#keystone talk

tuckerfuckingdidit: good lordie.

texelations: i know all about  veggie tales though yeah so people think it's weird i'm so into rvb and stuff but basically Tex saved my life so lmao I am getting a star tattoo on my back soon sometime so people send me asks "wow how do you make so much time for writing and fandom when you have so much going on?" and it's like I can't not rvb means so much to me

tuckerfuckingdidit: :') i can't i found rvb when i was r e a l l y depressed and like i can't really say that it saved my life, but it gave me something to hold on to and i won't ever forget that

texelations: yeah it's like that

texelations: i was going through such a bad time when rvb came to me, we were being foreclosed on, husband was underemployed, i could no longer wait tables which had been 50+% of our income, we were fighting a lot, we had to move into his grandmother's house which was only inhabitable because we (the two of us) cleaned 5 years of dead roaches and roach crap out of a vacant house with our two hands i got so upset during one argument i put 10 fingernail holes in my scalp it was...not a good time for me

tuckerfuckingdidit: DDDDD:

texelations: and rvb season 8 started, the day it started i listened to the first secular song i had listened to on purpose (not over muzak at work or something) in 15 years, it was Clocks by Coldplay

tuckerfuckingdidit: omg

texelations: and I was like "this is the plot of leonard and allison's life like?? omg" i have deleted the author's note to keystone where i talked about that maybe i should repost the details on that idk

tuckerfuckingdidit: ooooOOOO I LOVE COLDPLAY TALK TO ME ABOUT THE CHURCHES AND COLDPLAY

texelations: and so i know exactly when i started the first draft of keystone, it was april 1 2010

Okay so here’s where I ramble in reply because it works better as a post than a chat message:

I had discovered RvB during November of 2009. I watched it, but it was one of the few secular things we had watched since we decided to start enjoying some secular media and I felt quite guilty about it since it includes so much swearing and  crude humor. I read a couple fanfics, but then shoved it away for several months. But then I learned season 8 was going to be starting in April, and I decided to rewatch what came before in anticipation.

I was thinking a lot about Leonard and Allison and what their situation must have been like--it seemed like it must have been a  lot like mine. My husband fell in love with me very quickly and easily when we first met, and there were other factors that made me think that, as well. The day the RvB episode was to come out my husband gave me his mp3 player and let me listen to this song--it actually came up because we had once watched Chris Valentine’s tribute video for the Columbia (which is split up on YT into three videos for some reason but) it used Clocks as part of the soundtrack and the piano part had stuck with me. I asked him if he knew what song that was, and he found it and played it for me.

I remember it pretty viscerally--I was sitting there on the bed, kind of perched on the edge with the earbuds held up to my ears (I have these little ears and earbuds like to fall out) and I listened to the lyrics and kept thinking “this sounds like Leonard. and this does, too”.

The lights go out and I can't be saved Tides that I tried to swim against Have brought me down upon my knees Oh I beg, I beg and plead, singing

Leonard falls in love with Allison as a young person. She intrigues him and he can’t fight it--he develops a crush on her and becomes just a little bit obsessed with her and what she’s doing. 

Come out of the things unsaid Shoot an apple off my head and a Trouble that can't be named A tiger's waiting to be tamed, singing

Leonard can’t stand leaving her to be less than her best self--but he doesn’t really talk to her about her problems. He just tries to fix them. But Allison is who she is and she reacts the way she wants to. He can’t mold her into the perfect being he wants her to be.

You are, you are

He loves her though. Just for who and what she is. She fascinates him.

Confusion that never stops The closing walls and the ticking clocks gonna Come back and take you home I could not stop, that you now know, singing

In Keystone, he actually provides her with a new home as part of his attempts to help her fix her life. But she doesn’t become exactly what he wants her to be. Even so, he keeps trying.

Come out upon my seas Cursed missed opportunities am I A part of the cure Or am I part of the disease, singing

What he doesn’t realize is a lot of Allison’s problems are caused by men trying to make her what they want her to be. He doesn’t realize he’s doing exactly the thing she needs to break away from. He has this total blind spot where he doesn’t see that she needs to fix her own problems, and the solutions aren’t the ones he’s coming up with.

You are, you are You are, you are You are, you are And nothing else compares And nothing else compares And nothing else compares You are, you are Home, home, where I wanted to go Home, home, where I wanted to go Home, home, where I wanted to go (You are) Home, home, where I wanted to go (You are)

He eventually, eventually, comes to accept that Allison has a mind of her own and that if he wants to be with her, he needs to let her be what she’s going to be. And Allison grows into a better person. But it’s not because of him. None of it is because of him.

I sat down that night, after the premiere of RvB season 8, and started writing Texas Confidential, which was the first version of the Tex life story I intended to write at this point. I canon reviewed after this and realized a lot of what I had written wouldn’t work. Later that week, as I tried to rework that, I was binge reading fic on FFN, when I came across After Schoool Special. (If this story sounds familiar to people who have read Keystone, it’s because since this I got Leah’s permission to remix After School Special into what is now chapter 3 of Keystone.) I read the story and the events that followed the events of her story, based on the lyrics of Clocks, just flooded into my mind. I started working diligently on what was now Leonard’s life story (and Allison’s, by extension) and published it a month later under the title of White Knight. This title refers to the way Leonard saw himself--he was going to save her from herself.

A few days after I started publishing, as well as interacting with Leah’s FFN forum, The RvB Review Crew, my husband again gave me his mp3 player and had me listen to a Coldplay song, a cover performed by Secondhard Serenade. He said it reminded him of what I was writing.

When you try your best, but you don't succeed When you get what you want, but not what you need When you feel so tired, but you can't sleep Stuck in reverse And the tears come streaming down your face When you lose something you can't replace When you love someone but it goes to waste Could it be worse? Lights will guide you home And ignite your bones And I will try to fix you When high up above or down below When you're too in love to let it go But if you never try you'll never know Just what you're worth Lights will guide you home And ignite your bones And I will try to fix you Tears stream down your face When you lose something you cannot replace Tears stream down your face And I... Tears stream down your face I promise you I will learn from my mistakes Tears stream down your face And I... Lights will guide you home And ignite your bones And I will try to fix you 

I mean, does this need any commentary for anyone who has read Keystone lmao? He literally does everything he can to fix her, whether she wants him to or not. He literally upends his life and makes it revolve around her, and turns his home into a haven for her, and tries to make her see that she’s worth more than she thinks. (The only thing different in Keystone than it was in White Knight is Allison in White Knight was prone to crying. My view on her changed over time away from that. That part was inspired by this song though.)

Okay so then I started looking at Coldplay’s discography and Coldplay is like the official Leonard/Allison band, I swear.

Come up to meet you Tell you I'm sorry You don't know how lovely you are I had to find you Tell you I need you Tell you I set you apart Tell me your secrets And ask me your questions Oh let's go back to the start Running in circles; coming up tails Heads on a science apart Nobody said it was easy It's such a shame for us to part Nobody said it was easy No one ever said it would be this hard Oh take me back to the start I was just guessing at numbers and figures Pulling your puzzles apart Questions of science; science and progress Do not speak as loud as my heart Tell me you love me Come back and haunt me Oh and I rush to the start Running in circles, chasing our tails Coming back as we are Nobody said it was easy Oh it's such a shame for us to part Nobody said it was easy No one ever said it would be so hard I'm going back to the start

I don’t suppose anyone who’s read Keystone needs any context for this one. If you haven’t, well, they break up for a while because Leonard messed the fuck up trying to fix her, and he eventually realizes he needs to quit waiting for her to apologize for her part in it and goes an apologizes. And they basically decide to start over completely. If anyone embodies the narrator of this song, it’s my characterization of Leonard. The scientist--the one who looks for evidence and thinks in black-and-white in emotional situations, the one who thinks that if you apply a certain formula things will work out the way you want. But Leonard eventually comes to realize, at least in a measure, that this approach isn’t going to work.

Does this one even need an explanation?

Look at the stars Look how they shine for you And everything you do Yeah they were all yellow I came along I wrote a song for you And all the things you do And it was called yellow So then I took my turn Oh what a thing to have done And it was all yellow Your skin Oh yeah your skin and bones Turn into something beautiful You know you know I love you so You know I love you so I swam across I jumped across for you Oh what a thing to do 'Cause you were all yellow I drew a line I drew a line for you Oh what a thing to do And it was all yellow Your skin Oh yeah your skin and bones Turn into something beautiful And you know For you I'd bleed myself dry For you I'd bleed myself dry It's true Look how they shine for you Look how they shine for you Look how they shine for Look how they shine for you Look how they shine for you Look how they shine Look at the stars Look how they shine for you And all the things that you do

Leonard worships Allison basically. There’s more to it than just love or obsession. It’s deeper than that.

This is Leonard after Allison’s death. He (in Keystone at least) realizes he can use his expertise in AI tech to recapture some measure of her, to get something of her back, and he just plows through and does everything he can to make it happen.

Just because I'm losing Doesn't mean I'm lost Doesn't mean I'll stop Doesn't mean I will cross Just because I'm hurting Doesn't mean I'm hurt Doesn't mean I didn't get what I deserve No better and no worse I just got lost Every river that I've tried to cross And every door I ever tried was locked Oh, and I'm just waiting 'till the shine wears off. You might be a big fish In a little pond Doesn't mean you've won 'Cause along may come A bigger one And you'll be lost Every river that you tried to cross Every gun you ever held went off Oh, and I'm just waiting 'till the firing starts Oh, and I'm just waiting 'till the shine wears off Oh, and I'm just waiting 'till the shine wears off Oh, and I'm just waiting 'till the shine wears off Oh, and I'm just waiting 'till the shine wears off.

(The ‘big fish in a little pond’ lyric definitely refers to what he perceives as his rivalry with Halsey, btw. Too bad she has no idea who he is lmao.)

Those are the main ones I have but it has given me a great affection for Coldplay and I don’t really care about posts that refer to them as being hackneyed or whatever. I love their stuff and love listeing to it.

(I’m not going to link it here since it’s not Leonard/Allison but also Green Eyes is the most unrequited York/Carolina song. Stupid idiot is just like Leonard I swear.)

ANYWAY YEAH. I used to publish my song choices to go with each chapter of Keystone since these and other songs have been so important to how I write it but no one ever listened to the playlists so I just pulled all that down. I may make a spotify list if anyone shows any interest though--I had a  lot of trouble making an 8tracks list because of their rule about only allowing two tracks by the same artist. And now you know why.