Alright folks it’s my time to make the first post in months. I’m very sorry. The vibe has been largely abysmal.
This isn’t about the sad things, that’s another post. This is about HOMESTUCK – The Animated Pilot
Maybe about Homestuck on a broader sense, who knows, I’m feelin’ spicy.
[pause while I think of how I want to lay this out]
So Homestuck notably started in 2009 and ended in 2016. I was there from about mid-2010 onwards. I was there when the old magics were written. I relished in upd8 culture, I watched websites crumble and crash for the zealous masses, I remember the stories of sharpie bath and unsealed body paint, I lurked Gigapause(dot)com during the long hiatus, I was a mod for a joke blog “Homestucks Against Homestuck” that was a rip off the Sonic-For-Real-Justice drama way back in the day (Mod Silver did nothing wrong).
The things I somehow skirted around were the [kinnie drama] and the [online rp world] (besides ask blogs, I was so fascinated by those). I would later have my own contributions to the fandom. This fact is a mystery tool that will help us later.
So needless to say when the animated pilot got announced, I felt a lot of emotions.
First I was excited.
Then the excitement got crushed tempered by people with concerns regarding the whole thing. A resurgence of the fandom, especially considering how poorly a lot of stuff aged as the years have passed [pause as I get distracted by the sound of my typing, hold on]
Okay I got that out of my system.
I decided after getting suuuuper bummed about my excitement being squarshed that I was going to go into this pilot with a tentative eagerness.
And now I’m glad for that because GOLLY I enjoyed it. The animation looked good, the big gags were there, and I’m so happy they sound like teenagers. GODS am I glad they sound like teenagers. Me being this excited about that sounds weird but let’s bring back that “my contribution to fandom” thing.
In 2023 I joined a Broadwaystuck (a la Broadway Karkat, you know, the Karkalicious one) revival. I was with them for almost a whole year and then for Reasons, I left. Then came a period of time I deeply regret; 2024 brought a lot of unnecessary stress in my online life which currently is my only escape from the Bad Vibes of Life. Then in like July or August of 2024 I became a parody musician again, then in February of 2025 I broke up with a long-distance relationship that had been pretty serious and I got “custody” of the Showtime group of blogs. Now the server is silent, and I look at that server icon with no small amount of sadness for the past 2 years of my life. I made a lot of mistakes, I made a lot of people upset, and by the end of it I lost almost everything I’d built in terms of friendships.
There’s a lot I want to say on all that. Almost every morning, while I’m driving to work, I find myself rotating the cow (ruminating) about it all.
You’d think I’d have dropped Homestuck completely by now, but I couldn’t if I tried. I don’t want to lose my love for the material and the fandom because of my interpersonal fuck-ups.
……..
Anyway, deeply upsetting personal lore aside, that work as a shitty VA/musician in the name of Homestuck as a whole is why I appreciate how the kids sound so far. We were a bunch of adults playing the roles of characters we knew mostly as kids; and most of the voices in that cast were based on headcanon. Most were based on one person’s headcanons back in that first year.
I hope the animated series gets picked up, with my whole heart I hope it. It’s going to be a bumpy ride in the fandom for sure; discourse and upset and bad takes are all going to be whipped up with the whole thing. But we’ve always been messy, clearly. As messy as the cons we amassed at and then became banned at for body paint causing property damage.
As I close this post out, here, take this picture of me as Sollux in 2016.
I don’t think I’ll ever publicly disclose everything when it comes to all that BWS-up-to-breakup stuff.I may want to, but I’ve caused enough undue emotional bullshit. If anyone who was ever involved wants to know more than “I’m sorry”, they can reach out privately, but I don’t expect anyone to.
(I’m 30 years old, I can say what cons I go to without worrying about doxxing myself it’s fine, shut up nervous brain voices)
So.
Anyone who knows me personally knows I’m ‘working’ as my grandmother’s caregiver. She has Alzheimer’s, which means I already give myself heart palpitations doing my 2-hour-a-day job to make any sort of money. So getting BREAKS??? Hard to do. I get a haircut and groceries and somehow everyone and their aunt needs me back at the ranch.
So it was a little bit of a blessing to get some time today to go to Abilene Comic Con which is relatively local to me.
Now. I’ve kind of forgotten how to do much of anything at this point, in regards to having a life off the computer. I used to go to cons with my friend and partner in theatre crimes back up north, but going to cons ALONE feels way different. Maybe it’s a ‘me’ thing? Like, I spend money, look at the people vaguely (recognizing that now that I have a beard and no bazongas I’m registered as more of a threat on peoples’ passive radars), and kinda. Lose track of anything else to do without anyone to share excitement with.
Today, however… I was on a mission.
I’d planned on coming to this con for a couple months now. But like. The excitement came when I saw the guest announcements for this year.
Namely, admittedly, I was going to see Austin Tindle. I saw the Sonic franchise VAs and the Hazbin Hotel VAs in the announcements and also got pretty hype for those, but Austin Tindle was my “NO FUCKING SHOT” moment.
I’m awful with names (and telling stories but we shut up about that) and so sometimes VA names get all squabbled in my head. Most of the VAs (besides Hazbin because I’m a fucking– I FORGOT TO MENTION SOMETHING TO JOEL SWISS FUCKING CHEESE GODDAMNIT –nerd) I had to look up for other associated roles, but MR TINDLE. I learned about him because of my. Aforementioned-on-this-site obsession with Trigun STAMPEDE. And then I went “Oh what else did he do– Oh shit he’s the crazy kid (/affectionate) from My Hero”
I needed to come to Abilene Comic Con. There was a driving Trigun-shaped force in my soul going “That man gets recognized for all the roles but I need to show up for Knives goddamnit”.
So after piddling around my house with half the intent to schedule my day around my dad, I got a nudge from his fiancee to not do that and just go have a life for a bit? I’m like okay bet.
I get to the convention center and I’m immediately like. Anxious, actually! I start apologizing to the bag check guys for my ita bag being full of stuff already, I wander around the exhibition hall with like, mild interest, but mostly I was looking for the guest signing areas.
(Sorry local artisans and businesses I do wish I could have spent more money but again I have a 2-hour-a-day job for money)
I turn a corner and I see the banners and I’m going “okay keep calm” to myself. Assess the situation. I saw the Hazbin actors (Joel Perez and Krystina Alabado) off on one edge of the corner, and all the others were lined up against the adjacent wall.
And I do this thing, that is totally unbecoming of a 30-year-old man, and I sort of. Go past the Hazbin actors. Then stop. Then turn back. Then inspect the floor because there’s tape on the floor. Then look around. Then pace a little.
It took two people going ahead of me to the money-handler for me to go okay cool I can just go up now. So I took a breath and looked at the sign for prices and I was like Oooookay I need to soothe the wild horses in my soul because I cannot afford more than 2 autographs today if they’re all going to be about $50.
So I’m REALLY SORRY KRYSTINA YOU’RE WONDERFUL I HAD TO MAKE A CHOICE and I really wanted to say something specific to Joel anyways. (I feel guilty because there were like. Not many people at the booth at least at this time of the morning.)
So the guy handling the money asks me what I’m looking for and I nervous-laugh because oh my fucking gods the Hazbin actors are really close to where I’m standing and I can’t even think (for extra context, I’m also a theatre kid at heart and those two have been in BROADWAY SHOWS, MAN). I say something like “Well, to be honest, I’m kind of broke,” and the guy says that saying Hi is free which is kinda sweet honestly, but I (stupidly) make sure autograph personalization was complimentary (it said so right on the sign dork) and go “I think I’ll get Joel’s autograph”.
Then goes the whole “Who should he sign it to”
and I go “uhh do I use my ‘actual’ name or my chosen name uhhhh go with Wolf”
“Is that your chosen name?”
“Yeeh”
So I choose a print of the Vees all together (because I’m lowkey a huge Vox simp as well) and Joel starts chatting with me, and I’m like, SWEATING. He asks me if I watched Hazbin as it was coming out on Prime and I was like “YES I was watching it as soon as I could” without going into the whole “the episode ‘Dad Beat Dad’ actually made me hesitant to watch for a few weeks but then I bucked up and cried like a little idiot to More Than Anything and everything was FINE”
So Somehow I end up saying what I’ve been thinking about stuff to him in regards to the fanbase.
Something along the lines of “I really hate how people have been treating you because of your character”
And he kinda just waved his hand and went “That’s just people on the internet stuff, it doesn’t bother me”
And idk I probably didn’t need to say it but ever since the show came out and people were conflating Joel with Valentino’s very fictional actions, I’ve been wanting to give him an extra support boost. He doesn’t need it, I just thought it’d be nice. He even laughed and said “People seem to forget it’s not a documentary.”
“Yeah, it’d be real freaky if there were spider people in the real world” wolf shut the fuck up please
“And I’m not a 10 foot moth in real life!”
He was a very good spirit, I feel a bit deflated any time I think of him and Krystina just sitting there if no one shows up for them because 🎵A show about Hell probably didn’t do that well in Abilene fuckin Texas🎵🎵🎵🎵
Then I wandered down the lane of VAs and nearly, nearly went to the Sonic actors but by golly I had to save my second autograph for Austin Tindle.
And at first go around I walked past him looking for his table, and I remember thinking “wait that’s Austin Tindle, where the fuck–“
Because his table hadn’t been set up yet.
So I circled around.
Watched and hovered with the question “Do you need help setting up” on the tip of my tongue as he stumbled on the chair setting up his banner.
Then some other people came in FAST to come talk to him and I was like, yeah go the hell ahead (I’m silently still wiping my forehead from the sheer panic that set in after stepping away from Joel)
So I’m looking through his folio of prints to sign and I do see one (1) print of Millions Knives and I go yesssss. Though I look at my bank account and look at the prices and think to myself “If he has any Fancier Prints hiding away I absolutely will spend the lil extra for it. As a treat.”
So Austin is very fun to talk to, and I really enjoyed chatting with him because that was like. That was some NERD SHIT on my part.
I asked him if he had any more prints of Knives, anything like metallic or foil or anything maybe, he apologetically goes “I think what I have out is what I have for right now,” so I wave it off and tell him the number in the book that the one (1) Knives print was. And he says he’s glad someone is there for that character because there wasn’t as big of a reception at large for him as he’d hoped and I was like. Aghast. Like internally thinking sir is my Twitter/X feed that skewed that I have a wholly ridiculous over-estimation for how much people liked STAMPEDE. Is it truly that niche in actuality. Because I need to go on an advertising kick if that’s the case.
So we genuinely started chatting! I said how Trigun STAMPEDE sort of turned into Trigun taking over my life, he asked if I saw the original show as a kid, I said No, I have a quote from ’98 on my shirt (Moving my bag strap so he can read that my shirt says:
✨Nifty Answer!✨ sorry I asked
and continue to say “I watched Stampede and got hit with the deep need to get into all of Trigun” and then explained how I’m taking my sweet ass time doing so.
“I started reading the manga, it’s just taking me longer than it should,”
And he kinda goes to say to enjoy it and savor it while I’m at it, and I go “Oh yeah, I’ve just got that ADHD thing where I keep getting distracted.”
And he stops immediately mid-fiddling-with-the-payment-device (because the internet was definitely struggling) and fistbumps me
I’m like :DDDD
So somehow, ironically, the conversation led to me saying that I had picked up MHA Vigilantes recently and he asked me how I’m liking it and I go “I really like it so far! I’m enjoying how it poses more of that moral stuff that the original My Hero world kinda brought up,” and he’s nodding and agreeing, and I go “I just have to watch it like 2 episodes at a time as it comes out and it takes me 3 hours because I’m talking to my friends about it the whole time.”
So he signs the Knives print and goes to hand it to me, I nod towards my debit card on the table and go “Did you… charge me?”
and he goes “OH! You’re a good guy, Wolf, not everyone would have–“
Meanwhile I’m reeling because haha I’m a good guy?? Me??
He charged my card (and I don’t know if this part I should say publicly) and he goes “It’s normally $50, but I’m giving you a discount cuz you’re cool, so it’ll be $45 instead”
And I’m just. I’m a good guy AND I’M COOL???
I was in a daze leaving the con soon after that because I don’t have the money to get any of my long distance friends any gifts but I did something for me. And it went so fucking well.
I need frames for these now. I need frames and I need the ability to physically upload actual memories from my brain to my computer.
Cons are fun, support your local comic and anime conventions.
Why would anyone on the internet LIE to me? /sarcasm
This? From my last blog post? Yeah, I’ve been keeping my eyes on the Toho Animation YouTube channel and it’s either region locked or the Twitter news was a LIE.
I suppose that’s my bad for being gullible. The STARGAZE announcement and then-upcoming exhibition dazzled me so much I was willing to believe anything. Alas.
Just came here to update y’all on my mistake honestly. And by “y’all” I mean “I know I don’t have anyone really checking in on this but I want to play accountable anyways”.
Anyways check out this doodle of Vash I did oooo you wanna watch the show so baaaad
Yesterday I was online (as I am, chronically) and modern Trigun fans went NUTS over the new key visual for the Stargaze 2026 announcement.
“Live and suffer” y’all I’m not gonna make it–
I think it’s important for everyone to know that Toho Animation is releasing TRIGUN STAMPEDE for free on YouTube for a limited time coming up as of writing this post:
Episodes 1 to 3 – March 24 to 30, 2025
Episodes 4 to 7 – March 31 to April 6
Episodes 8 and 9 – April 7 to April 13
Episodes 10 and 11 – April 14 to April 20
So I think I need to try to sell y’all on STAMPEDE now.
And the only way I can think to do that is by talking about my experience, I guess.
Imagine, if you will:
It’s freshly the year 2023. Sometime Januaryish. Life is stressful, you’re doomscrolling Tumblr constantly. You’ve Heard of Vash the Stampede as a character before, of course, he’s existed since whenever the fuck and you’ve been around fandom spaces long enough to have experienced Karkat’s introduction live.
But Januaryish of 2023 you see something that changes your life forever.
You see this pathetic idiot (/affectionate)
You’re like. Wait. That’s not Vash is it?
So you have to go and watch the two episodes that are out by this point.
Instant hook.
So many factors worked against me in this case. I’m a sucker for a prettyboy MC, and my GODS he fits the bill. The fact I caught it early so I could do this weekly instead of feeling the pressure to binge. The gorgeous graphics, like really. I know a lot of people are so hesitant about computer graphics, and I was too, but they captured something so pretty and so lively even in a land so desolate.
The decades-old fandom really helped bolster the account for me. Trigun fans are a special kind of insane and I’m so happy to have found that niche.
STAMPEDE rearranged the very synapses in my brain. I finally took time to read the first 20 chapters of the manga recently as well. Every piece of news that I see coming out has me absolutely gnawing at my phone.
New to Trigun especially, I would LOVE to say STAMPEDE is a WONDERFUL (I almost accidentally typed “wamderful” somehow?) introduction to the series.
There’s only a few things I’d advise for if you were interested in it, a la “Does the Dog Die”–
In Stampede, there’s bugs. Like. Lot of bugs. If you can’t look at bugs? I’m sorry. Don’t do bugs.
A character shoots himself in the head at some point (ep. 7). Yes that’s a spoiler but I kind of wish I’d had a warning before I got to it myself because HOO BOY did I dissociate for 2 hours after that episode.
Religious trauma? Mmmmmm approach with caution.
I could go on and do commentary on so much, but honestly my thoughts right now are very tangled. Maybe I’ll take them apart and do some coherent breakdowns later.
Just give STAMPEDE a shot! It’s gonna be FREE for a short while!!
I figured if there was anything I’d do today, it’d be fulfilling what I said I’d do last night– Y’all get to see my silly goofy Intro to Tite Kubo’s BURN THE WITCH slideshow
Now remember. We’re all gonna be real cool about things.
All screenshots in the following slides come from the one-shot itself, the anime version to be specific which can be streamed on Crunchyroll, except for the one slide of Tite Kubo art of Noel and Ninny with their Witch Kits, which I believe is a color cover or spread from the manga version with Viz Media.
I also did manage to get a video of Bruno using his magic because I’m a complete simp and needed a reason to go grab clips of him.
I’m trying to highlight the spray can here. I think it’s a really neat method of magic dispersal. Please go watch BURN THE WITCH it’s so good mwah.
Anyways there’s the slideshow straight as I gave it to my friends. That last slide uhhh you can ignore………. unless?
