I've been thinking of a story where a gifted individual - and by gifted, i mean basically normal with maybe some mystical background, goes around the streets of Manila to try and help hapless individuals from falling prey to the city's underworld - but in this case, underworld means a more literary 'under the world' kind of world. Not necessarily subterranean; but such can easily be the case as well, rather other dimensional too.
It is a world where Kapres linger in Kalentong, Tikbalangs in Timog, or Aswangs in Avenida. Things like that. Thing is, even if I start writing - or drawing these out, I not so recently came upon Budette's Trese, which has a lot of parallels. So I want to make sure there are more differences than similarities.
Starting with, of course, my protagonist. Firstly, he is male, roughly in his early 20s, good physical build, a swimmer, biker - and drives a second hand car to and from school, until graduation. He studied at a College where the urban community was just thriving - but when he visited other... more open or close to nature campuses, he felt more at home in them... but not enough to decide making a change of location.
I'm still considering a name... maybe Richard Carpio (possibly connecting him to Bernardo Carpio later), Ric, as his friends call him, is more an introvert - just a few close friends. Not really the sosyal type of person - even if the family can afford. He has no siblings, so he grew up alone, and his mother gifted him with the love for reading - specially SciFi and Fantasy stories... he grew up admiring adventure tales, and likewise gravitated to reading comic books. He has at least four close friends, whom he shared some high school or college days experiences with.
He's from a middle-income family (or should I make that affluent), as a new college graduate - say with a business degree, he did not want to be part of his father's mining business - but it was because of this business that he had early encounters with dwendes, who felt disrespected by the firm's mining operations, as it started destroying the natural surroundings - to the dismay of many fey folk.
He gets embroiled in the underground power struggle between factions that want to openly battle these interlopers, and those that want to just avoid them. He sues for some form of time to keep their decision at bay, while he convinces the mining executives how open pit mining may be easy - but in the long run, detrimental to the environment (i.e. to the underground fey folk living in that area). He argues using the strongest language he can muster - the balance sheet of profits vs. liabilities, while also showing the less than permanent effects as compared to leveling the mountain.
He earns the nods of most executives, and gets the mining jobs done in a less intrusive way. This earns him some respect from not just the mining brass, but green advocacy movements as well. The fey folk; in particular, are appreciative of his help in preserving the place. Others, though, are less pleased - there are always hawks for conflict, even in the underground, and they hoped the open-pit mining would have forced the hand of their more peaceful leaders to use radical means to battle the humans.
There are other ideas... but I'll convey them in a more story-telling manner in succeeding entries. If this becomes a graphic novel, I will be quite happy.
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