The importance of being Ashley

MANILA, Philippines - The gray skies loom over the imposing white house, its lofty glass windows framing the lavish, newly drizzled-on slices of Metro Manila. Inside, people are milling around a guitar-wielding girl whose doppelgänger they’ve just recently uncovered (“Michelle Branch!” the photographer declares). Ashley Gosiengfiao, the girl in question, laughs along, but it’s only 11 in the morning. She’d rather be in bed for an hour and a half more.

“I’m a super night person talaga,” she admits with an easy laugh, explaining that her typical day begins at half-past noon and ends around two in the morning, with Internet surfing at the top of her agenda. She professes a deep fondness for volleyball and shopping. The Play Station 3 sitting nearby hints to a video game addiction, and the row of guitars shows more than a passive passion. There is, also, a fancy camera with an assortment of buttons that could probably launch a space shuttle. Setting the scene in such a way makes Ashley seem like the archetypal adolescent who collects hobbies in an attempt to seem one-of-a-kind (they never are), but unlike most young people her age, she actually hauls ass and gets stuff done.

While it’s true that the Internet can easily turn talentless nobodies into overnight superstars, being legitimately famous for sincerely being good at something is ironically harder than it seems. Ashley, at the young age of 21, has accrued a following large enough to make Nickelback green with envy. She is well-known in digital circles as a cosplayer with her older sister Alodia, a role that has taken her to places like Singapore and Hong Kong to join competitions and guest in local events. Like many other kinds of fame, her cosplaying has also attracted a barrage of questionable admirers. “There are fans that... (Laughs) they throw gifts over our fence. It’s so weird! Some people send over flowers (anonymously)... parang may screen name lang siya, and I don’t even know who he is.”

“If I were a key, I think I would be E or E minor. If A minor is the saddest, I think E minor is the darkest.” Photo by JOSEPH PASCUAL

So does the attention faze her? Not quite. Ashley graciously sees it as an act of flattery, and expresses appreciation that people give them gifts. Why shouldn’t she, anyway? Fame seems to shine its light upon her, and though she peppers her sentences with bashful smiles, her bold features betray a secret: this isn’t a girl you’d want to mess with. She’s more than a triple threat, really. If there were a word on the thesaurus that could better describe a threat that came in fours or fives, “Ashley Gosiengfiao” would probably be listed as a synonym.

Her various web pages pay homage to her barrage of interests — not to mention talents. Aside from being a renowned cosplayer, photographer, and graphic artist, she’s also becoming well known for her music. There actually came a point where she decided to stop cosplaying in order to save up for a guitar (she now has 12). Recording in the comfort of her home, she does covers and writes her own songs. Laughing off the notion of singing out her personal diary à la Taylor Swift, she says — and not without a pinch of sarcasm towards the end — “I write based on personal experiences, not necessarily about heartbreak, like Adele.” She cites Illinois-based group Company of Thieves as an inspiration more to her taste, suddenly shifting into a more wistful tune.

This does not mean, however, that she shies away from the nuances of her passions. “(If I were a key), I think I would be E or E minor. If A minor is the saddest, I think E minor is the darkest. It’s pretty overused but... it’s very dark. In terms kasi of my art, kasi diba I take photos also, it’s really emotional. Di naman emo, but parang, emotive?” She then breaks into another smile, realizing something. “Ah, emotive!”

That brief snippet of dialogue is just one of the many things that make Ashley an enigma, and the odd thing is, she doesn’t seem to try being one. Despite claiming to have a dark, twisty side, she takes a 180-degree turn and giggles at the sheer joy of conceiving a new idea. Her Tumblr page may be designed in a sparse navy blue/white color scheme, but her whimsical online handle (“Ashlili”) and sugary blog diction (“Say hello to my lovely babies!!! I’m a proud momma!!” in reference to her guitar collection) looks like an unschooled habit of irony. In between getting her photos taken during the shoot, she is cajoled by the people around her to play the guitar and indulge the group with a song as an intermission, but she laughs and smoothly veers to another topic. Clearly, Ashley knows exactly what she wants, and if you don’t like it, well, that’s your problem.

It’s an hour later. Everyone inside the imposing white house is exchanging goodbyes and thanks, with Ashley’s manager (and mom) mentioning a cosplay event they’re to attend in the afternoon. The sun shows no sign of appearing anytime soon, and it makes one wonder if the weather would agree with anyone’s plans that day. But upon looking at the hidden determination behind her saccharine grin, one would think that Ashley Gosiengfiao orchestrated the cloud pattern herself, as if to say, “You think the weather’s a force to be reckoned with? Try me.”