When I was blogging a lot back in the day, around 2009 or so, and trying my best to overcome feelings from a relationship, I met someone who had similar interests with anime and such. Ashley Woods was her name, and she had made her own comic book, and even cosplayed as her own character! I thought that was so cool! When we finally met at an anime convention, we chilled for a bit.
And later on, she introduced me to some woman that kept messaging me on fb to meet me but I felt a better connection with Ashley. She had a great sense of humor, extremely talented, geeky and a lot like a big sister that I never had.
We spent time gaming, talking about anime, she got a peek into gal activities, I got to see her working hard, watching movies, talking about other interests too. It helped bring joy into my life.
But, I lost this friendship a little before my mom passed in 2013. Ashley had a professionally centered falling out with a girl that had become our mutual, (naming her “Coo”, aka the woman messaging me on fb.) She told me she deleted video content on “Coo’s” site that she worked on in protest. I was confused, but knew enough that it’s terrible to work hard on something and see your efforts get snatched away by someone else. Not to downgrade the work Ash did, but geez... she couldnt even get a consolation prize from the bigger company due to her work?
Though I didn’t meant to side with the other chick, Coo, I never heard about anything like that before. Why would her friend betray her like that? After all the hard work she put in? Why did Ash tell me that the Coo stole her musical artist friend and shut Ash out? What did it mean that someone JUST wanted people in her audience? What? Was I a prop?
Some time later when I was with Coo and then one of Coo’s subordinates, they wanted me to believe that Ash was mean for taking down the content, but never mentioned the compensation being the reason for it. I guess they wanted me to side with them, and diss Ash for being “rude” and “unreasonable.” Mind you, these ladies were at least 25 or so while I was 21.
This made me feel uncomfortable because Ash told me what was up, and eventually Coo and her sub dropped the issue when They might have figured out I knew more to the story.
It made me feel uncomfortable at the time when I felt like things could be amended.
I was even told to cut contact with Coo as well around 2011 early 2012. After all, she seemed focused on reiterating that one of her group members who was a stripper would be exposed (to my knowledge, there were no strippers in her group at all. Weird.) I thought to myself amidst of the turmoil I found myself in: <I>Why arent you advocating for them? If you claim they don’t want anybody to know, why aren’t you doing anything to protect them? </i> I let the conversation go and eventually hung up.
At the time, I was confused and even more so during a time when my mother’s cancer was worsening. I thought that I could try to keep things professional and have a nice collab with the group I was in and just keep it that way (the thing with Ash not fully sticking in my mind. Maybe I thought Coo would grow from it?) Would any compensation for the blogging I did be taken and I wouldn’t see anything for my efforts? I wasn’t exactly her friend, just a person blogging for her and taking a few selfies or whatever. After all, there was some minuscule compensation ...I guess (non monetary for a long while). But also confused when I was told it was a non profit yet there were so many investors for Coo’s group. Huh?
In the fall of 2013, my mom passed. Ash had known about her before this time and was the only person in my life that had really stepped up when I needed her. No one else that I associated with did (Even getting radio silence when I told our (formal) mutual Coo that I would need to take time off fir working on her projects due to losing my mom in 2013. ) When I felt down from seeing my mom get sicker, Ash was there. She was the type of person that definitely made sure you were good and in a way that was authentic. But, I lost that friendship a while ago by hanging on to the person that betrayed her. I was confused, unsure of my decision in that regard and really let that ball drop.
Ashley knew better and was a lot stronger in her decision making with that. In hindsight , She wasn’t going to allow someone to keep screwing her and potentially her career over. She also didn’t have a lot of dramatic things and plans constantly failing etc to keep her off her decision making.
She was the big sister I never had and the only person that I feel had some of my best interests at heart.
She knew.
She warned me. But I didn’t understand back then.
Miss you Ash. Thanks for helping me to understand things like this. Sometimes we have to learn by actually being in the action I suppose.
Thank you for being an amazing artist and giving me tips to elevate my art comic wise in case I ever decide to try to get back into it. Thank you for letting me see your work flow for comic projects and even starring in one of my projects for a class. Thank you for showing not only myself that Black girls can work in comics and media , but other black girls and women who are artists.
Follow her work on Instagram @ninjatrip .
