Desucon 2014 – I finally had Ramune soda for the first time!

Hello folks!

I know I'm posting this a bit late-ish but I've had a shitlot of photos to go through and I've barely recovered from the huge con hangover. But now I'm finally done so here comes my Desucon 2014 experience!

"Desucon 2014 has begun!"

A few days before the con I was styling wigs for Yukinaga and SSL Okita. I got them done on time but I still ended up staying awake the whole night between Wednesday and Thursday because I was stressed about the suitcase packing. Yeah, we packed our suitcase on the same day we had to leave home, aka Thursday. Not the brightest idea I've ever had...

Unstyled wig.

Styled wig.

My con journey started on Thursday, 5th June, when I took the bus to Kemi and then a night train to Lahti together with Hasakitsuki. Our train left Kemi at 22:21 local time and we had a train change at Riihimäki that left 08:13. We had bought a lot of unhealthy provisions at Lidl in Kemi before we took the train so yeah, at least this time we weren't dying from hunger. We didn't run into random drunks this time, which is for the better. The journey was okay but I barely slept shit because of uncomfortable old train cart seats...

Friday

We arrived at Lahti 08:54 and I texted Moonbeam –aka our sleeping place savior– and asked where she was. Moonbeam said she was at the cafeteria but because I'm soooo familiar with Lahti train station (hint: sarcasm) I and Hasakitsuki ended up having quite the adventure finding our way to the main part of the train station. We took the elevator like 3 times and always ended up in the wrong place, genious. Finally we found Moonbeam and we walked over to her place, which was super close! There we just packed up some of our stuff, turned the couch into a bed and I tried to sleep because I was dang tired (I barely slept in the train, surprise surprise!) but at some point I got energy and then we ate one of those one meter pizzas for food. xD With extra tuna and pineapple, of course.
At some point Moonbeam needed to go to Eurokangas in town and after a bit of "should I or should I not come with" (I was laggy) I decided to go – and I'm so happy I did! I ended up finding the perfect soft and thick dark red linen fabric that screamed Okita's red kimono to me! <3 Hakuouki's Okita of course. Yeah, there's many Okitas out there... I bought the whole remaining roll because there was only 5 meters left and the remaining fabric had been cut into two pieces already; I need to make both the anime and the game version because they differ quite a lot and I sort-of accepted the "cosplay all official Okita versions!" challenge so yeah, here we go. xD

Fabric doesn't want to photograph it's true color, as usual. It's a bit darker than it looks.

The clock ticked away and soon we noticed there was only about one hour left before Desucon would open its doors and so we started putting on our cosplays. My cosplay for the day was Yukinaga Kuroyama, an Original Character. I had fun putting on long pointy ears (I love these things!) and then I battled with the obi because it's so slippery that it didn't stay tied for very long. I managed after a while and when we all were done Moonbeam had someone drive us to the con.
At the con we were welcomed by something I didn't quite expect – there was a horse-head guy and a hair-overload guy singing (more like, screaming) some heavy metal at the entrance. It was glorious, I tell you. All horns up for these two! \m/

After having enjoyed the duo's little performance for a while we went to get our tickets, but because printing them out before the con hadn't been possible for us we had the tickets in an USB key. The persons at the Desucon ticket table at the entrance told us to go to the info desk and so we went inside the con to get our tickets printed. Actually, the random guy guarding the entrance door (aka ticket controller) seemed suspicious about letting us walk past without tickets. >.< I showed him the USB key and told him that the people at the ticket desk adviced us to go the info and then he let us pass. We ended up getting our tickets printed and got fatass fabric tickets on our wrists instead, securing us as Desucon attendants, booyah!

Desucon 2014 ticket. It looks pretty boring, I must add.

It didn't take many minutes before we bumped into Joel who was cosplaying Saizou Kirigakure from Brave 10. He said that he didn't have any friends with him on this day so we quickly adopted him into our group! We ended up hanging together the whole day and he even did a photoshoot for us!
Oh, and I must mention that during the shoot we saw a house that was sailing away. Yes, a house. It was beautiful but I failed to take a picture of it on time. :C It was basically a house built on some wooden platform that was floating around and moved; some Finnish invention I guess, probably related to sauna lol. But now, photoshoot pictures!

Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai (Yukinaga Kuroyama) & Hasakitsuki (Aki)

Photographer: Joel

Not amused.

"What are you doing? Stop that bullshit."

"Piss off, you imbecile! Don't touch me unless you raise my pay!"

"I don't want to be your bodyguard, it sucks balls."

"Give it back, dammit!"

"Stay away... I need an Aki-free zone."

"I SAID STAY AWAY... OR TASTE MY STEEL."

Bonus pics!

This was by far the most hilarious, crack-worthy and totally-not-serious photoshoot I've had so far! Then again Yukinaga is supposed to be this kind of character who is constantly grumpy, annoyed and probably even growing a dick on his forehead because he's always pissed about Aki's positivity, cheerfulness, crossdressing and teasing attempts. Positiivisuus on perseestä. All in all this photoshoot was so different of what I'm used to – I was supposed to do derpy angry faces instead of serious angry faces!

After the photoshoot Joel had to go to the closest food store to buy something to eat and we tagged along as company and I was his sword-holder. Not too long after that we had to leave because Moonbeam's cosplay was still unfinished; she wanted to go home a bit earlier to have a chance of finishing it, before the whole con is over, so that she wouldn't need to pull sewing all-nighters. There wasn't that much to do on Friday anyway at the con –and we both were fairly tired from the long train journey– so we left to charge or batteries for Saturday.

Saturday

Aaah, Saturday morning. I didn't even have a bad case of morning lag, what happened? We had breakfast and then started putting on our cosplays. I took a bit less-of-a-forever than I thought I would with the eye makeup for Okita, progress! My wig had got slightly damaged during the travel but luckily Moonbeam had a wig head that I borrowed on Friday to put the wig on over the night. When I now put the wig on I noticed that the side pieces were crooked (yeah, that was the damage) and looked funny so I borrowed a straightener and then it was a-ok!

When everyone was done we got a ride to the con (except for Moonbeam and her assistant because she wanted to try finishing her cosplay so yeah, they stayed a bit longer) and pretty much the first thing me and Hasakitsuki did was to check the Dealer's Hall because now it was finally open! It wasn't on Friday. We spotted the table of the Japanese candy guy (yeah, best nickname ever lol) and Hasakitsuki bought candies for way too much. He had so much awesome stuff!

*beep*

Now it's time for an advertisement break. 

No, not really, just kidding! It's time for the generic con photos!

People made these small papers with funny texts and stuff!

This seemed so suspicious before it was revealed what it actually was... xD

That was the end of generic con photos. Con summary may continue.

*bleep*

Okay, back to the con. We just walked around for a while and at some point I was in so much pain I needed to go to the bathroom. I started feeling better after a while and we went to the food store to go buy some small things to eat. Because I had fake blood on my face (Okita happens) it was hard to eat without accidentally smearing the blood and so we got the wonderful idea to use a straw for all drinkable things and well, things that weren't drinkable Hasakitsuki ended up feeding me; Chizuru didn't mind too much, lol.

We barely had time to eat our Angry Birds chocolate puddings before the Desucon weather decided that it was time to kick in! Dark rain clouds were rolling in and the curse continued. Actually, it ended up raining more or less for the whole remainder of Saturday and so our much wanted photoshoot had to be postponed for a later con. Meh. Of course it has to rain on the main day – it's no fun otherwise. OTL Aah Desucon, we love your weather so...

At some point my feet started to hurt and so we went to sit down next to the rhythm/dancing games. Earlier Hasakitsuki had bought a doujinshi from the yaoi guy's table (Finns all know who I mean) and that included a rainbow flag; I was bored so of course I snatched the flag and fooled around ~

"Looking for a man ~" eiku xD

Khrmm. Yeah. Let's move on...

*cough*

Being pretty bummed about the rain we stayed inside and derped around for a while. Eventually we got hungry and needed more than snacks to silence our stomachs and so we headed out to get the obligatory Desucon pizza, aka let's raid the nearby Kotipizza.

What you mean everyone else had thought about eating pizza too?

Luckily we happened to get there just when the line was relatively small so we only had to wait about 30 minutes or something, in total, for our pizza. Because the place is small pretty much all the indoor tables were taken –and it was too warm anyway– so we took a table outside that was sheltered from the rain. Good thing we still had the straw so I could drink some coke without any problems, but when it came to the pizza eating Hasakitsuki gave me directions where to aim the pizza-filled fork (so that I don't shove it into the blood) and then it worked. xD

I don't remember exactly but at some point during the Saturday, I can't remember when, a guy came up to me and asked for my picture. He asked me later if the blood on my face was real/my own and I replied "no it isn't. If it was I would be dead" and he seemed completely confused and probably a bit creeped out by my answer. :)) It looked like he didn't know the character so that might explain why such a reaction. I'm not wounded, I'm supposed to be sick. Afterwards me and Hasakitsuki had a good laugh. xD

Oh oh oh! There was a group of Japanese tourists (or at least I assume they were tourists) at the con of which one of them –who after having observed us from a slight distance for quite a while– came up to us and asked for a photo. She seemed so happy, fangirly and excited that I could just have melted right back then! She took some photos and then proceeded to bow very deeply several times and thank us and ghjsajhgdhgjs;shkg I COULD HAVE DIED OF THE ADORABLE-NESS! ;A; Yeah, now that's a word. I tried to keep a sort-of-in-character face and just smile politely but inside I was bubbling and spreading everywhere like sparkly unicorn goo – definitely one of the best cosplay reactions I've had so far! I had glitter and hyper-happiness in my system for the rest of the con day because of her, hnng! TwT

Later we ate some yummy Japanese Pokémon candies –bought from the Japanese candy guy of course– that were a "you thought I was bubblegum? lolnope" edition. It was some kind of candy but it looked like those flat bubblegum sheets...

Pikachu candies!

And now some quick duo face photos taken by me, selfie-style!

This is the "try to smile and not look bad" pic. xD

We stayed and watched the Iltabileet (night party) a while from above and then we ran into Moonbeam and went back to her apartment for the night. There we watched some episodes of Vampire Princess Miyu anime before heading to bed. Ah, old-school anime...

Iltabileet dancers.

Sunday

On Sunday it was time for our school uniform Hakuouki cosplays. It's nice to have an easy cosplay for the last con day; it feels more relaxed, chill and comfy to move around in.

Our morning started like all con Sunday mornings do – laggy and slow. But at least I had my eyes still attached to my face, unlike Hasakitsuki, who had raisins in the eye sockets after her contact lenses were trolling. Oh and speaking of contact lenses, mine trolled too! On Saturday I had no problems with putting on my contacts (I wore the same lenses two days in a row) but on Sunday the left one decided to be a bitch; when I put it on it came off when I rubbed my eye and of course it had to fall into the sink! I took it out, cleaned it again and put it on and OH MY GOSH THE PAIN! It hurt like piss and I immediately took it off, cleaned it once more and put it back on. This time it was slightly uncomfortable but nothing that didn't go away after one minute or so. Oh well, save for the contacts I didn't have any other problems with putting my cosplay on... except that I took longer doing my makeup because I kept screwing up.

When we got to the con we went pretty early to have a photoshoot next to the dock area. We hadn't found a photographer so we just ended up taking turns photographing each other. The sunlight was pretty strong and this cast very dark shadows that made most of the photos turn out not quite alright. But at least we got a few okay ones...

Cosplayer & photo editor: Valkoinen Samurai (Souji Okita)

Photographer: Hasakitsuki

Selfie style, taken by me.

After the shoot we went back inside the con and walked around a bit; we spotted Anniilaugh, whom we had seen already on the earlier days, and she mentioned that she had been taken into the Hall Cosplay competition and ended up winning the whole shit. I congratulated her because her cosplay was ultra amazing and for me it's no surprise that she won! Anniilaugh asked if we had watched the Sunday cosplay competition because there had been an awesome Pokémon sketch thing. When she mentioned that it included Digletts I realized it was this "mystery Pokémon thing" that was mentioned in the Exciter's Momentum blog of which I had been curious about! In her company was a girl who had recorded the Diglett sketch and so we watched it (without sounds, because no sounds) and I laughed my ass off – oh god it was gold! XD It seems that it was recorded and uploaded on Youtube and I'll totally go watch it with the sounds later. I did get explanations though what music was playing when and stuff but still, it was hilarious! Wish I had gone to see it but I had honestly forgotten all about it. ;_;

Oh well, later we ended up in the Dealer's Hall again and Hasakitsuki bought herself another eyecandy doujinshi from you-know-what-seller. We also bought our very first Ramune soda; I've wanted to try one ever since I started going to cons in 2011 and now I just couldn't resist anymore despite being well aware that Ramune are quite pricey. We picked a litchi flavored one and went outside to drink it. We had a short battle, including "how do you open this thing, the instructions don't work!?!" awkward moment, but eventually we put our Ramune-noob heads together and solved the mystery! I must say it was surprisingly good!

Ramune feat. Okita plushie!

Hasakitsuki even bought some ice cream.

I don't remember exactly when but I had promised to photoshoot Moonbeam's Usagi Tsukino (Sailor Moon) cosplay and when I went to find her I found FankiKitsune in her company as well. I didn't know they were friends so it was a pretty cool surprise because I knew FankiKitsune before I met Moonbeam, haha – the world is small! :'D

When we were photoshooting at the dock area there was this one guy cosplaying Finland from the Scandinavia and the World comics and he went into the water and swore in Finnish and did other beautiful things. When he had been in the water for a while he started walking towards the shore and then he slipped in this hilarious looking way, you know, like that "banana peel slip" that happens in cartoons! Basically, when you fall on your ass with your legs straight up! xD So yeah, he slipped on the shore and two legs were poking straight up from the water and then he was swearing again, just like the character is supposed to. It was gold!! *laughs* And then he came up to us asking for a hug while being completely soaked – "Give a hug to the land of a thousand lakes, perkele!" x) But yeah, while I was at it I did a quick photoshoot for FankiKitsune as well – he was cosplaying schooluniform!Hitsugaya from Bleach. 

You see, because we both were cosplaying school boys we took a photo together!

Later we ran into Joel again, after having magically managed to not see him at all on Saturday. I asked if he could possibly photoshoot us again but he said that he had to leave soon so it didn't work out. On this moment we were hungry so we sat down on one of the tables inside and ate one of our provision triangle sandwiches. There wasn't much time left of the con and before we knew it some staff member came and told us to start moving outside in 3-2-1-now – basically making it clear that Desucon 2014 was over. I haven't been in any other con in a while where I was so eagerly chased out after the clock had struck the last minutes... *shrugs*

Snack time!

We noticed a little prior to being chased out that Ri-kun had come to sit down on the table behind us and I asked, once more, if they could possibly photoshoot us outside. The answer was positive and so we headed outside to shoot during the con's final minutes! There was a nice small park-ish area just next to the con that we deemed fit for a school surrounding.

Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai (Souji Okita) & Hasakitsuki (Chizuru Yukimura)

Photographer: Ri-kun

Photo editor: Valkoinen Samurai 

Bonus pic!

Chizuru: Okita-san, give me the chocolate please!
Souji: Then you have to catch it ~

I must say that I'm overly pleased with this photoshoot; we got surprisingly many good ones! Ri-kun's photography skills definitely leveled up since last time! Yay!

If we bundle it all up I must say that all in all Desucon was as enjoyable as ever! It went by way too fast too, haha. It's just a shame that Desucon has its notorious weather curse always occurring...

Oh, and as per usual here is a con video consisting of photos I took during Desucon. If you want a photo leave a comment on my blog here or on the Youtube video.

That's about it. Thanks everyone who was with me during the con for making it a great experience, even all those peeps who came to ask a photo or just swap a few words! Desucon 2014 was a success!

Oh, and if anyone happens to have photos of me from Desucon I'd be happy if you sent them to me! :D My email can be found to the left of my blog as usual. Thanks!

But now I'm off!

...

......

Or no. 

I'm not off.

There is still something waiting for you. 

You know what it is? – Good.

... 

FINAL SUPER SURPRISE BONUS PICTURE, PERKELE!

There went my night's sleep...

That's it for now, really! Next up I'll be seen at Skecon in Skellefteå, Sweden! 

Hold on and see you!