#driftersverse

[hypnotisedfireflies]

Currently weeping over this art by @looshelle, commissioned by @bumblepony of Drifterverse Maria and Tess.

I've had a pretty intense few weeks (well, longer, but this week was particularly stressful) and this just healed my soul. Thank you so much to both looshelle and bumblepony for this - I mean, look at how good this is, the colours, their expressions! It's so undoubtedly them.

We were so denied by not having seen Maria and Tess interact. I'm sure they would've clashed but ultimately come to respect one another, and eventually become very good friends. I love exploring their gradual friendship in Drifters and I'm such a sucker for any Tess Lives narrative which brings these two together.

I feel like this artwork could be taken right out of They Rode North, especially right at the start when Maria and Tess are riding together and reading the sign left behind by the cultists. OR are they on some adventure to find their dumbfuck husbands who've gotten themselves in some kind of mess?!

[finnelfin]

Knitted Dolls, Tessjoel style

for my beloved @hypnotisedfireflies I have knitted Tess and Joel, in their Sioux Falls era from Drifter's Dawn. We've got knitted guns, we've got backpacks full of treasures, we've got long mauve skirts and bloodied knuckles, and I had SO MUCH FUN making these.

Patterns: Blank Slate Doll - This is the body I use, but modified slightly for height. Much of the clothing and the backpacks are modified from nioknit's amazing patterns for her Keito Doll. These are some of the most detailed and creative doll clothing knitting patterns I've even seen, and they're brilliant. The boots are modified off of blanchn's Little Converse baby booties. The accessories are just made up by trial and error. Can't really find a pattern for a knitted hand grenade, ya know?

Most of the yarn is KnitPicks Palette, along with odds and ends leftover from various projects.

[hypnotisedfireflies]

Tess and Joel in Jackson by @kenobiwanx

(Not technically a repost ... I shared the full length version last time, here. It's so bloody beautiful that I needed to show this close-up version, too.) Thank you, @bumblepony

[hypnotisedfireflies]

Final chapter now on AO3.

[hypnotisedfireflies]

“They were my pills, too. If you were anyone else …”

“You’d what?”

A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “I’d send you after them.”

He returned the smile, but it was awash with the guilt he’d always helplessly, hopelessly, love more than her. Joel wanted her angry and unforgiving. It sustained him. Tess knew what it was to want to hurt at the hands of the one she loved most. They gave one another everything. Most of the time, it wasn’t pretty. But that was what they were.

“Next time – ”

“You can’t lie to me,” she swiftly countered. “I’ll take the rest Joel. But not that.”

A one-shot for @tessjoelmonth2025 , covering the prompt 'Making Amends.' On AO3.

[hypnotisedfireflies]

It was just pointed out to me that we passed the 2 year anniversary of Drifter's Dawn 2 days ago. I can't believe I've been writing these morons solidly for two years.

Driftersverse is now around 600k long and includes 20 fics in the series (and that's not including all the other TLOU stories taking place in their own universes, like IO and MM and LOC!)

Thank you to all of you who've read a little or a lot; who've encouraged me throughout with comments and reblogs, art and asks, bookmarks and recs; thanks to those who've come and gone but especially to those of you who have been with me the whole time. I appreciate it more than I can ever say. THANK YOU! xxxxxx

no wonder I'm a lil eepy

[hypnotisedfireflies]

I'd hoped to finish After the Zero Hour before the end of the month, but I started a new job which has claimed most of my brain power! This one is not going to make it across the line.

So here's a little snip of where the second chapter goes ... Back to a familiar location in TLOU, though some 12 years before it appears in canon.

[hypnotisedfireflies]

How the Breakers Roar

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Lil Secret Santa fic for @toointojoelmiller 🩷