Matsucon 2025 - Trying a new thing and succeeding

 Hello everyone!

It's time for my Matsucon 2025 summary! About time since the con was held 9th-10th of August, also known as it's been about three months since then... Oops. But, as you will learn later in this post, I actually had a good reason for postponing this post no, I don't mean the Mericon summary which for some reason is always a bit hard for me to write lol - just keep reading~!

One of this year's Matsucon posters.

As per usual, I and Shiro Samurai (who kindly took the pics for this summary too, thank you!) traveled to Oulu on Friday, also known as the day before the con. Since I was still on my summer vacation we arrived at Oulu in the afternoon instead of the usual evening arrival - which meant we had plenty of time to go to eat and all that. This year's Matsucon weekend didn't start all that well for me though - the moment I stepped out of the train I felt my body acting up (and unfortunately it stayed like that for the whole weekend). No, I wasn't sick or anything, but the symptoms of one of my chronic disorders... Made themselves known, let's put it that way. Luckily I managed to take my pain killers in time and even eat something - which can't always be guaranteed with this one - but when the pain finally subsided I was so tired that I practically slept for the whole evening. Well, luckily Sokos Hotel Arina, our trusty accommodation at Oulu has very comfortable beds so at least I got a good sleep :'D 

Saturday morning came. Our morning routine was basically the same as always; we woke up, went to eat some breakfast and after that it was time to start putting our costumes on. In Shiro Samurai's case that meant Kisuke Urahara from Bleach while I cosplayed an OC. You see, this pirate-ish outfit I wore at Mericon 2024 kind of grew to be an outfit for a bartender lady called Marigold. I will tell more about her in the future - also known as half of her lore is still unwritten and I don't want to tell too much about a work in progress character lol. 
Well, it didn't take us long to get ready and a bit before 11 we took a taxi to the con. The heatwave was still going on strong and neither of us wanted to sweat our faces makeup off before arriving at the con venue. I mean, it wasn't just warm; the air felt somewhat thick, just like before thunderstorms (which, as far as I know, didn't occur in the end).

The con entrance.

The lobby during a surprisingly quiet moment.

When we arrived at the con we fetched our badges and tickets. Shiro Samurai was working as a green room volunteer this year too while I hosted a program about Star Stable Online. What I truly do appreciate is that Matsucon actually gave a free weekend ticket for program hosts too! ❤ Not sure if this is to motivate more people to host panels, workshops etc. but for me it sure worked - that was one of the reasons why I even applied in the first place the bigger one being that I actually like hosting panels because, well, my car definitely makes sure that I don't really have any extra money to go around lol. 

We checked the time and realized that we had approximately 45 minutes before Shiro Samurai's shift would begin so we decided to check the artisans and merchants downstairs. 

The obligatory Miku products. As a VOCALOID fan I highly appreciate seeing these.

The artisan/merchant area view from upstairs.

On the third picture you might spot me in red wig talking to a few people. Well, that was The Surprise Encounter of Matsucon 2025. You see, we had been walking around - and checking the time every two minutes lol - and stopped to discuss "where should we go next". I happened to turn mid-sentence and realized that I was face to face with my colleague Jossu and her (adult) children! :'D Turned out that the children - let's call them M & E - had gotten interested in anime/cosplay conventions during Kemin Mangapäivä this year and now they had decided to make a one-day trip to Matsucon ❤ Jossu actually said that she had hoped to meet me there but hadn't dared to message me since I was still on vacation ;__; I, of course, told her that in the future it would be more than okay to reach out - the more, the merrier!

With the little time we had left before a certain someone would have to go to brew some coffee for caffeine addicts - also known as to work at the green room - we decided to check out the board game room hosted by CRYO ry. We were interested in Maracon, a board game/tabletop game event hosted by them and had some questions about it, such as "Do people cosplay there?", "Do you need to be a member of CRYO to attend it?" etc. The CRYO guys were so nice to talk to; they made us feel welcome right from the start ❤

There were a lot of games to choose from!

Not long after that Shiro Samurai had to go to the green room - his shift was about to start. I, on the other hand, decided to go check out the matsuri themed panel, hosted by minnalabanana. I'm not too familiar with Japanese festivities even though they are presented pretty often in video games and anime series, but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't be interested. And, well, I found the panel very interesting; unfortunately I don't have any pictures from it but basically everything mentioned was new information to me. This panel was also very popular, there wasn't a single empty seat!

After the panel I decided to go downstairs since I was waiting for Sallukka and their little brother Joni to arrive at the venue. We had been texting each other basically the whole morning - thanks Snapchat for existing - and I knew that they were in Oulu already so all I had to do was basically sit and wait.

This year's Matsucon was kind of special for Sallukka and I (oh yeah and Matsucon itself turned 10). You see, we had photoshooted their Melina cosplay (Elden Ring) earlier this year - if I remember correctly it was around May since there were no mosquitoes yet lol. Of course our main interest was getting good pictures of said cosplay... But we also had something else in mind too. And this is where the title of this post comes from since neither of us had done this before with anyone: we took part in Matsucon's cosplay photoshoot competition! 

I have had interest in photography for years now and occasionally have photoshooted my friends' costumes, be it cosplay or alternative style. This year there also wasn't any other competition at Matsucon that we could have entered; cosplay catwalk isn't exactly a competition and the only actual cosplay competition was the qualifying round of Tournament of Champions. Which is... Pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Not with my costume-making skills lol. 

Also: I'm still not over the fact that our contestant number was 13 this year - exactly the same I had last year when I competed with my Kiki costume xD 

The lobby area where I waited for them to arrive.

I was so happy to see this!! ❤ The rules sure were easy to check out!

I sat in the lobby for a while until I realized that I was actually quite thirsty and needed some water. I made my way to the cafeteria - and spotted Jossu, E and M having a coffee break. I kept them company for a while and told them more about Matsucon and cosplay/convention scene in general. I was in the middle of explaining when I spotted a familiar-looking princess Aurora buying a cup of coffee - in other words, Sallukka and Joni had arrived!

...and it turned out that they had already checked out the Artists' Alley, I had just been too blind to see them or they had arrived at the venue just when I was in the bathroom lol. Sallukka showed us an A5 print of Ismo Laitela and Seppo Taalasmaa as nuns - "Siunausta!" x'D All of us had a good laugh over that, the idea was genius! I tried to spot the print later when I checked out the Artists' Alley myself but didn't see it anywhere, I guess it sold out before I managed to buy one :c 

Eventually E and M decided they wanted to check out the Artists' Alley and the merchants once more and then go see the the guest of honor's show. I waited for Sallukka and Joni finish their coffees so we could discuss what we'd do next - and to the video game room it was.

Even though I didn't really feel up to gaming - like I mentioned, my body tried to make me miserable for the whole weekend - I enjoyed watching the siblings play, it was very fun and entertaining! xD At some point I checked my phone and noticed that Shiro Samurai's shift would soon be over. I decided to head to the green room but I told Sallukka that if we didn't run into each other any earlier I would go watch the cosplay competition. The results of the photoshoot competition would be announced then too so yeah, needless to say that I was getting more and more nervous but I sure af wanted to go to check out all the wonderful pics and costumes. 

I made my way to the green room, waited for Shiro Samurai to finish his shift and then we headed downstairs. We wanted to go check out a program at Iso Kirsikka; there was not much information about what was going to happen but the program names were "Dragon art & Samurai Dance", "Bon odori: Japanese dances" and "J-Pop Idol Performance". The first in order was the one we wanted to attend to - too bad that a few others had had similar thoughts and the room was practically full! D: Shiro Samurai managed to get a seat meanwhile I decided to stay at the cafeteria and watch from there - the door was open so yeah, I didn't exactly miss anything out. Or at least not much.

For more details about the program, check out Shiro Samurai's summary since he had a better view of it - literally. 

When I was sitting at the cafeteria I noticed a familiar face, namely FreakyAngel, approaching me. I had texted her that I would also attend Matsucon but I hadn't bumped into her earlier. She joined me and we chatted quietly while we watched the program - didn't want to disturb it by making any loud noises, not even by accident. Even though we had met just a week earlier at Mericon we still had a lot to talk about!

When the painting part of the program was finished Shiro Samurai joined us too. It didn't take long before it was just us two - FreakyAngel had spotted another acquaintance and went to greet them - and I think that at that point we decided to go outside for a while before checking out the Artists' Alley. Just like last year the AC was basically non-existent... Which, in the middle of the heatwave, felt like being grilled alive.

Outside we bumped into this. Back then we didn't figure it out but I've been thinking about this and wondered if the answer was 'a fishing net' - then again it usually has more eyes than just 21...

After we had stopped melting cooled down we decided to go check the Artists' Alley - we hadn't had the time to go there before and we were already kind of running out of time since Shiro Samurai would have to go back to the green room soon. So, to the Artists' Alley we went! 

A general view of the Artists' Alley.

This year I didn't buy that much stuff; I was running on kind of a low budget at this point and knew that I'd need some money for going out later. You see, my bestie Gure and her girlfriend Selja were at Oulu (they were visiting a friend) and we had decided to meet up later - and as we all know, drinks aren't exactly cheap lol. But I finally bought one print I had already been eyeing at Kummacon, namely a Wriothesley x Neuvillette pairing one. Yeah, still a BL fan lol.

I think that at this point I checked the clock and realized that the cosplay competition would start soon. I had told Sallukka that I would try to reserve seats for us since someone had mentioned me that photoshoot contestants could reserve seats from the front rows. Apparently that was some sort of misinformation - not badly though, the seats just didn't need to be reserved, we could just walk in and take the seats we wanted. This, however, is something I learnt very close to the beginning of the competition and eventually Sallukka and Joni didn't come back to Pohjankartano in time (they had decided to hit the town). 
I told Shiro Samurai I would come to the green room after the competition and then practically ran to get myself a seat. I did get one near the stage - I was actually sitting right behind the ToC judges. I was there a few minutes early and it's a good thing I was: there weren't many empty seats in the audience! I suspect this had a lot to do with ToC qualifying round which was now held for the first time in Matsucon and actually in whole Finland.

The opening act of the competition was so nice - the hosts are very talented singers! ❤

The first part of the competition was the qualifying round. I had no idea what to expect but I had expected to see some acting etc. Guess if I was surprised when I realized that it was a "lavajuoksu" of very talented people? :'D I mean, that's not bad, just not what I expected! All the costumes were so awesome and well-made, the judges must have had a hard time deciding who qualifies. Oh, and speaking of the pre-judging, there were five different categories to judge: needlework, armor, wig & makeup, craftmanship and propmaking. When I said in the beginning that "not with my skills"... Yeah, DEFINITELY not with my skills. At least not yet but likely never, I'm not THAT passionate about competing.
After the qualifying round was the cosplay catwalk which isn't actually a competition at all. The purpose of cosplay catwalk is to give people a chance to show off their costumes without the pressure of a competition. This has become more and more popular (and common) and I think these are great - not everybody wants to compete, at least not without experiencing being on the stage at least once before! 

And after the cosplay catwalk... Was the photoshoot competition.

The photo we competed with. And yes, that's my left hand. I was holding the camera with my right hand.

I must say: I was nervous as fuck.
Never before had I competed anywhere with my photography skills.
I didn't - and still don't - have a better editing program than the one by Windows. I would like to get a license for Adobe Lightroom at some point; when I studied to become a media assistant I absolutely fell in love with it, it's awesome. But, of course, it costs money.

And when I saw the pics taken by other photographers taking part in the competition... Let's just say that I had my guesses about the top 3. Which, mostly, turned out right. Oh, and if I remember correctly there were 8 photos in total. 
We had decided to not to compete for the theme prize - the theme this year was 'a party' and there's definitely no party hard in our picture lol. The other prizes were placements 1-3 and 'the best storytelling' nomination. 

When all the pictures had been shown to the audience it was time for the award ceremony. To my surprise the photoshoot competition prizes were the first in row - at this point I felt like I was going to throw up. Luckily didn't lol. 
The theme prize went to the group photo I had expected it to go to; it was clearly taken with the theme in mind and I actually liked it a lot! The photographer definitely knew how to work with multiple models at the same time - a skill hard to master - and his editing skills were awesome! 
After this the hosts begun to announce who got the 3rd place; at this moment I realized that 'the best storytelling' nomination - which we had aimed for - would go to somebody else, also known as to the one who'd place 2nd or 1st. My brain went into some sort of an offline mode momentarily so I didn't really hear what the hosts were saying (except for something about the colors lol)... And then the number 13.

Wait. What?
My brain went from offline mode into full error 404 mode: did I hear correctly? Did they really announce our number? Did we actually place? I remember needing a few seconds to take a few breaths before I could go to the stage to get the prize or well, there was some chaos going on and I got the prize after the competition ended. 

Found one stage pic of this very moment. Photographer: mitrrx  

When I got back to my seat my hands were actually shaking so badly I could barely text Sallukka that we actually succeeded - managed to do that anyway but almost dropped my phone to the floor lol. 
It soon turned out that I had guessed the 2nd and 1st places right - and the one who one the 1st place also won the nomination mentioned before. And not just that: she also won the ToC qualifying round, congratulations ArLea for these AND winning the best armor prize in the finals! ❤

After the award ceremony I headed out to look for Sallukka - I wanted to chat with them a bit before heading for the green room. At this point I noticed it was raining cats and dogs outside; I sure hoped it wouldn't rain after 6 pm or a taxi would be needed again. I found Sallukka and Joni from the video game room and chatted with them for a while; they were about to leave soon but before that we decided to split the prize stuff we had gotten, it was only fair to do so. There were stickers, some Japanese candy and a bronze cup. The cup, two of the four candy bags and some stickers stayed with me. 

After the two had left I headed for the green room - my body was screaming for caffeine and pain killers. And bread. I was hungry.
When I went to the green room there was less than 30 minutes left of Shiro Samurai's last shift so I decided to hang out there, after all there weren't other programs to see that day since the con would close soon after that. When he was done with work we discussed about how we'd go back to the hotel; I was voting for the taxi in case it would rain again but I lost. And, well, to be honest the walk was okay, the hotel isn't that far away and it was refreshing to walk after being so many hours indoors. At the nearby park we took some "hey we had costumes on" proof photos.

Ft. the bronze cup and a curious honk.

Oh!
I mentioned earlier that I had a reason to postpone this summary. Well, this has been postponed more than I intended - I've been busy with work - but the reason for the original postponing was that I was waiting for the feedback from the judges! It took a while to get it, after all there were many contestants to give feedback to, but my wait was awarded a few weeks after the con.

The judges liked the atmosphere of the picture; some of them actually said that it took them right back to the world of Elden Ring. They liked the colors a lot and the editing I had done complimented the photo even more. I didn't actually edit the picture that much - we aimed for a "publishing ready" photo when we took the pics so yes, not a lot of editing was needed because we succeeded in that. And, of course, my wonderful model also got a lot of compliments~  

The feedback I got was very positive and there were also a lot of useful tips I'm definitely going to make use of in the future! ❤ I'm not posting all the feedback here since there was a lot of it, but every word of praise and advice was much appreciated and actually made me tear up eventually.

After taking the proof pictures it was time to fetch some ResQ sushi and some bubble tea before heading to the hotel to change out of costume and relax for a while before we'd meet with Gure and Selja. We had agreed to meet at Venn, the hotel bar, but when the others got there I got a phone call in which it was made very clear that there were absolutely no seats left. I asked them to search for a bar within a walking distance and without entrance fee. After a short while I got a notification; Gure had shared her location with me and said location pointed to Bar 1.
After a while we managed to drag ourselves to the bar - and were instantly quite anxious because it was very loud inside. People were already quite drunk even though it wasn't really that late yet and the bartenders were blasting the music so loud I thought my ears would call it quits. Luckily, after five minutes or so I noticed that one bigger group had left the outdoor area and we decided to move there - well, there we had to deal with a couple of smokers for a while, but it was still better than staying inside. We enjoyed a couple of drinks or well, my gin & tonic really couldn't be called an enjoyment in any way since it was way too sweet and then walked back to the hotel; the others wanted to go to another, LGBTQIA+ friendly bar since it was the Oulu Pride weekend, but we were way too tired to do anything else than watch National Geographic and binge a bag of Doritos.

Which wasn't a good idea. Felt way too nauseous after a while.

Sunday morning. Time to get some breakfast and finish packing. 
I was going to host a panel about SSO but that wouldn't take place until 12.30 pm so yeah, I had plenty of time to just hang out.

Except that my body decided to call it quits. I felt awful from the moment I woke up. For a couple of hours I tried to think "this will pass, it will get better during the day" but no; the brainfog and pains never subsided. I was so happy that I hadn't planned on cosplaying during Sunday, I most likely couldn't have done that. 

An outdoors pic to cut the wall of text.

When we got to the con we decided to check out the Japan themed room on the 2nd floor. I had read online that there would be a chance to dress up in a kimono, try out calligraphy etc. so yes, I had been looking forward to it a lot. 

But. First of all: we didn't really have time to try out the calligraphy.

Second: I know I'm not thin by any possible standards and that caused me some anxiety; there's literally no way I could wear a woman's kimono right now because it for sure won't fit. The ladies offered to bring me a man's kimono but at this point I also started feeling kind of bloated and physically awful too so I declined, which was a bummer but couldn't really be helped. And, to be honest, the latter was more of a reason why I turned down the offer.

Well, at least Shiro Samurai got his moment in the spotlight - more of that in his Matsucon summary if you're interested~!

A general view of the Japan themed room.

After our quick visit to the room Shiro Samurai's first shift of the day was about to start and he headed to the green room. I, on the other hand, headed downstairs to wait for Sallukka; they had told me that they would be there in time for my panel, and they were!

My panel wasn't exactly popular; I had, what, three people to attend it? Then again, my panel was about the actual costs of SSO so yeah, probably not that interesting topic, at least not to younger people. However, this was a perfect chance to test out this concept and it worked structurally etc. fine, which means I'll probably host this somewhere else in the future! 

I didn't feel as much like the deer in the headlights as I look. But hey, I'm happy this got photographed too! ❤ Picture: mitrrx

The rest of the day went in "a pain haze" as I like to call it; it's what happens when your body is just ready to call it quits for the day and all you can feel is pain and exhaustion - and, of course, there is brain fog as well and you barely register what is going on around you. I remember hanging out with Shiro Samurai and Sallukka at one point but I think we all went our separate ways after a while (and I think Sallukka and I went to fetch takeaway boba for all of us at some point)? Or at least Sallukka went to check out "Cosplay Thö Musical" (written how Finnish people with rally English would pronounce "the" lol), that much I remember.

Eventually Shiro Samurai and I went to the green room, after all he still had work stuff to do.

The most important part of green room: coffee station.

The coffee maker on the left sums up my condition on Sunday. Weak.

When Shiro Samurai's shift ended it was also time for Matsucon to close its doors - and time for us to grab some leftover food and head to the railway station since we had a train to catch. And that was pretty much the end of our trip to Matsucon. 

And this, my dear readers, is the end of my Matsucon summary. Even though I had some, err, physical limitations during the weekend I sure enjoyed the con a lot! Special thanks to Sallukka for taking this new step with me, literally couldn't have done it without you ❤
Next up - Maracon summary! 👀

Until next time.

-Firith

Mericon 2025 - I wish I could teleport

Hello everyone~!
The con year is almost over for me but luckily I can live the nice memories again in the form of these con summaries! ❤ This time it's about Mericon which was held on 2nd of August at Rauma city library for the third time omg my baby is a toddler already. Unlike previous years, this time I was only in charge of the cosplay competition - and somehow this still managed to become the busiest Mericon by far for me. How? Well, let me explain...

Con venue entrance.

(And, as per usual, every photo that isn't a selfie was taken by Shiro Samurai, thanks a lot! ^^)

We had driven to my parents' place after Nekocon. You see, there was no point to drive to the north since there were only two weeks until Mericon would be held (and I had a friends' wedding to attend a week before the con) - instead we decided to save some gas and money and spend those couple of weeks at Satakunta. Probably not the wisest decision ever since one of the worst heatwaves was going on during our stay and I have a feeling that at least my last two brain cells casually melted back then lol. 
The day before the con we drove to Rauma where we had booked a hotel room at Scandic Rauma. 

Tämä on vettä.

That... Is something I don't recommend, at least not during the summer.

I did mention there was a heatwave going on, right?
What if I told you we had no AC in our room? 
...yeah, you read that right :))) The hotel was built back in 1970s and to this day it lacks some... Quite important things. Literally the only positive thing about the room was the bed, which was one of the best ones I've come across during my hotel stays, but otherwise... Ehhh. The room was also very small which made the situation even worse since we didn't have that much space to go around - which resulted in "Mind moving yourself 5 cm to any direction away from me because your body temperature is practically melting me, thank you c:" conversations at least from my part even when we were on the opposite sides of the room lol.

The morning came after sleeping for like... What, two hours? I was quite nauseous when I woke up due to the room temperature and poor sleep, but managed to drag myself to eat some breakfast. I must give it a positive honorary mention tho; there were lots of different foods to choose from, some of them quite luxurious.
After eating back to the hotel room we went. I had decided to go for a random OC, Shiro Samurai wore his America cosplay again since, well, he kind of had two costumes to choose from and America is easier to wear while photographing than Gaogamon. We started to get ourselves ready...

...and at that very moment - or rather, after inserting my contact lenses - I noticed I had made a horrible mistake. I had taken a costume bag with me and most of my make-up products were there. Except for the brushes. Which were in my other bag.
Long story short: instant meltdown which affected the mood quite badly at the moment but thankfully didn't ruin the whole day, those can be very bad with BPD to put it slightly and I almost decided to go full casual. I can't even describe how much I hated myself at that moment - I had just successfully ruined my plans for the day. Eventually Shiro Samurai managed to convince me to wear something nicer than college pants and a hoodie and put on at least some mascara. At that point my thoughts ran along the lines "Why should I even try?" buuut little did I know that I would thank myself for not putting on the whole costume - especially make-up - later that day.

After getting myself into slightly better mood we left the hotel... And moved like 100 m to get to the library's parking lot :'D Had we walked the distance to the library's back door would have been like 15 m lol. We got there a bit after 11 - also known as a bit after the con had opened its doors.

The lobby, photographed from different angles.

I can't lie: literally my first thought was "Where are all the people?". You see, in the previous years the lobby has been crowded and it's been even hard to move around there. But now... There were very few people and I must say that I kind of felt my heart sink a bit.
That was before I realized something: the drawing workshop had been moved upstairs so the people very likely were either there or at the Artists' Alley (which was located in its familiar spot). And I was right; at the end of the day those who had been working at the drawing/pin making workshop looked like they definitely needed some rest ^^" I mean, it's good that an activity is popular, but that was something we didn't really expect lol.

Said drawing/pin making workshop. There was a drawing contest this year too and its theme was mermaids 💙

Since I was in charge of everything related to the cosplay competition (or, as we say in Finland, "cosplayvastaava", also known as "the person in charge of cosplay stuff") the first thing I did was to gather all the judges together. This year that meant Shiro Samurai, Springdeer and neponen.cos (who competed at last year's Mericon and a few months after that in Gingacon where we actually got to know each other - I asked them to be cosplay competition judge at this year's Mericon); I had decided to give up on being a judge so I could pay more attention to my other responsibilities. That... Turned out to be a very wise decision an hour or so later.
As per usual, Shiro Samurai acted as the photographing judge while the other two stayed in the judging room and did the more traditional costume judging. This year we had six contestants - or, well, we had five before one of them asked at the con if they could take part in the competition. This time we decided that it was okay; five would have been... Well, the minimum amount of contestants for a competition if you ask me.

After giving them instructions it was almost time for the judging to begin - and after that all I can remember is running back and forth for at least an hour, searching for our contestants to get them to the judging room in time! 

What do you mean I was sweating like a pig? And even though I apparently looked quite sick, I wasn't lol. I also decided to take my contact lenses off, they would have looked quite weird without make-up.

The next thing I can actually remember clearly is that Maria H. (we had three Marias among the staff sos) approached me and told me that cosplay catwalk didn't have that many participants - and by "that many" I mean "there are no more than three". Yikes. Then... The following conversation happened.

Maria H.: "Do you think that it would be possible to convince Shiro Samurai to participate? His costume is pretty awesome."
Me: "Uh... Ask him? He has some stage fright but then again this is a small convention..."
Maria H.: "Hmm. I could go there with him. Would you come with me to try to convince him?"
Me: "Sure 😁"

We weren't that far from the photo booth so there we went - and both of us were grinning like Cheshire Cats, which was totally not suspicious at all. I could see that Shiro Samurai realized in less than two seconds that we were up to something :'D Well, the conversation was had and eventually the two agreed to go to the stage together - gotta save the cosplay catwalk! 

And after this...
*insert at least 30 minute long "I have no idea" here*
I was seriously so busy that I can't even remember anything else than running back and forth! D: I mean, I'm not complaining lol, I actually enjoyed my duties, but this summary feels like I'm just describing a supermassive blackhole massive blackout :'D 
Oh, there was one minus to the schedule I had made for the pre-judging. You see, this year Mericon actually had a guest of honor, also known as Merenneito Riia who is a professional mermaid! I've had a huge interest in mermaiding for... Like... At least ten years but have never really got around it and right now I would sink like RMS Titanic anyway since I don't really know how to control my mid-section muscles properly. Her program unfortunately overlapped with my schedule very badly so I totally missed it since I was guiding the contestants to the places they needed to be at :( 

Some serious mermaid talk.

That amount of empty chairs makes me cry.

My next clear memory is... 
The cosplay competition.
Yup, I'm missing chunks there. And not just a bit.

This year I actually had requested to have those cards behind which my lines were written. In the previous years I had just written down the contestant name, character name and series - everything else was just winged lol. I wanted to level up my game at least a bit and, well, I must admit I felt a bit more professional. Notice one of Mericon's mascots, the cat called Meri, on the cards ❤ Speaking of the mascots: there are two of them, the cat called Meri and a young sailor man called Rauno. Back in the days I asked Shiro Samurai to create them - when I was still in charge of multiple things and in a good enough position to negotiate project-type/short 'job contracts' - and this year these guys were used for Mericon's marketing (along with a chibi mermaid version of Rauno created by Janika Wahlman, one of Mericon's amazing organizers) for the first time! 💙

This year we also managed to find some copyright-free background music for the cosplay competition and it did wonders to the overall atmosphere during it.

(I'm still laughing at the fact that my shirt says "Serial k*ller documents and chill" and one of our contestants cosplayed Jason Voorhees :'D)

After the catwalk part of the competition was over I spotted a familiar face in the crowd - namely FreakyAngel with whom I chatted for a good while. Fun fact: we were almost neighbors at one point but never managed to cross paths back then :'D But I'm very happy that it eventually happened, meeting her makes me happy each time! ❤
We parted ways after a while and I decided to go check out the merchants near the info desk. Yes, this year Mericon had three merchants too, namely Pinklazercat, Pelivaari and Print Nordica.

There were a lot of people around the merchants basically all the time!

Yes, when I said "near the info desk" I quite literally meant "turn around and you will see the library staff 2 meters away from you" lol.

I bought some stuff from Pinklazercat and after that made my way towards Café Käpälä - I seriously needed some mineral water to stay hydrated enough lol. This year there weren't that many decorations or anything but I heard the café staff had basically just gotten back to work after a summer holiday - and some were there even if they still had some holiday days left! - so it's more than understandable.

The café area.

The guest book was there this time too - directly next to the café area.

There weren't that many people when the photos were taken but I spoke to the café staff and they told me that they had sold plenty of stuff so yeah, the café wasn't that empty all the time. 

This year there were no paintings or anything in the lobby; in the past year there has always been some sort of an art exhibition going on during Mericon but this time that didn't happen. There was something else instead...

These were in the lobby...

...these near the photobooth...

...these next to the stairs to the 2nd floor...

...and finally one on the 2nd floor!

And these were not the only signs; some others can be seen in other pics + there were the ones that Shiro Samurai painted back in 2023 when Mericon was held for the first time! You see, we have gotten some feedback along the lines "there should be more signs to tell where you can find and what" in the previous years so this time it was made sure that we won't get the same feedback again - thank you Maria H. for this! ❤
Though I must mention that this made me chuckle at first :'D But we didn't get any complaints about this topic though!

Very soon it was time for the award ceremony for the cosplay competition & the drawing contest - congrats to all the winners! 💙 Oh, and before I forget: this year there was one prize sponsor too, thank you so much Talking to myself jewelry! 💗

And a huge thank you to all of my lovely judges, you're gold! ❤

Okay, so finally now I could re---
Hahaha nope.

You see, after the award ceremony it was time for Shiro Samurai's panel about seafaring. And did it go smoothly? 
...well, the panel itself yes - except that the audience was close to non-existent but that's something that is very hard to affect.
But the technology... Wasn't exactly on our side. You see, Shiro Samurai had used LibreOffice Impress to make the presentation instead of Microsoft Office PowerPoint. These two programs are basically the same, except that Impress is free and has less features than PowerPoint. One can usually open Impress presentations on PowerPoint (this can't be done the other way around) buuuut this time it became a huge problem. For some reason the library's laptop tried to push us to use the desktop version of PowerPoint - to which we didn't have a license for. Great.

Next I tried to open the presentation with Adobe Reader but since the presentation hadn't been converted to a PDF beforehand I, obviously, couldn't do that. 

The clock was ticking, there was some general hassle and I was just trying to come up with a solution after we had tried another laptop which didn't work in our favor any better. Until finally I felt the bulb light up and I asked Maria H. if the library staff had access to the cloud version of Microsoft Office 365 which includes PowerPoint. Turned out it indeed was an option and via that I FINALLY managed to open the presentation...

...which looked nothing like it should have looked like. I really don't have the words to describe how awful I actually felt about that; I had seen Shiro Samurai work on that presentation for literally hours (if I counted correctly, close to 17) and now all that work went down the drain. But, unfortunately, there wasn't really anything more I could've done on the spot; we were already behind the schedule and fixing the presentation would have taken hours, so it was literally a no can do situation.

During said panel I also did my basically first and last round around the Artists' Alley. Normally I wouldn't disappear in the middle of a panel but I realized that it was getting quite late and I hadn't had time to properly check the artists so I did a speed-run there (and ran into one of my former colleagues who had come to the library and thus check the event after saying the final goodbyes to her late husband...).

Before Shiro Samurai could actually finish his panel, the clock was already ticking the con's final minutes. It sure was a bummer that he didn't get to finish it, but that couldn't have been helped - technical difficulties ft. too short program slot to begin with don't go well together. However, as someone who had heard some of the stories long before the con itself I must say that I still found the panel very entertaining. If - and hopefully when - Shiro Samurai hosts a panel again I strongly recommend going to listen; even though he isn't really in his comfort zone in these situations, he doesn't let the audience see it. On top of it all his style of speaking is entertaining and unique - and clear, which is extremely important when speaking to the audience (I myself don't hear all that well, so clear delivery is very much appreciated). 

This coming from someone who quite regularly does that at job in a form or another and very rarely praises anyone in this context.

This time we weren't required to stay at the library after the doors closed so we basically just took our mountain of stuff, thanked everyone for the great con and drove back to my parents' place before driving to Eura to fetch some kebab since both of us were starving lol to relax for the evening and pack our stuff since there was a long drive ahead of us on Sunday, namely driving back to north.

And it was nothing short of a miracle that we got back home since my car decided to break down  immediately after the trip 😶

And that's the end of this summary~!

Next post will be Matsucon's summary... And after that I will write about a con I attended a very first time this year! 👀 Stay tuned!

Until next time.

-Firith

Espeon mini photoshoot

Hello~!
Yeah, in the end I decided to publish my Espeon photoshoot pics first - figured it would be nice to keep the chronological order.
I guess it's pretty obvious by now but I'm a Pokémon fan, been since childhood. Eevee and its eeveelutions have always been among my favorites, my ultimate favorite of them being Vaporeon. And when it comes to the day and night buddies... To be honest I prefer Umbreon to Espeon but that doesn't mean I wouldn't have had fun cosplaying the latter - definitely will again in the future! I just need to fix that dress first; even though it is very pretty and comfortable to wear that doesn't change the fact that its upper part is way too big for me which, of course, had an effect on how I could pose etc. But definitely will do that so I can cosplay Espeon again! 💜

I also love how dream-like the photos turned out... Or, at least most of them, prepare for the derps at the end of this post :'D 

The pics~!

Character: Espeon
Source: Pokémon 
Cosplayer: yours truly
Photos & edit: Shiro Samurai

This is my favorite pic from the shoot 💜

Despite being cremated alive by the July sun I enjoyed this photoshoot a lot - the dress was pretty, my make-up for once didn't derp to Hell and back and the location into the bush we go was pretty much perfect for this one! 💜
...well, speaking of derping though. My make-up didn't do that. I did. And here's the proof for that 😂

"What did you say about my mother!?"

When your face becomes a Minecraft block and the creeper notices it xD

During this photoshoot I also realized how hard it is to smile in pics, like seriously! Smiling is something that doesn't really come naturally for me - and I don't really like my smile anyway - so this definitely was a challenge. It was a positive surprise and a huge relief to see how good these pics turned out to be!

And it's a wrap!
Next post: Mericon summary! 🌊

Until next time.

-Firith