have the purpose of testing the individual students. Instead, the purpose was (and still is) to give teachers a means to estimate the general level of his students as compared to all students in the country. Thus, Eli doing bad on a test wouldn't be such a great problem.

A greater problem, though, would be Oskar's diminutive knowledge of Spanish. According to the novel, he knows a single word: perro (dog).

By the way, you might find it interesting that JAL speaks Spanish. He might have studied it as his second foreign language in the higher stage of primary school (grades 7-9), or as the third foreign language in high school (gymnasieskolan). (The first foreign language is English, and is studied from grade 4).
But from the beginning Eli was just Eli. Nothing. Anything. And he is still a mystery to me. John Ajvide Lindqvist

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Re: Set Me as a Seal Part 3

Post by dongregg » Sun Oct 25, 2015 10:46 pm

metoo wrote:
dongregg wrote:How about the fact that Eli is in no way prepared for middle school work? Won't that be obvious to the state when she takes the annual tests?
As far as I remember those tests were not taken every year (and certainly not in all subjects). Alas, I've not been able to verify this. However, they were generally taken the last year of any stage (lower, middle, and higher stages), so in case Oskar and Eli were to appear as twelve year old kids, they would be put in sixth class which is the last year of the middle stage. Thus, they would have to take the tests.

Now, those tests did not have the purpose of testing the individual students. Instead, the purpose was (and still is) to give teachers a means to estimate the general level of his students as compared to all students in the country. Thus, Eli doing bad on a test wouldn't be such a great problem.

A greater problem, though, would be Oskar's diminutive knowledge of Spanish. According to the novel, he knows a single word: perro (dog).

By the way, you might find it interesting that JAL speaks Spanish. He might have studied it as his second foreign language in the higher stage of primary school (grades 7-9), or as the third foreign language in high school (gymnasieskolan). (The first foreign language is English, and is studied from grade 4).
That's very good to know about the tests. "Lilja's" top standing is based on the results. (That's true of the actual standing of the real school, not just the imaginary "Lilja.") The way I have noodled the Spanish language problem is that the kids are forbidden to speak anything but Swedish and English -- pure immersion. Yeah, they don't have a Spanish accent, but they will only say, "No es permiso" if the tutors address them in Spanish.

Poor Eli. Immersion in English is going to really test her, but she knows she was a semiferal creature and that she has to become a sophisticated urban vampire or take a chance on Oskar getting bored with her. That's really the engine driving Part 1, and it's why Eli was willing to hang around the Blackeberg area for almost too long in Part 2. Detective Sergeant Per Morkus was tantalizingly close to admitting that Karin's old supernatural explanation might have merits. But at any rate, Oskar and Eli's life of hiding and skulking was boring. Eli bought new clothes for them and they started taking baths daily, but that would have been of no use if they had to return to living on the run again. Poor babies. Eli's impoverished lifestyle was what rang so true to me in LTROI. Superhuman powers, plenty of money, and didn't even have a TV or go to the movies.

What I really feel, metoo, is that you are teaching me so much about Sweden. You are one reason I didn't want the kids to leave Sweden when they left Vällingby. Sweden's the country I want to learn about. One reason I like the Malmö location is because you have Södra Sandby listed as your location on your profile. Who the hell will I be able to lean on when the family moves to another country? It may have to be a country that I am at least passing familiar with.

Okay. That's where I am right now. I'm pretty happy with Professor Grigore elbowing his way into the story. I haven't got enough experience writing here to understand how an unplanned charcter can just turn up and be so important in a story.
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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