Okay, first things first. Some days ago I had a mishap with my right foot and it seems now that it won't be okay until Tracon. I figured today err, yesterday, it's past midnight lolol that I should try if I can even wear my zori shoes for the Sunday cosplay and, well, I could but it wasn't painless. The thing is - it hurts if I bend my foot so I will likely walk like a limp penguin around the con. Oh well, not like it really bothers me but just thought I'd say that so that not everyone who sees me asks why I suddenly mangled my foot. :DD
Zori test with foot in mummy mode
And -as we all know- putting on a cosplay shoe soon results in having contact lenses on and then a wig and then some cosplay make-up and... boom ~
Yes, I totally thought that because my Sunday cosplay is rasetsu!Hijikata from Hakuouki I could get away with walking with a limp if I did a sort of bloody/"battle damaged" version.. So guess if me and Hasakitsuki went outside our apartment to the forest-ish area next to the train rails and had a photoshoot when it was getting dark outside? Hell yes!
Oh, I or more like, Hasakitsuki only put fake blood on my face and hand for now because I didn't want to have bloody and possibly sticky-yucky hakama and stuff in my suitcase... just, no.
This beautiful thing popped up in the mailbox yesterday!
My Tracon ticket!
That means I now have the con ticket in my hands as well as the hotel room booked (thanks Ri-kun!) and so far it seems I will be carpooling with some people from the north. :) Everything seems more or less set now so let's roll out the cosplay plans!
Saturday
Series: Fruits Basket
Character: Kureno Sohma
Kureno on Saturday because I will be part of a Fruits Basket group. I don't have so much to say about this cosplay, it's casual and easy-to-wear and having a cosplay group is always a bonus. I would have liked to have a more flashy/cooler cosplay on Saturday but oh well.. ~
Sunday
Series: Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan
Character: Toshizo Hijikata (rasetsu)
Time to be crazy again, Hakuouki style ~
I really want to have a photoshoot of this cosplay (c'mon have like no proper pics of it.. ;_;) and seeing how Tracon has a really nice outdoor area I thought why the hell not? 8D Also Hasakitsuki will join me as oni!Chizuru ku ku ku ~
I went to Prisma today and bought a brown belt and black pants for SSL!Hijikata as well as Kureno Sohma and whatever future cosplays I might do that these could be useful to.
Now I just need to find a white shirt and a purple tie for Sweet School Life version of Hijikata and he will be done. For Kureno I now only need the wig, which I ordered yesterday by the way, so expect me to cosplay him this year.. err, screw that, expect me to cosplay both!
And in case anyone forgot what these two guys look like then here:
SSL Hijikata
Kureno Sohma
I'm going to continue searching second-hand stores for a white shirt for Hijikata and whenever Kureno's wig pops up in the mailbox I'll make a cosplay preview for him, stay tuned!
Yesterday I went to a second-hand store in town that I visit every now and then mostly with cosplay in mind hurr and I found a black suit jacket there that actually fit me! That doesn't happen very often. So of course -considering it only cost 4,40 €- it came back home with me. I'm pretty damn sure sooner or later I will stumble into some cosplays that will need one anyway so why not grab it now when it was there in front of my face?
(sorry for cellphone camera photo in bathroom lights..)
But uhm, originally I went to the second-hand store with Hakuouki's "Sweet School Life" version of Hijikata in mind because obviously, if luck would have it, it would be one hell of a lot cheaper to just thrift all the clothes needed for it. I want to cosplay this version because it's stylish (Hijikata always is xD) and would be a nice change whenever I just can't be bothered to put on kimono or anything else that takes a fair amount of time.
SSL Hijikata
So when I got home yesterday from the second-hand shopping I checked my references and noticed that OH GOD THE OTHER JACKET I WAS LOOKING AT WOULD BE PRETTY MUCH PERFECT FOR HIJIKATA AGHFGDHSAFH!!!11 *brain explode* Yeah. So today when I woke up which was, well, late I super-speeded back to the same second-hand store in hopes that the jacket would still be there and aaw yeeah it was! You know, I did try it on yesterday and it actually fit me too (clothing gods must like me this week.. lol) and the only reason I didn't buy it back then was that I was like "but I won't need two different ones yet" and I'm a liiiiittle bit too mursu for that jacket because lowest button is slightly hard to close, but it's not a problem cuz Hijikata wears his jacket open anyway...
Oh, and did I mention this only cost 4,40 € too? (sorry for cellphone camera photo in bathroom lights again..)
While I was walking around the second-hand store I also noticed these shoes and after a quick fitting test they got approved by me! I was surprised they would be just the right size actually and didn't seem uncomfortable either the short time I had them on.
I love 2 € shoes xD
These should be okay to wear for SSL Hijikata as well as Kureno Sohma and likely many others with rather basic shoes.
I feel pretty good about these finds, most times I'm not so lucky when I go second-hand shopping but sometimes miracles happen I guess. :DD
After recovering a few days from Närcon I feel like it's time to write a summary about the 4-day convention held in Linköping, Sweden. Here we go!
Wednesday
I know, I know, Närcon starts on Thursday but seeing how far away I live from Linköping I had to start my journey downwards one day earlier. Okay, so around 16:00 something our bus from Haparanda would depart and so me, Sairu-chan and Jäätynyt Enkeli headed out towards the bus station. Hasakitsuki accompanied us to the bus station even though she couldn't go with us to the con. :'( Oh well, when we got to the bus station we had around 1 hour of spare time so we all four decided to have "dinner" together.. at Max hamburger restaurant. The con diet is starting before the con is even here..We decided to have one person waiting outside at the table with all the stuff and yeah, that person was me. I sat and waited forever until everyone had ordered theirs and then I could go order my burger myself.
Our Max eating table feat. all our stuff
With our stomachs filled we headed for the bus station again and said goodbyes to Hasakitsuki(you must come next year, dangit!) and then the three of us were in the bus on our way to Luleå. The trip took a few hours or so and I don't remember much of it.. I might just have slept most of the time, I dunno. *shrugs* Not that it's interesting so whatever.
At Luleå bus station we headed for the train station and sat there and waited for the train. We ate some candies and talked and tried to look for other congoers but didn't see any. Oh well, when we got into the train we went into the train's sleeping car.. because it wasn't so much more expensive than having a sitting place but one hell of a lot more comfortable. Oh, and of course we had made provisions for the journey (bread!) and I must tell you about my ninja turkey thin-sausage-slice-whatever-that-you-put-on-your-bread (leikkele perkele, mikä hitto se on englanniksi? xD) because it totally disappeared! Yeah I mean, I had two breads that I had cut into half so four halves all in all. I had stacked them on top of each other in the same way they would be had I not cut them (with the butter side facing each other) and I had eaten one of the four halves at the bus earlier. Okay, so at the train I decided to eat another half and when I looked at it the turkey slice had disappeared into thin air. My reaction:
WHERE THE HELL DID IT GO? The lid of the case was closed and had very likely been during the whole journey. I swear that when I ate the other half I even extra super carefully peeled the turkey off the other bread back into it because it wanted to stick to the bread I was going to eat and I didn't want 2 turkey slices on one bread..
Oh well, the rest of Wednesday we just lagged in the train meanwhile our journey continued...
Thursday
Shit early on Thursday we had to wake up and change trains at Gävle to another one that would take us to Linköping. We had sitting places in the second train and it was very obvious that the closer we got to Linköping the more congoers boarded the train. xD When we arrived at Linköping we realized no one of us three had been smart enough to take with us a map how to get to Campus Valla -aka where Närcon was held- or even checked the route prior.. at all. So we stood there like derps and tried to check what directions other con people were going but we couldn't be sure who were actually going directly to the con or not. Oh well, we found a nice group of people whom we asked and they had a sort-of-clue where to go so we tagged along them. I must say the walking took like FOREVERRRRRR and it was pretty much torture because of the heat.. I mean, I burn super easily so I was pretty much forced to wear my zipper hoodie the whole time and ahgjkfdsgakj. I took it off at one point for maybe 15 min and noticed my arms had already started to get red while the others had nothing and they had been lightly dressed all the time more or less. OTLI fail.Oh well, after walking forever and asking random people for directions (and seeing a megasize red-black worm) we finally spotted this lovely sign:
1 km left to Linköping's university, aka Campus Valla. Happy day!
When we were walking I was already thinking "when the con is over I'll take a taxi" because seriously, I'm not walking that distance again with all my stuff.
Well well, when we got to the con area we split up from the guys we traveled with and went to stand in line to get our Närcon tickets and camping tickets too. It took some hours but wasn't too bad, especially not when those random free liquorice guys came and asked who wanted the very last one and I was all "YOINK MINE! 8D" and got a hug and applauses for that. xD
Närcon con arm band ticket and the red camping ticket
(don't mind the red mark, it's from the camping ticket..)
When we had our Närcon and camping tickets we headed for the camping grounds to put up our tent; we weren't in a hurry to get inside the con building, we felt more like taking it chill a little while and relax after all that damn walking. But first - we had to fix the tent.
Tent fixing feat. Sairu-chan and Jäätynyt Enkeli (I was helping too but I just had to take some pictures)
With the tent in place we went inside and oh boy was it warm in there! Somehow we also managed to get all our stuff inside even though it's a 3-person tent and when we were fixing it it seemed like no way in hell would we get our mountain of stuff into it but lolyes we so did.
After chilling a little while we took out our cosplay stuff for Thursday, put it in our bags and headed for the con. Jäätynyt Enkeli went first and me and Sairu-chan followed soon after. Of course at the con we went to put on our cosplays. My cosplay for Thursday was Hijikata from Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan. I don't really have many photos of this cosplay taken because we didn't have a photoshoot at the con or anything but here's at least two:
lolol I forgot to take off my bag because it was under the haori.. -.-
Obligatory ego self-photo.. xD
So uhm, what did we do on Thursday at the con? The first thing I did was to walk into CBG's (cosplay board games) room and inform them that I'm at the con. I had to do this or else someone else would take my place at the epic cosplay chess on Friday. After that I just walked around the con and checked where everything was together with Sairu-chan as Chizuru. Actually the first encounter we had with someone who knew what we were cosplaying from was by far the best of the day. She had seen us walk past her twice or so but been too aghjdsghajshy.com to say anything and so when we walked past the next time her friend or something stopped us. Now this girl managed to talk and it felt like she'd explode or something because she was so "OMG I LOVE YOUR COSPLAYS AGHDSGAHJFD" over us. I swear everytime she or I looked at each other she did this ultimate oh-mai-gawd-i-want-to-hide-hihihihi-fangirlism face and moved around super-shy-awkwardly and burst into giggles, it was just too awesome. xD
Oh well, here's some random Närcon photos for you guys!
A wanted troll!
Random Närcon inside photo
Random Närcon outside photo
One of the Närcon horses!
The Companion Cube music thing (stereo) or whatever. It played music and the guy pulling it just walked around everywhere, it was cool!
I didn't really do that much on Thursday, mostly walked around with Sairu-chan. Oh, and for dinner we had a pie slice each. It was actually better than expected. There was a kind of eating room at the con with micros so we went there to heat our pies. At the cafeteria where we bought our pies you could also buy pan pizza, cupcakes and cup noodles too along with candies, small chips and stuff but yeah, I felt pie was the most.. "foody" of those and I don't like pan pizza anyway..
Oh, I ended up buying some merchandise.
I should save money but couldn't resist, okay?
lololol I love Hakuouki too much.. </3
When I and Sairu-chan got tired we changed out of our cosplays and headed for the camping grounds. Back at the camping I soon noticed how not-so-fresh the toilets were (and the lights didn't work...) so after that one visit I decided to only use the bathrooms at the con. Oh well, that troubadour singer guy at the camping was awesome, I enjoyed his music. It was in Swedish and it was rhyming and funny and folkish and me gusta! Totally made the camping a better experience!
Past midnight something Jäätynyt Enkeli came back to the camp and then we all went to sleep in our Metapods. It was my first night ever sleeping in a tent and it was.. interesting.
Friday
We woke up 07:00 on the morning because our tent had turned into a sauna monster that was slowly devouring us. It was nasty I tell you. Jäätynyt Enkeli was the first to take his cosplay stuff and leave the tent but just when I and Sairu-chan stepped out of the tent it started raining cats and dogs and so we hurried back inside. Around half an hour later of raining we heard rumbling and that was when I realized hell was knocking at the door. Why? Because I have a sort of phobia for lightning/thunder and it's not pretty I tell you. I wasn't amused because the lightning and raining kept on for like 3,5 hours so yeah.. it was nightmare...
I put Metapod over my suitcase because the tent was dripping water from the roof and I feared my kimonos inside would get stained... *coughdesuconexperiencecough*
Because of the thunder and rain I missed the CBG cosplay chess information that was held 10:00 and well, that wasn't cool because it meant I had basically no clue of anything that would happen during the chess. Oh well, around 12:00 or something we could finally get out of the tent and put on our cosplays and so I headed straight for CBG's room. They told us to be there 15:45 and so I went out to kill some time with Sairu-chan. We went outside and met up with some other Finns whom we tagged along with and it was awesome.
Suomi-rinki! :DD
We also had a photoshoot outside before it was time for the cosplay chess.
After the photoshoot I soon had to start going to CBG's room and prepare for the cosplay chess. I don't have so much to say about the chess itself, it was funny but I was nervous because I had to improvise my fight and I had no clue how the chess would work out.. and I turned out being the only chess piece alive (and I was a pawn of everything. lol) except the two kings, Cilan and Rainbow Dash. I just stood there awkwardly when they did their talk.
Lonely, I'm Mr. Lonely, I have nobody... ~
Oh well, after the epic cosplay chess was over me and Sairu-chan had gotten so hungry we decided we must eat something and well, seeing how there were always a neverending line to the Närcon hamburger grill we didn't feel like waiting forever so we headed for........... McDonald's. Normally I never go to McDonald's but it was close and cheap and I was hungry and oh-blast-it-i-want-food-now!
At McDonald's
(yes, I dumped my armor after the cosplay chess and yes, laggy expression is laggy)
We bought a Sharing Box menu (chicken nuggets and some other fried things mixed) and well, shared it and it was actually better than expected. :) With our stomachs filled with fried stuff we headed back for the con. I did another photoshoot for Sairu-chan's Suzuka Sakuraba cosplay and when we were done the Almighty Sleeping Bag passed us by and I just had to stop it for a picture! xD
After that we walked around some more and found our way to the video game room. There again the Super Nintendo was free and because Donkey Kong Country was on we decided to chill and play for a while! :D
This stage took us so many tries to clear.. xD
At one point while playing we got thirsty and so Sairu-chan went to buy some soda and after a while a random guy came, took our sodas and walked away. All I could think was:
Later on we saw the table with the people watching over the game room outside the room and well, my Fanta was on the table. I asked them why they had taken my drink and I got some kind of response that "it's not allowed to have drinks in the video game room". Okay, sure, "sorry I didn't notice the sign" I thought and asked if I could get it back. "No you can't" was the answer in a rather bitchy tone of voice or at least that's how it sounded in my ears. Okaaaay... now that pissed me off.
It's fully okay to take drinks away and put them outside the room
if it's not allowed inside but why in hell can't I get it back after
I've left the gaming room and don't intend to play anymore? Just.. shfdsaghjs that pissed me off for a long time, I payed for it for God's sake. Seems asshole-ish if you ask me.
Oh well, we didn't stay for so long after that and so we changed out of cosplays and went to sleep at the camping place.
Saturday
Oh god so much lag when I woke up. Thank God today was Kenshin day so a pretty easy cosplay to put on.. except for making the scar. Oh well, as usual we woke up from the tent, took our cosplay stuff and headed for Närcon to change into cosplays. Actually, as soon as I had my cosplay on and walked out of the bathroom a woman came running up to me and asking for a picture. I said I need to go dump my stuff at "Garderoben" (the con stuff storage place) first and she said it's okay if I just come back to her when I'm done.. which I of course did. When I was done she appeared again and took a picture and said something that I'm a perfect Kenshin. Fsishushushus nooou ~
I felt very flattered I must say. xD Oh well, after that I soon found Sairu-chan who was cosplaying as Sheena Fujibayashi from Tales of Symphonia and so together we went to have some breakfast because I was dying of hunger. Our breakfast? Pie slice and Trocadero soda, fucking fabulous.
12:00 it was time for the Tales of Symphonia meet that Jäätynyt Enkeli was holding and because I had not so much better to do I decided to be their cameraman.. because photographing is fun! I won't post the photos here but you can see a bunch of them at Jäätynyt Enkeli's Närcon summary blog post.
After the Tales of Symphonia photoshoot Sairu-chan went to change her Sheena cosplay into Tomoe and so I sat and waited for her. Meanwhile I waited I spotted Hitsuwa again and called him over and well, I ended up photoshooting his Tidus (Final Fantasy X) cosplay too. It was super fun!!
After all the photoshooting Sairu-chan returned as Tomoe and we walked around the con, enjoying the atmosphere and such. It feels like Kenshin was my most popular/recognized cosplay because every now and then someone would say like "oh, it's Kenshin!" when I walked past them or something, it was nice. :) Oh, and there was this one guy who asked me in a kind of doubting voice "the scar isn't real right?". It was tempting to joke and say that it was, but I said it wasn't real to which he replied something along the lines of actually cutting oneself for a cosplay would be pretty hardcore. No shit. xD
Kenshin having a Josbar drink, "New Super Mario".
I must say last year's Super Mario drink was better.
When we bumped into Jäätynyt Enkeli we had a quick photoshoot.
Kenshin is not amused when the sword won't go nicely back into its place.. xD
Some time after the photoshoot me and Sairu-chan got hungry again and Hitsuwa too. Some other Finns Hitsuwa hung around with tagged along with us and we ended up going to McDonald's again to eat and oh boy was it fun!
You guys were awesome!
After eating we just lagged around and at some point I found the other Kenshin cosplayer whom I had seen several times over the weekend. We had planned to take a few pictures together of past and present Kenshin and so now we had some time to do so! Sairu-chan took the photos, by the way.
At the later evening I felt like going to the bouncy castle thingys but when I went there they were gone! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO--
I had been wanting to go jump on them during the whole weekend but it wasn't really the best choice with my Hijikata (delicate silk kimono) or Okita (damn armor) cosplays so.. yeah. Oh well, I thought that maybe they would be back up on Sunday again so I didn't think so much more about it for the rest of the day.
Not so much more to say about Saturday, me and Sairu-chan went to play some Donkey Kong Country again and when we got tired we headed back for the camping grounds and disappeared into our Metapods for the night.
Sunday
"Oh man can I just go without a cosplay today blblblbl...?"
Well, no, because my hair looked like a crow's nest and smelled so shit that a green poisonous cloud probably followed me wherever I went. Yeah, I showered the last time on Tuesday night.. the showers at the camping ground I heard weren't so good and I couldn't shower there anyway for personal reasons.. So not so much more to do than crawl out of my hot and sticky Metapod, pack all our stuff and start to kill the tent.
Byebye tent for now, you were fun to sleep in
With the tent packed away me and Sairu-chan took our suitcases and shit and headed for the con; Jäätynyt Enkeli left for the con on the morning before us. When we got to the con I headed straight for Garderoben to dump off all the stuff I didn't want to carry around during the day. After that I headed for the bathroom to change into my Masamune cosplay. You know, I had thought I would skip most of the make-up because of pure laziness and I-don't-give-a-fuck-it's-sunday-and-nobody-else-gives-a-fuck-either. But when I got to the eyeliner part I automatically did both my eyes and just lolnope, I did full make-up anyway. xD Got too used to it over the con weekend...
When I was done I walked around and soon found Sairu-chan as Momo Hinamori from Bleach and then we went out to photoshoot because hey, I need photos of my kimono!Masamune cosplay and Sairu-chan needed Momo photos too. Oh, and by the way, the bouncy castles weren't there on Sunday at all.. ;_;
But it's not like I managed to be serious all the time so...
DERP TIME!
Dat face.. I don't even
PARTY HARD
I guess this is what you get if you combine me gusta + pretty please...? xD
I approve of mini drink umbrellas in the hair!
(and I totally wore it for the rest of the day.. until I lost it at the second photoshoot)
Oh well, at some point
we needed to go get something to eat and this time the line to the
Närcon hamburger grill wasn't over 9000 meters long and so me and Sairu-chan decided it was burgers to be!
A part of the Närcon grill waiting line.
Btw, Batman is awesome.
After some burgers we moved to another location at Närcon to photoshoot some more!
But our shooting ended abruptly because it started raining like hell again and I made a dash for cover. Surely someone else except me had been thinking that Desucon was behind the weather...
You know, Närcon ended just like Desucon did this year - rain, rain, rain and more rain.
Närcon ended at 16:00 this year and of course before leaving I changed into casual clothes but I put on my Hijikata wig because it looks the most natural. I couldn't be bothered to wash out my cosplay make-up though.
Random self-photo taken before leaving Närcon
We called a taxi and after some derps it came and took us to Linköping central station and there we waited a few hours for the train to arrive and then a long journey back awaited us.. but we made it back home intact even though I lived on grill chips and coke for breakfast on Monday morning on the Luleå train...
Oh, and here's a quick Youtube photo video of, well, my Närcon photos.
Also, in case anyone who reads this happens to have photos of my cosplays I'd be happy to have them. My email can be found to the left side of my blog at "contact me". Thanks. :)
Aghsaghdsjh I've been writing this blog post the whole Tuesday and it's 04:00 right now and OH MY GOD I'm done! Now I can go sleep, booyah!
But before I go I must say Närcon 2013 was a nice con but not as great for me as Närcon 2012 and 2011 were, mostly because of the occasionally very rainy weather and because the camping ground was lacking on some parts; I would have liked a water source somewhere for brushing teeth (had to brush at the con) as well as for washing hands and having drinking water and well, cleaner toilets certainly wouldn't hurt either. There were some other things that were a bit "meh" too but no biggies, all in all it was worth the money.
