For the last day of the year I figured I could do some kind of special blog post ~
First of a list of all the cons I've been to this year:
Desucon Frostbite - Lahti, Finland Kitacon - Kemi, Finland Chibicon - Oulu, Finland Desucon - Lahti, Finland Uppcon - Uppsala, Sweden Animecon - Kuopio, Finland Närcon - Linköping, Sweden Oulun Animeseminaari - Oulu, Finland Tracon - Tampere, Finland Kemin Mangapäivä (6th October) - Kemi, Finland Skecon - Skellefteå, Sweden
A lot of cons this year, hahah. Mainly in Finland too. It's very hard to pick my favorite con for the year but if I do a top 3 it would probably look like this:
1. Närcon 2. Tracon 3. Uppcon
• Närcon first because it's.. well, awesome. It has so many activities no other cons offer and is like a huge 4 days con festival! The atmosphere is great, the locations are nice (although I get lost many times because of the maze-like corridors lol xD), great outside area, juice bar, laserdome/bouncy castle/whatever special attraction of the year, swimming pool etc. Närcon is shortly said a blast all congoers should visit at least once! Also the weather was great this year and didn't ruin my con weekend, hence the first place. • Tracon is second because I'm in love with Tampere-talo as a location for hosting a con. It is very nice and feels luxury somehow haha. Also the park around Sorsalampi is amazing.. too bad I only noticed it at the very last minutes before I had to depart. Amazing photoshoot opportunities in nature. Oh, and Tracon is just overall very enjoyable and certainly my favorite con in Finland currently, mainly for its more than awesome locations. • Uppcon was a blast too. Too bad this year was the last Uppcon in history and the rainy weather kinda ruined it on the later days, otherwise Uppcon wouldn't be third place for me. But the location is amazing and big, there is lots of stuff to do and I don't even need to mention the huge merchandise tent which is like a geek's treasure trove haha. Uppcon was the biggest (and most well-known I presume) con in Sweden and it's a shame it is no more.. but it seems there will be a successor.
And lastly here is all the cosplays of different characters I've worn this year. Ukitake is the only one of these which has already been worn 2011, the rest are 2012 debut cosplays. I only put a character once even though in some cases I did different variations of the same character.. like formalsuit!Ukitake, artbook!Saitou (Hakuouki) etc.
Upper row, left to right: Jushiro Ukitake (Bleach), Gin Ichimaru (Bleach), Byakuya Kuchiki (Bleach), Ichito (Asaki, Yumemishi), Souji Okita (Hakuouki), Toshizo Hijikata (Hakuouki) Lower row, left to right: Hajime Saitou (Hakuouki), Masamune Date (Sengoku Basara), Isami Kondou (Hakuouki), Sojun Kuchiki (Bleach), Hajime Saitou (Bakumatsu Renka Shinsengumi), Falkner (Pokémon)
My favorite cosplay of the year.. hmm.. very hard to just pick one because I love them all. xD But if I think about the overall con experience with said cosplay, how comfortable it was to wear, overall enjoyment and liking of the character etc I guess it's a tie between two Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan chars - Hajime Saitou and Isami Kondou. Saitou is a cosplay that fits me like a glove in the hand, my anime alter-ego and just everything about his design and personality is very much to my liking. Very comfortable to wear too except the scarf that's always planning to suffocate me lol. Isami Kondou was also very much fun to cosplay, especially during Tracon's Hakuouki group! Also very comfortable and fun and that wig is just too awesome not to like!
I'm about to explode with excitement and fly away on a manly sparkly rainbow of awesome!! The tickets were released today 14:00 Swedish time and I sat refreshing vinter!Närcon's page like an idiot the last 5 minutes so that I would get myself one of those Early Bird tickets for sure! For those not in the know the Early Bird tickets are 100 SEK cheaper than the ordinary ones, aka 250 SEK instead of 350 SEK. Early Birds tickets are limited so you need to be, well, early to guarantee that you will get one.. especially seeing how popular Närcon is and only 1000 tickets were released in total for the convention. I'M SO EXCITED OHMEIGERD the first vinter!Närcon, it will be so much awesome!
This also means that I'm sadly not going to Desucon FrostBite next year because FrostBite is on 16-17 February 2013 and Närcon Vinter is on 22-24 February. Too close to each other so I have to sacrifice one. Oh, and this also means I can't go to Kitacon in Kemi on 23rd February either because it collides with Närcon.
My reasoning for choosing Närcon Vinter over these two other cons are following:
• It's cheaper for me to travel in Sweden than Finland. (except that Kitacon would have been close to me, but it's so small it can't really compete with Närcon and Desucon...) • Närcon Vinter is one day more than Desucon FrostBite and 2 days longer than Kitacon. The more con time the better; mer för pengarna ~ • I have a free sleeping place if I go to Närcon Vinter, opposed to FrostBite, because Närcon is in Linköping and my oldest sibling lives there. Me gusta. • I've already been to FrostBite this year so I have already "experienced/seen" it in a way while Närcon Vinter will be a whole new experience because this is the first time it's arranged and it's also in a different building that the usual (summer) Närcon + new activities. Hotto Dorinku (warm drink) bar anyone? <3 • Närcon in overall I think is better than Desucon and Kitacon, sorry. Närcon (summer) and Tracon are my two top anime conventions I've been to (if we don't count Uppcon because it doesn't exist anymore..) and of course then of a higher priority to me.
I'm not sure what I will cosplay there yet, but I have some loose ideas, so stay tuned for a cosplay plan revelation later! Oh, and if you didn't figure it out yet Närcon Vinter will be the next con I go to. Sorry, I won't be going to Wapanese Night 3 in Umeå because I'd rather save my money for Närcon Vinter and mom thinks I've been to too many cons this year already + December and Christmas stress...
I attended Skecon in Skellefteå last weekend, 2-4 November. It was a small convention (they had 200 tickets) held for the first time and I must say it was very successfully arranged. Despite being small it was a very enjoyable con experience and I'm certainly looking forward for the next time it is held.
I'm sorry I didn't write this earlier, I've been a bit lazy and I've also been waiting to see if I could find some photos of one thing during the convention.. Oh well, now on to the con summary.
Okay so me, my twin Jäätynyt Enkeli and Sairu-chan started our trip to Skellefteå on Friday morning. We woke up 07:00 Swedish time and put on our traveling clothes, took all our suitcases and shit with us and mom drove us to Haparanda town where she dropped us at the bus station while herself heading for work. We three sat and waited inside for the bus, which came 08:30. It was a Norrlandskusten bus, it's a nice dark blue double-decker. I think the trip took around 4,5 hours. My new (internet) friend Ninjah got on the same bus further down but I wasn't sure it was her until we were in Skellefteå bus station and I saw she was wearing her Hajime Saitou (Hakuouki) wig and had two swords wrapped in fabric. xD We all four then found our way to the Skecon building, aka the Efyran.
We got our con bands and soon decided it would be better if we went to the sleeping accommodation place (which was on a class room floor of the nearby school) to dump our luggage and shit. Everyone of us four changed into cosplays there. I cosplayed Falkner, Sairu-chan cosplayed Erika and Jäätynyt Enkeli cosplayed Silver, all from Pokémon. Ninjah cosplayed a hakama version of Saitou from Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan. We walked back to the con building and walked around a bit. Soon our "original trio" (aka me, my twin and Sairu-chan) found a nice blue painted wall so we decided to take turns and have a photoshoot of our Pokémon cosplays.
We mostly just chilled around and hung together and derped the whole Friday. The con atmosphere was relaxed, cozy and friendly and everyone seemed to have a good time. My favorite chilling place at the con was, without question, the bean bag chairs!! <3
"Life's tough being a Pokémon trainer" lol
I tried to take some self-photos just for fun but the (red) lighting was rather bad...
At one point we three went on a building exploration. We wound up in the Shimbukan dojo's "backside", aka changing-room-private-shower-and-sauna place where I noticed this sign someone had.. edited..
"såskopp" xD
It reads in Swedish:
"Please!
No shoes in the changing rooms.
It's easier to clean that way."
But someone added "-skopp" to the last word which changed its meaning to:
"It's easier to clean sauce cup"
I found it funny. Even though I think it was made before the convention. Oh well, we went back to the more main-ish part of the convention and derped some more. Walked around and stuff.. and of course I drank some coke.
COCA(INE) COLA :'DD
When we three started to get tired we headed back to the sleeping place. Ninjah stayed behind at Skecon and came to sleep later. Our trio went back seemingly rather early because we were the only ones in the class room we had picked. Well, good for us because I think I was on some sugar high thanks to the coke drinking combined with con excitement so that when we pulled out our sleeping bags.. well.. as soon as I got into my green sleeping bag...
METAPOD RAMPAGE!!
I don't even
My sleeping bag was named Metapod because.. duh, it's green. Sairu-chan's was Pinkpod (obviously it was pink) and Jäätynyt Enkeli's was Emo Kakuna because it was a mix of black and neon-ish orange. After the Metapod rampage I got exhausted and went to lie down on my place, on top of a fitness mattress. lol I can't say it was really comfortable.. at all. But it worked.. somehow. After we had finished talking about our cracky ideas like for example what Hijikata would hatch into if he slept overnight in Metapod... rasetsu anyone? XD
By the way this was the first time ever during any con when I slept at the sleeping accomodation place instead of at a hotel or at some friend's/relative's place. In Sweden and Finland anime cons pretty much always organize this budget option for congoers to sleep at some random school's floor or something like that.
Oh, and on the roof close to me there was a paper airplace which had gotten stuck.
Saturday morning came. Me, Jäätynyt Enkeli and Sairu-chan put on normal clothes, took our Hakuouki cosplays with us and walked to the con. We didn't wake up Ninjah because she was sleeping so peacefully. At the con we changed into cosplay because the toilets at the school was too small/narrow to allow for putting on hakama and stuff. I didn't bother to do any hardcore cosplay make-up because the con feeling was not the oh-mai-gawd-look-at-that-cosplayer kind and well, I was lazy.
Most of Sunday me and Sairu-chan just chilled in the bean bag chairs and occasionally wandered around. Actually, soon after we all had changed into Hakuouki cosplays I asked Chizuru (Sairu-chan) if she could braid my wig because.. Hijikata's hair is looooong and I wasn't very keen on having to make sure it doesn't tangle too bad for the whole day. She agreed ~
Braiding, braiding..
My expression.. xD
During 14:00 I went to the Shimbukan dojo (it's in the same building) to attend the "try-on" budo/martial arts. Me, having already practiced kendo for a few years (but for the time being I'm on a pause ever since I got a bad lung sickness last year's February..) went there anyway. I already knew all stuff they showed us and then we got to do the fourth kendo kata, the one with Hasso-no-kamae and Waki-gamae. I was feeling like a boss when I already knew all the movements. XD We also got to do a harai men on a person who was wearing kendo armor. After the quick kendo try-on we switched to kyudo. Just so you know, I've been wanting to try kyudo a long time but there are veeeery few clubs in Sweden and Finland so I've never gotten the chance. Needless to say when it was kyudo time I was all rhghjreghjfdshagjd and about to explode!! <3 Everyone who wanted to try got to fire three arrows with a beginner bow at some kind of white foam-ish target.. I have no clue what it was really. Of course one of the budo guys (it seemed like some of them practiced several different martial arts) gave everyone some guidelines how to stand, how to hold the bow etc. But seriously.. DAT FEELING when you fire an arrow for the first time with like a 2 m long bow-of-awesome.. it was so agjhfdgsha oh my god. <3<3<3 Sain ihan jumalattomat kicksit siitä. xD eiku One of the coolest things I've ever done ahaha. I did hit the target on my second try. I'm really sad I don't have any photos of my time in the dojo because I was there some hours and it was so damn awesome listening to Magnus-sensei's stories from their kendo club's Japan trips (some things which happened them in Japan were hilarious. I laughed so hard I almost cried many times XD) and his "ninja's didn't really exist" speech was very interesting, not to mention he also showed some jodo techniques and some moves with a naginata and stuff. It was so damn cool. We also got to hold this huge shinai and look closer on a sharp iaito katana. Me gusta mucho!!
After I had been there listening and laughing with Magnus-sensei and the other budo guys as well as the congoers who were interested my company came and was like "Hijikata-san we will go eating soon" and so I had to take my leave, haha. I'm sorry they probably waited for me all this time. :$ Oh well, all four of us made our way to the nearby Max - a Swedish hamburger restaurant. We sat in the same table and next to us was a kid family... the kids stared at us so damn much oh my god. But now for some shinsengumi hamburger time feat. Hijikata! 8D
DERP WARNING!
Hijikata eating fries!
I just had to put these photos together into a hamburger "comic" XD
Yah...
Enough of hamburgers.
We went back to the con and waited for the food coma to pass by in the bean bag chairs. That was when I heard an interesting sound coming closer.. it sounded like... geta... and then I saw a dude walk by with tengu geta (one-tooth geta) and I went
MOTHER OF GUSTA
I want tengu geta so much!! *grabby hands*
At some point we went to the room where you could draw, make pins and perler beads and stuff. Sairu-chan had to draw Buttman there after I had been insisting "I AM BUTTMAN" the whole con time. It was too much fun!
My idol. <3 err maybe not xD
And in case you have no clue what we are talking about: (Finnish only!)
Later during the evening maybe 30 minutes or something before the cosplay competition was about to start I noticed Sairu-chan was shaking. She said she was freezing so I gave her my shinsengumi haori. We started walking slowly towards the second floor where the cosplay competition was to be held and while sitting on a couch up there a man came and asked if we were going to compete. I said that we weren't and then he said something about that we couldn't be there because the competitors were practicing how to walk on the scene and stuff. I think I asked if we could sit there because Chizuru wasn't feeling good and he then asked if we wanted to go to the con's health care. The "con nurse" came and led us up the stairs to his little health care room. He asked some questions and gave Sairu-chan a warm blanket-ish thing and told her to take it easy and drink water because she had some temporary fever. When the cosplay competition started it got noisy so we migrated over to the first floor's café where it was calmer. Me and Sannan-san tried our best to keep her company and comfort her.
Luckily her fever seemed to go away (or at least her forehead wasn't hot anymore) after a while and she said she felt much better; the shaking had gone away. It was a relief. Now we did miss the actual cosplay competition but I don't really mind.. my friend's well-being is more important. <3
After Chizuru had recovered it was my turn to derp. I started feeling my breathing was fucking up slightly and I just generally felt a bit.. dizzy. HIJIKATA YOU CAN'T BE OKITA NOOOOOOOOO I dealt with it (after all I'm used to breathing screw ups ever since that bad sickness..) and when it got late we went to the place with blue wall were we had photoshooted our Pokémon cosplays yesterday. But this time we went to sit on that wooden table(thing?) which was half-way hidden behind that wooden screen.. thing. lol you see I get language block right now. OTL We ate some candy we had bought at Ica yesterday and took some last photos. I can't say we got anything sensible but oh well, here's some photos!
Empty coke bottle storage.. it was my RATTLE dammit!
I was tired.. and le wig is a mess
"Fuck this shit, it's hot here" *takes off haori*
Chilling together
And then the obligatory self-photos...
Soon after these photos we three changed back to normal gear and went to sleep. We had decided to not go to the con on Sunday because it ended early anyway and if we took the bus home on the morning we would be back home before it got dark. So on Sunday we woke up, packed our belongings and left while everyone else in the class room were sleeping. We headed to the Skellefteå bus station.
I saw this Skecon poster on the bus station's bulletin board thingy <3
We sat and waited for the bus to arrive. We were early so we had to wait one hour or so because the bus came 10:30 if I don't remember wrong.
I'm wearing my Saitou wig because of (really) bad hair day. I noticed some people gave me dem looks. Oh, and the bus driver said to me after Sairu-chan had gone into the bus (she was wearing her Ciel wig) "oh, you also have such cool colored hair. Why have you colored it like that? :D" and I was all
Because it was a wig and he thought it was my real hair..
I was so tired when we got on the bus so I slept most of the journey back. But. We had to change bus for some unknown reason (even though this bus wasn't supposed to change as far as I know) at Luleå bus station. The bus driver said that when we arrive there the change bus would already be there but when we got there the other bus wasn't there. He then said it would arrive behind the bus we had been in. So we stood and waited... in like 15 minutes or something and it was cold and we all were freezing. Our feelings:
Oh well. We got home and the trip was successful. I hope there will be more Skecon events in the future.
...
.......
.........
-Warning. Rant ahead-
Except that I got offended by some few people during the con who would call me "she" and when I or my friends corrected them by saying I'm a "he" (transgender) they would insist on correctingme.
I'm the one who knows myself the best. No one else has the right to define who and what I am, except myself. It's not my damn fault I'm born in the wrong body (and have yet to correct that mistake, I'm on my way though) so please understand or at the very least accept that not everyone and everything is what it might look like at first glance. If I correct you don't insist on correcting me, that's rude. You might not think it's a big deal but it's my identity in question and that is a big deal for me, I'm pretty damn sure no one wants to be mixed up with the gender they don't identify with. I want to have a right to be who I am and not be misgendered all the damn time. I've had to deal with it 19 years so you can guess how fed up with that shit I am by now. I just want to be seen as the person I really am.. is that too much to ask?
Of course I understand if someone who doesn't know me uses the wrong pronouns and stuff when they first meet me, but, after I correct them and they don't do those mistakes again it's fine. But. If they still insist on calling me the wrong gender after that then... they piss me off with their ignorance, very much. It's painful; I'm sick of being taken for something I am not and have never ever been. I'm a guy at heart. Thank you. /end rant
So yesterday I attended Kemi's manga day.. or well, this time it was labeled as "Cosplay meet-up" but, honestly, it felt just like any other manga day before it. I don't think there was any more cosplayers than normally. lolololo Oh well~ Err, so my company to the event this time were Sairu-chan and Jäätynyt Enkeli, as Chizuru Yukimura and Keisuke Sannan from Hakuouki: Shinsengumi Kitan respectively. I cosplayed Toshizo Hijikata but I kept the wig untied because I didn't feel like having a melee with it and I know my face more often than not end up looking derp with tied hair.. so I let it be for now.. until I get a wig head.
On the morning me and Jäätynyt Enkeli woke up 08:00 Finnish time and started to put on our cosplays. I was so tireeeeeeeeeed. I thought I could be ready for 09:30 but, well, I gravely underestimated the time it takes to put on all make-up for Hijikata as well as put on hakama and everything else.. aka I was roaming the house in just the purple kimono, wig and make-up. No pants TROLOLOLOL. At this time I had been texting our Chizuru when she would be here because we had originally planned to gather 09:30 at our house and photoshoot outside before leaving for Kemi. Well, some errors happened and we all three were together first at 11:00 more or less. I didn't mind that much because Hijikata got more time to dress himself properly. LOL Of course having more time to photoshoot would have been nice butbutbut.
Now some few photos taken at our yard before going to Kemi. It did drizzle a bit outside but by no means much considering it's been raining all week more or less.
And now some less representative photos... Derp storm!
Truth be told, almost all photos were incredibly derp, this is just a fraction of it. xD
Both failed to keep a serious face and cracked up.
BITCH I'M FABULOUS
Örhörhörhör [I don't even]
After that it was time to leave. We got to the place the event was being held in and yeah, it's a very chill hang-with-friends type of event. There's not much to do except watch the cosplay competition (which we did watch) and the cosplay date (which we didn't watch). I didn't really buy anything because nothing really caught my eye (and most merchandise seems to be bootlegs anyway..) but we three went to a food store nearby because Chizuru wanted to buy a coke and chocolate. Most of the time we three were hanging together, derping and whatnot but we did bump into a lot of familiar faces during the day. It was a pleasant experience even though it was pretty, well, let's just say not so much happened. People were there to hang around and relax with friends, not really to dress up in awesome cosplays and get their photos taken. It was nice nevertheless. But the best part was by far when I decided that we all go find some decent photoshoot location outside, close to Kulttuuritalo, and have a second Hakuouki photoshoot.We found a nice leafy bush place I don't know and it worked well for our purpose. Puskajussit pusikossa paskantaa~ eiku.
And of course photographer was our lovely troll!Sannan. <3
I must say... this second photoshoot... oh lord I can't remember when I've last had so much fun. So much ridiculous derps were shared, everyone was laughing until they cried.. and my stomach hurt. XD Hakuouki photoshoots are the best breeding grounds for hilarious moments.. <3
Oh, and lastly.
To sum up the amount of derp and the numerous amounts of brain cells we lost, well, let's just say that we all had our derpilicious codenames *BADUMTSSH* and those were as fabulous as:
