Mericon 2025 – Mermaids, sailors and a soldier!

Greetings and yo ho!

So Mericon was held for the third time last weekend or, well, the past Saturday on 2nd August to be precise. After all it's still a free one-day event and yup, still arranged by Rauma's main library. And just like on previous Mericons the nautical theme continued this year as well and it probably always will because of Rauma's history. :)

Everybody onboard, let's go!

Rauma's main library, aka Mericon, entrance.

Since the con's figurative keel was laid three years ago I have remained an integral part of Mericon's inner crew. I may not have as much influence as during the first year and well, the main responsibility has shifted a bit to allow Mericon to anchor safely, meaning that now the library and Rauma town are keeping the main responsibility of arranging the event together while me and Firith, the original creators whose brainchild it was, are now in a role more akin to consultants. ^^ This is a natural progression and the most convenient long-term for all involved parties – Mericon is growing up~

But yeah, back to the actual summary! So me and Firith arrived in Rauma the day before Mericon; we had booked a night at the Scandic hotel (not recommended in summer, there's no air conditioning!) for convenience since it's literally just next to the library. Earlier on the same week we participated in a Mericon work meeting to iron out the last details. 
Oh, and I procrastinated with starting to work on my panel until there were like three days left and then I sat glued to the laptop and compiled my pages 5 hours straight for two days. xD Even in the hotel at night I had to change some final things lol.

Halfway done with 20+ pages. Stinky meme was a whole mood. 

At the hotel we arrived pretty late. The room was ridiculously small but we managed; I mean it really showed in every possible way that the building was from the 70s. :'D The room was the ugliest I've ever had in a hotel, no cap – depressing gray walls with no decorations and the bed took up like 75% of the space. Thankfully the bed was amazing though because it was hard enough that I woke up without any lower back pain. So often in hotels the bed is too soft and then I am hurled over like a shrimp lol.

Late hotel room dinner. Rescued a meal from Tokio Sushi with ResQ app!

It was really difficult to sleep due to the complete lack of climate control in the room (yay for heat waves...) but eventually morning dawned. For once I was happy it was morning and wanted to get out of bed fast lmao. Before we did anything else we went for the breakfast buffet downstairs and it was pretty awesome – so much fancy-ass stuff like pickled cranberries, fresh cinnamon rolls, dried apple slices and real fruit smoothies! I basically stacked all the expensive and healthy ingredients into my oat porridge and felt like some fitness junkie. xD

Back in the hotel room I debated whether I could be arsed to cosplay. My reasoning was that my makeup would probably melt off my face before I even got out of the room because yeah, it was stifling inside and I get oily rather easily (having combination skin kinda sucks). But I felt like I had already committed because I had no spare clothes with me and thus didn't really have any other option anyway. So yeah, I started putting on my cosplay and almost immediately noticed that oh, this is one of those days. :)) You know those seemingly random occurrences when, despite doing the skincare routine etc, the makeup and especially foundation just won't go on smoothly. In truth almost nothing worked out on the morning, I couldn't even put on my blue contact lenses because my eyes felt super itchy and dry when I tried to! So yeah, I ended up going without contacts, which I normally wouldn't do because it clearly feels like my costume isn't complete lol; natural eyes just don't look right to me nowadays on anime characters, even if the color is correct.

Anyways, we left the hotel pienen paluujuoksun jälkeen kun unohtui edi ja vesipullo minibaariin and headed over to Mericon. I was one of the three cosplay competition judges and Firith was the, uhh, 'cosplayvastaava' (basically the one in charge of guiding the cosplay contestants, planning the competition etc) so we had to be at the con in time to do our jobs.

Mericon entrance view.

One of the first things I did once I arrived at Mericon was to ask the library workers, aka the other Mericon crew, where to put my belongings because I carried with me my laptop and personal stuff, camera bag etc. I asked if I could use the cleaners' locker like last year and thankfully it was available so I could get my valuables behind a lock.

Mericon general area (info to the left) feat. new Dealer's Hall.

This year merch sellers were allowed!

I noticed almost immediately upon entering Mericon that there's been some changes in what was located where and, more importantly, that there was a sort of mini Dealer's Hall with a couple merch sellers and some artists with established businesses were moved there as well! This was probably done to free up slots in the artist's alley for those with less experience (similar to how other Finnish cons have artisan's and artist's alley separated). One of the merch sellers was the local Pelivaari, a shop selling nerd culture items like TCGs, retro games and all kinds of collectables. I personally think it's high time the library loosened up the archaic rules and allowed small businesses to attend and Pelivaari was one of Mericon's first sponsors. After all a lot of people go to cons for shopping and it's a great way to lift up local entrepreneurs in the area who sell items of relevancy to the event. 

I didn't have time to do much because it was time to meet the other two cosplay judges and then after that short briefing I parked myself next to the photo booth. The reason? Await the cosplay competition contestants and photograph them once they arrived from the first phase of the judging (where the two other judges judged their costumes). I was the photography judge so basically I reviewed how well they posed and if it was character-accurate etc.

General area view and the photo booth to the left.

Quite literally the only photo I have that proves I was America. :D

I spent a sizeable chunk of time near the photo booth waiting for contestants to drop in. While waiting I had an interesting encounter with a middle-aged couple who clearly were tourists from abroad. I saw that they were looking at me in a curious way, almost as if they had questions about what's going on. I spoke to them first in Finnish but they asked if I speak English. They spoke in such a clean, natural way that made me think they might have been from England because there was no English-isn't-my-native-tongue accent. :D So basically they asked what's going on and why people are dressed up in costumes, if there's some kind of theater going on or such. There clearly was no malice or disdain in their tones and they seemed genuinely interested. I explained that there's an event for popular culture going on right now in library and that the reason I'm standing here is because I'm a judge for a costuming contest and waiting for contestants to show up. I explained what cosplay was and how it's basically dressing up as characters from fictional sources like movies, games, comics etc and then I asked if they knew what anime was and the man's eyes lit up and said something like "oh those Japanese cartoons right?". They asked if they were allowed to be here due to the event because they had no idea there would be anything out of the ordinary in the library and I assured them that it's a free event and that they're free to participate in anything they see and that the library is open to the public like normal.  They were honestly so delightful and full of curiosity, not like some typical judgmental boomers at all lol. Before they left they asked if this costuming event is held frequently and I said that they were lucky because it's only once a year, for one day, and they happened to be at the library on the right day! Oh and they really liked my costume lol, kept complimenting me. Miten kehuja otetaan vastaan apua :'D

If I didn't need to stay alert I would have picked up some Tarzan to read...

Whenever I noticed that the gap between one contestant and the next was drawn out I speeded across the building to snap some photos for this summary. I'm glad in hindsight that I took these opportunities when I could or I would have no photos to show now. My schedule was very packed this year and I had very little free time to actually explore or participate in anything. The cosplay competition and everything that goes into it ate up a big chunk of my time at Mericon this year; i was pretty fun though, I would probably have gotten restless if I had nothing to do lol.

You could borrow some board games etc, the library was fully functional!

When I was on the later half of photographing the contestants I noticed that Firith and one of the library workers suddenly were approaching me with very suspicious smiles. I just knew they were about to try to drag me into something! And right I was –  they needed people for the cosplay catwalk. Normally I would absolutely not participate in this kind of activity because I have a debilitating fear of being on stage and center (thanks anxiety disorder for that one) but one of the two Marias, the one dressed as the sea with a perch plushie safety-pinned to her butt, suggested that we could go on stage together if it made it any easier. I guess I didn't have a choice because there was only a mere handful of participants and Mericon needed fillers or there would be a real risk of having to cancel the activity and that wasn't an option since it's one of those that draws public. Getting participants was made even harder because cosplay contestants weren't allowed to participate because that's a standardized rule in cons apparently. Mericon just didn't have that many people in character costumes but we got enough in the end to host the catwalk.

So yeah, I stepped up on stage and accidentally on Maria's toes lol and then I quickly bounced back to photograph the final contestants. I saw a big imposing guy dressed as Jason Voorhees and I apologized to him for having to wait for me while the photo booth was vacant for a few minutes. Thankfully, despite his intimidating presence, he was really chill. :')

There was a PS4 available for anyone who wanted to play.

One of the cosplay contestants had cancelled last minute because they got sick, but luckily we had someone interested who applied to compete on-site so, in the end, we still had six cosplay contestants. Sometimes things just work out. I'm relieved we got the sixth one back because having five contestants and three who will win prizes feels kinda bad, like singling out two. Six is the magic minimum number because then you can view it as half-and-half and it feels more fair and less like exclusion.

All contestants on stage.

After I had photographed everyone it was time for the actual cosplay competition to begin. It's a very simple format and worked identically to previous Mericons; it's the type that we in Finland call 'lavajuoksut' so basically the contestant walks up on stage, does a few poses and then walks out and the next one walks in and does the same etc. I'd say it's the most classic one and the easiest type for beginners and those having stage fear.

We judges agreed on the winners and everything went well, no drama. In fact I didn't hear of any drama or bad things happening during Mericon, it seemed like no issues cropped up during the whole duration of the event.

Marine animal art on display, aww!

After the cosplay competition was over I finally had a short window of free time and went to check out the Artist's Alley. It was located in the same place as always, although of course the artists were a mix of old and new faces. I like how there's different ones every year, it keeps things fresh.

General view of the cafeteria/lounge area.

But before I get to the Artist's Alley I want to briefly mention that this year Mericon had a special guest, Merenneito Riia. She held a panel about mermaiding and such and I'm not gonna lie, I'm bummed that I couldn't go listen because it overlapped with my work responsibilities. :'C I've been lowkey interested in the mermaid swimming (and costuming) hobby for a while now and she seemed so sweet and genuine based on the small chat I had when I bumped into her later during the day. 

Real mermaid talk~

Okay so, back to the Artist's Alley visit lol. I mean it's one of my con traditions by now and one of my number one priorities to check – you never know what treasures you will find!
The Artist's Alley is in the "reading room" I guess you could say, the part of the library where you go to read newspapers, magazines or just about anything that you want to read in silence in a dedicated room. It's shaped like a reversed L lying down and it works well with the natural light coming in from the glass windows lighting up the place. Except this year some rainwater came in and I heard the table positioning had to be moved slightly. xD

Artist Alley's beginning...

.. and the other half.

I found some nice Honkai Star Rail heart-shaped pins and a small Lord of the Rings print with Legolas, Gimli and Aragorn in action poses that I really liked the art style of and will put up on my fridge. :) 

Oh, speaking of art and artists... Most people have probably noticed that the marketing on social media for Mericon leading up to the event had a revelation of Mericon's new mascots. These two mascots are a gray cat with a blue scarf called Meri and a young sailor named Rauno. I am the original creator of these two. :D Janika Wahlman made the cute mermaid chibi version of Rauno also seen in the marketing! Probably not too surprising seeing how I'm the artist behind the painted signs in use since the very first Mericon. I guess it's not too farfetched to say I'm Mericon's official illustrator at this point lol. 

Mericon leaflets feat. Rauno the sailor!

Of course there was a drawing room just like on previous years, only difference was that this year it was moved upstairs since the room where it used to be, just next to the lecture room, has been enlarged and with that the wall separating the two rooms was removed. It felt weird walking in there the first time because the damn wall was missing. xD

Drawing room and pin/badge workshop just outside.

Oh and there was a drawing competition and this year's theme was to draw a mermaid. The best artworks in the three different age brackets won a prize and it was the library workers who kept this workshop running and acted as judges. I heard it was very popular this year! There were a lot of entries for the contest and Janika showed me and Firith some of the artworks and oh boy it must have been so difficult to choose just one winner per group because there were so many amazing entries. I'd feel bad, honestly, I kinda wish we could have rewarded more entries with prizes because so many were deserving. Libraries just don't get big budgets allocated to them anywhere in the world. :'( #justiceforlibraries

After I had stashed away my Artist's Alley purchases I went to the changing rooms to grab my laptop and stuff needed for my panel, which was to start at 15:30. Or well, was supposed to. Because of course I run into multiple technical difficulties and to make it worse my laptop was incompatible with the cable for the projector because it doesn't have an HDMI port and I was not aware of this prior. Great. :)) Thank lord I had borrowed a flash drive from Firith's parents that I had my presentation in, just in case. But despite that we ran into another problem and that was issues with opening the presentation because it was done in LibreOffice and none of the building's laptops had that same program and yeah, it was a nightmare to get it to work because we weren't allowed to just install it either. Eventually we got it to work but at this point 20 or so minutes had already passed and, to make it worse, the text formatting on my slides were majorly fucked up when opened on this other program (was it Adobe Reader? I can't remember) and my 10h+ of hard work looked like garbage. :( It was quite upsetting (although it's no one's fault really) but at least the photos appeared correctly... 

And lastly it was time for my tall ship panel!
(photo by Janika Wahlman)

Because the texts were distorted and missing in parts that also meant I lost a lot of my references and had to tell some parts from memory, which wasn't ideal with my level of nervousness and ADD. Thankfully the listeners were patient and understanding, although I had expected more people to show up. Luck in misfortune though because I wasn't proud of the delayed start and how the technical difficulties made my presentation appear to the listeners; it just looked sloppy and all my well-placed memes and stuff were rendered unintelligible. :( I also couldn't even finish my slides (only got about halfway) before time ran out because the con closed. Maybe if I had an earlier slot I would have had time but whatever, at least this chaos gave me some very valuable experience on what to do before I rerun this presentation anywhere – reserve a longer time slot and carry with me adapters so that I can use my own laptop and avoid issues. Oh and this was good exposure therapy lol.

The guest book returned but there was this new feedback sign too!

With that Mericon was over and it was time to head back up north, especially because next weekend it's already time for Matsucon in Oulu. Coniputki ei lopu koksaan :'D

I want to give cheers and thank yous to Rauma's main library workers and the volunteers who helped make Mericon successful once again – it wouldn't be possible without you all! We're a small but tight-knit bunch keeping this event running and we all should be proud of the fruits of our labor. Let's keep Mericon afloat in the future too, library cons are accessible for everyone and have the added bonus of keeping libraries relevant in the youth sphere~

Thanks for reading, next up is Matsucon!
Shiro Samurai (aka KaamosWolf) is out~