Mericon 2023 - Maiden voyage of a harbor town con

This is also one of the summaries that are so late that it's literally ridiculous but it can't be helped at this point anymore. 

 Mericon, a new small cosplay event was held on 5th of August at Rauma's main library. Since Rauma probably isn't the most familiar town for many of you, let me introduce its history a bit because the event's name (which would be Seacon in English) is heavily linked to it. If you're not up to the history lesson, skip a bit forward and continue reading.

Like the title of this post tells you, Rauma is a harbor town and has actually been since the 15th century. Back then it was mostly merchant ships visiting Rauma but things were about to change; in 19th century Rauma was already known of its own merchant shipping companies. For a few years (1892-1898) Rauma actually had the largest sailing fleet in Finland - in 1895 57 vessels belonged to it! However, in 1898 the sailing ship fleet of Helsinki outgrew the one of Rauma's - and it didn't take too long for the ships to disappear from Rauma, one by one. The last sailing ship built in Rauma was the barquentine called Uljas and she sailed for a good 50 years, from 1891 to 1941. She stayed in the ship register until her fate was decided; Uljas was ceremoniously burnt and sank in 1950.
Even though the times have changed, seafaring is still an important thing to Rauma. Cargo ships come and go at the harbor, new ships are being built (at the time Rauma Marine Constructions, also known as the local shipyard is building four Squadron 2020 corvettes for the Finnish Defence Forces) and there's also a restaurant ship at Poroholma's tall ship harbor! Or, well, at least at the time; the ship in question (galeas Marita) is not in a good shape anymore and there have been rumors the she would be sunk in the coming years. There was also another ship at that harbor, brig Gerda Gefle (she was a copy of the original brig Gerda that got destroyed in 1959) but the fate was cruel on her; in September 2023 shit happened and the ship half sunk at the dock it was anchored at. By the time I´m writing this post she has already been dismantled. However, she was a sight to behold and, luckily, we managed to take some promotion pictures for Mericon on her deck! 

Gerda Gefle in June 2023. Picture taken by yours truly (you can also find this pic on Mericon's web site but yeah, I took this one).

The pirate captain, also known as my colleague Katriina on Gerda's deck. The farther tall ship in the background is galeas Marita. Picture taken by yours truly.

If you want more information about Rauma's history as a harbor town, check Majakka (from where I also searched for the history info) - it's an info site held by Rauma Maritime Museum!

But yeah, back to the con summary - and to the question what part do I play with organizing Mericon. And to this question the answer is simple: at the time I studied to become a librarian (graduated in December) and worked at Rauma's main library where I decided to test the waters and suggested holding a cosplay event at the library when we were brainstorming what kind of events we should hold in 2023. It was an immediate green light and so Mericon came to exist!
I also had to pass the event organizing course at school so yeah, totally took this opportunity to be one of the organizers behind this event! Since I was the one with most experience with cosplay and cosplay events I got pretty much responsibilities but, to be honest, I enjoyed every minute behind the scenes even though it was a bit stressing at times. The organizing actually begun in February and that meant we had six months to get everything ready. Plenty of time!

I didn't do everything by myself though; my colleagues and boss were so sweet and supportive - they helped whenever they could with whatever they could!
Buuuut there was one task none of us could do and that was painting the info signs. It didn't take long to figure out who I wanted to help me with this task and after a few emails and meetings Shiro Samurai joined the team! He was also in charge of photographing the event and cosplay contestants this year (and he was also one of the cosplay contest judges) but his main task was to paint the signs which turned out to be wonderful even though he only had a few days to make them. I'm still sorry about the short time span but dude, you did great job with those signs - thank you so much! <3

(The rest of the pics in this post are also taken by Shiro Samurai since my camera begun to act up even more after I had taken the promotion pictures for the con.)

Mericon banner. There were actually two; this one was located near the parking lot.

 

The main entrance of the library. Café Käpälä was also open during the con - they had even developed a pastry menu that fit the theme!

 

The week before the event was quite stressful since there were quite a lot of last minute things to do - Shiro Samurai was painting the signs, I was trying to hold the whole event in one piece (pun not intended omg) and my colleagues helped with decorating the library and whatever task I gave them. At this point I was the one with most intel and lord, anybody who knows me also knows that I forget things very easily so it was a bit stressing to try to keep track of tasks that were still on "to do" list.
The evening before we finally got everything done - well, most of it. Let's just say that if you need to fix the fabric for the photography booth, do yourself a favor and check if your sewing machine is fine AND DOESN'T BREAK DOWN A DAY BEFORE THE CON. The photography booth was one of the greatest disasters of the event (read between the lines: the con actually went pretty well but more of that later) anyway but we sure didn't need an extra rush like that, also known as 1) hearing the sewing machine break, 2) panicking, 3) going through our very few options and 4) eventually speed-driving to my grandma's to borrow her sewing machine...
Also known as I don't have a sewing machine of my own at the moment since those things cost almost my month's salary at the cheapest :))

The con morning came and I was feeling extremely nauseous. I had barely slept during the night - or at least it felt like it - and when Shiro Samurai and I left my apartment I was so ready to call it quits and stay at home. That's how anxious I felt about the event - and it's totally different kind of anxiety as I usually feel before the conventions. No, this one was a lot greater and when we got to the library I was basically unable to do anything for the first 20 minutes until my brains finally sorted themselves out and I begun functioning again. The clock was about 7:20 in the morning at this point and the con started at 11 so luckily there was still time to do the remaining tasks and put on our costumes. I had intended to cosplay lady Dimitrescu from Resident Evil 8 but hadn't managed to make the costume in time so I wore my Just Be Friends!Luka again.
The sellers for the Artists' Alley (which was probably the greatest success of the con) arrived at 9; I had asked them if two hours would be enough time to set up their tables and apparently it was since they agreed on it.
Or, well, Nana - who was representing bunicorn_design and whom I have also called Rikari in my past blog posts - arrived a bit earlier so she could help us with the rest of the decorating and all. Thank you so much, my dear friend! <3 

Said friend in question.

The Artists' Alley was located in the newspaper reading room which is quite a lot of bigger than the picture shows. There's also one of the signs Shiro Samurai painted (and signed with his other handle KaamosWolf).

At 10 a.m. I begun to put on my costume since I knew it wouldn't take me ages to get it done - especially because I skipped the contact lenses this time mostly because I didn't manage to find them among all my stuff since I had just moved from Kauttua to Lappi TL so yeah. The final preparations were done... And after that it was time to open the doors.

This is what it looked like a mere minutes before we opened the doors. In the upper picture Maria H. (the info/guide person) dressed as the sea itself and lammasnoita (drawing contest judge and the other hosting the drawing workshop) dressed as Kiki, in the lower picture Katriina (also responsible for the drawing workshop) dressed as Miss Quackfaster.

 

A small con detail - a guest book (that was quite popular once people noticed it)! <3

 

I said the opening words to a few people (including a couple of my school mates back then) who came to listen to them. After the opening... Well, thing - since I can't really call it an opening ceremony - I and one of my colleagues did a Japan related book talk. And, after something like 30 minutes I and Elililyca begun judging the cosplay contestants - to which most of my con day was spent to. Shiro Samurai was also one of the judges with a slightly different job description than usual; he judged the way the contestants related to their characters in front of the camera.

Our book talk may not have been the most interesting thing at the con but hey, we had fun!

I must say that at this point I was feeling pretty anxious. I'm, unfortunately, something of a control freak when it comes to hosting events etc. and this time wasn't any different. Even though I trusted - and still do trust - my former colleagues with all my being, it just felt so hard to try to trust in everything going well. Without a good team hosting this event wouldn't have been even possible - I owe them a huge thank you.
I also must say - if someone is considering hosting an event and reading this - that choosing your team wisely will make it or break it. This time it definitely was "make it"; however, it took a lot of working hours from all of use to make it all possible, to make the event happen. I had no idea what I got myself into when I suggested making an event like this; I had been one of the main organizers of Euran Mangapäivä in 2017 and 2018 but it was nothing like this. I'm thankful of the experience and will be one of the people behind this event in 2024 too but, seriously, be prepared if you consider making an event, be it a con or literally anything.

We also had a PS4! Can't really call our glass cube a gaming room but well, we worked with what we had and it seemingly worked well; there was always someone gaming when I passed it!

The hallway leading to the glass cube...

...and how it looked inside. The NHL game was among the most popular ones during the day. All the games were suitable for kids too!

We pretty much had the whole library at our use. Next time we may need to reconsider how to use the space we have but hey, you can only learn by doing. Also: loving the detailed signs.

Well, we obviously had a drawing workshop and contest, cosplay contest, opening... Thing and book talk since I've mentioned them before in this post. But we also had some other programs - and actually two including dancing! A couple of members of Idol Master dance cover group Andromed@ hosted a show called Andromed@ Duo: Special Live and a wonderful local k-pop dance group Opia Dance Crew hosted a K-pop Random Dance. There are a few things I would do differently after the event - and will do this year in case dancers want to come - but both shows went well as far as I know, even though there were minor difficulties with certain things.

Andromed@ Duo: Special Live by Andromed@. The stage worked well for cosplay contest but for dancing? Never again.

K-pop Random Dance hosted by Opia Dance Crew. The paintings in the background were made by Pentti Peura and not harmed during the program - even though they made hosting it a bit difficult since they took pretty much space in the lobby. However, the lobby worked better than the other area originally planned for the program.

 

We also had a couple of panels/lectures/games too! Mirko hosted a "Smash or Pass" anime character game (which was safe for work even though the name suggests a bit otherwise - I didn't have a chance to participate but I confirmed this from the host) and I talked about my cosplay experiences that I've gathered during all these years I've cosplayed.

Mirko's program that was actually so popular people didn't even fit into the room in the end!

My lecture about the cosplay memories. Not as popular but well, it was meant to be a filler anyway since it was very hard to get people to host programs.

The drawing workshop/contest - there was always someone drawing.

 

(At this point I notice that I really don't have so much more to say about the con itself since I didn't have the time to just roam around and check everything. If you want to know more about what the con had to offer, check out Shiro Samurai's Mericon summary. I will, however, tell about the cosplay contest and then some more things about actually organizing the whole thing. Want to read a summary in Finnish? Here´s one by FreakyAngel!)

So... Uh.
After the judging of the cosplay contestants was over I... Literally have no idea what I did. Likely just asked the team how it was going (all good - and if there were any problems they had been solved already so no panic) and after that it was already time for the contest itself! I was the one to take the mic and do the speaking since, well, nobody else wanted to do that (or at least didn't volunteer) and speaking is a big part of my job anyway. I had made the first plans and rules for the contest and Elililyca helped me make them even more rational, still thankful for that! <3

Mericon's cosplay contest rules differed a bit from the usual; for example it was allowed to compete with a bought costume as long as at least something was made by the contestant - this also counted props, styling wigs etc. Otherwise it was a very simple cosplay contest; the contestants walked to the stage, did a couple of poses and walked away. Doesn't really get any simpler. 

I guess this was taken in the beginning of the contest. As you can see, many people wanted to see it - there is even more crowd outside the frame!

Our wonderful contestants <3 Elililyca in the background - still very thankful for her help in both planning and judging! ;__;

After the contest (and before announcing the winners) Elililyca and I decided to eat something - and bought some snacks from Café Käpälä that was also open during the event. The café is located in the library's lobby and it's hosted by young adults and their supervisors. The young ones have for some reason or another dropped out of work/school life and trying to get back there and the supervisors help them with it. They had baked tasty event-themed pastries and everything - it was so nice to see that they wanted to be a part of this too! <3
We ate our snacks (I have no idea where Shiro Samurai was at this point but I assume that probably photographing or at Artists' Alley) and chilled for a while... And in no time it was time to tell the winners of the cosplay and drawing contests!

About the contest and the prizes.
Since the library event budget is not that great we couldn't afford to have expensive materials, such as worbla or stuff like that as the prize. However I think our prizes were still pretty good! I had ordered trophies from Laatupalkinto ; I found three perfect ones for our use! The one who placed 3rd got a bronze-colored trophy, the one who placed 2nd got a silver-colored trophy and a gift card to Pelivaari (a game shop located at Rauma) and the one who placed 1st got a gold-colored trophy and a gift card to Suomalainen Kirjakauppa. The contestants who didn't place got honorary mentions for participating.
Lammasnoita also announced the winners of the drawing contest (there were two categories and both had one winner); if I remember correctly they also got gift cards to Suomalainen Kirjakauppa. After all it was a library event so we wanted some of the prizes to be book-relevant too.

After announcing the winners it was my time to run to host my lecture (or, well, I could fit a quick shopping spree at Artists' Alley in this gap lol). Opia Dance Crew's show was happening at the same time and most people wanted to see it so yeah, there weren´t that many people listening to me. It was more than okay tho tbh; at that point I already felt quite tired and even nauseous. The event, even though I could still flag it a success, had pretty much worn me out and I also felt kind of... Empty? I mean, I had spent countless of hours figuring out which would be the best way to do things, contacting multiple companies etc. and all. This school project sure got out of hand - in a good way but still, it sure was a handful :'D
After my lecture and the K-pop Random Dance, Mericon 2023 was officially over. We begun to clean up the place since we had it pretty well decorated and had to assure the Securitas guard that we were actually working there and not trying to steal anything since for some reason alarms were on even though they weren't supposed to be. 

So.
How did it feel?
Even though it sounds a bit weird, at first I felt like I had failed. My perfectionism is a double-edged sword; it obviously means I want to do everything as well as possible BUT even though other people could see the success I'm mostly able to see just those things that weren't done/perfect. I guess this is kind of a built-in Kaizen method in my head; always aim for doing things better and never stop developing since you can always do better.
But after all these months, when I look back to the event I must admit one thing: I couldn't have done anything better. The event was a first-time one and since there wasn't any feedback to build on... Well, you have to start somewhere, right? So yes, even I can say it was a success. This year we're probably gonna do a few things differently (we already have changed the font on our Instagram posts and will make our website better etc.) based on the feedback we got but even most of it was positive! So yeah, an important lesson to me: sometimes it's okay and even rightful to pat yourself on the back and say "hey, good job".
Got a very bad grade for my essay about the event though but to be honest that doesn't even matter anymore, I graduated months ago and nobody's gonna ask about it.

So yeah, that's a wrap for this text wall! 3rd of August is the date of Mericon 2024 so see you there! <3

Last but definitely not least: our wonderful team! <3 Photo © auriraitsu.

Until next time (which will be my Nippori 2023 summary).

- Firith

Circle lens review: TheDollyEye Celeb Super Nudy Blue

Long time no see!
A lot has happened since my last blog post. I finished my studies, moved to the North and started to work in a new place. It's been over two months already and now, finally, I had time to sit down and write this blog post. There are multiple circle lens reviews, con summaries etc. waiting in the drafts and to be written so at least there will be a lot of content for this year! 

Since circle lens reviews are easy to write I decided to write one of those. The lens I'm reviewing in this one is TheDollyEye Celeb Super Nudy Blue. As far as I know these lenses aren't sold anywhere anymore but I still decided to review these since the pics were already taken etc.

Important note: I got these lenses from someone who totally lost interest in wearing and reviewing circle lenses. These lenses had a wrong prescription for me and I think that these were close to their expiration date/already expired so I can not grade the comfort. However, I will say a few words about the comfort in general - pretty much my first impression of these. Remember: wearing lenses that are past their expiration date/broken/have the wrong prescription for you is a dangerous thing to do and it can damage your eyes for good so seriously, don't do it. I wore these lenses for half an hour and then threw them away so I had these on only for this review. Thank you. 

This circle lens review is non-sponsored (seriously, I doubt I'd even get a sponsor since it takes me half an eternity to write these lol).

The vials of the lenses.

The lenses in their vials.

Base curve: 8,6 mm
Diameter: 14,5 mm
Water content: 38 %
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

 

Inserting these was easy. And yes, "inserting" is bold for a reason - when I had gotten the first lens in my eye, it hurt like hell! Never before has a circle lens felt so stingy and painful; it was literally hard to keep my eyes open. When I inserted the second one... Well, it just doubled the pain. I have literally no idea why these ones behaved so badly; all the other lenses from the same box were also expired (or close to the expiration date) and they behaved almost normally. So yeah, seriously no idea what was going on with these ones but this experience sure went to "my personal top 5 worst circle lens experiences" list... However, like I said: I can't grade the comfort, just mention the first experience of the lenses reviewed. 

And this first experience was bad. Don´t need another one of these, thanks.

These also were a bit on the thick side.

 

One lens in. Yes, it was painful.

Well, these are circle lenses so obviously these are at least a bit enlarging; however these ones don't have that notable enlargement effect. These make my eyes look bigger than they naturally are but not in a "kawaii anime doll" way. Since these also blend very well with my natural eye color - mixture of gray, green and blue but gray being the dominating color - I'd rather speak about enhancement effect in general. I'd say these would be pretty good for everyday use; these add some magic and detail to your outfit and make-up but aren't too "in your face".

The design looks pretty simple at first but the more you look at it, the more details you can find! These somehow make me think of summer; the print kind of reminds me of the sun and the color reminds me of a summer sky or maybe I just miss the summer too much lol. The lenses also look pretty light-colored in their vials but surprisingly dark in my eyes.

Now to the lens photos.
Pics kindly taken by Shiro Samurai, thanks a lot! ^__^

The pictures were taken on a rather cloudy day in June 2021 (yeah I'm way too late with these reviews). These aren't filtered in any way, only their size has been changed since the original photos were quite big.
(Note: we took pictures of quite many lenses on the same day so the light conditions are going to be the same in the next few reviews too.)

 

Natural roomlight.

Facing window.

Yellow roomlight.

Bathroom light.

Flash photo.

Back against the sun.

Facing the clouded sun.

From the distance.

 

•  The color is 7/10. The blue is just absolutely stunning - when the lenses are in their vials. In my eyes these turned a bit too dark to my liking.
  
  
• The design is also 7/10. Quite natural, good for everyday use. However I don't see that much other potential in these, which makes them a bit boring. Pretty, but not outstanding.
  
  
• The opacity in my opinion is 6/10. These do let my own eye color through but not disturbingly much - and less than some other lenses I've reviewed lately.
  
  
• The naturalness is 5/10. One can see that these are not your real eyes; however it might take them a while to notice what exactly isn't natural about them.
  
  
• The enlargement is 5/10. The effect is there but these don't make you look like a kawaii anime dolly - even though the name kind of suggests so.
  

 

This one done, 20 to go.
And I mean that a bit too literally. Shouldn't have procrastinated with these so much.
Not sure will my next post be a circle lens review or a con summary but trust me: it will definitely be one of the two.

Until next time.

-Firith

Luka Megurine - Just Be Friends photoshoot

Hi folks and happy New Year!

Even though I haven't written that many con summaries this year I attended many events in 2023 (I will publish those summaries next year - and also at least try to make blog posts more often since I've kind of miss writing these regularly). One of the events was Nekocon in Kuopio for which I made a new cosplay: my own design version of the VOCALOID Luka Megurine, more specifically her Just Be Friends version. Even though the costume isn't the best out there I still wanted to get some pics of it - and here they are! 

Photographer & photo edit © Shiro Samurai.

This one is definitely my favorite one <3

Favorite even though I was literally just standing still and almost fell because of the high heels lol.

...and, well, of course there just happened to be a sign that was a bit too hilarious and I just had to have a picture taken with it.

(I think the sign was actually warning people not to park there or they´d get a fine.)

There are the photoshoot pics of this costume! Even though the dress itself isn't the professionally made it still looks surprisingly good in pics imo.

See you guys in 2024~!

Until next time.

-Firith

Nekocon 2023

Well... *khm* I know I'm super late with this summary too but better late than never, I guess. So yeah, here comes my Nekocon 2023 summary!

Nekocon was held 15th-16th of July at Kuopion musiikkikeskus (Kuopio Music Centre). I was supposed to leave for Kuopio on 14th of July, which I indeed did - just more than two hours late since my (now former since I´ve moved to another city) neighbor's cat decided to cause a scene - or rather, disappear into thin air :)) 

You see, I had promised to be a, err, cat-sitter when my neighbor and roommate were on a holiday/fishing trip. The cat in question had decided to take a little adventure on his own - likely in a nearby forest - and didn't come home when I called for him. The clock was ticking, I was supposed to be on my way towards Kuopio at that point and there I was, panicking and fuming at the same time. In the end I called the cat's owner and explained the situation - and turned out that they were about to leave the cottage they had been staying at since the weather in the north had taken a turn for worse and fishing would have been basically impossible. He told me that he would look for the cat himself and I could leave - two hours behind my schedule.
That meowing disaster came back home next day so had I stayed there I would have had to skip the whole con.

The drive to Kuopio went well, except for experiencing some anxiety at the freeway near Tampere but luckily it was nothing too bad. I arrived at Kuopio after six o'clock in the evening and drove straight to Rauhalahti Spa where I and Shiro Samurai would be staying for the weekend. You see, I happened a spot a good price for the hotel room, informed him about it and since I happen to have a driving license and a car (also known as it didn't really matter if there was some distance between the hotel and con venue)... Well... Why wouldn't I take the offer and have a relaxing weekend?
Anyway, like I stated I was a few hours late. Shiro Samurai had arrived at Kuopio a couple of hours before me and I had contacted the hotel if he could have the other key to the room already. That was okay with the hotel staff and when I got to the room he was already chilling there - I just dumped my stuff in the corner and proceeded to do the same. 

Our hotel room ft. cosplay chaos.

 

(Pics © Shiro Samurai if not mentioned otherwise.)

I think that during the evening we didn't do much; visited the nearby store and spent an hour or so in the spa. After that it was time to go to sleep - we were supposed to wake up pretty early because we didn't want to miss the hotel breakfast.

The morning came way too quickly in my opinion; someone's child had been crying for half of the night and even though I understand that there are babies that can't sleep because of pains etc., I wasn't too amused waking up after, like, three hours of sleep or so. Well, that's life. *shrugs*
We went to the hotel breakfast, had an apple juice that was going through identity crisis (it was literally just water lol) and then... It was time to do our make-ups and put on our cosplays. My cosplay for the weekend was Luka Megurine's Just Be Friends version (own design) and Shiro Samurai cosplayed Kisuke Urahara from Bleach. This year's Nekocon's theme was nostalgy and I think these characters fit it pretty well.
After a fight with trolling false eyelashes and eyeliner that didn't want to obey me I was ready to put on my - way too wrinkled - cosplay. I wasn't too happy with the dress; I mean, it could've been a lot better IF I had found a better fabric for it. I mean, I made some great mistakes with the patterns too (I have to make them myself since I can't find patterns as big as I would need thanks to being plus-sized and having a pear-modeled body) but still to this day I think a lot could've been saved had I used better materials. However, I had to work with what I could get and what was within my budget - which wasn't too great either at that point.
However, despite the wrinkles and errors in pattern-making the dress was surprisingly okay to wear and I made the decision to keep it on at least for a photoshoot.

I texted Sallukka and asked where they and their boyfriend were. I got a reply pretty soon; they informed that they were already at the event venue and there was a looooooong queue to the ticket exchange booth. This proved to be very true when we got to Musiikkikeskus; the queue was at least 150 meters long!
We decided to get a few photos taken while we waited for the queue to get shorter; first Shiro Samurai photoshooted my costume and then we switched roles since he wanted to get some pics taken of his Urahara cosplay too. I will publish my photoshoot pics in a separate post, otherwise this one will become unbearably long.

The wrist band. Gotta love the colors!

The con venue entrance.

 

Entrance hall overview pics.

Pohjois-Savon Seta ry's table.

To be honest, I don't remember much what we did on Saturday after photoshoots and fetching the wrist bands. You see, it was very warm both outside and inside the building, and I get nauseous and light-headed very easily when it's too warm so my memories are, unfortunately, pretty blurry. I remember checking out the Artisans´ Alley though - I even bought a few prints from si3art! A few years ago I barely checked out Artisans´Alley/Artists´ Alley, nowadays it's the first thing I check when I go to a con. 

Artisans' Alley and Merchants' Hall were pretty crowded at times.

Artisans' Alley overview.

On Saturday there were no panels or lectures we would have wanted to attend to; doesn't mean that their quality would've been bad, there was just nothing within our interests. We ran into Sallukka at one point and discussed about having some dinner together but eventually didn't happen this time. Hope we can fix that at some point - and btw, Sallukka, your costume was awesome! <3 

Head Hunter Store´s table.

On the front you can see a corner of Bard & Jester´s table, the one with manga books is Fantasiapelit's booth.

Hey there, friend!

Me and Shiro Samurai left the con building after a few hours; we were more interested in taking a dip in the spa and hanging out in the hotel room than staying at a con and sweating like there's no tomorrow. First we wanted to have something to eat though - and oh boy, that... Kind of became a derp show.
At first we googled some places and found a sushi restaurant near the center of Kuopio. We decided to drive there - and at this point I must mention that I'm not too familiar with the town in question so we placed our trust in Google Maps to guide us to the right place. And it... Kind of did... I just didn't see a parking lot anywhere when we got there! We quickly decided to search for one - and ended up driving all around Kuopio without a clear destination. Eventually we typed "Kuopion musiikkikeskus" to our Maps and drove to the familiar parking lot of the con venue.
We walked back to the center - or, well, Kuopio plaza - and finally got to the sushi place. And saw the price list. Which was waaaay beyond our budget so we quickly abandoned the idea. There really were no other restaurants we would have wanted to dine in (well, there was Hesburger and its nuggets are delicious but that wasn't an option at the time) so we just fetched a few energy drinks from a nearby shop and made our way back to the car, hungry and defeated.

We did some more brainstorming but couldn't come up with any solutions... Until we remembered there was a Scan Burger restaurant in the same floor than the spa. So yeah, we totally went there - the customer service was top-tier and the food was delicious!
After eating our meals we took a dip in the spa and just hanged out for the rest of the evening before going to sleep. And I slept poorly again.

Sunday morning came and after breakfast it was time to pack our stuff and leave the hotel. We were also in a bit of a hurry; Shiro Samurai wanted to see "Tolkuton plays Muumimetallia" show and I wanted to see the interview of the other guest of honor, Seppo Pääkkönen (the other one was the Finnish youtuber Namikolinx). He is a famous voice actor here in Finland and his voice has been a big part of my childhood <3 He has voiced for example Buster in Lady and the Tramp 2: Scamp´s Adventure, Rothbart in The Swan Princess 1 and Hades in Hercules - obviously in the Finnish versions of the movies. Of course it would have been interesting to see Tolkuton's show too but I hope I get the chance to check it in another con! 

One could also play some video games right next to the Artists' Alley!

 

 

Artists' Alley. Yes, it was also crowded.

Before attending these shows we + Sallukka and their boyfriend Dongrieg visited Artists' Alley where I ran into Nana and Momo, also known as bunicorn_design. I chatted with them for a while, checked out the other artists (and made a couple of purchases) and then it was literally time to run to check out the shows. Sallukka and Dongrieg accompanied me to Pääkkönen's interview since they had already seen Tolkuton in Tracon.

(Pics from now on taken by yours truly w/ mobile phone so yeah, there is a quality drop, sorry about that - I really should buy a new camera at some point since my old one kind of called it quits.)

Ain't Hades such a mood sometimes though? :'D

 

The interview was one rollercoaster of emotions and I had hard time holding back my tears; seeing a man whom I have idolized since I was a child felt so unreal! He spoke about his career, its highs and downs and why he eventually quit voice acting.
I didn't have time to queue up and wait for his autograph but even seeing him made me pretty emotional; thank you Seppo for making my childhood so awesome! 

After that we had a small break and then it was time for the next programs we wanted to attend to. This time the other three went to see Bardic Inspiration concert while I made my way to a panel about Asian horror stories.
The panel was very interesting and it was so nice to see that it was not all about the Japanese horror stories; of course there were couple of them too but there were stories for example from Thailand and Vietnam too. I think my favorite ones were the stories about Mae Nak and the Krasue (don't google if you don´t like horror). The program was 45 minutes long (I think?) but if it ever gets a part 2 I will surely go and check that out too - it feels like a few stories had to be dropped from this panel because of the time limit. However, it was still very entertaining and sure gave me the chills!

 

 

And after the panel it was time to leave - needless to say how bad it felt to start driving to the other direction than the others but oh well, couldn't really be helped...
I will surely attend Nekocon in the future too; I enjoyed the con and got some of the con hype back too (along with some flashbacks to the past Animecons which were also in July and it was always pretty hot both outside and inside lol, some things don't change). It was a comfy and nice con from which I have many happy memories now <3

My con loot looks like this! ^__^

Tighnari, lady Alcina Dimitrescu and Grell by si3art, Klee by iaia.

Earrings by bunicorn_design, skull key chain by Niramuchu Art & Design and the Undertaker pin and Genshin Impact charms by si3art.

Also bought some lovely skull stickers from aroaava and decorated my calendar with them <3

That´s all for now folks!
I have multiple con summaries and circle lens reviews to write ( + Luka's photoshoot pics to publish) so at least there will be a lot of content after I get my thesis done :'D I won't make a WIP post about Luka's dress since I don't really find it worth it; so many people have done the same costume way better and written WIPs about it so... Yeah, not really worth the effort ^^" However, the said dress will be mentioned in the near future again...

Until next time... Which is hopefully soon since I'm pretty damn late with most of my posts.

- Firith