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 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 it's safe to assume that said person was the cosplay competition organizer (and, as I learned later, probably also one of the two main organizers) and it just came across as unprofessional – 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 earlier 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 but before I entered the D&D room 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 character. 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 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.

Gingacon 2024 – Furries and a missing cheese slicer

 Hello peeps and woofers alike~

Last weekend I attended my first Gingacon event and, as the name implies, it is an anime convention especially aimed at fans of the Ginga series and other works by mangaka Yoshihiro Takahashi. Gingacon's target audience was also the furry community and people overall who are into animal-themed fictional works and toys (Pokémon, Digimon, Tamagotchi etc) as well as stories and fan creations.
This year's Gingacon was held on Saturday, 23rd November in Tampere, Finland. The host building was a school commonly called Tredu by the locals.

Let's get this summary started!

 

Gingacon info booklet.

My trip to the con started on Friday but, I admit, I might have been panic-packing on Thursday. As mentioned in previous blog posts I had planned to rewear my shiny Mightyena gijinka and, well, that costume consists of parts from other cosplays, stuff from my wardrobe and from my vintage kimono collection. It's effectively a fancier closet cosplay with some accessories added on top to make it more recognizable, aka a pair of ears and a tail – of which the latter I didn't have during its debut. But yeah, when I was packing my suitcase I might have had a panic moment when I realized that I didn't really remember exactly what brown pants I had used for the costume previously and all the brown costume pants I found didn't fit! So there I am losing my shit over some pants until it dawns on me that "hey, weren't those old corduroy pants I snagged from grandma brown?". *lightbulb moment* So I go digging through my wardrobe like a dwarf digging a hole diggy diggy hole and I found the damn pants and, even better, they fit so comfortably! Pants crisis, averted.

...
Except that wasn't my only crisis. I had a wig crisis too. xD I did find the old wig I had used for this cosplay but when I quickly tried it on I just had one blaring opinion – it looked like shite. It just wasn't flattering on my face at all, way too much fiber and poofiness on top. And the more I thought about it the more I kinda wanted a longer and shaggier wig but, of course, I only own short brown wigs. :)) I have like two bigass plastic containers full of wigs and somehow I never have the wig I need – a cosplayer's eternal curse amirite? Oh well, I ended up borrowing a wig from Firith, who was my con company for the trip too. I will buy a more fitting wig later for the next outing.

On Friday we took the train down to Tampere. I should maybe mention that we had an accommodation catastrophe since Gure, who was supposed to accomodate us during Gingacon, got sick with fever a few days before the con déjà vu and that threw our plans out the window. So in a last-minute panic I'm scrambling to get a new place to stay in while Firith loses all hope of even going. Our train tickets were non-refundable too and we literally knew no one else who lived in Tampere. Another thing is that Gingacon is held in an area outside of Tampere's centrum so there's not really any hotels nearby (and it's not like we could have afforded an emergency hotel stay on such short notice anyway). In my desperation I asked around in the Gingacon work crew Discord group and luckily Nawulf in there suggested this one airbnb that was very close to the con building, which ended up being our saving grace that secured the con trip!

It was late when we arrived to our airbnb stay and we both were a bit nervous because we had never used an airbnb before. Luckily the host was friendly and showed us great hospitality so everything went well! It was one of those airbnb types where you live together with the family in their home, essentially just renting a vacant room for the stay. We were allowed to use the living room to watch some TV; it was nice to wind down a bit before going to bed.
On Saturday morning we packed our stuff and put our costumes on before leaving (luckily there were like three bathrooms so we didn't hog the only bathroom in the house for cosplay prep xD). We were a bit behind schedule but not too bad.

Tampereen Seudun Ammattiopisto, aka Tredu.

I think the clock was around 12:30 local time when we arrived to the con. It looked quite empty from outside and we were momentarily very confused because there were signs on the front doors saying something like "entrance not allowed" and there also weren't any obvious big Gingacon signs anywhere stating that we were in the right place. Luckily we weren't dumbfounded for long because someone from inside noticed us and came outside to welcome us in and told us that they were working on hiding those "no entrance" signs.

View to the right (feat. cloakroom) upon entering.

Immediately upon entering the information desk was in front of our noses. There was a slight queue so we waited for our turn to get our badges. I had applied to be part of the work force and, more exactly, a green room worker. Firith in turn had applied for the cosplay competition and thus also got a badge, albeit an orange contestant badge instead of a blue worker badge. :3

My worker badge (and con ticket) featuring Gingacon's mascot Routa!
(yes, I censored my name for privacy reasons)

As soon as we got our badges we headed to the cloakroom to drop off our luggage and almost immediately after that Firith had to bolt for the cosplay competition's pre-judging phase. I had roughly 20 mins left to explore before my 3h work shift would start.
One thing that I quickly noticed was that Tredu was extremely similar in style to Pohjankartano in Oulu, except smaller. I mean the similarity was tripping me through the whole day lol! If you've read any of my Matsucon summaries you'll probably get what I mean with how these two buildings resemble one another, especially the way the stairs and upper floors are arranged.

General view of the main area, including the stage.

Another general view, Artist's Alley visible in the back.

I didn't really have enough time to do any proper exploration before my shift would start so instead I just kindly waddled over to the green room, which was hidden away in a corridor to the left half of the building, near a vending machine. There were signs pointing me in the right direction so I didn't get lost lol.
One thing I immediately noticed when stepping inside the green room was that it was surprisingly large in size, especially for a smaller con like Gingacon. There were tables full of many different food items including instant noodles, fresh fruits and vegetables to put on bread, snacks, chips and cookies, Pocky sticks, orange soda and juice and porridge and yeah, basically anything that's easy to eat or prepare! There was so much more variation than I expected; hands down probably the most comprehensive green room I've used to date, 10/10 would work again.

One of many green room tables.

I don't know if I misunderstood or misremember or if the information was wonky, but I do remember asking if there was any warm food and was told that Gingacon didn't supply warm food to the workers, unless you count the instant noodles. But then not long after I learned that there was some homemade food in the fridge that was free to use and had seemingly been prepared for the con workers? There were like two or three aluminium packages with some chicken dish inside and I think there was a bowl of salad too or something? I was just perplexed why said homemade food didn't count as a warm meal? Maybe it was just brainfarts on one or both sides but, whatever the case may have been, one thing was clear – there was enough food so you wouldn't have to work on an empty stomach.

This food package gave me a laugh. xD (artist unknown)

My work shift lasted from 13-16 and I spent that time watching over the green room and doing various tasks to keep it functioning like instructing and helping green room users, emptying the trash bags, making more coffee whenever it ran out and so on. Usually Nemi was also there to help me observe the situation so it never really got too hectic or overwhelming. Most times it was actually pretty chill and manageable and thus a pleasant working experience.

One tiny little thing that kept occuring though was that someone would every now and then come and ask where the cheese slicer was because there was a block of cheese but nothing to slice it with. Turns out that Nemi had forgotten to bring the cheese slicer. xD So yeah, those who wanted cheese on their bread had to resort to violating the cheese with a knife for the first hours of the con while the cheese slicer was on its way. Eventually there was a message in the Discord channel that the slicer had arrived, and because Nemi was hosting the Pokémon Go meetup at that time and thus I was the sole person watching over the green room, it meant that I put on my errand boy shoes and ran to pick up the much coveted metallic object from the info desk.

THE MYTHICAL CHEESE SLICER HAS GRACED US.

In hindsight I would perhaps have liked to check out the Pokémon Go meetup but it collided with my working hours so no can do. It was nice though because there was an in-game event running called the Wild Area and Gingacon put lures on the pokéstop just outside during the full duration of the con. I must admit I've kinda fallen off the PoGo wagon, I have no clue about the whole Dynamax thing and so on but it's still fun to play casually every now and then. I just hope that all my mons aren't horribly outdated by now lmao.

Oh and speaking of Pokémon, me and Firith decided already on the morning when we put on our cosplays that we would postpone photoshooting my shiny Mightyena outfit. Reason number one was that we wouldn't really have time (bless the diminishing sunlight hours during the winter months in Finland) due to our respective responsibilities and reason number two was that my ears didn't function at all like intended and thus I didn't really feel like having a proper photoshoot before fixing them... again. I didn't have time to test wear them before the con. You see, I've remade them once but despite my efforts to add in steel wire they still didn't stay upright (I really need a different attachment method for support than just safety pins). So my ears were just hanging down the sides of my face and I looked like a sad doggo all day. *sniff* But at least I have a proof photo that I did have the costume on!

Crappy phone quality, I know.

I did have some slight difficulties with the lenses, or more exactly one of them. For some reason the right eye one kept being lowkey scratchy so I took it out and reinserted it like three or four times before it went away. I was starting to worry that the lens was defective (I had not had time to test these before the con either) but luckily that wasn't the case. I intentionally bought super bright manson-styled lenses to look more cartoony and well, shiny Mightyena has super vibrant blue eyes so I wanted to match that for extra accuracy haha. I also added those triangles to aid recognizability a little but I'm honestly not sure if anyone actually knew what I was supposed to be lol. Not like it matters anyway, I still had plenty of fun!

This was by the way the first cosplay on which I had a big floofy tail. I had to constantly remember to lift the tail up and out of the way before I sat down because otherwise it would get in the way due to its rather massive size. xD At least I can say that the tail mostly functioned as it should; the only thing I need to fix for next time is to move the elastic loops even closer to the edges to keep the edges from protruding – something I didn't realize while sewing it as a first-timer. You live and you learn!

Tail awareness every tiem.

While I was working in the green room I got handed this little bag of gifts from the organizers. I was quite taken at first because I have not experienced this kind of appreciation before as a volunteer worker. ;;_;; Apparently every worker got a 'thank you' goodie bag with Gingacon merchandise featuring the mascot character Routa, which was super cute and made me feel seen omg.

Standard issue green room meal. :'D Stupidly delish noodles!

Once my obligations shift was over I immediately headed over to the plush doll meetup on the third floor. This was the one program I had planned already prior that I wanted to attend. I gotta admit though that I'm a lazy congoer when it comes to attending activities like lectures and panels etc, most times I might see something interesting when the activities are revealed online but then when I'm at the con I most often ain't really in the mood during that specific time when something I was moderately interested in is happening. It's like I'm not feeling it, you know? Like the headspace is not right at that moment and then I just can't be arsed because I know I wouldn't stay focused and/or invested enough. Maybe it's a neurodivergence thing or maybe I'm just getting old, who knows lol.
Anyways, this stuffed doll meet was something I really had a drive to check out – one big reason being that it stood out to me. I've honestly never seen such an activity at any con before (which feels weird when I think about it, I mean so many alt people collect plushies) and it seemed like a relaxed low-threshold meetup where you'd maybe hear some fun and engaging stories.

Plushie meetup collection!

One key aspect of this meetup was that it was free-for-all, meaning that you didn't have to reserve a spot in advance, aka it was essentially a drop-in program. You were also encouraged to bring any soft toy with you to the meetup to show it off and tell the others about the story behind it, if you wanted to. This was the part that incited me to attend because oftentimes people have some emotional attachment to plush dolls and I find it interesting to hear this kind of personal stories, even if it's brief. Oh, and did I mention that I love plush dolls in general? I have soooo many from my childhood and also a bunch of newer ones that I've bought as an adult – mostly imported ones from Pokémon Center in Japan and such.
Honestly I really enjoyed the meetup, we all sat in a circle around the room and just one by one we told the others the story behind the particular plush we had brought with us to the meeting. The stories ranged from tragic accidents to unhinged, outright hilarious ones like taking a short-time loan to afford a must-have plushie that was out of budget at the moment.
I hope that this type of meeting will be held in the future too (staple meetup at future Gingacons?), it was a great social experience which helped me feel less childish and stigmatized in my plush collecting hobby.

My childhood fish plushie and boba tea.

I left the meetup a little before it officially ended because Firith had gone earlier to order us some bubble tea and was waiting for me in the main hall. I decided to be silly and sneaked up on Firith because I saw that my target was reading a book and thus not paying attention and then I took my fish plush and lowered it in front of the unsuspecting reader's face while singing a part of a meme variant of the Kalakaveri (lit. 'fish friend') song by K-Citymarket food store. Video below is of the edited variant, I don't know who the original creator is but all credit goes to whoever it is. Y'all can thank me later for the brain rot... or not. :'D Laitetaan vahinko kiertään!

While we were sitting at the table enjoying our bobas a shy person approached us and asked if we wanted to adopt a puppy, as in those adoptable character arts you might find on sites like Furaffinity or DeviantArt. It took me a second to realize what was going on and then this person made it clearer by asking if any of us two likes to draw, to which I raised my hand. So the gist is that this person had designed a bunch of adoptable puppies (essentially a reference art that you would claim ownership of) and I was presented with a lot of random numbers to choose one, kind of like a lottery ticket. It was a cute little encounter that I didn't expect but which gave a heartfelt touch to the overall atmosphere of the con. I wish I would have talked more with this random stranger but they disappeared almost as soon as they came, although they were very polite and charming with the whole "hey I'm socially anxious but want to get to know new people and this is my way of breaking the ice" shtick.

Yes, my phone's low battery makes me uncomfortable too.

After that encounter we finally had time to plow through the Artist's Alley and the dealers. There were some familiar artists whom I had bought from already at other cons but there were also some new faces I had not seen before, like some people who sold handmade ceramics! I was a bit let down because I didn't really find anything that really caught my fancy (I like supporting independent artists and buying small items) despite there being quite a nice amount of tables. There were several who had interesting items but I was mostly looking for magnets this time, especially because my keychain collection is growing so large at this point that I don't know where to display all the ones that I own, send help. x) 

View of Artist's Alley.

More Artist's Alley. JeMiChi's table in front.

On the second floor was what was referred to as the "Ginga room". This included the booth of Suomen Hopeanuoli-fanit ry which is the association that organizes Gingacon. There was a lucky wheel and some merchandise for sale, including Ginga fanzines. I also saw during my brief run-through during the day that on the second floor were also different activities like a fur workshop for making ears and tails and opportunities to draw and color in Ginga-themed linearts. But when I did my proper exploration the fur workshop and the drawing room had already closed for the day so yeah, I didn't really get to observe them in action. Seemed like fun concepts though based on that one quick glimpse I did catch.

A part of the Hopeanuoli-fanit merch booth.

Oh, I forgot to say earlier but I did meet Lillepysen briefly, an old friend of mine from many years back. We used to play video games together casually and shared some fandoms. It was nice to see her again and swap some words, albeit a bit in a hurry because we both had stuff we still stuff we needed to do haha. Ah, cons and running into people you know~

I also ran into some completely random people just randomly duking it out with a Beyblade battle near the video game room. It made my closeted little nerd heart take an extra beat because it was so nostalgic and unexpected! I remember when Beyblade first came out – I was obsessed! I had a Gameboy Advance game (which kinda sucked, sadly), duvet covers, stickers and of course some G1 spinning tops. Even begged dad for money so I could buy a Beyblade from the local toy store during a vacation when I was a kid. xD

Surprise encounter: Beyblade battlers.

This impressive Tamagotchi and virtual pet display
was near the Beyblade trio.

It was getting quite late at this point. I had wanted to check out what the retro video game room had to offer but I also knew that I wouldn't really have time to sit down and play because our ride was coming soon to pick us up. I'm not sure what I was expecting but I was honestly happy that the consoles in the room really were the true retro stuff – there was a Super Nintendo, Playstation 2, Playstation 1 and so on. Yes, the good old ones that takes me back to simpler days. I think the newest console I saw might have been a Nintendo Gamecube?
There were surprisingly many gaming consoles too, a lot more than I expected – I didn't count but I'm pretty sure that the total amount was close to 10 or so. Two thumbs up from me, a really solid game room. Whoever arranged this deserves applause, I lowkey regret that I didn't have a bit more time so that I could have played at least a little.

I got so excited when I saw that the Super Nintendo had
both Super Mario World and Super Mario All-Stars!

We had to leave the con a bit before it officially ended because we were dependant on Gure (mostly recovered) giving us a ride to the train station and thus had to work with more than just our own time schedules too. We had to catch a train to Harjavalta that same night but before the train would depart we had some time to kill so we went to have some pizza in the train station. It was surprisingly good, especially when hungry.

Lordipizza. Yes, the Eurovision winner Lordi.

We boarded the train and it was full of people. We had the random chance encounter to be situated next to a couple in their 50s who clearly looked like metalheads.. and also clearly looked like they had just been in a bar drinking. The lady was in the sleepy phase but the longhaired dude (he kinda looked like Marko Hietala except with more narrow face and features) was super chatty and curious about us. We both had changed out of costumes before leaving the con but we still had makeup on so yeah, I had my casual clothes (I look like a rocker so he probably sensed that we're his people lol) with those Mightyena triangles below my eyes and I guess it caught his curiosity. It was funny because he asked where we had been and I assumed he didn't know what cosplay was so I explained it in simpler terms, like taking the long way around to make sure he gets the gist of it and then this man just looks at me and his eyes widen and he goes "do you mean that cosplay thing?" and I'm like say whaaaat how does this random dude know the word cosplay? XD He then goes off on a tangent about how he fucking loooooves Star Wars (bro literally goes like "I have ADHD I can't stop talking", bless his heart) and how he's always wanted to try to dress up but that he didn't know how to nor where and now he fears that he's too old and it would be improper of him to go to any conventions. I encouraged him to go to any free events first and check it out because age is really not a hindrance and that there's people of all ages who enjoy dressing up (even though you mostly see the young ones in social media and on the streets). He seemed genuinely interested and really inspired and ngl I wish that he gathers the courage to actually go check out a cosplay event in the future. This was hands down the most wholesome random drunk encounter I've ever had. Not to mention that of course we also talked about metal bands and what bands we had seen live and he had like all the same favorite bands that I do, it was absolutely crazy how much we bonded over such a short time. They were going to the 70 000 Tons of Metal cruise too, that's a bucket list thing for me.

This about sums up my Gingacon experience. I didn't mention every little thing because this summary would have gotten so long (hopefully Firith will mention what I didn't so you can read that report for a more complete picture of our trip!) but let's just say that this was an eventful journey with a lot of twists and turns but which turned out well in the end.
Gingacon left a very good first impression on me – I went in with low to no expectations and was positively surprised in almost all fields. It might be a small con with a specific target audience (the prominent Ginga focus might deter people who aren't familiar with the series) but it felt so genuine and passionate through and through. I also want to say that I find it really great from an inclusivity perspective that there are cons like Gingacon and Pörröcon etc that are extra welcoming towards fursuiters and furries because yeah, sadly I have seen that there is negative stigma and attitudes towards the furry community among the broader anime/manga community, especially online. I don't get the impression that such behavior would be common in Finland but yeah, I believe everyone deserves a safe space to express themselves and their interests freely – as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else and abides by the law, of course. We are all just geeks of different flavors doing geeky things that makes us happy.
All in all I'm really happy I attended Gingacon and I would definitely consider a revisit next year, especially if it's in Tampere again. I know Gingacon has existed since 2016 but I've always been either completely unaware or simply forgot of its existence after hearing about it, until now.
And finally, a big thanks to the main organizers for the flexibility and compassion in arranging my work hours to suit my current capabilities, it's always a blessing to come across such thoughtful and understanding people in higher positions. <3

And before I end this post, here's my lil' con loot:

The contents of the 'appreciation bag'!

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed this report! Remember to follow the blog if you like my content and aren't already a reader!
See you again soon! ~ Shiro Samurai

Matsucon 2024 – I got so scared I dislocated my arm!

 Hello geeks!

Matsucon came and went and I thought it's high time I post a report about my happenings and feelings about the con! This year Matsucon was held on 10-11th August in Pohjankartano's school, Oulu, Finland, like usual. Matsucon has been held in the same location for years so yeah, why change something that works? I went there as a con worker and despite one, err, unfortunate accident, I managed to do what I was supposed to do – namely take care of the green room.

But hey, let's get this summary started!

I couldn't find the official Matsucon poster anywhere
so have the Iltabileet ('afterparty') poster instead.

So just like on the past few cons my travel companion was Firith, once again. But, unlike our usual means of traveling by car or train, this time we had to use the bus to get to Oulu. It was both for economic reasons and also because the train's time tables didn't suit us this time. We left Kemi on Friday because we had booked the hotel for two nights, it's convenient.

I don't really remember when exactly we left for the bus station but it was during the afternoon something. We had booked Onnibus because it's affordable. When the bus arrived we were concerned we would have to pay extra because we had so much luggage but luckily the driver didn't charge us anything because I said I could keep my electronics bag in my lap. In theory this was a good and sound idea, I mean I'd make sure my PS5 and my TV were safe as no one would be throwing suitcases on top of them or handling them roughly in the hold – yet, in practice, this was an absolutely ass decision because my TV is quite heavy (even for being as small as it is) so my legs kept going numb and I had really little space in front of me so I could hear the TV's leg creaking (at least it's one of those adjustable ones that you can tilt slightly but still, nerve-wrecking) whenever the bus turned and it was so much worrying lol. The thing is that just before the trip I had bought a cheap oldish monitor from a thrift store, because it was light to carry, but lo' and behold it didn't work when I tested it and so I had to resort to my trusty TV once again in a pinch. I'm quite mad at the store because I feel like electronics should by default always be tried because no one wants to buy anything that doesn't work, especially if your return policy is literally within the next day or no refunds – or at least that's what the cashier told me at the time of purchase. I have not been back there yet because I have so much anxiety over the whole thing; I absolutely dread confronting people about literally anything face to face, even if I have full rights to do so as I paid for a faulty product. I mean, when I worked at a second-hand store a few years back we had a rule that all electronics had to be tested before they reached the customer and I'm sorry but that should be the norm. It's not too much to ask.

Carrying a fucking TV on my lap in the bus was an experience and a half.

The bus ride was a bit bumpy for other reasons as well. You see, I was wearing pants that had metal chain accessories on my left side and I didn't think much of it when I sat down on the seat.. until I then heard this kind of metallic clinking sounds and realized, to my horror, that my chains had gotten stuck on that heater thingy or whatever that metallic box running across the sides of the bus were! So yeah, I spent almost the whole one hour bus trip trying to forcibly yank myself free from my prison. My hands were all red and sore from the tugging and pulling and I was panicking so much but just had to mask it (nobody wants to have a meltdown in a full bus). I really didn't want to have to break the chains but because it was just one of the three rows that was stuck I was pretty much forced to, if I wanted to keep the other two. Needless to say I had to break a chain link with brute force and I'm saddened by it because yeah, those chains were a gift and I liked using them a lot...

Sokos Hotel Arina room, 'Summer Night' theme.

After that literal strugglebus experience we arrived in Oulu's bus station. Firith called us a taxi because no way in hell were we walking through centrum with that mountain of luggage! It boggles my mind why every con trip always comes with so much baggage, I mean for real, you're literally gone for a weekend and you have like half your apartment with you wtf? xD But anygays, once we got our hotel room we dropped off our stuff and just recovered for a bit before Firith went out alone to meet up with some acquaintances who happened to be in Oulu too (not for Matsucon) while I stayed behind and relaxed. While Firith was gone I was just lying in bed and scrolling through my sketch book, lost in thought. At some point Firith messaged me that he'd be back soon and although I had seen the message just prior I must have been so deeply inside my own mindspace because I didn't hear his approaching footsteps in the corridor at all and, when he opened the door, I got so scared by the sound from the door handle slamming down that I literally dislocated my own fucking arm from the sheer fright recoil! Not even a joke bro, it really happened. The first thing Firith sees is me squirming in pain and cursing perkele between my breaths lol, it hurt like a motherfucker because I had to push the dislocated arm back in place with my other arm or the pain would get more severe for every second and I literally can't move my arm unless I fix it. Yeah I know, this is one of those things that maybe would warrant a 112 call but this has happened to me more than once before (thanks to hypermobility and accidents) and I've always just dealt with it myself because of it being such an automatic reaction. So yeah, my arm was super painful and unstable for the rest of the day but we still headed out to eat at Itsudemo's sushi buffet. It was a bit of a disappointment this year when compared to last year, especially because we had been looking forward to it for so long. :< Sushis were dry-looking on the tray and several came apart when I moved them to my plate, which is kinda a bad thing if the rice doesn't hold together, not to mention that there was next to no refills of empty trays so a lot of the options were unavailable for the whole approximately 45 minutes that we were there. Luckily I managed to snag a few pieces of my favorites immediately when we came but yeah, I would have wanted seconds ngl so it was quite a bummer.

We went back to the hotel room and Firith rescued us some donuts from Arnold's. Honestly, ResQ is such a good app – it lessens food waste from restaurants, cafeterias, hotels etc and you can save food and get great discounts. What's available changes every day because it depends on what's left over so there's always a surprise factor on what you'll find!

I don't think we did anything else noteworthy, just chilled for a while and then we went to bed.

Saturday morning was groggy as usual. I'll just accept the fact that I'll never be a morning person lol. But anyways, we went to the hotel breakfast almost immediately after waking up and I broke my tradition by not indulging my mouth with karelian pastries this time – what a foul act of self-betrayal!
After the breakfast refreshment episode it was time to put our costumes on; I rewore Hotaru from Samurai Deeper Kyo while Firith was Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service and yes I know, exactly the same costumes as on Nekocon lolol. We weren't in an explosive hurry to get dressed because even though we both were con workers neither of us had the first morning shifts in our respective jobs so yeah, we didn't die from a stress-fueled heat death of the universe.

Matsucon entrance view.

Photoshoot competition desk near the entrance.

I can't recall what exactly the clock was by the time we arrived but Firith had signed up to be part of the cosplay competition so he had to go through some pre-judging stuff almost immediately by the time we arrived. At some point while we were walking near the cloakroom some recruiters came to ask me if I would like to enter the cosplay competition in my Hotaru cosplay because they needed more contestants (I got the impression that a lot of the originally applied contestants had ghosted due to number 13, Firith's number, being the first to enter the stage) but I kindly declined because I didn't even have my sword with me nor the proper cosplay shoes; I had intentionally left them behind to make the traveling easier. Not to mention I have extreme stage fright and anxiety and I wasn't mentally prepared to compete at all. Still, I find it weirdly flattering that I got asked lol.

Cafeteria view, except it was closed this year.

I had specifically asked for most of my work hours to be slotted into Sunday so that I could explore more freely on Saturday, another reason was because Hotaru is maybe not the most convenient costume to brew coffee etc in due to the long white kimono sleeves. x) An even bigger inconvenience was that of my recently dislocated arm, which had never really stopped being sus and hurting, and which I tried to ignore as much as I could. Yet at some point, during the first half of my shift, I figured there was a first aid room in the con (and it exists for a reason) so I had nothing to lose if I went and asked there if they could help me somehow. I was concerned I would hurt myself accidentally because even the slightest wrong or thoughtless movement made my arm wobbly and like it would luxate. I gotta say though that the people at the first aid station were extremely kind and really went out of their way to make sure I was comfortable – they even sent someone immediately to the pharmacy to fetch kinesiology tape because they didn't have any in stock. ;_;

Me with my sling in the green room while waiting to get taped.

It was kinda wild because apparently my condition did some rounds among the workers because at some point one of the organizers came up to the green room and told me they heard that a worker had an arm issue and came to check the situation and I was internally like "lawd I'm making a scene oh noes" but I appreciate the concern, I really do.
After some waiting the first aid crew came to pick me up and I got my arm and shoulder embellished with some hot pink tape. Very character accurate. It helped to stabilize the arm, slightly lessen that constant dull pain and it increased my trust in using said arm for tasks. Luckily working at the green room is quite relaxed and so I could function the rest of my work shift without accidents; I just had to be a bit more mindful of my movements than your average person.
My shift lasted from 13-16 and once I was free I informed Firith that I really really needed to leave for the hotel asap, that I needed to get my costume off because I was overheating, in pain and also uncomfortable from the poor air quality and circulation indoors. He was busy with the cosplay competition prep but still managed to call me a ride through the Menevä Taxi app, thank you. ;_;

The elevator was for worker use only. It was a godsend for me because
the impact from walking down stairs was enough to hurt my arm.

Once I got back to the hotel I yeeted myself out of my costume and then I just casually died for a while. Well, not literally but I just idled around trying to reanimate myself back into a solid human shape. Eventually Firith also came back and we might have gone on a ResQ shopping spree because Ravintola Puistola just on the opposite side of the street had some delicious bakeries up on the app just before closing time. I also got a yummy rescue sushi mix takeaway box from Sushi Bowl & More Tea that we went to pick up, along with some boba tea to fuel our boba cravings. Not gonna lie, winter melon flavor was godtier deluxe.

Rescued sushi and bubble tea~

The wind did blow us to the nearby foodstore where we might have bought some alcoholic beverages for the night, just to have a good time and unwind. I bought some cherry cocktail that I had never seen before, it was from Spain and in a glass bottle with a metallic twist cap, it was surprisingly good!

Sunday morning is always Sunday morning, filled with an impending sense of doom because you know you have to check out from the hotel and carry all your shit back to the con's cloakroom for storage over the day. My original plan was to cosplay Leon from Resident Evil 4, I even had the costume with me and everything, but we ended up with some miscalculations with time management and by the time we were done with breakfast, showering etc there simply wasn't enough time to put on a costume before we had to leave the room.

We arrived at the con about one hour before it officially opened its doors. Firith had to almost immediately bolt to his work shift so I stayed behind and tried to get our belongings stored somewhere safely. The cloakroom worker wasn't there yet so I had to go ask one of the organizers to help me out. I really did not want to drag all of that stuff all the way up to the green room on the top floor so yeah, the cloakroom was a lot more attractive choice since it was on the main floor.

Dealer's Hall and artisan's tables main floor view.

More artisan's tables.

Upstairs view of the main area.

My workshift didn't start until 14:00 so I had plenty of time to kill and I used this time to go through the sellers, artisan tables and the Artist's Alley on the second floor. I had planned to go listen to the watercolor panel held by Jasu Wonder World but when the time came I realized I wasn't in an attentive nor focused mood and I passed on it to charge my batteries before my work started. It's hard to control the flows and crashes of a neurospicy brain.

One half of Artist's Alley, second floor.

At some point slightly before my shift started Firith asked me if I wanted a second bubble tea while we still had the chance. You see, Kemi and Tornio has no place to get boba as far as we know so yeah, if we don't satisfy our boba addictions when we can we have to wait a painfully long time until we can get more boba, usually it means withdrawal symptoms until our next trip to either Oulu or Kuopio (because those are boba-certified for now).
So.. uh, I might have been tasked with walking across centrum to grab us our drugs. I might have done so very willingly, even with the looming threat of getting splashed by rain.

Never stop the madness.

It took me roughly 15 minutes to get to the boba shop and about the same to get back. It would be even quicker if the traffic lights in Oulu weren't permanently set to troll mode – I mean, first they stay red for like forever when there's not a single car in sight and the moment they turn green is when the cars show up. And just to mess with pedestrians even more they only stay green for like 15 seconds or such so I guess good luck if your walking speed doesn't rival Aladdin's flying carpet or something.

Proof my daily intake was more than just boba.

I don't really remember much of my Sunday work shift, it lasted from 14-19 so yeah, basically once it started I was in the green room until the con closed it doors along with one hour for the down-rigging. One thing I do remember is that when I had been at work for about one hour one of my coworkers (whom I had talked with quite a bit the day before when I was cosplaying) exclaimed something like "so where's this [my name] dude?" and I just replied that I've been sitting here all this time and it was kinda funny because it turned out that said coworker hadn't even recognized that I'm the same person because I wasn't in cosplay. xD Oh and yeah, my arm was still hurting but I managed.

Once the con closed I helped with emptying the green room as best as I could. Just like with Kummacon there was a bunch of leftover food, so the workers could grab what they wanted to reduce waste, which is a very nice gesture and bonus if you ask me. Once we had taken down most of the decorations and such I went downstairs to grab our belongings from the cloakroom. It was funny because I met the same organizer there, whom I had asked for help in the morning, and I was told that I was the first person to put in items in the cloakroom on the morning and the last one to take items out after the con. xD

The video game room. Here I worked last year. :3

I feel like I'm running out of things to say, lol. This year's Matsucon seemed to have a bit more hiccups than previous years – one of them being that I learned that Pohjankartano's maintenance or whatnot crew (aka not Matsucon itself) had, for some unknown reason, turned off the air circulation for the Matsucon weekend, probably an error or misunderstanding of some sort but yeah, this explains why the air quality was abnormally poor during the con. I remember several times on Saturday when I walked through the Artist's Alley I was almost knocked out by a suffocating wall of moist con funk combined with deteriorating oxygen levels, it was stifling and I felt sorry for all the artists who had to sit there the whole day. :'( But anyways, Matsucon is a worthwhile experience and it was fun this year too. As long as we have these firesouls bringing us annual cons in the northern half of the country I'm more than willing to show up and show my support in some way or another, be it as a visitor or volunteer~

Thanks for reading!
Shiro Samurai out.