thebackwardsstep
thebackwardsstep
the.backwards.step
147 posts
TLOU, Life is Strange, Minecraft, Arcane, Top Gun, The Hunger Games, AO3: thebackwardsstep
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thebackwardsstep · 7 days ago
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happy pride to whatever the fuck this was
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thebackwardsstep · 25 days ago
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anyone else thinking about stucky rn
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thebackwardsstep · 25 days ago
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this is the bucky that hydra captured
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thebackwardsstep · 26 days ago
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thebackwardsstep · 26 days ago
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by @Kko__RR
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thebackwardsstep · 26 days ago
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I just recently rewatched the Marvel movies and decided to draw my favorite ship, because I didn't have the courage to do it before.
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thebackwardsstep · 26 days ago
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Longing. . . rusted. . .
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[bonus]
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thebackwardsstep · 26 days ago
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~ Let's go home ~
Another piece from my patreon
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thebackwardsstep · 27 days ago
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Eight Stucky Fic Quotes/Lines/Moments That I Cannot Stop Thinking About
A somewhat non-standard rec list.
I've read a lot of brilliant and beautiful fic in this fandom, and a lot of those stories stayed with me long after I read them. There are also some very specific little moments/lines/paragraphs in a handful of fics that are burned into my brain. These are moments that have lived in my head rent-free since I first read them.
Those moments/lines come from the eight fics on this list. These eight fics are also among my very favorite fics. (I can't actually rank my favorites. I have a lot more than eight, and I love them all.) So, I thought this post would be a fun and hopefully interesting way to highlight/celebrate some of the amazing writing in this fandom and to talk about a few fics I love.
All fics on this list are fics I first read at least three months ago, so all these moments are ones I've been thinking about (a lot) for a while.
(Moments are context/spoiler-free for anything that's not already in tags/summaries.)
offer me that deathless death by canistakahari
(Explicit | 10,565 words)
(Fun fact: This is also the first fic about these two that ever made me cry! It still upsets me when I reread it. In the best possible way.)
The moment:
“Nothing. Nothing’s gotten into me,” Bucky says quickly. “Just wanted…” He makes an empty gesture between them. “I just wanted something good.”
Steve’s irritation passes like a cloud over the sun. “Will you tell me what’s wrong?”
“Everything,” says Bucky. “All of it. Not you, though.” He tangles their fingers together. He will remember this, on every single morning that sees fit to reset the universe. He won’t lose the best thing he’s got.
Steve squeezes his hand and sets his jaw. He’s unhappy, still, but he doesn’t give voice to that lingering urge to fuss.
“You’re the only thing that’s right,” says Bucky. “Okay? You are, Steve.”
Lane Lines by Sparkagrace @sparkagrace
(Mature | 132,519 words)
(This fic is a journey and every emotional moment — including the one below — is hard-earned. It's stunningly done and so, so satisfying.)
The moment:
“I’m scared of what’s out there too. I’ll hold your hand, Buck.” He says. “Coney Island, remember?”
Bucky huffs and shakes his head, wiping at his eyes. “Steve, that’s kids stuff. We were drinking.”
Steve holds out his hand in front of them to prove him wrong: palm up and open. Bucky studies his hand, trying to gauge how serious Steve is, before tentatively placing his own in Steve’s. Bucky’s fingers are cold so Steve curls his fingers around the hand, securing them in place.
Steve doesn’t say anything else and the two of them sit in silence for a few minutes, hands clutched. Steve feels the warmth returning to Bucky’s fingers, and his breathing begins to steady and even out. He wonders why they didn’t do this before because even he begins to feel a blanket settling over his own nerves, grounding himself.
Strangers in the Street by Crinklefries
(Teen | 15,304 words)
(How do the rules of time travel/alternate timelines work in the MCU? Does the MCU even know? Does it matter? Not really. What matters is that this fic involves timeline travel, and it's gorgeous. That's all you need to know.)
The moment:
Steve looks sad at that, just hopelessly, interminably sad.
“You know me,” Bucky says, searching Steve’s eyes. He can’t see a lie there; maybe Steve isn’t capable of it, maybe he doesn’t know how to, not to Bucky. Steve nods. “I know you too. How do I know you?”
“I’m Steve and you’re Bucky,” Steve says. “I would know any iteration of you, in any timeline, in any universe.”
Bucky can’t lie either. He doesn’t know why this is true, but he knows that it is.
He twines their fingers together, watches Steve watch him as he brings their hands to his mouth and kisses them.
Calico Skies by musette22 @musette22
(Explicit | 52,618 words)
(This fic just has so much warmth to it. It's comforting and incredibly romantic and I love it so very much. Even thinking about this fic makes me smile.)
The moment:
Their eyes meet, and for a moment, time seems to be suspended. Bucky can see the moment it clicks: Steve’s face goes from blank to shocked in the span of a few seconds, and then his expression crumbles. Bucky’s heart contracts painfully at seeing Steve looking so young, so utterly vulnerable. Before he knows what’s happening, Steve has dropped his bag and is all but running over to him, crossing the landing deck in a few long strides. Bucky feels himself break out into a watery smile. He opens his arms, just in time for Steve to throw his entire 6’4” super body into them.
Bucky lets out an oooff and stumbles backwards, arms wrapping around Steve to hold onto him as tightly as possible. Putting his strength to good use, Steve manages to keep them both from tumbling to the floor, burying his face in the crook of Bucky’s neck as he repeats his name over and over.
“You’re alright,” Bucky tells him, lifting a hand to cup the back of Steve’s head. “You’re okay, Steve.”
Take Your Time Coming Home by odetteandodile
(Explicit | 13,047 words)
(A fic that manages to be both a prewar fic and an AU. There's letter writing! They were roommates! I'm so desperately fond of this one.)
The moment:
He rises that first evening only to shower and eat and read the brief, precious note waiting for him on the kitchen counter. It reads, simply:
Steve, with all my heart I’m glad it was you.—Bucky
Lonesome no more by dharmasharks @dharmasharks
(Explicit | 7,539 words)
(The achingly tender, soft, and beautifully written Wakanda fic we all need in our lives.)
The moment:
“Can we try to do this? Just this?” 
A breath passes between them. Bucky lifts his hand to Steve’s neck. Then he leans in. 
Steve doesn’t really have the most favorable associations with this sort of thing. He remembers being sort of terrified. Or intimidated. Or obligated. 
But kissing Bucky is nothing like that. It’s only soft and warm. And safe. 
He’s still living inside it for a second, after Bucky pulls back. It occurs to him how small a space that was to cross, those few inches between their faces. Why did he convince himself back then, for all those years, that it was an impossible, unreachable distance? 
Targeting by queenmab_scherzo
(Explicit | 149,148 words)
(I'm obsessed with the way this fic manages to so closely parallel canon — while making it about football. Obsessed.)
The moment:
In the ensuing silence, Steve clears his throat and squares his shoulders, bracing himself for the next part.
"Can … Can I still call you Bucky?"
He turns to fully face Steve. There is a small crease between his eyes, the only marker that betrays any emotion in his otherwise neutral mask.
"Yeah," he says. His lips barely move. "What else would you call me."
Steve feels as if an ocean wave has just crashed into his lungs. The bluntness of the statement—what could otherwise come across as curt and standoffish—is actually what makes Steve so happy.
What else would you call me.
Steve shakes his head, opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again, floundering. "I don't know," he admits. He feels like an idiot, but he can't stop grinning. "Yeah. I don't know."
Not Easily Conquered by dropdeaddream, WhatAreFears
(Mature | 117,692 words)
(NEC feels like s very obvious choice for a list like this, and for good reason. I'm ending on a classic. It's often the letters themselves that are quoted/mentioned — also for good reason! And, believe me, those swim in my brain too, they do. But, for me, the thing I'll never stop thinking about? The moment in this fic that moved into my brain? It's this one here.)
The moment:
“How you been?” says a voice, a voice like Brooklyn at sunset; like the curl of cigarette smoke above base camp in France.
“Buck.”
“Don’t hit the light.”
Steve doesn’t, standing with his fist knuckling white around the kitchen countertop. The dark figure stands from the chair Cagney sat in and Bucky walks to him. His face comes into the light from the hallway. He wears a ball cap and a tattered blue surplus coat and his hair hangs lank down to his shoulders. There’s more beard on his face than during the winter of 1944. Steve feels a rushing in his head, and a strange displacement in time. This is because it simply ceases to exist. It’s 1938, or 1941, or 2009; he doesn’t know, it doesn’t matter. There is a dimple in Bucky’s chin. Steve feels a snap inside himself. Bucky is before him. He grabs at Steve’s neck as if to hold him up, as though one of them might fall, and he cups at it roughly, his own mouth twisting.
“Hey, you,” Bucky says, rough.
“God,” Steve gasps, and his knees almost buckle. Bucky’s right hand is big and calloused and familiar, his thick square fingers hot on Steve’s skin. Steve grasps his arm. “Hey. Hey, Buck.”
“That’s me,” Bucky says, and Steve lets out a hysterical, gasping laugh. “Really me. Or mostly me.”
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thebackwardsstep · 2 months ago
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thebackwardsstep · 2 months ago
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HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
we lost a lot of father figures recently. Bobby Nash, Joel Miller, the Pope. I'm not in any of those fandoms but as an irondad stan I see you, I understand you, and you will not recover mk 🙏 but you're doing great sweetie!
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thebackwardsstep · 2 months ago
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I rose too high, loved too hard, dared too much. I tried to grasp a star, overreached, and fell.
some last fleeting thoughts on an independent zaun
(original quote from asoiaf)
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thebackwardsstep · 2 months ago
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By Kez_k.ms on TikTok
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thebackwardsstep · 2 months ago
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TLOU tumblr I NEED good Ellie & Joel centric fics!!!!! I don’t mind if it’s the game or the show (bonus points if Tommy is there)
I’m really not picky SO DROP YOUR FAVS (or your own 👀) ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️
(Also AO3 pleeaassee <3)
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thebackwardsstep · 3 months ago
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The fact that Madge even ends up with the mockingjay pin that she gives to Katniss MEANS that Merrilee grieved so much that she went out of her way to find and keep the matching gold pendants her and her sister HATED. it was something that connected her to Maysilee and she couldn’t bare to lose another part of her sister. It then became so special that she passed it down like heirloom to her niece. Ohhhh the sisterly love kills me
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thebackwardsstep · 3 months ago
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guys i think we should talk more about haymitch crying while having a whole strawberry ice cream tub and how girlypop it was from him
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thebackwardsstep · 3 months ago
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President Snow going to his poison collection after finding out that Haymitch’s girlfriend had two first names:
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