Howdy guys! I’m back from Youmacon with and boy do I have a lot of stuff to talk about. On the plane ride back from Detroit I wrote an 11-page journal; I’ll put the MOST awesome paragraphs here (however, this is still going to be a very long journal entry heh heh), but you can read the entire (funny, I hope!) entry at my LiveJournal: [link]
------------------------------------------------

FRIDAY AFTERNOON:

My first destination is the Maid Café. The Maid Café is an event where you literally can go sit down at a table have lunch with the voice-acting guests (at most cons, the only time you really speak with guests is when you approach them for a few moments at their autograph table). Only people who paid extra are allowed in (I paid extra) - I’m not quite sure if I can express what kind of an amazing opportunity this is. I am, of course, first in line.

Eventually the guests start walking past me to enter the café before it opens (I got there at about 2:15; the café opens to the extra-payers at 3:00p). I am excited when I see the members of Team Four Star go by. I start digging through my briefcase to find Mokuba so that I can ask them to say IT’S THE SHINY MOKUBA in a video and picture for me; but, before I get too far, I am interrupted:

“Julie?”

The voice, behind me, is quiet, perhaps even reticent; yet, spiced with a hint of happiness- it immediately pierces through my outer shell of dignity that I pride myself on and nestles itself in my small “HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS OMGZ” organ that I tend to keep fairly well-hidden when in public. It affects me the way that only a timid British voice could.

I turn around; …I turn around and literally lose my breath for a moment. LittleKuriboh. LittleKuriboh is standing mere inches from me, smiling at me, addressing me by name.

Immediately I compose myself and hope that nobody can tell that I have completely released my bowels (luckily the Kaiba costume isn’t very revealing so I think that I was safe) and tell LittleKuriboh about how much of an honor it was to meet him; I get my first hug from him, but then remember- oh yeah, I wanted stuff from Team Four Star. I turn back to Takahana and ask him to kidnap Mokuba, and after a few particularly hilarious videos and photos, the guests that are standing around me bid me goodbye for now and go into the maid café. About fourteen seconds later, a wheezing runs up and says “I DID IT. I GOT A TICKET INTO THE MAID CAFE,” (he hadn’t paid extra ahead-of-time, so he had to run off to go buy a ticket while I was in line) to which I respond, “LittleKuriboh just hung out with me.”
I don’t particularly enjoy making my friends miserable, but it was semi-hilarious how his face went from sweaty red to completely white in about .01 milliseconds; then, of course, followed by “OH COME ON SERIOUSLY I MISSED THAT???” I laugh and then we go back to waiting in line to get into the Maid Café. Knowing who is just on the other side of those doors is beginning to make me antsy, at this point; my feelings only intensify when another guest passes me to go to the Maid Café- a man with an extraordinarily impressive handlebar moustache and Shakespeare T-shirt that reads “rose before Hos.” This man is the reason that I planned back in July to come to Youmacon; this man is the namesake for my beloved duckling; this man is the reason that I love Yu-Gi-Oh, when it comes down to it, so I want you to understand what that-all entails as far as my love of cosplaying: Wayne Grayson.

3:00 finally, finally comes. One of the maids comes up to me (the first person in line) and says “Where would you like to sit?”

I look over her shoulder and see something so beautiful as a sunrise over the ocean; incredible beams of light dancing on the chopping waves; a sign of a new, fresh day, and wonderful things to come: Wayne Grayson, sitting alone at a table. “Can I sit with him?” I ask hopefully.

The next thing I know, and I are sitting around Wayne Grayson. There is a piece of freshly-baked carrot cake in front of me. Wayne Grayson is unbelievably adorable- he tells us stories about how he has birthday parties with the other Yu-Gi-Oh voice actors (apparently Bandit Keith’s voice actor’s birthday was only a little while ago, and Wayne and Dan Green and Eric Stuart and all of their little woodland Yu-Gi-Oh! friends had all gone over to party- Wayne even showed me a picture of Dan Green from the party, taken on his cell phone), he tells us stories about how he proposed to his wife at a convention- and he SOUNDS LIKE JOEY WHEELER WHEN HE TALKS.

Understand the magnitude of this moment. I am eating carrot cake with Wayne Grayson. It literally cannot get better than this.

And of course as soon as I start thinking this, I correct myself: once everyone is done eating, people start flocking to where guests are sitting and ask for pictures and autographs and quotes and things like that. Wayne is approached by a few other fans, and then soon by LittleKuriboh, who comes to our table to meet Wayne for the first time.

The moments after their meeting is where I take my opportunity to start mooching pictures and videos off of LittleKuriboh, Kroze (I WAS AS EXCITED TO SEE KROZE AS BAKURA WAS!) and Wayne Grayson. Ranging from getting Wayne to say, in Joey’s voice, “Friendship is like peeing on yourself,” to LittleKuriboh and me doing my favorite skit from Yu-Gi-Oh! abridged (the scene from the movie where Pegasus hits on Kaiba), the videos are priceless; the pictures allow Mokuba to taste a little bit of the excitement that I felt by getting kidnapped by Kroze and Wayne.

After getting about two hundred trillion pictures and videos with Wayne and LittleKuriboh- as well as actually spending a little bit of quality time with LittleKuriboh; actually getting to speak with him for quite a nice chunk of time!- I decide that I want to go ask Neil Cicierega (he was like a table away!!), That Guy With the Glasses, and Team Four Star for pictures and videos. But, there’s one last thing I want to do before I give up this moment: the moment of standing next to Wayne Grayson and LittleKuriboh at the same time. I pull out my sharpie and ask LittleKuriboh to draw a friendship circle on four hands: mine, Wayne’s, his and my Mokuba plushie’s.

Even as I type this now, there is a purple quarter of a smiley face on my right hand; permanent marker, in a sense, permanently bonding me to those beloved men as well as to that opportunity. And, even as the ink fades off of my hand, it will never come from Mokuba’s- I will always have that piece of my new incredible friends.

I’ll never wash my hands again.

After bartering another piece of free carrot cake off of one of the maids, I decide that I want to be friends with Team Four Star’s members. I hand them the script that gave me, and we have a hell of a fun time with what eventually leads to an improv fight scene, Dragonball-Z-abridged style. Ultimately Takahana becomes one of my joking buddies; Team Four Star and I bond further when one of the cameramen literally trips over my Briefcase of Death in front of all of us. Briefcase of Death, alright.

Michael Sinterniklaas finally shows up. Michael is certainly on my top-ten list of the most extraordinarily cute people whom I have ever met. We actually start a little bit of a flirting game, going on here- I hesitantly admit that probably loves him more than anyone else I know; he doesn’t accept this; hand adoringly on my shoulder, we talk about love and I end up holding hands with him for a little while. He’s bloody precious, you guys.

The Yu-Gi-Oh! official photoshoot was at 9:00p- as soon as the panel let out, and I went to the pool terrace and found many other Yu-Gi-Oh! cosplayers there: some that we had run into already (Yuusei: , Kiryu Kyosuke: , Jack Atlas: , Mai Valentine: , Jaden, Ryo Bakura: , Crow: , and Joey Wheeler: ) and then some new faces: a few Dark Signers, Yami Bakura: , Baby Dragon (sorta ): , and then another Bandit Keith as well as two other Kaibas (one of them being ). The photoshoot is hysterical: I tell everyone about my Coat Tails of Doom Club tradition; and, my favorite shot being the one with me and Jack Atlas having an angsty-anti-hero super-glomp.



SATURDAY AFTERNOON:

More Yu-Gi-Oh! cosplayers show up. is now a Yami Yugi, and she’s got Joey () with her. I also find Mokuba: - we have a little mini Yu-Gi-Oh! photoshoot in the lobby, complete with SLIFER THE EXECUTIVE PRODUCER and other various hilarious cards (I have a new love of ENEMY CONTROLLER ever since discovering MAD: Yu-Gi-Oh!).

But then comes the moment that and I were waiting for most: the Yu-Gi-Oh! abridged screening!! 2:00p, and Kroze (dressed as Indiana Jones, courtesy of Brad Swaile) is setting up his laptop to play episodes 43 and 44 for the first time. I’m, of course, in the front row.

The panel starts with LittleKuriboh singing Without Yugi to test the sound system (of course everyone sang along!). Then, after a brief little Q-and-A where Team Four Star got to play, too, Episode 43 ran. What could I say? Eh, that it was BACK BREAKINGLY HILARIOUS and REALLY EFFING FUNNY and KAIBA IS AWESOME etc.; you know, the usual.

The Q-and-A break between the airings of episodes 43 and 44 is where I experience another one of those “oh, I’ll probably never be sad again because of this” moments. Someone in the audience mentions Yu-Gi-Oh! season Zero, which leads to Team Four Star and LittleKuriboh unanimously agreeing that poor Kroze is a lot like Yugi from that season: poor little guy, he just gets beat up CONSTANTLY by quite literally every character except perhaps Anzu (Tea, for you guys who are uncool and don’t know). Someone particularly mentions that in the season zero manga, Kaiba whacks Yugi across the head with his Briefcase of Death. LittleKuriboh looks right at me and asks, “do you want to re-enact that moment?”

Have you guys ever felt your heart literally stop inside of you? I had just been asked to beat up Kroze on stage in front of easily 500 people (perhaps- probably- more, honestly) with my giant metal briefcase. It’s what every Kaiba cosplayer- every Yu-Gi-Oh abridged fan- longs to hear.

I stand up victoriously as the crowd goes wild. Someone shouts SOMEONE GET HER A BRIEFCASE but there is no need; I pick up my briefcase and hold it up for the entire room to see. The applause is thunderous; I put on my best Kaiba attitude and stride over to the stage and hop up, and there’s good ol’ Kroze, standing there, waiting to be whammoed in the head with my briefcase that is literally twice as wide as I am. I approach him, and after a few threatening swings-

THWACK!

Kroze goes flying in a spectacular act of pantomimed agony. I punch the air triumphantly and then leap offstage, embraced in the sound waves from the cheers and screams of the thrilled crowd. The world is a good place.

Episode 44 then airs; it’s probably the most spectacular Kaiba thing that I’ve ever seen. Kaiba refers to himself as “Seto freaking Kaiba” and says FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWK and I just felt so PROUD to be Kaiba at that moment. I can’t- I most certainly DON’T- resist leaping onstage after the panel ended to throw myself on LittleKuriboh and tell him what a genius he is.



SUNDAY MORNING:

10:00a is time for the Potter Puppet Pals live performance! I sit in the front row (duh) and watch Harry (wearing a scarf?) and Ron and a naked Dumbledore sing and dance their little …um, pillow-stuffing-y hearts out. After the panel, Neil Cicierega permits me to have all six puppets- Voldemort, Dumbledore, Hermione, Snape, Harry and Ron- have a plushie orgy with Mokuba. This is perhaps the best moment of Mokuba’s life. I then pose with Neil and the other Potter Puppet Pals actors, holding Ron. YOU GUYS: I HAVE PUT THE RON WEASLEY PUPPET ON MY HAND. YES.

---------------------------
Okay, so there’s five pages for you. I hope you can sense my excitement; be on the lookout for some pretty ballin’ pictures, you guys