Terucon 2025 - "I am not crazy, my reality is just different from yours."

 Hello~!
And yes, I'm pretty damn late with this summary too, I apologize for that. Like I mentioned in my Maracon summary there has been a lot going on, especially at work. I was actually on a sick leave when I wrote most of this summary thank you wisdom tooth for breaking into seven pieces during removal, I did not appreciate :I so I basically didn't have anything but time in my hands. So yeah, it was finally time to write this!
(...and why am I always on a sick leave when I write a summary about this event, no matter its name? x"D)
((...and yes, the title of this post is a Cheshire Cat quote by Lewis Carroll since I found it very fitting.))

I attended Terucon on 26th of October 2025. The convention was held on 25th-26th but I couldn't attend it on Saturday since I was at work. However I wanted to attend at least during one day - there aren't too many conventions in the North, this one was held at Rovaniemi - and so I booked train tickets for me and Shiro Samurai for the day mentioned. 
Oh, and if anybody wonders: yes, Terucon is re-named Northern Lights Anime Party which we attended in 2024.

On Sunday we started our trip towards Rovaniemi in the morning. I had packed everything the evening before the con; didn't cosplay this time but had a nice outfit, plus I had to take a flash drive with me. You see, I had promised to host a Genshin Impact themed panel - but not just any panel, a panel combining said game and mental illnesses. More about this later.
The trip went pretty well, we just lagged and chatted until we arrived at Rovaniemi railway station. The weather looked like it could start raining soon so I decided we'd take a taxi to the event venue - and yes, this time I made sure to not to pick one of those scam taxes Rovaniemi suffers from and of which I got to suffer last year too 😑 In no time we arrived at the event venue, namely Monitoritalo Monde.

The event venue...

...and the event poster ft. mascots Rainer, Hertta and Aurora! ❤

When we - or, well, Shiro Samurai (who kindly took all the pics for this summary, thanks!) - were photographing the entrance we were approached by a woman who was wearing a security officer gear. We chatted for a while and turned out she was the mother of the main organizer and responsible for security and first aid. I had recently gotten my First Aid 1 card (which means I can do basic stuff, such as resuscitation, the Heimlich maneuver etc.) and mentioned that to her - she said she'd keep that in mind in case help was needed wasn't, luckily. 
After the brief chitchat we went inside... And were met by emptiness. It was pretty early at that point so yeah, not everybody wants to be at the con the moment the doors open (especially not on a second day) but it still took us somewhat by surprise. Luckily more people showed up later but we heard that the amount was significantly smaller than on Saturday.

Cafeteria area and the stairs to the second floor where the gaming room and the panel room were located.

General view of the lobby.

And a trusty WC I occupied almost immediately to put on my outfit and wig :'D

We had some time to look around before my panel would start (that would be around 12.30 p.m.) and so we decided to check out the Artists' Alley. This year it was located in the same big room where the stage was - and in my very honest opinion this was an improvement from last year. Of course I can't speak on behalf of the artists there (I mean, if something was going on on the stage I can only assume there were a lot of people and loud noises) but at least as a visitor I liked this change since there was a lot more space than in that narrow corridor upstairs where the Artists' Alley was located last year. I mean, that was a bit... Too compact.
In the same room there were also Pörröcon and Matsucon promotion tables and Matsukirppis (a flea market hosted by Matsucon staff) which we decided to check first. I must say we were both a bit sad when we realized there was no way we could attend any of the Pörröcon events; Akakabuton was hosted on 28th of February at Tampere but on the same day there was Sonata Arctica's concert at Kemi which we attended, and Pörröcon Royals will be hosted at Turku during the same weekend there's Kummacon at Oulu so yeah, no can do :C However it was nice to chat with the promoter! We also chatted for a while with the Matsucon people and checked the items people had brought to the flea market.

The door leading to the Artists' Alley/stage room.

Sus. Very much sus.

After this it was time to check out the Artists' Alley!
I don't think I bought anything during the first round but I chatted with many of the artists - and was incredibly happy when I saw TilliLili selling Infinity Nikki stuff! ❤ Despite its many flaws the said game has been some sort of a comfort game for me - even though I'm now starting to feel like it's time to let go because some things just can not be accepted #girlcott - and I was just happy to see art about it too. 

Artists' Alley, general view. The convention program visible on the left...

...and better in this photo! My panel was the one called "Seuraava potilas!" ("Next patient!") - or, well, that was a part of my panel's name but apparently it didn't fit in the program chart in whole.

We chatted for a good while until it was my time to head upstairs to prepare for my panel. The panel that was before mine was running a bit overtime but luckily not that much. 
What wasn't too lucky was my flash drive acting up. I had prepared the panel with LibreOffice I seriously don't have money for PowerPoint - or probably would if Microsoft didn't charge my bank account on a yearly basis and I don't even know WHICH account so I can't use the Office programs I pay for ffs and, of course, it complicated things a bit - I namely had to upload LibreOffice to the main organizer's laptop (I got a permission to that). Well, that took a while but people were understanding when I told them I had a bit of technical issues but they would be solved shortly. While LibreOffice was loading I decided to check if our friends had arrived already - and indeed, when I peeked over the railing of the stairs I saw Sallukka, Dongrieg, Pete and Joni enter the building, just in time for my panel! ❤

After a few minutes I could finally start my panel - almost on schedule, yippee! :D 

Even though it isn't visible on the photo there were surprisingly many people listening to my yapping! :'D My panel was about some Genshin Impact characters and what mental illnesses they could possibly have based on their behavior and the symptoms of certain mental illnesses - for example, in the two photos above I spoke about BPD (borderline personality disorder) and who could have it (in this case, Citlali - I mean she's the embodiment of impulsive BPD type ffs :'D). 
I have mentioned that I have been diagnosed with a few quite severe diagnoses and while I would rather not talk about them - because I consider it quite personal stuff - it would feel like lying if I hid them or the problems they cause. I also mentioned those in the beginning of the panel, just to be transparent that I wasn't there to spread the stigma or make fun about the mental illnesses I was going to speak about. I also sure hope I didn't do that, at least wasn't my intention ^^' 

The panel ended up being a bit hurried but I'm going to host this one in another convention too at some point - and I have already started to gather materials for pt. 2! Despite the topic being a bit heavy this was a nice panel to host and to be honest I enjoyed it a lot. Next time I wish to make this more interactive in some way - and no, I don't mean I would ask people to speak about their mental illnesses, I just want to spark up some discussion.
After the panel we headed back downstairs to discuss what we should do next.

The gaming room was right next to the panel room btw! ^^

At this point people were getting quite hungry; I would have wanted to stay for the gacha game panel that would have been the next panel in line but then I noticed there was some sushi in the ResQ app non-paid commercial, again and told Shiro Samurai about this. He wanted the sushi and I reserved the portion - not for myself since I'm very picky when it comes to sushi and don't want to pay if I end up not eating half of it - and in no time the said portion was fetched and we were back at the con place in no time. I ended up buying a triangle sandwich from a nearby store since I wasn't really up to eating any actual food (or well technically triangle sandwiches are food but I think you get the point what I'm trying to say here) but had to eat at least something. And I also got to try a couple of weird sushis which were surprisingly good :3

When we were eating, Joni and Pete approached us. Seemingly they had been discussing about what to do next - I mean, Terucon is a small event so there isn't as much to do as in bigger conventions (and that's perfectly okay, we need these smaller cons too! ❤) and sometimes there were moments when there wasn't that much to do. We discussed this for a while and decided to take part in a D&D session that was about to begin soon. Or, well, at first it seemed like only Shiro Samurai and Joni would play but after a while I decided to join them (Pete decided to observe our game from the table next to us).

Cards, character sheets and dices - and the dungeon we actually managed to clear in time!

When we were just about to start a French guy - whose name I still don't know - wanted to join us. Apparently he had participated to a D&D session on Saturday and got hooked :'D Can't blame him tho, this is a great way to spend time with friends! 
We started our session and at this point a round of applause to the DM is definitely in place. You see, not only had he planned a good one-shot (which was located in the Arknights universe btw!) and did a wonderful job as a DM but was also able to solve any potential... Err, unwanted situations quickly and efficiently. You see, a few times our French buddy got a bit too excited and tried to start telling what our characters should do and when. He didn't mean anything bad by it tho (and I don't think he would have done it on purpose)! It's just not very liked behavior since people often want to decide themselves what their characters do or say. But, other than that, we all had great time playing and we managed to beat the final boss, yay!

When our session was over the con was basically too - time for the last minute shopping spree which wasn't really that much of a shopping spree it was! 

I also voted for my favorite waifu. I have no idea who won tho :'D

After the gaming session - also known as after a lot of talking - it was time to drink some water too! Should remember to do so in conventions more often anyway...

After I was done with my shopping it was time for me to take off my wig and change into casual gear - it was a lot more comfortable to walk to the railway station in that since it had gotten even more windy during the day. We had to wait for a while to get into the train but after that the ride back to Kemi went smoothly - and that was the end of our short but nice trip to Terucon! ❤
I enjoyed the event a lot - even though I literally missed half of it thanks to work - and will definitely attend it in 2026 too. At the very least I'm going to host a panel there again but not gonna lie, I would like to compete in a cosplay competition again... Let's see if I have the time and money my student loan glares at me right now help to make a new costume this year! ^.^

Next post: Kemin Mangapäivä event summary! 👀

Until next time.

-Firith

Autumn Maracon 2025 - Unhinged card games, here we come!

 Hello people~!

It's about time I wrote this con summary; Maracon, which this is all about, was held at Oulu on 3rd-5th of October, also known as half an eternity ago ^^' 
Shortly about Maracon: unlike the cons I usually attend, this one's focus is on board games, card games and tabletop games. The people behind Maracon belong to CRYO ry and they host four Maracons in total during the year - mad respects for that! There are two bigger events and two smaller, and the autumn event we went to is one of the bigger ones. 
And now to the actual summary!

We - meaning me, Shiro Samurai and Joni - had decided to go to the event on 4th of October, also known as Saturday. Because my car was acting up at the time we decided that Joni would be our driver; he'd spend the night before at Shiro Samurai's place and they'd pick me up in the morning. Sounds like a plan, right?
...except that in the Saturday morning, when I texted Shiro Samurai that I was basically ready to go, he told me that there was unforeseen emergency and they'd have to take care of that first. For a while it was a bit unclear if we'd leave for Oulu after all but after an hour or so I got a text message that they were on their way to pick me up. Soon they got to my place, I made sure Joni could drive and after that we begun our drive towards Oulu.

None of us had eaten any breakfast so we decided to stop at Haukipudas and grab something to eat.

Kebababababababa.

I sure wasn't hungry after that, in fact I couldn't even eat it all lol :'D Läskin ammattiylpeys kärsii.
Oh, at this point I'd like to mention this: this post contains quite a lot of pictures. Some of them were taken by your truly, some by Shiro Samurai - I won't specify which one was taken by who but now you know that there are two photographers to give credit to.

While we were eating Joni suddenly got a phone call. We got a bit scared - considering there had just been an emergency - but it turned out to be a false alarm: Joni's friend, Pete, called and informed he'd like to join us. So yeah, after we were done eating we continued our drive towards Oulu, more specifically Raksila, where we picked up Pete and drove to the event venue, also known as a youth center of Kaijonharju.
I must admit that we had a bit of trouble with finding the right door; at first we went to the library, half by accident, half by the will to check out if there was anyone to help us. I soon realized that the self-service hours were going on, shared this information with my company and got quickly out of the building. We found the right door very soon... Because it was literally just around the corner lol.

The entrance.

As someone who is almost solely powered by caffeine I was a bit disappointed when I saw this sign, no energy drinks for the tired :c

As soon as we got in we realized that we would need to take our shoes off. This is pretty normal with many youth centers these days, easier to keep the building clean and all that. So yeah, we obeyed the sign saying that... And were met by this sight :'D

Muutama kenkä usko jo!

As you can probably guess from the amount of shoes there were quite a few people - and nobody in cosplay. This made me and Shiro Samurai sigh in relief: we had been going back and forth with trying to decide if we'd cosplay at the event or not and eventually decided to not to. Would have felt a bit overdressed for the occasion had we actually cosplayed lol. Then again, the CRYO guys we talked to at Matsucon told us there had been people cosplaying in the events before so yeah, maybe a more casual cosplay would be a good choice for this event!
The first thing we noticed was this bigger room right next to the hall where people were sitting in a circle. It soon became clear that there was a d'n'd session (or at least something of that sort) going on. Not gonna lie, I was thinking about joining the next session but it soon became very clear that we wouldn't have time for that. After all we were supposed to leave Oulu that evening meanwhile Maracon is one of those events that go on through the night.

So yeah, we started checking out our surroundings instead - after all nobody had been to this event before so we all must have looked like walking question marks lol.

Maracon info wall, including the rules. I'm sorry for the quality, I'm not sure what happened when I edited the size of this pic but nothing in my favor at the very least :S

There was a guest book! The only other convention I've seen doing this is Mericon but it's always a nice bonus.

As I mentioned in the beginning, Maracon is an event that focuses on board games, tabletop games etc. And there sure were many games to choose from! I'm not that much of a board game fan myself but even I found myself being bit by the hype fly :'D
At this point I must mention that these games are basically everything Maracon offers. There are no other programs at all; no panels, no cosplay stuff, nothing of that sort - and I found myself enjoying it more than I could have imagined. It was just a small event where you were just supposed to chill out with your company, make new friends and play board games with them.

Did I mention there were a few board games? :D

These signs were so handy!

There was also a flea market/merch table. And yeah, in the former there were mostly board games for sale.

We didn't have to wait for long before someone approached our group and asked if we'd like to play The Crew: Mission Deep Sea with him. I had no intention of playing but I followed everybody anyways; I'm more of the sort to watch the other people play when it comes to board games, if that makes any sense? We occupied one of the small rooms down the corridor and the others quickly engaged in playing the game... Meanwhile I was reading a novel called Blanka - Itämeren tytär (lit. 'Blanka - The Daughter of the Baltic Sea') by Ulla Rask. And yes, this totally is a reading recommendation, already waiting for the next book of the series!
And yes, I basically never go anywhere without a book with me lol. If I don't engage in an activity but everybody else does, I'll at least have something to do meanwhile - and reading is a dear hobby of mine anyway.

The corridor leading to the smaller rooms.

People playing The Crew: Mission Deep Sea. To this day I still have no idea what the rules actually were, all I realized was that they were quite complicated (or at least went over my head).

They played this once and I think after that the guy who originally asked us to play with him had to leave to run some errands or something like that? At least that's what I remember so yeah, it was time to go back to the hall to see if there was anybody else who would have wanted to play something. And, of course, to take more pictures since I happened to spot a couple of very... Interesting games :'D

This is, hands down, one of my favorite games ever :'D And yes, I do have a pretty dark sense of humor lol.

We found this legend xD Didn't end up playing it tho.

Oh, here's a better pic of the hall - there wasn't much going on upstairs but you could see basically half of the venue from there.

I think it was at this point that we got asked to join a figurine painting... Not sure if a competition is a right word here but yeah, anyway. Shiro Samurai and Pete decided to join, meanwhile Joni asked if I'd like to play a round of Yatzy with him. I agreed, we grabbed the game and started our search for a free table. Eventually we found one and could start playing - and the beginner's luck was on my side immediately xD You see, I had never played Yatzy before but managed to do the hardest trick in the game with my first couple of rolls - I probably should have taken a pic of the face Joni made when we realized that since it's half impossible for the others to win after that :'D Well, we still played the round - at some point Pete came to watch what we were doing - and I did end up winning. Not that I really cared about that, it was a fun game to play! :'D

And if you're not familiar what kind of a game Yatzy is, here is a pic of it c:

After the game of Yatzy we walked back to the main hall. Shiro Samurai was still painting the figurine and Joni and Pete went to check what games were available at the time. I occupied a seat on the couch and was about to start reading again when I spotted a familiar face - namely Ina who I've met a few times in northern cons! We were both surprised to see each other there and chatted for a while before I saw Shiro Samurai approaching us. Apparently he was ready with the figurine - just in time because Pete and Joni had found a game for us to play, said game being Trial by Trolley from the makers of Cyanide and Happiness :'D Ina decided to join us and our now group of five went to search for a table so we could play - and in the gymnastics hall was one unoccupied table, yay!

Yeah, most of the tables were occupied by the point we got to the gymnastics hall.

Decisions, decisions...

Yeah, it was pretty unhinged :'D

Soon a couple of Ina's friends joined us and we played a couple of rounds of the game above before switching to Cards Against Humanity with an extension pack called Crabs Adjust Humidity. One of the Maracon guys also came to play with us - and it was indeed pretty fun! :'D  And highly inappropriate xD

We played this game for almost an hour before it was time for us to go; both me and Shiro Samurai were getting quite tired and Joni and Pete were - or at least seemed to be - a bit laggy so yeah, after saying goodbye to our companions we drove to buy some energy drinks and then begun to drive back to Kemi. 

So what did I think about Maracon?

It was amazing. Loved every second of it; so chill and comfortable! I'll definitely attend it in the future too when my schedule aligns with it c: 

I have a couple of event summaries hanging so yeah, it was about time this one was written since I've already attended an event this year, oops. I've just had a lot on my plate and really haven't had the energy to write - after a day at work I usually just come home and start watching Netflix or playing on my PS5, that's how much energy I have lol. But now, since I'm on a sick leave this week (tooth removal was a bit more challenging than originally thought) I might actually get something done here.

Oh, a bonus pic! 

Beware of the leaning tower of pizza! Well, there wasn't one at that very moment but I could assume there were quite a few pizza box towers during the weekend :'D

My next blog post: Terucon (former Northern Lights Anime Party) summary!

Until next time.

-Firith

Cosplay year 2025

Hello everyone~!
I know, I know, I'm a bit late with this one since it's already 2026 buuut I'm not nearly as late with this as I am with my Maracon and Terucon summaries ^^' Well, I will write them as soon as possible too, just wanted to get this out of the way before it gets too... Irrelevant also known as before it's the mid April and it's pointless to write this anymore lol. 
But let's get to the year summary!

I'm not going to lie: 2025 was a year of big struggles both cosplay-wise and in personal life. Like I mentioned in the cosplay year 2024 summary I was likely to get a few severe diagnoses, which I eventually got. I have already mentioned that I have BPD (borderline personality disorder, diagnosed as impulsive but that's seriously not true, I'm the silent/discouraged type), but on top of that I got the diagnoses for anxiety disorder, recurrent depression (in remission) and PTSD, which I suspect to be more of the less known CPTSD sort. I got these diagnoses like two months into the year and even though I was able to guess practically all of them, now actually trying to learn to live with them is far more difficult than just navigating them. 
Has there been any development? Honestly, I don't really know at this point. Maybe some little things but those are so small I would need a microscope to see them so yeah, there sure is a long road ahead. At least I don't wake up 20 times a night anymore thanks to the medication so that's sort of a win...

Of course, these things have affected my personal life a lot and they haven't exactly helped with this hobby either. I mostly had fun, yes, and that's what I'd like to concentrate on, but at the same time I know that there was not a single convention without a big and colorful drama caused by me, except for probably Maracon. Oh the joys of being unstable af, 0/5 experience, I don't recommend 😒 Seriously working on getting a grip so making good memories and actually remembering them would be easier this year.

But yeah, the conventions I attended in 2025:

Konekocon - Kuopio, Finland
Kemin mangapäivä - Kemi, Finland
Kummacon - Oulu, Finland
Nekocon - Kuopio, Finland
Mericon - Rauma, Finland
Matsucon - Oulu, Finland
Maracon - Oulu, Finland
Terucon - Rovaniemi, Finland

Yeah. Didn't really leave the northern part of the country that much this year and mostly attended small conventions - to be honest, I highly doubt I could have even attended the bigger ones due to my health problems, both physical and mental - especially the latter.
I think my favorite event was probably Maracon for the reason mentioned above - and it was also nice to go to a new (to me) convention! I haven't published a summary yet so I'm not going into too much detail but yeah, it was nice, relaxed and totally different compared to any other convention I attended. 

STUFF I DID IN CONVENTIONS 

I took part in Matsucon's photoshoot competition with Sallukka as my model - and we won the third place! ❤
I was a volunteer worker at Kummacon.
I was part of the organizing team for Kemin mangapäivä and Mericon.
I hosted a book talk at Kummacon, a Star Stable Online panel at Matsucon and a Genshin Impact panel at Terucon.

🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

If last year was a year of witches, this year was a year of gijinkas! This year I debuted a couple of new costumes again: shiny Jigglypuff, Dragonair and Espeon from Pokémon and Tanemon from Digimon.

No compilation pic this time, but here are all the costumes I got pics taken of! All the pics were taken and edited by Shiro Samurai, thank you very much! ❤

Shiny Jigglypuff

Dragonair

Tanemon

Espeon

WHERE I COSPLAYED AND WHAT

To Konekocon I wore the shiny Jigglypuff.
At Kemin mangapäivä I cosplayed Alicia from Moominvalley series. No new pics.
For Kummacon I debuted Dragonair.
At Nekocon I cosplayed on both days, Tanemon on Saturday and Espeon on Sunday.
Wore an alt/casual outfit to Mericon.
Cosplayed an OC called Marigold at Matsucon. Didn't have a photoshoot since the character and design still have the "work in progress" status.

Wore a casual outfit to Maracon.

Wore an alt outfit to Terucon.

Yeah, that's also quite many new costumes but I still don't think that I would have broken the promise I made last year; I wore these dresses even outside of cosplay so yeah, still sticking to what I said ^^ 

🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

So... Yeah.
It was a bit of a rough year, honestly. Didn't sew anything new, battled against those inner demons of mine and half ruined almost every convention for myself (and partially for people around me). Not exactly a year I could be proud of and seriously, I'm not.

So yeah, at the end of this post I would like to thank all the people who still put up with my shit in 2025 and actually wanted to take me with them to conventions and such, you're all gold.

Let's hope that 2026 will be at least a bit better. 

Until next time.

-Firith