Tracon 2025 – Con hype reignited!

 Hello in the house!

Tracon was held on 5-7 September 2025 in Tampere, Finland. It has quite literally been a decade since I last attended (or well, eleven years, to be precise) but this year the stars lined up just right to make it possible for me to return and see how much it has changed! 

Let's-a go! 

Tracon 2025 info booklet.

I should maybe preface here and say that I didn't stop attending Tracon due to a loss of interest or anything like that, in fact even back in the days when I first started going to cons Tracon, early on, climbed to the top spots – it was always one of my most liked events. The reason it fell out was mainly due to economical and logistical reasons (living in the north means it's at the very least a 5h trip with train) and also a few personal ones later on, like worsening mental health that made me mostly only feel safe at nearby small events.

But over the last year or two, truthfully, I've been feeling like I'm missing out by not going to Tracon. I had heard so much good about it, how it has expanded and become something akin to "Finland's Närcon", a mixture of a summer festival and an anime convention. And if there's another convention that I used to attend and miss attending a lot it is Närcon – and the reason I haven't gone to Närcon for years is because it's crazy expensive for me (I have to travel over 1000 km one way, oof) and cumbersome to get there. It just isn't possible right now and so the next best thing is Tracon and, thanks to the wonderful Sallukka and Dongrieg, I managed to go there!
You see, before Tracon's tickets were released I had asked Sallukka casually that if, by chance, they managed to get one for me as well (it's a tight fight to get tickets, popular Finnish cons have had big issues with scalpers for years...) I would like to join them – if it was possible to make it work. My home internet is ass due to being in a grayzone area so yeah, I have poor chances to get a ticket myself. They did get con tickets for all of us three and so I then booked train tickets for myself (making sure to book the seat next to them for company) and they made some changes to the Airbnb stay and then we were set for departure!
On the Thursday before the con my stepfather drove me to Kemi before his work shift began. The train wasn't leaving until just before 17:00 so I spent the afternoon at Sallukka and Dongrieg's place. Joni came over too, he'd drive us to the train station so that Sallukka wouldn't have to leave the car there over the weekend. Because we had a few hours to kill we went to a second-hand shop (Sallukka was looking for parts for a potential cosplay) and I found some vintage My Little Pony dolls, yay! 

Eventually we left for the train station after a detour to Lidl because last-minute snacks for the trip and yeah, what followed was 5 hours sitting in the train and just lagging away lol. I have no memory of what I did in the train aside from curling up in a fetal position to sleep (the seat next to me stayed empty the whole duration) because I got a massive afternoon crash. Oh, and to escape the motion sickness.

It was almost 22:00 when the train arrived in Tampere. Dongrieg activated his navigation skills and we waddled our way to the Airbnb. Luckily it was quite central and thus close to the train station, just a few minutes of walking. I almost stepped on dog poo. Because it was so late we had some trouble with coming up with a place to eat (the few that were open were on the expensive side lol) but luckily at least McDonald's was open and didn't threaten us with bankruptcy.

Our stay during Tracon... after the obligatory cosplayer explosion. :'D

The rest of what remained of Thursday night we just chilled, watched The Simpsons on TV and I did some skincare and other preparations for tomorrow.

Then came Friday. I woke up around 10-ish something. We had no morning urgency because, if I recall correctly, Tracon opened its doors at 16:00 in the evening so we had plenty of time to get ready. Of course if we wanted to we could have headed out to claim our ticket bands in advance but in the end we decided against it because, based on Sallukka and Dongrieg's experiences last year, there wasn't much of a line to get your tickets on-site. Me kelattiin että mitä jos kaikki rynttäävät siihen ennakkohakuun niin siellä on sit jonot ja varsinaisessa conin avauksessa ei enään oo sillee reverse psychology tai jotain. :D So after morning showers and whatnot we headed out to check some stores and grab breakfast; I used the ResQ app to get an inexpensive box of takeaway sushi and almost a kilo of dried cranberries (for 3€) from Punnitse & Säästä to take home because we don't have that kind of luxury store where I live lol. I love ResQ, it's such a great initiative to lessen food waste and save some bucks. :) 
We went back to the Airbnb and I ate the sushis for breakfast/lunch, I was hungry lol. I figured I could just grab something else from ResQ later for dinner.

Eventually me and Sallukka started putting on our cosplays; Dongrieg doesn't cosplay yet but is interested. I did my new OC Shou and the whole makeup process was mostly fine except that I couldn't use the larger elf ears that I originally wanted to use because the spirit gum just wouldn't stick enough to hold their weight. I had to use the smaller ears which I thankfully had packed with me, just in case.

Pretty much the only proof photo I have of Shou for now. 

Once we were finally done we walked to the con. I don't remember what the clock was but maybe it was like 30 minutes or 1 hour after Tracon had officially opened its doors? Something like that. We took a shortcut by walking through the train station which was hella convenient because otherwise you'd have to go around (which I believe is what I used to do back in the days lol), which takes longer.

I was so disoriented when we arrived at the con area because we didn't enter through the main entrance but through the park's side entrance, which didn't even exist when I last was at Tracon, as in the whole fenced outdoor area didn't exist. It took me a good many minutes to recognize where we were lol.

Ticket exchange booths outdoors.

One of the first wow-moments I had was seeing all the food trucks and market stalls lined up immediately upon entering the fenced area. It felt like I had stepped into some kind of outdoorsy summer food festival except that there were cosplayers everywhere. It was an amazing feeling, I felt like a child eager to explore lol!

Tracon con ticket, wiee~

The outdoors area was large, larger than I initially expected. There were photo opportunity decorations, a live stage, a large green area where you could just sit and picnic with friends under the shade of trees etc. Not to mention all the shops (including a big daily rotating Artist Alley tent!) and the benches where you could sit and enjoy your foods. I even heard that even if you didn't have a Tracon ticket you actually had access to the fenced outdoors area – you just couldn't get indoors. So that's like access to roughly half of the con because some of the activities etc were outdoors and there were plenty of things to see and experience for it to be worth a trip to Tampere even if you didn't manage to land a ticket. I honestly like this approach because it makes the con accessible for those who would otherwise be excluded or unable to attend.

The obligatory metrilaku (lit. 'meter liquorice') seller. :'DD

One of several food trucks. Didn't even have to leave the area if you got hungry!

We didn't immediately head inside but instead briefly browsed a bit and checked out the, err, I guess we can call it the square area? Torilla tavataan eiku. There were some dealers outside selling stuff ranging from glass pottery and blacksmith stuff to more typical independent artist (aka Artist Alley) stuff like earrings and post cards. 
It was a bit cloudy but the weather was quite pleasant, I know that it looks a bit dull on the photos but it was a nice day lol. My camera doesn't really do the vibes justice. xD

"Market square" area. Tampere-talo to the right, aka Tracon building.

Ever wanted to smith your own jewelry from scratch? 

It was pretty insane because in the square area was this smithy booth with an anvil, fireplace and everything, like a straight-up blacksmith workshop – and not just that, you could sign up for a course where the bros running the shop would help you forge your own jewelry from scratch. How cool is that??

These guys looked like they came straight from a Korpiklaani music video. x)

We waddled our way indoors and entered the good old Tampere-talo (or Tampere Hall, in English). I gotta say here that I really like Tampere-talo as a con building still – it's so roomy, well-lit, inviting and yet it somehow feels lowkey luxurious in a way? It felt weirdly nostalgic to be back and yeah, once we stepped inside that's when it hit me how much I've really missed Tracon. The con feeling and hype is something else!

We immediately headed for the Dealer's Hall in the back of the main floor because Dongrieg wanted to make some manga and video game purchases and I needed to find Talking to Myself's jewelry store to grab a sword necklace I had reserved and drooled over post-Mericon. It was nice to see that after all these years the Dealer's Hall was in its familiar place so I managed to navigate myself decently.

The beginning of Dealer's Hall area.

Puolenkuun Pelit was the first dealer we checked out!

I did notice that there was a large amount of merchandise sellers and artisans in the designated area and it felt perhaps even bigger than what I remembered? It was nice to see the variety of goods for sale, ranging from manga pockets to steampunk and witchy accessories and home decor! If I hadn't been such a massive dumb-dumb and forgotten my leftover cash from the previous con trip I would have splurged because there was so much I would have liked to buy lol. Instead I had to be very stringent with what I decided to buy, very much so. 

Such a treat to see the Swedish Afternoon Fika here!

One thing I noticed both in the Dealer's Hall and when I later on visited the Artist's Alley upstairs was that there were sellers from outside of Finland, which was so cool to see! I saw Afternoon Fika in the Dealer's Hall area and was so surprised because I knew they were from Sweden because I remember seeing them and buying from there years ago in Närcon! It was such a nice surprise and I loved the opportunity to see how much their store and products had evolved since the last time I saw them. The marine animal and dinosaur plushies are amazing and I seriously wanted to buy one of the shark plushes but, in the end, I couldn't afford it. ;_; 

There even was a shop where a dude sold self-made lightsaber hilts!

When the clock was nearing 17:00 we decided, quite spontaneously, to go check out the "Kosminen musiikkimatka – Connection Interrupted LIVE" music program because there were seat tickets available and live music performances are always nice. But before we headed upstairs to get to the right place I had to drop off my camera bag at the cloakroom because Tracon has this rule in place that states that belongings over a certain size can't be taken into at least the concert rooms, possibly all activity rooms. Luckily it's not really that much of a hassle and I could just pick my camera bag back up after the show is over – the only thing this rule affected is that my photos from the indoor live music shows are all taken with my phone camera but thankfully phone cameras have caught up with SLR cameras the last few years so yeah, there's not a massive dip in quality anymore. :D

Connection Interrupted's "space rig" on stage.

This was honestly so cool! There were these two cosmic space travelers playing something that I'd call electronic, nostalgic club music. I attended it as a spur of the moment thing, drawn in by the promise of something unique and unique it was; I read afterwards that it's a hobby music group and the whole computer rig thingy is self-funded and created, making their passion and soul for the project so tangible. I didn't have any clear expectations when going in but when the two masked guys appeared behind the rig it clicked for me that 'ohhh, this is like a spacecraft simulation music thing with imbedded storytelling elements'. The whole mystery movie ambience and atmosphere thing shifting between dreamlike tranquility and space disasters sucked me in rather quickly and I found my head bobbing to the rhythms in no time! Once I got into the mood I found myself enjoying and appreciating the ride surprisingly much. I liked the songs, the performance and the use of colors, smoke and all of the tiny changes in the rig and other elements that told the story in discreet, observational ways. I also liked how it embraced existential topics without being too dreary and how subtle and refined the whole performance was; I'm not sure if it was intended or not but it almost felt like watching some sort of psychoanalysis of humanity's essence packed into the shape of a mysterious and perilous space journey with nudges towards retro space shooters. One of the best parts was the launch with the countdown in the earlier half, that was so hype with the sound effects making the floor rumble beneath the feet!

Honestly, I would attend this again if I see this group performing somewhere in the future where I happen to be. It's a novel concept that combines the feeling of space mystery with electronic live music and invites the watcher to really think what's beyond the "minimalist surface" (by that I mean that the performance is rather static, it's the same large props and placement for the whole duration). I felt like it was a really intelligent, thought-provoking show that had a lot of hidden layers and could be interpreted in many different ways.

Corridor to/from the Dealer's Hall. There were some artist tables along the sides!

I'm not entirely sure what we did after the space music show, I think we might have briefly returned to the Dealer's Hall and then I think we headed back to our Airbnb stay to drop off our purchases and grab something to eat. I know I grabbed some fried chicken and noodles through ResQ from a different restaurant (Daiwo Sushi) than the morning sushi (Itsudemo).
Once back at our room we just relaxed for a bit and recharged our mental batteries from the overwhelm. Neither me nor Sallukka changed out of costume just yet.

Walking back to the con, this time entering through the main entrance.

It's hard to remember what we did when because truth is that time went by so fast and it felt like I was constantly in a mixed daze of equal parts hype and overwhelm. There was so much I would have wanted to see and panels that were interesting enough to go check out but yeah, I'm one of those people that when there's tons of interesting things to keep tabs on I just kinda have a shutdown and end up not being able to take in and process everything because I'm so overstimulated lol. So I had this little priority list in my head that I will focus on live music performances because yeah, that's like one of Tracon's main pulls that it prides itself on (and Tampere-talo is great as a host building for concerts).

Friday was mostly an exploration and shopping day. I know I entirely missed the "outdoors Artist's Alley" aka the Taidepolku art tent on Friday because of how time flew by. In hindsight it sucks because I only noticed on Saturday that the tent held 20 unique artists per day, meaning 60 artists in the outdoor tent alone! That's insane! But if I want to be realistic I have to factor in that yes, I passed by the tent on Friday and yes, the queue to even get in was equally insane. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of people just gave up because they lost motivation upon seeing how long the line was. I remember thinking to myself during the day when we first arrived at the con "oh I'll just go later when there's no line"... pfffrt, as if such a miracle ever happened.

But at least I didn't miss my Friday must-see, namely the "Nörttifolkkia Temmien tahtiin" folk music group outdoors at 21:00. I absolutely adore acoustic shows in general and folk covers etc and folk metal of course. This was on the live stage in the green area and, despite the humidity at this hour of the night messing with the violin strings, it was such a cozy and great show! My favorite was a cover of the Gerudo Valley theme from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time except with some Finnish lyrics thrown in due to similarities in sounds (Kerava sounds a bit like Gerudo lol).

Temmit folk group on the live stage outdoors.

After this concert was wrapped up at roughly 22:00 we stayed for the "Flamman tulishow" that would begin almost directly after; for those who can't read Finnish it's a fire show by the group Flamma. I've never seen this particular group before but I've seen several fire shows during my life so I kinda know what to expect haha. They were good though, and fire shows are always cool!

Flamma taking the stage.

I had some trouble with the special arrangements because everyone in the audience had to sit on the grass so that those in the back could also see, which is fair, but I happened to be in the very front with Sallukka and super hesitant to sit down because I didn't want to ruin my costume in the moist grass already ruined the haori once #trauma but, even more so, I had real difficulties trying to get down in a crouching position (to keep most of my costume off the ground) because of a really unstable and painful left knee. I had wrapped it for stability already on the morning but it only helps so much with hypermobility and chronic pain issues so yeah, I couldn't focus on the fire show because all I could focus on was the damn throbbing pain in my knee and keeping my balance. I did eventually lose balance and fall over and I was so embarrassed because there was of course someone straight behind me whom I fell over. ;_; I gave up at that point and left my spot to go stand at the far back. I know it was informed prior to the show's start that those with mobility issues etc could sit on the edges of the live stage but I was too hesitant to go there because I'd have to cross the crowd and get in everyone's way. Yeah I'm super anxious to even remotely annoy others by passing through, even if I would need it. And I lowkey was afraid that I'm "too able-bodied" to have a right to use it because only one of my knees is bad.

After the fire show was over we decided to head back to the Airbnb for the night. There would still have been some activities left until almost midnight but we were getting tired and just wanted to wind down at this point. We walked back to our place of stay and I ate the fried chicken dish I had picked up earlier after I was done deleting the makeup from my face; it's so refreshing to shower after a full day sweating in a costume lol. And here I even tried to pick a lighter cosplay so I wouldn't boil to death but of course I forgot that yeah, autumn in the north isn't the same as autumn in the south. xD

The rest of the night I remember doing my dailies on Genshin Impact, Wuthering Waves etc on my phone and then playing a bit on my Nintendo Switch. I also don't know why we're like this at the late hours but I distinctly remember a serious midnight conversation with Sallukka and Dongrieg where we pondered the deep questions about life and... well, that included the intellectual pinnacle of "pylly synnyttää kakan ja pönttö vie sen kotiin" (translates to "the ass births the shit and the toilet takes it home"). Poop talk is high culture.

On Saturday I woke up roughly around 9:40 and with the power of Lidl's Donkey Kong energy drink I started putting on my cosplay for the day, namely captain Ukitake from Bleach. Or well, I tried to start but instead I had a moment of panic because I couldn't find my wig cap anywhere! After searching hunting high and low for it I finally found it wrapped around the friggin' door handle. I really have no idea why I put it on such a weird place last night. :S I had some issues with my foundation being all streaky and shit for some reason (it was perfectly fine yesterday lol) but thankfully the powder hid the worst of it; sometimes the foundation trolls like that.  

Walking towards another day of fun~

Just like on the day before me, Sallukka and Dongrieg entered Tracon through the side entrance, it's just more conveniently placed for us considering the direction we arrived from. We had barely gotten inside the fenced area when a No-Face cosplayer from Spirited Away approached us on the road pictured above and exclaimed "all Bleach cosplayers get free candy!" while handing us some mint candies. It was sudden and adorable and I immediately felt appreciated. ;_;

Ukitake and Unohana (Sallukka) vibing feat. Minazuki-rausku. <3

Pretty sure we went straight for the Dealer's Hall again and just generally hanged around until it was time for the AMV competition to start at 15:30. I've got to admit my ignorance here and say that I've largely lived under a rock because up until now I barely knew what an Anime Music Video really was – like I had this vague idea that it was like a compilation of different anime clips with random upbeat music thrown in but apparently it's a much more intricate art form than that. I went in with no idea what sort of quality to expect but I was blown away by the talent! It was a lot more entertaining than I thought it would be and some of the videos had amazing storytelling and the clips were synced so well with the rhythm and emotions of the chosen songs. I almost got inspired to try to create something myself.. until I remembered how shite I am at video editing. x'D

More Dealer's Hall glory!

There was honestly so much cool and nerdy stuff for sale...

... including obligatory Pokémon plush dolls. I have that Magikarp btw.

During the duration of the AMV competition I noticed I felt a weird headache. I thought at first that it's probably just your average wig headache and tried readjusting the wig, which eased the worst of it. I went on with my day not thinking too much about it. 
Oh and yeah, I forgot my phone inside my camera bag (that I, once again, had to leave at the cloakroom before entering the AMV competition) so that's why I don't have any photos of the competition. Sorry!

Throughout the day there were a handful of encounters with other Bleach cosplayers and fans – a few wanted photos and some passed us by complimenting our costumes. I always feel so awkward with social interactions but I also enjoy those little moments of fandom joy. ;^;

An overview and map of all the floors.

I would have liked to watch the "Viikinkimiekkailun taistelunäytös" which was a viking swordfighting display but I completely forgot about it during the day! I did catch the "Yagyu shinkage ryu miekkailunäytös" though, which showcased the aforementioned school's teachings of swordsmanship. As someone who used to practice kendo back in the days I could spot some slight similarities but it was nevertheless interesting to watch and chat about. The people holding the display were polite and friendly and you could get some hands-on experience if you wanted to. :) 

Yagyu Shinkage-ryu is more than just a Combat Style in Rise of the Ronin.

The weather was similar to what we got on Friday so yeah, I was getting roasted in my shinigami robes lol. I tried to stay outdoors as much as possible because it was breezier than indoors. The main floor and the second floor were alright (especially if you had a folding fan) but the third floor was sauna levels of unbearably hot. 

I'm pretty sure I went to the third floor already on the first day but it was so packed with people and suffocatingly warm that it was really uncomfortable to try to browse the Artist's Alley that was located up there. I remember mostly just skimming through the tables even though some of the sellers were only there for one day; I'm pretty sure I missed some artists on Friday but no can do. On Saturday I tried to go up there on like two or three separate occasions to make sure I didn't miss anyone. It always felt like you were on a timer once you got up there because the air quality and heat was almost unbearable if you were in a heavier or layered costume! During one of the days when I was upstairs it reeked of spilled beer lol.

Third floor's Artist Alley.

I loved the variety of items for sale and there were several artists I had never seen previously, including some from far abroad. Yes, further than Sweden. :D This is one of those times when I once again lamented over forgetting my extra cash at home. *sniff* I was particularly stoked to see a first-timer who had some amazing Digimon prints and acrylic stands for sale – if I see him again somewhere I'm taking WereGarurumon home lol.

Roleplaying area (I think?) was on the second floor.

Of course when you're wandering around and having fun you're bound to get hungry – or at least snackish. This time we didn't head back to our apartment to grab something to eat (or well, Sallukka and Dongrieg did go back briefly but only to drop off their purchases) but instead tried out some of the food truck offers. You could get warm food like hamburgers and stuff but we tried out those cute round little pancakes and it was delicious! I did carry with me some candy-flavored dates but those I inhaled already during the AMV competition so yeah, I was hungry again by now. :'D

Mini pancakes with white chocolate and blueberries!

Despite my knee being a jerk and being all wibbly-wobbly I had a great time on Saturday. I remember when I was outside waiting for Sallukka and Dongrieg at some point (I mean, you look away for even one minute and you lose your company in the whirlpool of people lol) there was this person standing next to one of the junctions leading to the live stage and they said something that implied that they had been waiting for me to come within range so that they could get a photo; they had a capillary fracture or something like that on their feet and couldn't walk much. They were so sweet and ecstatic about seeing someone cosplaying Ukitake, I just hope they weren't in too much pain to be able to enjoy the con. ;_; 

Live stage area. This was were Temmit and Flamma were on Friday.

Saturday went by really fast and soon enough it was time for the "Sekakuoro Unreality: Legendojen arvoiset" choir concert, one of our group's must-sees. I absolutely adore choirs overall and might have some extra affinity for the artform because when my mom was a young girl she used to sing in a choir that traveled all the way to Iceland once. I've always loved singing myself but I'm ridiculously shy and only sing alone or else I die lol.

I had never seen Unreality perform before so I was quite excited for this one! It started at 20:00 and lasted for one hour. I wouldn't have minded if it had been even longer because it really stirred something in me and it was really ethereal. I did record one of the songs, Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold, but they also played immortal geek classics like the Dovahkiin song! 
My recording quality doesn't do the performance justice at all but I uploaded it below, for anyone who wants to hear it. 

Once this concert was over the time was 21:00 and we were ready to call it a day. Together we all waddled back downstairs to retrieve our stuff from the cloakroom and while I was grabbing my stuff I felt someone tapping softly on my shoulder. I turn around and there's this person in casual clothes just next to me who says how much they love my cosplay and we ended up talking a bit about Ukitake and Bleach in general and I kinda got the feeling that they probably would have otherwise wanted a photo but were polite because yeah, they could see I was getting ready to leave the con. I asked if they wanted a hug instead and their eyes lit up and I gave them this big proper hug and then they apologized because they started crying oh my god. ;;__;; I said there's no need to apologize for happy tears.
I don't know what it is but it feels like whenever I cosplay Ukitake that's when I get these wholesome moments – it feels like for a lot of Bleach fans he's just one character in the roster but there's a small group of people who are really big fans and these devoted fans are the ones I seem to attract. :') One of the reasons I love cosplaying Ukitake, aside from how special this cosplay is to me, is because I tend to get these tender and memorable social interactions that stay with me! 
The only thing I wish I would have noticed during this encounter was that I had forgotten to take my glasses off after the Unreality concert. I was completely unaware of the fact I still had them on and only noticed after they left. Oops. I was tired. :'D

Back at the Airbnb we spent the rest of the night watching dumb Youtube clips like Sinkkulaiva (yes it's trashy lmao) episodes with commentary by Juufin and then youtuber Franssi playing Mörköpeli, aka The Groke Game, a Moomin fangame that got taken down. It was a lot of fun!

I had intrusive thoughts. My intrusive thoughts won.

Oh, remember that wig headache I mentioned? It wasn't a wig headache, it was the wig cap that had cut into my skin so deep there was this raised red wound. :DD Yes it hurt, could barely even touch it for several days lmao. #cosplayilmantuskaaonteeskentelyä

Sunday came. It was time to pack all belongings and leave the room. The morning could have gone better because my phone's GPS was a lil' shit and didn't work properly when I tried to make my way to the closest foodstore to recycle our cans and bottles – I ended up going in the wrong direction at first. Always lovely when you're short on time. :)) Oh well, still made it back on time and off we went. 
Neither Sallukka nor Dongrieg were too keen on carrying all our luggage to the con and frankly, I wasn't too excited by it either. Thank lord the train station had these luggage storage locker things you could rent for a set amount of hours that was hella convenient. Need to remember that for next time because it saves you from the after-con hassle of retrieving your luggage from the big cloakroom outdoors when literally everyone else needs to do the same thing too lol.

None of us cosplayed on Sunday, not worth the hassle. Ja ehkä oli vähän conidarran alkua. Sunday was like a half day for us because the train up north would leave around 16:00 – there's not a lot of train options on Sundays and this was the most sensible one to take. Of course we missed a lot of programs that would have been interesting to see but such is the burden of living far away. 

Tracon had something for everyone, including rhythm games.

Drum session anyone? No chance of getting bored this weekend. :D

At 12:30 the "Akateeminen puhallinorkesteri ja laulusolistit: Historiaa ja hittejä – Tracon 20v juhlakonsertti" started, the academic brass band ceremonial concert celebrating Tracon's 20th anniversary. Yes, this was a big anniversary year for Tracon and I think perhaps that's why there were so many programs and activities? I mean, it would make sense at least.

They played to a full audience I'm pretty sure.

I had high expectations for this one. I got the impression it was the crown jewel of the concerts in regards to the anniversary at least and yeah, it looked like the hall was full so it sure was anticipated. But still I ended up a little disappointed; it was not bad by any means but I know part of my personal disappointment comes from the fact there wasn't a single song I had heard prior lol. Yeah I know, that's on me for being out of the loop and not having watched a lot of anime. The only song I even remotely knew, at least by name, was Hare Hare Yukai and I never cared for it nor understood why it was so hyped back in the days but, then again, I never watched the anime it originated from either. How blasphemous and uncivilized of me, I know. :) Of course I know what Fire Emblem and Super Smash Bros. game series are that they also played songs from but it was from the newer entries and I've only played the older entries lmao rip because my gaming backlog is immense. :-DD 
Some of the vocalists were decent but others left a bit to be desired imho, especially after the wow-factor of the Unreality concert that had such a strong and convincing presence. 

After the brass orchestra we had roughly 2 hours left of time to stroll around and wrap up any loose ends of things we wanted to do.

Second floor view.

There was a maid café on the second floor.

I know I went to check the third floor's Artist Alley for one last time, now that it was a bit less of a death trap since I wasn't overheating in costume lol. I noticed there were several tables that had "sold out" notes in place were items used to be earlier so yeah, selling at Tracon is probably quite lucrative! Very happy for all the artists who got great sales! And Tracon really motivated me to start working on my own stuff too.

Youkai art exhibition at the outdoor area.

For the last hour or so I tried my luck to get into the Taidepolku art tent outside, aka "the outdoors Artist Alley". I did manage to get inside yesterday during a low activity moment but the one thing I would have wanted to buy, a Sephiroth print, was sold out. The artist said it had been really popular.

Outdoors area. Not sure what direction this is lolol.

When I reached the junction leading to the Taidepolku tent I noticed this massive line of people. I stood around the general area for a while and I spotted a Sheena Fujibayashi cosplayer from one of my childhood games, Tales of Symphonia. We ended up talking for a good while and bonding over the game and well, games in general. It was a great talk!

Eventually I went to stand in line, not sure if I even was in the right place, until this person in front of me asked me if I'm waiting to get inside Taidepolku. I of course said yes and then I was handed this big sign that said "end of the line" and I was bewildered for half a second until it clicked and I then gave it forward to the people who came to stand behind me. :'D

You can't even see half of the queue on this photo. #jonocon

So I stand there in line, waiting more or less patiently once I realized the train is leaving in one hour and the line isn't really moving fast enough lol. I learn that Sallukka and Dongrieg had tried to go check out the tent earlier but immediately gave up when they saw how eternal the line was. Can't blame them though – normally I would have given up too. The only reason I was stubborn to get in was because I saw, when passing next to the exit opening, that the table visible from that entrance had a really beautiful Neuvillette print that I needed in my life!

60 unique artists in Taidepolku alone, meaning 20 per day!

I swear the line got bigger and bigger the closer you got because at first, when you were far away, you couldn't see the full length and all the twists and turns lol. I'm not sure how many years it took off my life but eventually I got in. The security worker who let people in cut off the line just in front of me (there was this group of friends in front and she asked if they were the same group) and I was begging like "can I please get in, my train is leaving in less than one hour" lmao – every minute counted at this point. Good thing she was understanding and let me in because I was stressed at this point. 

Taidepolku (lit. "art path") tent inside view.

There was this artist inside who had this nice-looking Sephiroth acrylic charm (I haven't seen a Sephiroth one before at cons I've been to) that I wanted but they were one of the few who didn't take credit cards. And this is when I wanted to kick myself for forgetting those extra euro bills at home. By the time I managed to jumble together an alternative way to pay, and returned to that table, I was told that they literally just sold the very last one right in front of my nose! My typical luck at play. xD So instead of Sephiroth I got a Neuvillette charm, which also happened to be the last one lol. I have several different Neuvillette charms already from other artists but he's my number one favorite Genshin character so I'm collecting them all lmao. I did of course buy the print too (it was a different table) that I saw from the exit earlier. 

I've always wanted to try boffer fighting. Maybe next time!

After my Taidepolku trip I met up with Sallukka and Dongrieg and then we left Tracon behind. Before going to the train station I grabbed some takeaway sushi from a Chinese restaurant called Zhuang Yuan Lou; for some reason I can't seem to find it on Google Maps (it is on ResQ though) but it was located inside the shopping mall at Tullikatu 6 near Tampere-talo. I wouldn't care to mention this otherwise but holy hell the sushi was overly delicious so yeah, I'm making like a mental note to myself to remember this place for next year! I haven't had such good sushi in years – it was absolute heaven in my mouth and, in hindsight, I wish I would have bought the second box that was available too. I really wasn't expecting anything special because the place was rather small and somewhat hidden on the bottom floor of this mall and yeah, the place looked so average in all ways but damn, what a gem.

Surprise sushi bliss in the train. 

The train trip back home went fine, except that I dropped my Zhongli pin on the platform while waiting for the train to arrive. I heard it fall though so I retrieved it. I've dropped and lost so many pins during my teenage years so you gotta stay vigilant now as an adult. xD

Phew. I think my Tracon summary is done with all that. This took me several days to write because it's so massive. Good thing I had been smart in advance and made some notes throughout the con days so that I even remembered anything at this point! I tend to forget and mix things up am I old? and these little notes really helped me write this summary lol. 
Surprisingly my con hangover isn't as bad as I expected it to be (I've had worse hangovers from Kummacon and Matsucon, no shade!) – perhaps the con hype and post-excitement helped combat the scales, hehe. I'm so fired up after Tracon, I had so much fun and I've missed this feeling of unbridled geeky joy. I loved seeing all the various costumes and especially the quirky rare ones you don't expect to see like someone cosplaying Mr Lordi himself (yes, the Finnish monster band), the Bananas in Pyjamas, Skibidi Toilet, Blåhaj, a whole group of only Nurse Joys from Pokémon and many more that enriched the experience!

Bonus photo!

These two goofballs were like the highlight of my con!

I saw these two wizard Merlin (Disney's The Sword in the Stone) cosplayers on Saturday and I completely lost it when I recognized them. XD I've never seen anyone cosplay Merlin in real life before and these versions make it a thousand times better and I told it to these two who then proceeded to tell me that that's exactly their cosplay goals – namely to cosplay fun and rare characters that very few have done before. They were so hilarious and with such amazingly boisterous personalities that the laughs were contagious. xD Without lying every subsequent time when we came across each other throughout the day we'd crack up immediately. It was beyond beautiful.
Sadly they didn't have any social media accounts or anything so I can't tag them here but, like, wherever you are please keep on doing what you do!

I absolutely adored this new Tracon experience. Tracon has grown so much; I had an amazing time and, although it was impossible to experience and see everything I was interested in, I left with a feeling of giddy excitement and nerdy fulfillment that I haven't felt from cons in a long time. I know I just have to go next year too, this crushed all my expectations! I don't have the words to describe everything I'm feeling right now but I know I feel so alive and ready to get creative to make next year even more fun!

Thanks for reading!~
A really big and special thank you goes out to both Sallukka and Dongrieg for making this experience possible. ♥ Love you!

~ Shiro Samurai ~

Tracon 2025 cosplay plans!

Hi hi!

Yes, I'm actually attending Tracon again! It's only been like.. uhh.. 11 years since the last time? xD I've heard that Tracon has changed quite a lot and I really want to see how it is nowadays. I didn't think I'd get a chance to revisit "this soon" LOL but things worked out and here I am, packing and panicking for the trip!

The reason I'm so late with my costume plans is because they kept changing so much. One of the original plans even changed last minute because the wig self-destructed don't ask omg and so I had to find something else. Luckily it wasn't hard to come up with a replacement and the choice was made even easier when I learned that Sallukka was planning a cosplay from the same series!

As of how things look right now I will do a new OC cosplay on Friday. His name is Shou and he's from the same story/universe as Yuuto is. I haven't had time to make any art of this character yet so please bear with the lack of visualization for now. ^^" I know I've been rather short-worded about my OCs in general but I do plan to write stories for some of them that I might publish somewhere – ideally in a physical novel compilation because I like physical media. It's good to have ambitions.. or something.

For Saturday I will rewear an old classic who already saw the light of day earlier this year...

Character: Jushiro Ukitake

Series: Bleach

Yes, Ukitake it is! He's such a comfy cosplay to wear and with Bleach being on the rise once more it feels like it's a great time to bring out my old costumes again. Not like popularity has ever dictated my cosplay choices anyway but, I mean, when something I still enjoy happens to get a revival years down the line it's a golden opportunity to relive those nostalgia years!

I briefly thought about bringing a cosplay for Sunday too but figured it's not really worth it because I won't be at the con that long on the last day (if at all) and yeah, the reason for this is obvious – when you live as far north as I do the traveling back home takes a looooong time. I'm also a sucker for comfort nowadays and the idea of sitting in a train with cosplay on for 5+ hours doesn't sound as exciting now as it did for my younger and weebier self lol. And well, changing out of cosplay before leaving the con is such a hassle for just a couple hours of wear time at most so nahh, no Sunday costume for me.

That's it for my lineup! Anyone else rocking Soul Reaper robes? :D

Northern Lights Anime Party 2024 – Forgot my flippin' camera!

 Hello fellow north-dwellers!

I was in Rovaniemi last weekend and the reason for that was Northern Lights Anime Party, a tiny manga event held in Monitoritalo Monde on the 14th December. It felt quite crazy when it sunk in to me that probably the last time I was at Rovaniemi was way back in 2017 when I went to my first (and only?) Mushucon. Despite living in the northern half of the country for roughly half my life I can count the times I've been to the "northern capital" on the fingers of one hand... and still have fingers left over, lol. Yeah, I haven't been to Rovaniemi much. xD

But hey, let's get this con summary started!

Entrance to Monitoritalo Monde.

I actually left from home already on Friday. Yes, it was Friday the 13th lol. I constantly had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I'm forgetting to pack something important and I just couldn't figure out what it was. Many times I went over all the stuff I needed for my costumes etc (almost forgot Yuuto's arm wrap!) and still nothing seemed off. Like I couldn't place the feeling at all, it seemed irrational like all the other times I've ever packed and panicked over forgetting something imaginary.
Well, Firith came to pick me up and dropped me off at Sallukka's and Dongrieg's place in Kemi for the night. The reason for these logistics is because currently Firith's apartment is so crammed two people can't possibly fit in there and, secondly, I had some business with Sallukka anyway so it was a two birds with one stone thing – namely I was well overdue to create a new Dungeons & Dragons character for our next campaign!

We had a nice evening creating my eagle D&D character and watching Dongrieg play Fortnite and some other games; it's quite mindboggling to me how much said game has evolved since the days when I casually played it a few years ago – I mean now there's some Guitar Hero-esque game mode and whatnot! I might need to pick it back up some day and give good ol' Fortnite a spin now that there's more to it than just the Battle Royale format, which is a genre that I'm not very fond of in general lol. The rhythm game stuff looked fun, not gonna lie.
Eventually Dongrieg changed games and started grinding something that I can't recall the name of but it vaguely looked like Grand Theft Auto or some crime-based game like that. There was a screen about a dead camera or something and at this point Firith looked at me and I looked back and then it dawned on me what I had forgotten at home. Yes, the bloody camaro camera! I fucking can't believe it, all these years and now is the first time I somehow forget the camera?! :'D The weirdest thing about this is that it never even crossed my mind, I mean I didn't even charge the camera batteries the night before like I always do and somehow my brain hadn't even reacted to that deeply ingrained con-prep tradition missing. Worst part is that my camera bag is always hanging out on my kitchen table so it is quite literally at plain sight 24/7 and still I didn't register that hey, that's the very obvious thing that I'm missing?? I'm dum-dum, there's no other way to explain this massive brainfart because yeah, the "I'm forgetting something" feeling was so stupid strong (more than my normal forgettance paranoia) and the camera was in hindsight so obviously the thing that was missing. I just can't. xD
So yeah, it was late at night and we weren't thus very motivated to drive 40+ km just to fetch the camera, especially because it was cold and we would have to cold-start the car. I figured that, if nothing else, I could always take the necessary summary photos with my phone and just live with the crappier-than-usual quality. Good thing though that there existed a Plan B that was a slightly better option –Firith's old Canon, which was already in Kemi unlike mine. Sure that it wasn't the best camera there ever was (there is some persistent dirt in the mirrors and whatnot; it needs professional maintenance) but at least it's a SLR and thus it's better than your average cellphone. So me and Firith agreed on taking the camera with us to the event the following day and that concluded the pre-con panic episode.

Con morning arrived and as per always I haven't slept shit. :') I was so nervous I couldn't fall asleep, which isn't anything new and groundbreaking for me lol. My original plan had been to change into cosplay before taking the train but by the time the clock was like 4 AM and I still wasn't sleeping I had a feeling that I wouldn't exactly feel fresh and invigorated on the morning. Well, I wasn't.
I'm also an awkward potato when sleeping at someone else's place, no matter how close we are, and I just don't dare to be the first one up and making noise by showering etc if I can clearly hear that everyone else is still sleeping. ;_; So I just snoozed past my early alarms and tried to salvage some snippets of shuteye. At this point I had already done the math calculations in my head and realized that I simply wouldn't have time to dress up anyway and would have to bet on the random card that is changing into costume at the event. The reason this was a big question mark is because we didn't even know if they had changing rooms at all. You see, Firith had tried to message NLAP's social media and email to ask about changing room options already a few days before the event but no one ever responded. Not to mention that for some unknown reason you can't even message them directly on Instagram, like why make it difficult to reach out?? So yeah, this lowered our already low expectations of the event even further – my expectations were so low at this point that I could probably have tripped on them lol. But regardless of the lack of information I still took the risk of going into the con completely unaware of if I even could change into costume on-site. It was stressful, no cap.

Eventually Sallukka woke up and I got a ride to the train station, with some time to spare. Sallukka and Dongrieg weren't attending NLAP by the way, they had other plans. While waiting for the train (and Firith) to arrive we brainstormed the upcoming D&D campaign and my character's background and such – I gotta say I'm very excited to play now and this talk left me on a good note when I left for the train to Rovaniemi. Thank you for the hospitality fren. <3

The train trip went by without any hitches. I honestly have no memories of it? Train from Kemi to Rovaniemi takes about an hour and a half so it's not like it's a long trip for us anyway. Fun fact is that we probably wouldn't even have ended up attending if it wasn't for the random chance that Firith had planned to go see Hant on said weekend after not having met him for literal years; Hant currently works in Rovaniemi (tonttutouhui :'D) although he's originally from the south. I was completely unaware of NLAP's existence and Firith only found out by a promotion on Matsucon's instagram. I got the impression that NLAP's marketing game hasn't been very strong. Heck, there's shortcomings on a lot of other fields too than just marketing, like for example the official website being woefully neglected to the point that the program schedule still isn't even published and it just says on the tab something like "closer to the event more details about the activities will be found here so stay tuned!"... umm... the event was a week ago... *awkward cricket silence*

Yeah I know, I sound a bit negative but NLAP didn't exactly radiate quality based on first impressions. I mean poor marketing, no response when contacting through more than one channel (instagram comment, email), odd limitations (no instagram messaging) and a misleading name that's annoying and inconvenient to say out loud. I mean you can't argue with me that Northern Lights Anime Party doesn't sound like a rave or a club event (think Neonya) or such. I do understand why they took an unconventional name in a way though, it makes you stand out and such but yeah, there's so many easier names one could have used that would have incorporated the same nordic vibes: Rollocon, Rovacon, Auroracon, Northcon, Porocon, Lumicon, Repocon, Revontulicon and so on and so on. And that's just from the very top of my head. There's nothing wrong with plain functional describing names like Rovaniemen mangapäivä/mangatapahtuma/animetapahtuma either – no room for confusion there!
I did learn afterwards though that apparently the name Northern Lights Anime Party is a relic from their debut year 2023 when it was seemingly only a 3h event with some snacks and programs and seemingly it even was age-restricted? In that light of knowledge I can understand the desire to hold onto the roots for sentimentality and to signal that it's the same people behind it, a continuation if you may, so whatever they do I am fine with it; but my honest opinion is that Northern Lights Anime Party is a very awkward name for an event due to its length and misleading mental associations.

Anyways, we arrived in Rovaniemi and the issue of getting to the con venue started. While it might have been only a 15 minute walk from the train station the issue was that it was blasting cold (-20 degrees celsius or more) and we just wanted to start the con day as soon as possible. Firith tried to get us a taxi but all the taxis already in place had some outrageous minimum prices that seemed borderline suspicious to me. Like I think they were all trying to bank in on tourists wanting to go to the Santa Claus village and for us who just wanted a short ride to centrum we were basically, well, fucked. :) Firith had to try several different taxis before finding one who was even willing to drive us, which seems absurd to me because isn't any paying customer a ride worth taking for a taxi driver? I mean our trip costs him like max 5 mins and then he could go right back to the station without hardly missing a beat? It just seemed hella weird to me with the whole "minimum 25+ €" fees like bro, isn't it required by law that the customer pays according to what the taximeter says and not what you come up with? :S Rollo has some highkey sus cabs man.
We eventually got a (still overpriced) ride to Monitoritalo Monde, the event venue. Much to our luck we immediately noticed that it had a Kotipizza quite literally in the same building, except on the other half of it. xD

Immediate view of the cafeteria upon entering the building.

Upon arriving we were a bit confused on where to find the proper entrance. You see, the street-facing side of the building had all these offices in it and it clearly didn't look like the right place. So we wandered around a bit until we realized that you had to go around the building to the backside or something to find the actual entrance (some signs pointing to the right direction would have been nice lol, not everyone is a local). Anyways, we finally get in and much to my surprise the building looks a lot smaller inside than how it appeared outside. I understand a lot of the "outer bulk" is used up by those offices and whatever other facilities that weren't a part of the NLAP's venue deal but yeah, I was a bit shook lol.

Cloakroom and info desk combo. Stairs led upstairs to the Artist's Alley.

Anyways, I immediately spotted the information and cloakroom desk (which had been combined) and went to ask if there's changing rooms reserved for cosplayers. I was met by this person dressed up as March 7th from Honkai Star Rail who said that technically there is changing rooms but they're for the cosplay contestants only and that, if possible, if we could change in the bathrooms instead. This was surprising to me, as a long-time congoer, because the norm for a while now has been that there's always public changing rooms somewhere in an event and that, oftentimes, it's even discouraged to use the bathrooms for changing into cosplay because it takes up so much space and might prevent others from using the very vital facilities for their intended use. I'll never forget that one Desucon years ago when some random young woman screamed for full lungs at a locked bathroom stall "cossaajat vittuun sieltä!!" :'DD (lit. 'cosplayers get the fuck outta there!!').

Oh well, after the confusion settled me and Firith shamelessly crammed ourselves into the biggest toilet we saw. Firith had already done Alicia's makeup before leaving Kemi and so only needed to put on the dress and wig and boom, done. I had to do everything starting from moisturizing my face lmao. Needless to say I took my time getting into costume, not because my costume is intricately complicated to put on or anything but because I'm not particularly fast at applying makeup. I almost felt like a criminal for taking so long in the invavessa and was waiting for someone to scream at me to get the fuck outta there lmao. When I was doing the base for my makeup I could hear Firith chatting outside with a male voice that I presumed to be Hant. I had a slightly trippy experience because even though Hant is a completely new encounter to me his voice sounds weirdly familiar? He either has a voice that is very similar to someone else I know, is very generic or I've randomly seen or heard him at some con before.

The main lounge area feat. pop-up library. Bathrooms were to the right.

So while I was taking what felt like forever putting my costume on Firith and Hant were going through years worth of not having seen one another while sitting on those black sofas seen on the photo above. The reason I took longer than normal (or at least felt like it to me) was because in the middle of doing my makeup I got a random panic attack out of the blue. I have no idea what triggered it, maybe it was stress, but whatever it was I ended up shaking so badly I could hardly stand up and even less finish my makeup! It was quite debilitating because due to the constant uncontrollable shaking I got eyeliner in spots where it shouldn't have been (like on the upper part of my eyelid, thank god it was hidden by the lid crease) and even managed to hit my blue eyeshadow brush on my nose and poked my mascara applicator into my eyeball too. ;_; I did take some medicines I had been smart to pack with me just in case, although in said panic I accidentally chewed them instead of swallowing the pills whole and oh my lord the taste was disgusting!

Somehow I managed to calm down after a while and salvage whatever I could of my makeup accidents before exiting the bathroom. To my relief Firith and Hant were still sitting there. I barely had time to put my stuff down on the sofa before seemingly a con volunteer came to ask me if I wanted to participate in the cosplay competition. This caught me offguard because I was under the impression that the cosplay competition was starting in like less than 10 minutes and they were still trying to get contestants like what's going on? I told the recruiter that I'm cosplaying an OC and "it's probably not allowed" because the common rules are that OCs are almost never accepted into competitions. The recruiter answered something akin to "yeah that's probably not allowed" and then when they were an earshot away from me I overheard them saying "I guess..?". Not gonna lie, this uncertain remark baffled me, I mean if said person was the cosplay competition organizer (I can't be sure if they were an organizer or just a volunteer) then such insecure acting would come across as a bit clueless – as in, it gave me the impression that they don't even know their own rules? I understand being young and inexperienced but yeah, you don't want to appear unsure and doubtful within earshot of attendants because it immediately gives off an unprofessional look regardless of how casual the event might be. At least make sure to try to uphold a professional front even if there's crises or difficulties behind the scenes, aka be mindful of what you say when there's visitors nearby. #protip

I gotta say though that I'm honestly not surprised by the contestant recruiting issue because like a day or so before the event it was informed on NLAP's social medias that they would extend the cosplay competition application which usually translates to "panic mode: not enough contestants" for those in the know of how organizing works. I kinda saw it coming though because let's be real – a tiny, new, poorly known event in the north that has a cosplay competition with a ruleset that has high requirements to participate; requirements so strict they're basically in line with what big, established anime conventions use. There's an obvious mismatch and slight delulu here at play – you can't run a small convention with big-scale competition rules (80% self-made cosplay requirement), especially not in the north because all the competitive sweats are in the south and those in the south extremely rarely bother to come to the north. You will get next to no entries because the rules are too strict. A more realistic cosplay competition rule would be something like 50% self-made or, if you want to be low-threshold and focus on beginners (and making sure the quota gets filled), then allowing bought cosplays but that some aspect(s) of the cosplay has to be self-made or modified and that can be anything from styling the wig to having made the props. The latter example is what Mericon uses, where I've been one of the judges and co-organizers for two years now – and while Mericon is in the south and bigger in scale than NLAP it's still a small event and is of equal age (debuted 2023) and yes, getting enough contestants even with such lenient rules still isn't a guarantee. The newer generations just don't seem to be as interested in competing as the people from my generation (millenials) and bought costumes are on the rise too. So yeah, already when I saw the cosplay competition rules I knew that they would have to resort to last-minute rule changes (basically went from strict to almost anything goes) and recruiting on-site. It was so clearly out of touch. This was apparently their first cosplay competition but still, please do your research lol.
But hey at least they managed to get 6 contestants in time for the contest so it could be held! Would be a shame to have to cancel one of the few activities there was.

View of the main stage. Matsukirppis (second-hand) table to the left.

I did not watch the cosplay competition myself but I heard that it had some difficulties and oddities with it too. Firith's summary mentions a bit more about the experience as a contestant so you can check that one out, if interested!
While Firith was busy with the contest I took to my duty to take the general con photos for our summaries. I also ended up upstairs in a room where this one guy was sitting next to a table with some D&D stuff around him. This was part of one of the planned activities – a beginner-friendly oneshot campaign with pre-made character sheets to fit the theme of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, unless I remember wrong. Please don't stone me I haven't played the game. xD So the dude was the DM and I got the impression I might have very well been the first person to show interest in attending. I went through the character sheets, asked some questions and eventually did a preliminary reservation on the orc character. The DM guy was very chill, easy to approach and assured me that it was noob-friendly and he had the patience to deal with a lot of hand-holding and guidance because yeah, to date I've only played one small campaign with a group of friends and Sallukka as the DM.

D&D room and a friendly (but lonely) bro.

I told him I'd be back for the start of the campaign and that hopefully more interested people show up during the day. There was one slight problem I noticed though and that's that the campaign was to start pretty late at 16:00, aka roughly the time when we had planned to go eat pizza. This realization made me scurry down to meet up with Firith and Hant and ask for some re-scheduling to free up the time slot for the campaign. This ended up being a very good idea anyway since neither me nor Firith had had breakfast on the morning and it was about 13:00 already and we were moderately hungry. Hant didn't mind an earlier pizza break either because who in their right mind does? No but really, moving the dining time forward ended up working in our favor because it gave us a very convenient opportunity to play the Necrozma raid hour in Pokémon Go without having to stand outdoors in the cold!

Kotipizza group selfie!

So yeah, we waddled our way over to the nearby Kotipizza and ordered our foods. While waiting we took some group selfies to pass the time and Hant told us that he'd keep tabs on where the local Pokémon Go gang was raiding so that we wouldn't miss when they arrived at the raid just outside the Kotipizza we were at. It was such a blessing that Hant happened to be part of the local player community because otherwise we'd have no way of keeping track of when it was time to do the raids!
Oh and I find it kinda fitting that Hant cosplayed a Christmas version of James from Team Rocket. xD

I spoiled myself with Sienimestari in lankku form, om nom nom.

Yes, we were totally extra slow so that we could fit in two raids on the same gym. I even got a shiny, lucky me! Shame the IVs were shite but that's to be expected lol. Classic Pokémon Go. xD

Oh, I forgot to mention that before I entered the D&D room (and before the pizza raid) I checked through the Artist's Alley. It was upstairs just like the D&D room was, although I gotta say that the corridor the artists were placed in was quite narrow. Functional yes, but narrow. I can understand that this was probably the only viable place to put it because the event had so little space to work with and so every free meter counted. The only other option I can think of would have been in the main hall where the stage was but that would probably have come with too dim light conditions and being subject to noise and distractions from other activities like the aforementioned cosplay competition and the Mario Kart tournament.
I'll admit that there were more sellers than I expected there to be at an event of this meager size. Some were familiar from before but there were I think two or so whom I didn't recognize! I sadly didn't buy anything this time, it's this time of year when my limited money is already spent on Christmas presents. :'(

View of the first half of Artist's Alley.

Located in the same corridor as the Artist's Alley was also the local Seta ry table highlighting LGBTQ+ rights, which are very relevant in pop-culture subgroups because it feels like the norm is that everyone is queer in at least some way. :'D A great place to promote inclusivity and equality, in other words. I mean you will find your target audience lol.
I'm not sure what other organization or promotional booths there were? I know that NLAP had some collaboration partners with some shops and such and one of the bigger ones was the local library. Libraries are a rather obvious collab partner for anime events because of mutual interests like expanding youth activities and presence in the city and motivating people to borrow books and media for the upkeep of literacy and creative skills, be it through reading manga or developing artistic skills through "how to draw" books.

A closer look of the pop-up library on the main floor.

Rovaniemi's library was present in the shape of the pop-up library as mentioned before yes, but they also had a "make your own free pins from delisted comics" workshop which seemed like a really cool idea for repurposing and recycling old and worn out manga pockets etc. I lowkey regret not checking it out at least, I honestly didn't really notice it at first and when I did I didn't really have time anymore rip. :'( But I know that at least Hant used it to make a pin and it seemed to work well?

Oh and when it comes to random side activities there was this "vote for husbando of the year" competition that was a playful take on a popularity contest with fictional characters. What you did was that you voted by drawing a heart on the blank page next to your chosen husbando's portrait and at the end of the event the winner was announced.
Honestly when I think about it I'm surprised that I haven't come across this formula before given how easy it is to set up and how fun and engaging it is for the visitors?

My favorite husbando Neuvillette was there so of course he got my heart. <3

I'm not entirely sure if there were any rules, I couldn't find any? But I assumed it was one vote (aka heart) per visitor. I felt bad that Wriothesley (on the other half of the list) had zero hearts for a majority of the event and that was just not right because Wrio is a king and deserves love too – thankfully Firith agreed and gave Wriothesley one heart!

Before I knew it the clock had ticked its tocks and I had to run back to the D&D room after having had a coffee break with the group. I gotta say that befriending Hant was very organic and easy, he's so chill and we immediately hit it off with our dumb humor lol. But I'm not too surprised because a friend of Firith's is by extension most likely a friend of mine (to be). I had a feeling though that the DM guy might not have been able to bag other interested players and so I managed to talk Hant into joining me because he showed signs of being interested and had nothing else to check out, the one thing making him hesitate was that he had never played D&D before. I comforted him by saying that if you're a super noob then I'm the noob who's only one step less nooby lmao.
So we went up in tow and my prediction was correct – there was no one else there. I was the only one who had signed up to play for the whole day. I couldn't help but feel a bit bad for the guy because he had clearly put a bunch of effort into doing all the necessary preparations and even handwriting skills and attack papers for all the character sheets to make them as accessible as possible for beginners (color and symbol coded etc), not to mention sit the whole day in that room and just hope for people to show up. Good thing I had dragged Hant with me (hyvä et joku on yllytyshullu eiku) because you need at least two players plus the DM to be able to play and now we could play! I mean.. during the whole day it felt like I kept seeing the same 20 or so congoers in the venue so it felt like there weren't many unique visitors to begin with and, honestly, no one really gave me the vibes of being tabletop bros; I kinda felt like I needed to secure myself a playmate or the whole activity would have been cancelled.

I'm not gonna go too much into detail on what happened during the mini campaign because that would take way too long (and I'm getting tired of writing this post, been at it for 7h now lol who said blogging isn't hard work) but let's just say that it was combat-focused and had to do with a portal appearing and evil entities coming out of it and later we met a NPC old man who was a bit sus but tagged along us and then we went inside the portal into some hellish landscape and there were more enemies. I played an orc berserker and just ungabunga'd my way forward with a bigass maul and Hant was a cleric. The NPC old man was a sage (well, actually a warlock in disguise #spoilerbroiler) and it was kinda hilarious because he tried to assist us by attacking some enemies across the bridge with smaller fireballs but he hit crap rolls and missed every single attack – my man has some skill issues lmao. :'DD I gotta give some props to the DM, he was super accomodating and funny and did fun voices and showed us images of the characters etc on a tablet to increase immersion and such. Really 5/5 guy when it comes to taking care of your players, would definitely play his campaigns again if I see him somewhere. Only sad thing is that when we were roughly halfway into the game I got a message from Firith asking if we were done soon – that's when I checked the clock and realized that the con was closing in 30 minutes and I needed to take a taxi in 15 to catch the train, sos! We had been playing since 16:00 and the clock was roughly 17:30 already, I don't think the DM had expected it to take so long either! So much time had passed in the blink of an eye! Well, we managed to speedrun that second map we were doing and then the DM just resorted to putting on his story-mode voice and telling us what happened and how it ended because yeah, no time left to play through it properly. I found it funny that somehow I sneaked past some intimidating tower guard in my bulky heavy orc armor without alerting anyone. xD

With the campaign wrapped up I speeded downstairs to grab my belongings from the cloakroom (no time to even take off my cosplay) and hurried outside to catch the taxi that was parked in front of Kotipizza, Firith had gone ahead and was already waiting for me. I felt a bit bad because I didn't even have time to say goodbye to Hant. *sniff*

The train trip back home went okay, except that we both were so tired we bought overpriced Red Bull at the restaurant cart in the train lol. Monitoritalo Monde had some weird rule of no energy drinks in the venue so we were running on fumes half the day due to poor sleep.  If there's anything that grinded my gears during the trip back it's that there was this one very obviously sick woman on the same seat row as us (classic us luck), just on the opposite side of the corridor, who kept coughing and doing these very moist inhale-the-snot-back sounds during the duration of the whole trip – like ffs, if you're down with the flu or whatnot then at least wear a fucking face mask if you have to travel or, even better, stay home. It's a minor inconvenience for you but might save someone's life in a worst case scenario so yeah, what happened to the lectures the pandemic taught you?
Guess if we both got sick immediately after the con? Of course we did. :)) My money's on her being the spreader and yes, I'm kinda salty because we both belong to the immunocompromised risk group and had things we needed to do and now we've both been sick for almost a week due to some selfish rando... :C #bigmad


And that sums up my first Northern Lights Anime Party experience. I know this summary might sound a bit harsh but despite the palpable inexperience showing through with the running of the event I have full understanding of the fact, which I learned after the con, that apparently there were only two people in charge of organizing the whole event and all the roles and one of them was seemingly a teenager (based on what I heard, can't confirm the accuracy), so not even an adult yet. I mean yeah, it explains things and the people whom I assumed were the organizers both looked young to me. It's actually pretty wild even when you stop to think about it but nevertheless it's an achievement in itself to host an event of any size at such a young age and whoever the organizers are they should get a standing applause for taking on the daunting task of arranging an event with little to no prior experience – a lot of people wouldn't have the balls to even try or would give up once it got too overwhelming.
We need these people, these firesouls who have the will to actually try and do stuff for the geeks in the north, even if what they produce isn't perfect. Nothing's ever perfect. I mean yeah, Northern Lights Anime Party had a lot of minor hiccups and things to improve on but it's already a win that the event started and ended and, as far as I know, nothing had to be cancelled and no major disasters happened? Sure that the opening ceremony was late by one hour and the cosplay competition award ceremony started before its scheduled time slot because the organizers apparently thought that the people had already left (what kinda reasoning is that, trust your visitors!) and so probably felt a panicked hurry to salvage what might have looked like a premature ending of the event (when odds are that people were outside eating or taking photos etc). I can understand the stress and panic when the venue looks near empty but hey, stick to the schedule and if you have to do changes then make sure that said changes are informed to the visitors via social media, info desk notifications or such. You got this, GG for the effort and the courage. <3

That's all for the last con summary of the year. I honestly had a great time and would attend NLAP again if it's hosted next year. It has all possibilities to grow better with time!
~ Shiro Samurai out.