Kummacon 2025 – Bleach and poop in the fridge

Hello nerds, furries and everyone inbetween!

Kummacon was held this past weekend during 17-18 May in Oulu, Finland. Just like the previous year the host building was Oulu's International School, which is conveniently placed in the heart of the centrum! For those not familiar with Kummacon it's a free event focused around literature, geek culture, cosplay and of course LGBTQ+ pride.

Let's get to the summary!

Kummacon poster.

Once again I had applied to be part of the work force and so had Firith, my traveling companion. My mom drove me to Kemi's bus station on Friday and there me and Firith took Onnibus together to Oulu; we would have preferred the train but there were no suitable departure times for our needs this time and so we had to take the bus. Thankfully we didn't have to carry with us a whole fucking TV and a PS5 this time so yeah, the bus ride went a bit smoother than last year. xD I didn't get stuck either because I remembered to not wear chains this time lmao. Once we got to Oulu it was moderately late and so we took a taxi to the same hotel we've been frequenting lately every time we need an overnight stay in Oulu, namely Sokos Hotel Arina.
After dumping our stuff in the hotel room we headed out to handle some errands. First we quickly checked Underground (alt lifestyle store) before it closed we also speeded through Pelimies lol and then we bought some treats from Asian Market near the railroad station. We were quite parched at this point so we grabbed takeaway bubble teas and then we did a quick return to the hotel to drink the bobas and pick up our kirppis ('flea market') items. We headed back out and dropped off our kirppis stuff at Kummacon's location so they could be put in place for the con start tomorrow. After that was done we walked all the way back to the railroad area and went to eat dinner at the Chinese restaurant on the opposite side of the road.
The funny thing is that through this whole day I kept having this insistent feeling that I've forgotten to pack something but I just couldn't place what it was. Yeah I know, I almost always have this feeling because I'm paranoid like that but now it was particularly strong. It was kind of a running joke throughout the day, in fact. xD When it became time to go sleep I realized what I had forgotten – my toothpaste. I had also realized a bit earlier that I had no spare clothes aka the t-shirt I was wearing was the only one I had with me; it was kinda the reason we went to Underground but I didn't find anything I liked enough to buy. :(
Well, we watched some National Geographic for a while and I did my pre-cosplay routines (shaved my beard, face peeling etc) before I went to sleep. As always I struggled to fall asleep but that's nothing new under the sun lol.

Saturday morning came and holy moly was I tired! My eyelids felt like a boatload of bricks, I wanted to sleep a thousand years lmao. Somehow I managed to get up I don't know how and so we headed for the hotel breakfast, which was conveniently on the same floor we had our room in. I'm surprised I didn't trip on my own feet during the walk there lol.

My Karelian pastry streak continues. #ainahimottaa

I couldn't find the tuorepuuro this time sadge ;'( but instead there was this munajuusto (lit. 'egg cheese') on the dessert table. I've honestly never seen it before and it looked fascinating enough so I took a piece of it and, well, let me just say that it was hella weird. xD It had a somewhat firm, spongy texture and it tasted quite literally like egg and cheese combined. Somehow it was both peculiarly tasty and lowkey disgusting at the same time?

After the breakfast I had perked up enough to function (it took like 5 dl of ginger shots lol) and so we went back to our room to start putting on our cosplays for the day. I was so excited to wear Ukitake again after 12 years since the last outing! I managed to get the captain's coat fixed in time for Kummacon and I'm so relieved that it was salvageable after all these years without proper care. ;_;
I don't know how we succeeded at it again but despite alotting more time for the morning preparations we still managed to end up in a rush at the end?? Like we booked our breakfast an hour earlier than Firith had originally estimated we would need lol. It's always so lovely to be wrong about how much time you need to get into cosplay. :'D Oh and I realized while doing my makeup that there was something else I had forgotten – namely my matte eyeshadow palette that I always bring with me. Needless to say I had to make do with what I had with me and thus I wasn't entirely pleased with my makeup for Ukitake but ehh, I figured it'd suffice. I mean.. I've done way worse in my first year of wearing him when I legitimately was a newbie and horseshit at makeup. xD

Bonus wtf moment: eyeshadow applicator's foam exploded open.

We arrived at the con roughly 11:30 something, meaning we had just enough time to drop off our bags at the green's backroom and then I had to go get briefed about my work tasks. I worked as what we call yleisvänkäri in Finnish, so basically a generalist volunteer doing odd small jobs like refilling the drinking water spots, emptying trash bags and helping out wherever other stations are short on hands. This basically means that I was patrolling the con area both indoors and outdoors making sure that everything was tidy and functioning. It's a relatively relaxed volunteer gig to have and suits my limited capacities at the moment.

Kummacon outdoor area.

Something I noticed quite immediately at the con was how crowded it was everywhere. I don't know if it's just me misremembering or not but it felt like there were more people around than on the previous years? It was nearly impossible to not stand in the way of someone or have someone stand in your way lol.

View just next to the entrance. Info desk at the right corner.

My first shift was just one hour, running from 12:00 to 13:00. I mainly went around filling the water tanks because they were depleting fast. The weather outside was surprisingly warm (spring arrived with a bang, it was literally near zero degrees still a few days ago) and because there were so many visitors indoors it quickly got warm there too, especially on the second floor.
I was in fact worried that picking Ukitake might have been a slight mistake in terms of the sudden onset of warm weather – I mean the costume has multiple layers and quite heavy fabrics to boot. I'm past that age of suffering unnecessarily (weather-appropriate cosplays are so important to me nowadays lol) but luckily it never got uncomfortably hot indoors. Besides, I could just quickly go and cool down outside if needed because I wasn't tied to being in any particular work station.

Once my first shift was done I met up with Firith and we headed outside to go and take some quick proof photos that we had cosplays on at the nearby park. Or well.. it was supposed to be just that buuuuuut it ballooned into a photoshoot that ate up my whole 2h break. xD We both ended up missing the guest of honor's panel because of this but oh well, classic us at this point lol.

Aaah I loved being Ukitake again..! ToT
(photographer: Firith)

I got a few more shots I'm happy with but I'll post them separately after this summary! The photo session was fun and relaxed but we had some difficulties with the sun being harsh and limiting us a lot. We tried to shoot near the rocks by the water at first but due to the bright sunlight we couldn't get any photos that had the feel we were going for and so we had to abandon that location and take the photos under a big hanging spruce – it was the only suitable place in our immediate vicinity that provided cover from the sun. :')

Once we were done we went back inside and took a speedrun through the Artist Alleys (both the one on the main floor and the one on the second floor) before I had to get ready for my second work shift of the day.

View of the start of AA, upstairs.

Also AA on the second floor, just in the middle of it.

As you can see it's quite busy. It was a bit challenging at times to browse the booths at times so you had to be a bit opportunistic and take your chances during popular programs like the cosplay competition, aka when most visitors were watching and away from free-roaming lol.

My second shift of Saturday was from 15-18 so basically the remainder of the con day. I walked around emptying trash bags, refilling more drinking water tanks (with a jug borrowed from the cafeteria lol), picking up stray trash from the ground and I also took it as my unofficial duty to grab any soda cans etc I found in random bins and collect them in one place to be recycled later by the Kummacon team because yeah, the Nordic countries (along with at least Germany afaik) have this 'pantti' or 'pant' system in place since forever so you get a small sum of money for each aluminum can or plastic bottle you recycle that has a certain mark on it. It's basically a way to encourage people to recycle because you get a bit of money back, usually like 15 cents or 1 SEK if you're in Sweden. Because Kummacon is a non-profit any monetary aid is welcome and goes towards making the next event so yeah, I thought I'd do my part while I'm checking the trashcans anyway lol.

Ukitake making sure people are hydrated. :DD

Someone with sharp eyes might notice that I'm actually wearing black slippers on the photo (and not the waraji I should be wearing to be accurate) and that's because I wanted comfortable shoes to work and roam the con in. I have learnt that I have some structural faults with my feet and have since a couple years back been intentionally wearing comfy shoes with my cosplays and only changing into the proper character shoes for photos.

One thing I also did was go and pick up trash in the immediate vicinity outside the con building, especially because a lot of people were hanging out outside and thus it was bound to get messy. I was technically not told to also clean outdoors but to me it's a no-brainer due to the reason mentioned above. I also noticed quite early that a certain trashcan near the entrance was overflowing and, while I can sigh and roll my eyes at the stupidity of forcing one's trash in when it's clearly gonna fall out, I felt like something had to be done about it. Unfortunately said trashcan required some kind of tool or lock to open and when I asked at the info desk no one was the wiser at the moment and so we just agreed on putting up a sign to redirect people to dispose of their trash indoors instead. Thankfully it worked except for one instance of someone unknown pressing their garbage through the sign, disrespecting our efforts to keep the con environment clean. That kinda grinded my gears ngl.

The Monster can on top is a mood. Everyone's a caffeine junkie lmao

I'm not gonna give anyone shade for consuming energy drinks lol, I do too. And it's kinda funny in a way but I've noticed a trend in the green rooms of cons – everything from breads to fruits and juices and even cookies deplete rather slowly but the moment energy drinks or anything with caffeine becomes available that's gonna be gone in a matter of a couple hours at best lmao. I swear it's part of con culture at this point that no one functions properly without obscene amounts of pärr pärr. Is everyone compensating for their burnouts, dysfunctional sleep patterns and neurospicy struggles? xD *raises hand*

I took the risk.. and it didn't blow up. :'D

Once my shift ended at 18:00 I went to meet up with Firith and then we walked back to the hotel. The weather was still nice and breezy when we walked and a weird pikkuernu throwback hit me – it's been ages since I last walked across a town in full cosplay! I used to travel in full cosplay gear a lot when younger, be it in trains or buses or walking several kilometers to get from my accommodation to the con every day; I frequently went to restaurants in full costume too. But I guess at some point when my anxiety got worse I started avoiding being in full cosplay at public places, like I'd change before going to eat after a con etc. There's been a few exceptions over the years (like the Kotipizza raid in Rovaniemi last year) but I realized now, while strolling through Oulu's streets, that it can still be rather fun if you just don't overthink too much. It definitely helped that there were other colorful con people also on the move at the same time so me and Firith weren't sticking out as obnoxiously. :')

Anyways, once we got back to the hotel we peeled ourselves out of our cosplays lord almighty did it feel good to go from technically four layers of clothes to just one and then I took a shower to get rid of all the makeup residues etc. I just know that had it been any warmer I wouldn't have been able to wear Ukitake for the full day.
Once we had freshed ourselves up we went out to grab some more boba, because the addiction needs to be fulfilled, and we also went to the nearby foodstore to grab a couple ciders for the Eurovision finals later in the night. We had some leftover Chinese food from the restaurant trip yesterday so we microwaved those at the hotel (thankfully there was a micro and we even got to borrow plates and utensils from the hotel's restaurant!) once we got back. I gotta admit that I'm kinda relieved no one came into the elevator at the same time as we were microing our foods because that China food smell was very stonks. xD
With full stomachs we settled down for the night and started watching the Eurovision final. It's not every day you get an anime convention and Eurovision on the same trip haha.

Norway was first out. There were so many LARP style outfits this year!

Austria was amazing, peak atmosphere. This was in my top 3 favs.

Iceland was hilariously goofy and grossly overlooked, as always. Poor Iceland. :c

BARA BADA BASTU. PERKELE!

The Käärijä versus Baby Lasagna battle was the highlight of the whole show!!

I'm so relieved that Austria won, for real. I was kinda expecting Sweden's KAJ to win based on the buzz and popularity lists but I'm very happy with this outcome as well – JJ was amazing and it was a well-deserved victory.
If there's anything I hope though it's that the battle mashup version of Cha Cha Cha and Rim Tim Tagi Dim gets officially released because that was such a godtier banger! I absolutely adore how Käärijä just tripled down on his iconic neon green look, it's epic proportions of poofy. xD #niinmuhkea

Sunday morning. I've slept like, I dunno... 3 hours at most? Yet somehow I'm more alive than I was on Saturday morning, make it make sense lol. Anyways, it was time for breakfast once again more Karelian pastries om nom and then we packed all our stuff and took a taxi to Kummacon. I had no cosplay for Sunday because I didn't want to deal with all the extra hassle when we'd be traveling back home immediately after the con.

General view of the main area on the first floor.

For once we were a bit ahead of schedule upon arriving so we actually had 1 hour to explore before my work shift would start at 12:00. We decided to do a proper Artist Alley stroll because the one we did yesterday was so rushed. I ended up buying a wolf keychain I had somehow missed despite buying from the same seller an Amaterasu fridge magnet yesterday. Firith bought some adorable snake stickers from another seller downstairs.

Cryo hosted a board game and tabletop room.

There was also a room dedicated to showcasing Lego builds.

Once my shift started I strolled around the con again, doing roughly the same tasks as on Saturday. But, unlike yesterday, today I actually didn't forget to eat the warm food served to all volunteers in the green room. Yes, I completely forgot about it the day before lololol oops.
One funny thing with having access to the green room is that when you enter or just spend time there you usually won't be alone and, more often than not, there's some sort of discussion going on – sometimes said discussions are serious but other times they're silly nonsense cranked to eleven because half of us have unhinged humor and are running on fumes. I ended up partaking in some silly conversations about northern congoers versus southern congoers etc but the most hilarious moment was when I briefly entered the green room to grab something and when I was making my exit I hear two words that made my brain functions come to a screeching halt – "kakkaa jääkaapissa". For those not understanding Finnish that translates to "[there's] poop in the fridge". I turned around and asked what the heck the context was and it turns out that, at some point, this random box with something dark brown and irregularly shaped appeared in the fridge and there was apparently no signs on it of what it was or for who. No one had taken a closer look nor asked around to clear up the confusion and thus the mysterious 'shit in the fridge' was born. xD I asked why not inspect it and then these other two volunteer workers pulled the box out of the fridge and after staring at the lump for some seconds we came to the conclusion that it was two rather thick seemingly homebaked chocolate chip cookies that had gotten stuck together lmao!

Kummacon cafeteria. Possibly where the "poop cookies" came from. :'D

My first shift conveniently ended at 14:00, meaning I had a break just when Firith's classic book talk was. I figured I could go listen because I didn't have anything else to do and two of the books mentioned might have been my suggestions in the first place lol.

Walking through the corridors where most panel rooms were.

Know thy classics! Yes, I've read that one in school.

There were a decent amount of listeners so I wasn't just pity filler and everything went well. Finished a tiny bit ahead of time but that's not uncommon. After the book talk was over I took some creative liberties and doodled a hattivatti (aka hattifattener in English, from Moomin) on the whiteboard just for shits and giggles. I intentionally made it a bit cross-eyed for extra lulz. A hilarious sidenote is that I was completely unaware that the program after Firith's book talk was actually a panel about the Moomins and the sea, meaning that I had unknowingly drawn a relevant character on the whiteboard that ended up being sneakily featured on Kummacon's instagram stories. XD I lowkey wish I would have participated in that panel just to know if there were any funny reactions lmao.

Hattivatti was here.

My second work shift started at 15:00 and this last shift was pretty slow-moving because there weren't many hours of con time left. You could tell some people had already left because there was no need to fill the water tanks as often and besides, Sundays are always less busy than Saturdays anyway.

At some point when I was heading outdoors to get some fresh air I saw a cosplayer in front of me whose outfit looked weirdly familiar. I stopped him and asked if he was perchance cosplaying Scar from Wuthering Waves, an action RPG game I've lately been getting more invested in. The way he bounced up in the air with excitement was too precious! He told me that no one before me had recognized who he was dressed up as (not said to his face at least) and that he was worried that no one knew the character because WuWa isn't as well-known as the Hoyoverse games. We ended up bonding over a lot of relatable anecdotes like both of us sucking majorly at math and missing the good old times when people interacted more with cosplayers at conventions. He also revealed himself to be a total Scar fanboy and honestly it made me so happy that there's still people out there who are so wholeheartedly indulging in their important fandoms no matter how cringe it might seem to others. Never stop being passionate about what brings your geeky heart joy!

Miocosplay_ as Scar, the antagonist from Wuthering Waves.

I was so excited to see Wuthering Waves cosplays in real life for the first time – up until Kummacon I hadn't seen anyone except for a Shorekeeper briefly on Saturday (I wasn't 100% sure because it was very crowded and I was busy working so couldn't go look for them). I just got like the biggest motivation boost to get Calzone Calcharo started for next year, I've been entertaining the thought ever since I started playing WuWa and pulled him on the novice banner – dude's the reason I kept playing because his character design and combat moves were so damn cool. I powered through the first story chapters despite them being outright poor but yeah, once Scar showed up I started getting seriously interested. Currently it's one of my favorite games so yeah, this encounter was such a blast for me too!

There was a video game room. So nice with the retro options!

At some point during the con I found the video game room in the far end of the corridor and I happened to come by it just when the Super Nintendo was available. I checked through the games but couldn't find any of my childhood favorites – there were Lemmings (which I had) but that game takes too long when you have limited free time and so I played a few stages of Donkey Kong Country instead. I still keep misjudging the attack roll frames and distances and die in noobish ways lol.

My shift ended at 17:00 and so did Firith's; the con closed at 18:00 officially but our train would leave at that time so we had to depart a bit earlier to make it. As soon as we were free we went to reclaim our unsold kirppis items and then we grabbed all our belongings from the back of the green room and headed out.

Blåhaj is the true main organizer.

Due to how much luggage we had we took a taxi to the train station to make life easier. The train arrived on time and the journey home went smoothly. In fact the whole con went rather smoothly from my point of view. Of course there's always some small hiccups here and there because we're all human but as far as I'm concerned nothing catastrophic happened and the days flowed well? I did enjoy my time and I'm happy with my work effort, although I had some struggles with lower back pain during Saturday which made me need to sit down every now and then to limit the pain temporarily.

It's fulfilling to be a part of this little event that strives to build community and a sanctuary for all of those who are more or less shunned by the rest of society like the nerds, the queers, the neurodivergents, the daydreamers, the adults who nurture their inner children and basically anyone who struggles to find acceptance in the outside world. Stifling norms and expectations aren't norms at Kummacon – here it's possible to unmask and breathe a bit easier as our truest selves. This is a space where we can come together and own our unique weirdnesses safely.

I hope Kummacon won't disappear from the list of annually occuring events. My greatest appreciations go out to all the organizers for the hard work they put in – I've seen how challenging and exhausting it can be to make it all come together. Not all heroes wear capes~

Bonus pic of my AA purchases. I have a theme. x)

I think that's all I had to say about this year's Kummacon journey. Next up will be the Ukitake mini photoshoot I promised!
~ Shiro Samurai out.

Kemin mangapäivä 2025 – Hosting an activity room!

 Hello geeks and bookworms!

After years in a deep hiatus Kemi's manga day has returned! It's been a whopping 10 years since I last attended this local event and I think that's roughly when it stopped being held too, give or take a couple years. Kemi's manga day was held on Saturday 8th March, it's a free one-day event in the Kulttuurikeskus building.

Let's get on with this summary!

As a little backstory I want to mention that many many years ago Kemi's manga day was the first ever pop culture event I attended and it's where my cosplay journey started back in 2009. :'D So yeah, I have a certain nostalgic fondness for this humble event – and so when I heard news that Kemi's manga day was about to rise from its grave I got very excited and made sure to inform my willingness to help make it happen, especially because I knew the firesouls behind the effort to bring it back.
For those unaware Kemi's manga day and Kitacon have actually been arranged by a single person all those previous years, more or less, and at some point down the road said person burnt out and that's why both anime events in Kemi suddenly stopped. This is why it's so very important to have other passionate people to pass the torch forward to when your powers eventually fall short!
Anyways, I was early with taking contact and, while my initial position was to be one of the cosplay competition judges, I saw a creeping dilemma approaching the closer to launch we got. That creeping dilemma was called ~not enough programs and activities~. So in a last minute change of mind a few days before the con I asked the main organizers if I could host a drop-in drawing workshop instead of being a cosplay judge; I figured getting activities was more urgent and an art room is easy enough for me to host, despite my numerous struggles. I got a grateful thumbs up and set the plan in motion!

Entrance to the event building. Nostalgic for many of us.

Then came the much awaited return of the king day. My mom was an angel and had promised to drive me to Kemi on the morning and so I didn't have to take public transport or anything. Who wasn't an angel was my neighbors though, because of course they decided to have some karaoke night on Friday night because why the fuck not, complete with humppa and drunken setämies fights. This month has been a ridiculous bullet hell of Murphy's law everywhere for me, I shit you not. Oh well, thank lord my lovely neighbors eventually went to sleep and so I could go to sleep too lol.
My original plan had been to cosplay but due to a combination of bad luck (including aforementioned partying wrecking my chances at a decent night's sleep) and other factors I decided on the morning to just go casual instead. Or well, as casual as my most basic metalhead attire is.

I arrived in Kemi roughly 10:30, with half an hour to spare before the event officially opened its doors to visitors. Immediately upon entering I noticed that some of the artist tables had been placed just next to the entrance, which I personally think is great as it adds a lot of visibility and novelty, as in you can immediately tell that it's not just another normal day at the library. Yes, I'm saying library here because the local library is in the same building and it's the main reason most people enter the building. Also a shoutout to the library for being one of the two organizing bodies and lending personnel to make the manga day flow smoothly!

Immediately upon entering you saw a part of the Artist's Alley.

Here's OwlCraftian's booth, one of the talented young craftmakers. ♥

I went to dump my jacket and scarf in one of the backrooms and then I quickly checked my work station, aka the library's youth room where the drawing workshop was to be held. I scurried around for a few minutes fetching some people to get all the tools I needed for the room (paper, coloring pens etc) and after making sure that everything was ready at 11:00 I spent the next 30 minutes checking the Artist's Alley while I still had some time to do so.
I saw some faces from previous con trips but I also saw a few I've only seen like once and there were one or two booths I think I've never seen before, which was very nice to see! I really like how the organizers have given newcomers and locals a chance to come and sell because Artist's Alley slots are highly sought after and usually events get more applications than there's available slots so yeah, sadly not everyone who wants in gets a place and usually the bigger, already established names get priority. Variety and supporting those with less experience (so that they can get more experience) makes me a happy fellow artist. :)

General view of the main area (immediately after passing the AA).

Before leaving for my work station I snapped all the photos in this summary and yes, because I took the photos early that's why it looks more empty than it actually was during the busiest hours.

Oh, I forgot to mention that aside from the library there's also a permanent comic exhibition (feat. Donald Duck characters) and a museum in the same building. And a cafeteria and a rotating art exhibition hall so yeah, it's not called Kulttuurikeskus (lit. 'culture center') for nothing.

Kemi's children's culture center held a DIY pin workshop in the comic exhibition area.

Once the clock hit 11:30 I made my way through the library and all the way to the drawing room in the far back, past the youth section. When I arrived two kids were already diligently drawing in there, much to my surprise. In this room I was to sit until the cosplay competition started, which was at 14:00 local time.

Drawing workshop, prepared and awaiting attendants~

I'll admit, I was quite nervous at first. I've never hosted any kind of self-suggested activity alone before. I might or might not have co-hosted something at some point, I can't remember. Oh, and I don't count Mericon's photobooth here because it was officially needed and not something that came from my head. I can get panicky in front of people but I figured that watching over kids drawing is less daunting than hosting something for adults, because especially young kids aren't as critical and bothered by neurospicy quirks or social awkwardness as adults can be, generally speaking. Anime events tend to be an exception to this rule, which is a calming thought.
I did start to feel comfortable eventually and I'm very happy about how everyone who visited the workshop was very well-behaved. There were zero behavioral issues throughout the whole day and everyone even knew to keep their voices down despite there being no signs anywhere. #faithinhumanityrestored

A big part of why the workshop existed was because there was also a drawing competition held for minors – the theme was "me as an anime character/hero" and to qualify you needed to draw an original character that had three traits that you also have, be it personality or visual features. Inspiration from existing franchises (aka "me in the Naruto universe" etc) was allowed but no actual character art or a colorswap of an existing character etc.
The competition was originally split into three categories divided by age (for fairness) but it just so happened that every single person who submitted a drawing for the competition was in the same age group! We got a healthy amount of submissions and so, when it came time to judge the competing works, we decided to choose one winner and one honorable mention. And when I say we I mean me and the other judges; originally it was supposed to just be me and Ilkka from the library personnel but Firith and Sallukka happened to show up just when we were about to start the judging process. You see, we had two contestants who weren't done by the time the clock struck 14:00 and so me and Ilkka agreed to give them 15 minutes more grace time to finish their artworks – it would have been cruel not to extend the time a little because the poor kids were so stressed when they realized they wouldn't have time to finish by the original deadline. Yes, I was mentioning every now and then how much time was left. I just didn't have the heart to tell them 'no' when they asked for overtime because I had seen them drawing very focused for the better part of an hour and I know how crushing it can be to hand in something you created passionately that isn't complete.
So yeah, because of this additional time before the judging started that's why Firith and Sallukka already ended up finishing the cosplay judges responsibilities and so we were four people trying to decide on who would win. I gotta be perfectly honest here and say that it was genuinely difficult to pick a winner. Every submission was well done when you consider the age of the artists (everyone was between 9-11 years old with a majority being 10) and similar in terms of technical skillsets. I honestly felt bad and genuinely sad that I couldn't give everyone an award because it was that even. :'( Library budgets are tight af, I personally provided some of the prizes and so did a few others. Just know that if you're one of the contestants and you happen to read this now or many years into the future – you all did a great work and should be proud of yourselves. Keep on drawing!

General view next to the library's entrance.

Once the judging was done we tried to find all the contestants and get them back to the room for the reveal of the winner and handing out the prizes. After some roaming we managed to find all six participants (thankfully no one had left yet!) and the lil' ceremony could start.

After the prize-giving was over the event was down on its final hour and I tagged along Firith and Sallukka to the last activity of the day, namely the former's panel upstairs. It was a filler rerun of the same panel first seen at Mericon's debut in 2023. There were a handful of listeners despite how late into the day it was. I don't know how I managed to appear present and proper because it felt like my brain was nearing the questionable state of fried tofu. Yeah, I have quite severe afternoon crashes sometimes when my energy just drops to absolute Mariana Trench levels. Luckily the worst part of this kicked in after Kemi's manga day was already over because I was yawning non-stop for over an hour and it was embarrassing lmao.

Near the library's entrance. Notice the lost & found bookmark hanger!

Because I was watching over the drawing room all day I saw very little of the rest of the event itself. I did not see the cosplay competition and probably missed half of all colorful visitors but I don't mind, I feel like I significantly contributed to make the event get out of the starting line and run a successful run. :') I'm just so happy to see Kemi's manga day returning from the dead and I would be pissed at myself if I hadn't lifted a finger to help it in some way lol. This means that my summary is, perhaps, not as "complete" as it might have otherwise been – but I have no regrets.

I think that's roughly all I had to say about this fuzzily nostalgic yet new experience. It felt so wonderfully déjà vu to enter the building for the first time and see fursuits and cosplayers again after all these years. I mean, this is one of the buildings where Kitacon used to be when I started out; it's hard to describe this weird nostalgy I'm feeling but it feels like I've come full circle – I started here as a bullied, young and cringy weeb (we all were cringe, don't lie lmao) with hardly any friends and now I am one of the adults forming the backbone of safety and community and making sure that the next generation of kids can have the same fundamental experiences I had when growing up. It feels unreal but it's so very real – this is the kind of small magic that everyone can do: giving back to the very same community that helped you. ♥

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed this little read!
~ Shiro Samurai (aka KaamosWolf) out.

Konekocon 2025 – First winter visit to Kuopio

 Hello everyone!

Konekocon was held this past weekend on Saturday 1st February in Kuopio, Finland. Konekocon is essentially a mini version of Nekocon that's held on the summer in the same city. I've been to Nekocon twice before but never to Konekocon so yeah, I thought I should check it out at least once so that I know whether I've been missing out or not. Spoiler alert: not really.

Let's get to the summary~

Entrance to Lumit, the con building.

The night between Thursday and Friday I spent over at Sallukka's and Dongrieg's place in Kemi, to make it easier to catch the train on the morning. We had a pleasant time just chilling, talking and I also watched them play Monster Hunter Rise together and now I'm tempted to grab it too the next time it comes on sale. :') I played the early demo on Switch way back and it just rubbed me the wrong way back then, I hated so many of the changes as a long-time hunter and decided it would be the first installment of the series that I'd skip. Well, now I saw my friends play and I was quite surprised to see that none of the annoying things in the demo seemed present, almost as if it was a completely different game? It looked like *gasp* Monster Hunter – and the new things suddenly seemed managaeable and not like forced gimmicks you had to use at all times. Completely changed my opinion right there and then lol.

Anyways, we eventually went to sleep (Dongrieg went earlier, me and Sallukka ended up talking about con stuff until way too late lmao) and then it was Friday morning. I was the only one out of us three who was heading for Konekocon (they had just been at Desucon Frostbite the weekend before!) so on the morning I packed my stuff and had Sallukka kindly drive me to the train station. Had a panic moment when I didn't find my phone in my pockets once I sat down in the car (we were already on the verge of running late) but luckily it had not fallen out on the yard – it had just slipped out of my pocket and I was sitting on it. Classic. xD
We got to the train station just in time when the train arrived. I saw Firith waiting on the platform. We got to our seats and then the journey down to Kuopio started... or well, first there was a stop and train change at Oulu, which meant we went to the Asian market on the other side of the street and bought some mochi and coconut jelly drinks.
I honestly don't remember much of the train trip itself, I think I mostly just idled on my phone and then suddenly we were in Kuopio lol. Our hotel for the trip was Sokos Hotel Puijonsarvi, which was a first visit for me.

There was a goldfish aquarium at the hotel's reception!

Of course we got a hotel room that was like the furthest away in the corridor (and no, it still wasn't quiet because some kids were running amok), yay. Anyways, because we had been traveling the whole day we hadn't really had an opportunity to eat properly so of course we were really hungry. We dropped our stuff in the hotel room and almost directly started to look up restaurant options; Kuopio is not really a familiar city to either of us but after staring intensely at Google Maps for long enough we just decided to head out and go with what we found first that looked inviting. Yeah, in truth we couldn't agree on if we wanted pizza or a Chinese restaurant lmao.

Spoiler broiler! We went to a Nepalese restaurant instead!

Fuck me this food was good. ;__;

We found this super convincing Nepalese restaurant hidden inside a shopping center that had these huge decals plastered outside saying "Finland's best Nepalese restaurant" – now it can't be bad at least. :'D There were a lot of people eating inside too and that's always a sign of quality. So yeah, we totally went with this one and oh boy it was a good choice, so much yum yum! For anyone curious who happens to be in Kuopio now (or in the future) and wants to know the sauce name of the place – it's called Mandala and it's located in kauppakeskus Apaja. Well worth a visit, just be aware that it's slightly on the expensive side.

Once we were done we headed back to the hotel for the night. A nice thing was that we had access to National Geographic in the room so we might have watched a lot of programs, including WW2 history (what happened to the submarine USS Scamp) and a program about king Herod from the Bible. It's a good thing that I don't have National Geographic at home or I would probably watch it too much lmao, almost everything's interesting dangit!

Okay, Saturday morning was upon us. I slept poorly, no surprises there. Quickly put some clothes on and headed for the breakfast buffet, which was really good (on par with the Sokos hotel in Oulu). I was disappointed when I saw a handful of random women with multiple macarons on their plates, only to find out that there were none left at the dessert table when I went to look. :C *sniff* Oh well, I don't complain when there's fresh cantaloupe melon available!

Once we were done with the breakfast we went back to our room to put on our costumes. My costume for the con was Yamato no Kami Yasusada from Touken Ranbu. I managed to find the scarf before departure but it was in a weirdass place and terribly wrinked to boot, but thankfully Sallukka let me iron it before I left Kemi; I don't have an ironing board at home – scandalous for a cosplayer, I know!
I don't know what was wrong with this con morning but my makeup just wasn't having it. Like I had done all peelings and moisturizers and prep-work the night before but still the foundation just looked blotchy and shit lol. Not to mention that my eyeliner was particularly assymetrical too, rääh! Normally I might be a bit of a perfectionist but when even Firith said that the wings are noticeably different that's when you know it's bad lmao. I wasn't the only one struggling with putting my costume on though so I take pleasure in that shared suffering lololo

Once we finally were done we took a taxi to Konekocon. Sadly we arrived a bit too late and so we missed the Digimonien Avara Luonto program, again. :'( I wanted to see it already on its first outing at a previous con but it just didn't work out and now we were too late again. I'm just not a morning person so yeah, trying to catch con activities that are on the first couple hours after opening is hard when you have some serious insomnia issues.
It was a bit confusing when we arrived in front of the building because there was basically no one outside (which, on one hand, is normal because winter and cold) and so you have that split-second of doubting if you're even in the right place. It looked so empty. The lack of any posters or anything indicating that something was happening inside was also a bit weird. If you didn't know that it was the correct building you might have just walked past it, that's how plain and unassuming it looked.
Oh well, quite literally the first thing we did after we got our con tickets exchanged was that we went back outside to snap a couple proof photos that we had costumes on.

When you try to be cute but look like you need tramadol.

We had no intentions to have any proper photoshoots because neither of us felt like it – makeup game wasn't on point and that bothered us both enough to feel like it wasn't worthwhile. So yeah, once we got the photos we needed we headed back inside and I changed out of my winter shoes and into my geta. I dropped my shoes off at the cloakroom (honestly it felt nice to only have a bag of shoes to drop off and not half your belongings lol) and then we beelined to the Artist's Alley.

View from the entrance. Ticket desk to the right.

There were no info booklets so instead you had the activities
and info plastered on a few walls around the con.

The Artist's Alley was located upstairs in what looked like a school's gymnastics room. I gotta say I felt a bit dumb because I was so disoriented and confused when I went upstairs the first time – I didn't get it at first that it's the same Lumit building we had been in at Nekocon because we entered from a different floor and direction and because the spaces were utilized differently. So for example what was the Artist's Alley in Nekocon was a lounge area in Konekocon and what was the Artist's Alley in Konekocon had been the video game room in Nekocon. :D

View when entering the Artist's Alley.

Closer view of the middle table area.

Artist's Alley was easy to move around in because it was located in a big gymnastics room and the tables were located along the edges and a group was roughly in the middle. This made the traffic flow well and it never felt crammed nor suffered from poor air quality, which was nice. Oh, I should mention that the gymnastics room didn't only host the artists, there were also some merchandise dealers like manga sellers, Pokémon TCG sellers and an authentic kimono seller whom I was so socially awkward with that I was tormented by that encounter for the rest of the day #help.
I liked that there were some sellers and artists that I hadn't seen before and also some that I've only seen like once or twice!

General pic of the main/lounge area.

After plowing through the Artist's Alley and combined Dealer's Hall we just sat down at one of the tables in the main area for a little while and then we went to look for the 'conikirppis', aka the flea market. I'm not sure if we were just late (clock was roughly 13 something) and everyone had already raided it clean or what but I gotta be blunt here and say that this was by far the worst kirppis I've ever seen at a con. Like it was so empty that it was a very weird sight and what was left was clearly stuff that people wanted to get rid off and no one wanted to buy (*coughloneharrypottermerchcough*). I mean it looks a little bit depressing when you see more table surface than products on the table. It was full-on empty, no joke.
There were a few figurines in boxes that I think were probably fair buys (didn't check price or look closer because the series didn't interest me) but there were some things that just made me shake my head in disbelief when I saw the price tags. I'm not gonna go into specifics but lets just say clearly self-made stuff that either were falling or had fallen apart (or was just poorly made) and with outrageous asking prices considering the condition. It was just... baffling. No one buys near-broken stuff for like 30€, that's some serious delulu.

More tables to sit and lounge at.

After the flea market we headed up another floor to get to the video game room and were most of the activity rooms were. Or well, one of them was a "silent room" option, which I gotta say is a very nice concept because sometimes you might just need to retreat for any reason and it's good that there's a space provided for this kind of needs – especially since it seems rather common that congoers are on the neurodivergent spectrum. This kind of increasing thoughtfulness makes me happy.

View towards the silent room.

Just next to the silent room was the video game room. It was a moderately small room with a few consoles, mostly newer generation. There was at least one PS5 (maybe two), a Nintendo Switch, a PS2 and then one console with a rhythm dance mat. There was a relaxed atmosphere in the room and the guys running it seemed very chill too. I wouldn't have minded playing some Mario Kart on the Switch (I don't have it myself) but the trio of friends seemed really immersed and so I didn't want to bother them and have them potentially ending their session early. I ended up just watching them playing for a while and then I moved on to try and find the karaoke room. There was Tekken 8 that was vacant but I didn't feel like throwing punches.

Gaming room feat. gamers.

I just aimlessly wandered around upstairs and I happened to find one of the panelist rooms that had one of those character improvisation panels running ("how to be in-character", basically) and when I walked past that room I soon came across the karaoke room in the far back. I'm surprised that the karaoke room was so far away from everything else but I guess it was probably one of the few bigger rooms to host it in or something? The room was indeed quite sizeable, I'll give it that. There were several groups of people just hanging out there and the overall mood was laid-back and casual.

The karaoke room and one of Nekocon's mascots singing.

We stayed in the karaoke room for a while because it was free music and also because Firith was on the fence on whether to dare sing or not. It didn't end up happening.

I gotta say that one thing that we both couldn't help but notice was that the average age of the visitors seemed to be a bit lower than on your average convention. It felt like there were a lot of kids and minors running around and because I'm a millenial I felt like a goddamn dinosaur in comparison lmao. I mean yeah it's nice to see that the younger generations are getting into the anime subcultures yada yada but man did it make me feel like an old fart!

Upstairs were also these nice "private boxes" were you could hang out.

View when you arrived upstairs, there's a scene just downstairs.

We eventually noticed that the clock was quite much and decided to head back down to go check out whatever that one Miku Hatsune program was. I'll admit I had no prior knowledge and basically went in blind with the only assumption that it probably featured dancing. I'm not sure if I even had any expectations and that's probably a good thing because I just went in with the hopes of being entertained to some degree. The show was called Snowflake Harmony and it was held on the con's last hours. I wanted to attend at least something and this seemed like it could be fun – and so I tagged along with Firith, who's a big Vocaloid fan.

Snowflake Harmony first solo live debut.

I'll admit I'm probably not the target audience for this because as far as my Vocaloid knowledge goes I only know some of the characters and only barely know some of the most popular songs. Thankfully that did not stop me from having a good time because the Miku cosplayer, who was the sole performer, was super adorable and energetic. She seemed to be a minor but had impressive theathrical talent for her age, which was most apparent in the funny short skits between the dance episodes where she would act out typical teenager scenarios with believable use and range of different voices and emotions. Very charismatic! I didn't catch what her social media tags were but if you see this just know that you did a great job and you have talent for acting! The dancing and lip sync were well done too and seemed to be the correct choreographies to the featured songs (according to Firith at least, I have no knowledge about this haha), it looked like she knew the lyrics by heart because the lip movements didn't seem random at all. We sat in one of the first rows so had a pretty close view to pay attention to that kind of stuff. x)

After the show ended we sat down near the cloakroom for a moment and contemplated our lives. Or more like what to do now. Originally Firith wanted to watch the cosplay catwalk, which was one of the last activities and would start in like 30 minutes. I wasn't really interested and soon enough we both agreed to leave because we realized we were rather tired and yeah, getting out of cosplay and grabbing something to eat was more enticing.
We called a taxi back to the hotel and left Konekocon behind. I don't remember much from the rest of the evening except that my eyes were so dry ngl they were dry already on the morning before I even put lenses on that I joked something about feeling like that flat fish that has the weird migrating eyes and Firith said "eli meno vitun punakampela" and I think that's something I can live by. xD

We went to grab pizza nearby in a place called Green House (yes it had a lot of plants to make the name legit), I honestly recommend because it was cheap and the pan pizza was delish!
The rest of the night we watched some more National Geographic and had some coctails and sweets. Our train home was on the following day so we got to enjoy another hotel breakfast buffet no daim chocolate cake :c.

Iltakevennys.

I have somewhat conflicted feelings about Konekocon, to be honest. It wasn't a bad con per se but it just felt bland and lowkey uninspired I guess? There weren't a lot of decorations (and what existed was Nekocon's stuff, so it didn't even feel like Konekocon had its own identity/branding) and this is probably gonna sound weird, because it's more commonly the opposite issue, but with Konekocon it felt like the building was too big for the con – almost all areas were so spacious that it felt half-empty. I know that they only sold roughly half of their tickets so there were like 500-ish attendants but yeah, I constantly had that feeling in the back of my head of "wow there's almost no one here". Don't get me wrong though, Lumit is a good building for hosting a con. It just felt barren and I really think more decorations would have helped with mitigating this. I can also make an educated guess that Desucon Frostbite being the weekend before ate up a lot of potential visitors, putting Konekocon at a bad time slot.
Perhaps I had too high expectations (partly due to Nekocon and also other winter versions of cons like Närcon Vinter) but I digress, it just felt lackluster and there wasn't really that much to do either. When I looked around it seemed like a lot of people appeared bored and like they were just sitting in groups scrolling on their phones waiting for something to happen instead of socializing. I think having some non-stop workshop activities like a drawing room, manga-reading corner or some kind of casual competitions (gaming tournaments etc) etc would have made the experience a lot more whole.

Honestly, if you live far away like me then I'd say don't bother with Konekocon and save your money. If you live close or are new to the scene then by all means go and support it! At least I can now personally cross Konekocon off my list of events to try out and not be bothered by that pesky "what if" voice anymore. It's not good but it's not bad either, it's just meh. For now at least, and that's only my opinion and experiences. I hope Konekocon grows better in the future, hopefully into its own boots and away from being just a shadow under Nekocon.

Thanks for reading, remember to not eat yellow snow!
~ Shiro Samurai