When Akali, a young diwata, chases her dream to become the best tattoo artist in the realm of the Engkanto, she struggles with the challenges of her new job and gets into mischief as she serves various creatures in the famous parlor of Pinta inside...
A couple of years ago, I had the idea to write a story about an avenging dwende (a creature from Filipino folklore) who eats criminals. I know it's morbid, but in Filipino folklore, dwende are small, cunning creatures that eat humans. They mostly take naughty children. Adults tell stories about them to scare the young ones from misbehaving.
When I was researching about them, I scared the hell out of myself with the information I got off the internet. I returned to those nights when I was a child hiding under my covers and waiting for a dwende to come and get me. Yes, I was traumatized. So, I stopped the research and hid the story idea away.
Last year (2022), I was rewatching Spirited Away, an anime by Hayao Miyazaki that is the story of a young girl who entered a magical world of creatures and folklore. Many of the creatures in this story are only made up by Miyazaki, but they were inspired by Japanese myth, and I thought how cool it would be to showcase Filipino folklore.
The Philippines mythology has many stories and magical creatures to share. There needs to be more international books out there to represent our culture. And I thought that if I wrote them in a fun way, like how Miyazaki did Spirited Away, I wouldn't be scared of these nightmares from my childhood.
So, I wrote the skeletal outline and started with Draft 0. This has been sitting for some time in my vault of stories, and I had the opportunity to get back to it and publish it here on Wattpad for the 10-Chapter Challenge by justwriteit.
I'm looking forward to continuing this story and seeing where Akali's story leads her.
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Inspiration
The idea behind the story's plot is the discovery of one's young adulthood--the realities of transitioning from a teen to a working adult.
Apart from Spirited Away, one of the main inspirations for this story is Apo Whang-Od (also known as Maria Oggay), a famous Igorot tattoo artist, 'a mambabatok', currently 106 years old. She uses traditional tools of bamboo sticks and pomelo thorns. She is the last of her kind who has used this customary way of tattooing.
Yes! She was featured in Vogue last April 2023 because she's incredible.
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Cover
I've had a lot of fun playing with the cover of this story. I've drawn several, but the current one is the best yet. It suits the mood and theme of the story, and the layout is just perfect. Here it is without the sticker.
Cover Art and Layout by Heide Reynes
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