The Homestuck FanAuthor Coalition has revealed its Oof Ouch My Bones Subcollection!
In this event, competitors were asked to partner up (for the first time ever!) and given one month to interpret the prompt “Oof Ouch My Bones: A character (or characters) gets sick or injured. How bad the hurt is and whether or not there’s comfort along with it is up to the individual author.” They were able to write any illness or injury they wanted, up to and including mental illnesses, substance abuse, chronic illness, and physical disability, in any canon compliant, canon divergent, or AU setting, as long as it was rated G - M and within the 750 to 21,250 word range.
Follow the link above to the subcollection, and once you’ve read all the entries, use this form to vote on which fic deserves “best in angst,” “best in action,” “best in drama,” and more! Voting closes August 2nd, 2026, at 6:30 am EST.
All Fics Submitted:
All the days of our delights (are poison in my veins)
More than two-thirds of people with Hanahaki Disease have at least one close relative with the illness or that has shown symptoms at some point. Most Hanahaki havers will experience one or two acute episodes in their lives, opting for the surgical removal of the sprouted flowers alongside the psychological therapy and life-style changes that are the normal treatment for the condition. About 83% of the afflicted will not present another episode again. Most report leading healthy, meaningful lives with strong, healthy relationships to their peers, lovers, and family members.
Roxy Lalonde does not think this will be the case for her.
All The Time in The World (And Several Others)
Karkat turned his back on John. Ordinarily, that wouldn't be anything unexpected, or even be worthy of notice, but. John's retcon powers activated, and the two were sent tumbling through the multiverse, having to play their parts until they land back home. They have to keep their cool, Karkat, to make sure each timeline stays in tact. But.
Karkat has such a terrible cough...
Bleeding Out
Kankri Vantas was not supposed to be assigned hockey of all things for his journalism assignment. But a missed meeting and a hematology appointment later, he's standing rinkside with a notebook and a press badge watching a loudmouthed left wing forward who won't stop flirting with him.
Crucified
Kankri has a nightmare that he can't seem to shake. It only serves to push him deep into a spiral he loses himself in.
Doll Parts
I want to be the girl with the most cake
He only loves those things because he loves to see them break
I fake it so real, I am beyond fake
And someday you will ache like I ache
And someday you will ache like I ache
In the ring, they are all just dolls. Easy to break and just as easy to manipulate.
For Miles, Upon Miles
In a world infected with what whispers refer to as the "Red Miles", dubbed as such because of the vein-like crimson lines that stretch across the sky and span for miles, upon miles, an adventuring party of four seeks to put a stop to the ancient curse.
To do so, they must slay the ancient beings of Old responsible for the cursed, bloody undead that have roamed the surface of the Earth for an unknown amount of centuries.
me and my dog and an impossible view
Dave finds a strange dog and needs to nurse it back to health.
not what you need
“Do you have a car service you'd like me to call?" Mr. Egbert asks after that cavalcade of thoughts. "Somewhere to stay, someone to look after you tonight? I can wait with you until your ride arrives."
“Uh,” D says eventually, visibly trying to untangle the sentences in his brain. He checks his wrist, before realizing that there is no watch on it, and letting it drop.
Enigmatic director D Strider hosts an extravagant wedding reception for Dirk and John, and parties a little too hard. Mr. Egbert is left to make sure he's taken care of.
They will both regret it in the morning, for a multitude of reasons.
Run Fast
Clan Zahhak, the mightiest centaur herd of the Great Plains, stood ready to welcome a new man into its midst, with the coming-of-age hunt of Epaphroditus Quirinus Supremus Zahhak, son of the clan's leader. By right and ceremony, the herd's next hunt would be his to lead, however, the herd's next hunt would be far from safe, and far from normal. A beast of unknown size, strength, and malice was raiding their livestock, and had just felled a full-grown guardsman, turning what ought to have been a ritual rite of passage into a matter of life and death.
In the fight for survival that is life in the wild, matters of life and death are all one nameless beast knew. Split between the might brought on by the waxing moon, and the weakness of a young girl's body, the beast would face a threat it had never seen before- a kind of monster only civilization could produce.
SM3LL B3F0R3 Y0U K1CK1FL1P
A story in which the gods of Earth C decide, “Shit! Let's be Tony Hawk!” Surely, this can only end perfectly well and without a single injury. Surely.
Souls with Something to Lose
Chicago's hospitals were seeing a spike in patients, especially young women, that looked like they'd been tossed back and forth between a couple of bumper cars. Detective Pyrope was on the case to figure out what exactly was going on...
stuck in a world that doesn't exist
Two weeks ago, a channel called JoohnTheEgg Uploaded a MeTube video titled ‘weird book i did not write’. In it, he shows the viewers an impossible tall tower, that, supposedly, he never built or spent grist on. Inside the mine is a pedestal that John did not place, with the book he claims he did not write.
Simultaneously, on another universe, a bored pilot stumbles down a rabbithole that will turn out to be larger than either of them can even comprehend.
tell you boyfriend (if he says he’s got BEEF)
Here in Strife Civilization, no one strifes for glory. Or honor. It is all about survival. When you don't have enough durability on your weapon, your very body starts to fall appart, which is why attacking and killing other players is the one option everyone has to not meet their own painful deaths.
And of course you are the one person alive who can't bring himself to hurt anyone.
Or: The video journals of one Jake English, natural sword allocated, historical figure, as he narrates the story of how him and his friends changed everything (and the ways in which the world changed them too).
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
the1woomy
After the destruction of their main base by a brand new weapon, Karkat's revolution is left scrambling for options. Will Karkat, Sollux and Aradia be able to actually work together to save themselves, or will Crockercorp crush these rebels with an iron fist.
Chapters: 3/3
Rating: Mature
Archive Warnings: Major Character Death
Category: F/M, M/M
Fandom: Homestuck
Relationships: Sollux Captor/Karkat Vantas, Jane Crocker/Jake English
Characters:Karkat Vantas, Sollux Captor, Aradia Megido, Jane Crocker, Jake English
Troll: The Culling - April 2026 Update - What's New?
Hey, all, and happy 4/13! Sorry for the huge period of silence! I've been really busy behind the scenes and haven't had much time for writing out actual posts, but I'm gonna try and change that with some monthly T:TC Updates! Some of these will just be one-off posts about what, if anything, has been going on, but others (like this one) will definitely be part of a series throughout the month. It all really depends on how much presentable work has happened between updates.
This month's update is pretty big, since it's been a while since I've said anything, and all of the new stuff to present is gonna be spread out across a couple of posts throughout this and next month. I'm aiming for one post a week until I've gotten everything I want to cover out, so this one's just going to be an overview of everything new.
But that's enough prologue. Let's jump into what's been going on!
Part 1 - Building the System
In between the last Mechanics post and now, there have been a bunch of updates and additions to the system. Stability/Mutation Balances, new Background Traits and Adaptations (thanks Beforus Ancestor Lore Drop), and a whole new mechanic suggested by a Playtester! These will be what the weekly posts are going to be about, but I'll give you a little bit of an overview for each right now.
As the central mechanics of Troll: The Culling, Stability and Mutation is one of the most worked-on parts of this system, and yet it's likely to be the shortest of these update posts. We've added new benefits and drawbacks for higher Mutation, more dangers to watch out for when Stability drops too low (some of which are tied into our newest mechanic), and more ways to manage both of them. It's not quite an overhaul, that term is better saved for the new Adaptations, but it's still a significant amount of changes.
Speaking of Adaptations, there have definitely been some changes there. We've added three new ones, two as replacements for three we got rid of and one as a response to some new information the Homestuck Community got a while back. On top of that, all of the remaining Adaptations have had some significant work done, with a few of them even covering completely new areas on top of what they already dealt with. This has also come with a near-complete redo of which Castes get what Adaptations, which I'll be covering in the Adaptations post hopefully coming in a couple of weeks.
We've also got some new Background Traits worked into the mix, most interesting of which are our Abnormalities. These were covered in a Mechanics post a while ago, but I figure it won't hurt to visit them in a bit more detail, and even outline a couple of the more interesting ones just to give you all an idea of what they actually encompass. On top of those, we've also slowly begun adding in Loresheets. That's been an incredibly slow process, but they are a staple in the World of Darkness, and they're something we've been angling at including for a while.
And that brings us to our new mechanic! Like I said above, this is something that was suggested by a Playtester, and, while I'm super excited to share it with everyone, I'm gonna hold off until the last update post in this particular series and build the suspense. More information on that is definitely coming, though, so if you're curious as to what that might be, keep an eye on those next few posts!
Part 2 - Rolling the Dice
Troll: The Culling is a complex system, and, while it originally started out pretty close to things like Vampire: The Masquerade or Mage: The Ascension, it's evolved into its own unique style and niche. Unfortunately, that meant that a lot of the existing Dice Rollers (particularly the bots available on Discord) didn't really work all that well, so my solution to that was to program my own! As a result, Troll: The Culling now has its own dedicated Dice Roller hosted on Itch.io. On top of automatically calculating Roll Pools and Results for you, it allows you to save the stats of up to three different Trolls. There's a Web Version that plays in the browser and a Windows Version available for download, both of which can be found on its Itch Page. Unfortunately it's a bit useless if you don't have the official rules, but there might just be a way to get them (hint hint).
Part 3 - Joining the Community
So earlier I mentioned that our big new mechanic was a Playtester suggestion, and then in the last paragraph I also super subtly hinted at the idea that there's a way to get your hands on the rules for this system. If you're interested in getting in on either of those, you might just want to sign up for Round 2 of Playtesting! Round 1 has been going really well for us, and we're at the point where we've started looking at how/when we're going to do the next one. Right now we're only planning on running two Chronicles, so space is limited, but please don't let that dissuade you! Even if you don't get in to Round 2 immediately, you'll still be put on both the backup player list (in case we have schedule conflicts) and the first-call list for Round 3. We might also be looking at doing more than two this time, and I'll definitely update y'all if that's decided for sure.
So after all of that, the big question is "what do you get for being a playtester?", and that's a really good question! The first thing is instant access to the system via our Discord Server, which all of our current Playtesters have had access to since last October. All of that new stuff I mentioned earlier was given to them as it was finished, which was well before this announcement.
On top of that, though, Playtesters also get to contribute to the system if they so choose. This was a much more recent development (hence why it wasn't mentioned until just now), but we've opened up a special suggestion box exclusive to Playtesters that lets them contribute to the system. We've already had several fantastic contributions, one of which a whole new mechanic sprang out of, so if you have any ideas you want to contribute, this would be the way to suggest them!
Finally, and this is what I personally consider to be the biggest one, you get to play the game. We're just wrapping up one of the two Round 1 Chronicles and have just kicked off the other, and we're already looking at setting up the next Round! We need new players for that, though, players with different perspectives, playstyles, and experience levels with both Homestuck and World of Darkness. I've said it at the end of every single Troll: The Culling post I made: regardless of how familiar you are with either of those franchises, we want you.
So if any of the above interests you and you're 18 or older, you can sign up for Round 2 using this form. We're planning on two Chronicles, just like with Round 1, and we've got a limited amount of space, so the earlier you sign up the better a chance you have of getting in! Invitations to the Discord Server will likely go out late July/early August, and will go to everyone who signed up regardless of whether you're a Round 2 Playtester or not.
Part 4: So What's Next?
We're, of course, still working on the system. We've been splitting our focus between mechanics and lore (specifically factions), so a lot of our progress in the near future is going to be centered around that and whatever problem points arise out of further Playtesting. There are nine factions in total, and each is going to have it's own Loresheet, so that alone is a fair amount of work we've cut out for ourselves. We're also continuing to tweak mechanics, add and change Background Traits and Adaptation Abilities, and work in new gameplay tools for both Players and Storytellers alike.
As far as information goes, I'll be trying to post at least one update a month from here on out. I've been radio silent for far too long, and I want to change that. I really enjoy sharing glimpses of the system with the rest of the world, and it's something I've missed doing. I've got two more lined up for this month, two spilling over into May, and then after that will depend on how much has changed from month to month.
Finally, we're definitely planning on doing more playtesting after Round 2. I know for sure I want to do at least one more round of two (or more) chronicles for Round 3, and I might intersperse a couple of smaller "spot check" chronicles (one-shots or two/three session runs) during that Round which would be open to anyone who participated in either Rounds 1 or 2. We're also planning on having some of our players from earlier Rounds run some chronicles of their own (which could be you if you join and enjoy Round 2) so we have some different perspectives on that end of the game.
Anyway, that's enough from me in this update. We've got more updates coming out this and next month, and then I'll try to hit at least one per month until we release (which is a fair bit away). As always, thanks for reading! Stay tuned for next week's update: Mechanics Tweaks!
If the answer to both of those questions is yes, then you'll love the LVL UP EXPO HOMESTUCK MEETUP, Which I will Likely be hosting. It will be on Sunday, at 3:45PM, I hope to see you there. This meetup is officially endorsed by LVL UP Expo, but I do have absolutely NOTHING TO DO with Furthest Ring Studios or the creators of Homestuck. I'm just a fan of the webcomic who wants to see other homestucks at this con.
deltarune has done such a good job at making us believe that the game’s ending is set in stone. it is written in the prophecy.
but i’m not buying it. at all.
“Your choices don’t matter” is a quote from Susie, right at the start of chapter one. It is something that, despite her burning desire to control her destiny, she genuinely believes. Because any attempt she has had so far to forge her own path has failed. It’s a belief that’s become ingrained in her to the point that she is tries to project it onto Kris.
Susie used to want to play the piano. But when she tried, she was told that she couldn’t. And so she gave up. But in chapter four, she begins to show a desire to try again… as if she is starting to believe that she can, in fact, control her future.
Oh, and she also literally shatters the glass that tells the prophecy. Character development achieved!
I don’t know whether or not Deltarune will actually have one ending. Maybe our choices won’t matter. But Susie’s definitely will. The prophecy will not come to pass and it will be Susie’s doing.
