Lovely interview with OFMD showrunner David Jenkins from early last month.

I'm very certain I'll never sit down and actually write it, but in my head I'm noodling around with a story, or really just a vague idea, of a dark-haired boy named Ned and a blond-haired boy named Stede, both of whom have clearly disappointed their fathers in ways they don't understand and can't fix and who are off at boarding schools continents and centuries apart under circumstances they can't help feeling are a punishment for being so disappointing. Both lonely, both mostly solitary, both guarded and bleak, and every now and then each boy has vivid dreams in which he's wandering the grounds of a school that's like but unlike his own, quietly talking with a similarly bewildered boy who looks a little like a blonder/dark-haired echo of himself.

The other boy in Ned's dreams seems even flinchier than him, but he and Digby take to each other instantly and Ned's always happy to see him because it means Digby will get all the skritches and belly rubs and butt-pats he deserves, even if it's only in a dream.

Maybe at some point Ned tells the other boy his secret, because it's only a dream and you can tell anyone your secrets in a dream. Besides, he can tell that even if it weren't a dream and this other boy were real, he'd be the kind of friend you could trust with a secret. If he were real, Ned might even tell him out loud, wide awake. Even imagining the possibility of someone he could tell, for real, pinches something up in his chest. Ned's always a little sad when he wakes up and it all dissolves, but also comforted. Every now and then, even for just a snippet of one night every few months, he gets a respite, and that's nice.

The other boy in Stede's dreams seems even dreamier and vaguer than him, but he's very easy to talk to (or just wander the school grounds looking at all the green growing things with, though every fall he's very careful about where he steps and he never seems to want to pick up the fallen leaves, which surprises Stede because he himself has never seen such vivid reds and golds and he just wants to flop down and roll around in the piles). It's a relief, how he never seems to expect Stede to be any particular way and then hurt him for not being it. He also has the best dog Stede's ever met; Stede is always happy to see Digby again (especially in the fall, when they both roll around in the piles of leaves while the other boy stands at many arms' lengths and watches), and he's always a little sad when he wakes up and there's no Digby.

Maybe at some point in one of the recurring dreams the other boy tells him a completely impossible secret about the terrible things he did without meaning to and the impossible gift he doesn't want and doesn't know what to do with, but it's only a dream and in a dream everything seems reasonable and normal. And it's a fine thing to have a friend who trusts you with such a private secret. Stede doesn't tell the other boy any secrets; if he has any of his own, he has yet to discover them. But he does like knowing that if he did have one that he knew of, he could tell this other boy. He's fair certain that even if it weren't a dream and this other boy were real, he'd be both trusting and trusty. Stede is always a little sad when he wakes up and the other boy dissolves into the harsh bright world of real flesh-and-blood classmates all determined to be the absolute worst and out-worst each other every day--but he's also just a little comforted. Every now and then, even for just a snippet of one night every few months, he gets a respite.

The dreams happen less and less as they get older and marginally better at finding comfort in mostly-invisibility (Ned) and grimly sticking to the script (Stede). I don't know if they remember the dreams at all once they're both free from their schools and (semi) functional adults out in the world. I'm quite certain Digby remembers, though.

Anyhow, I wish someone else would write it, because I'm not gonna.

Anyhow, I wish someone else would write it, because I'm not gonna.

Uh-huh. That's what we all said at first.

Maybe a fic centering on the Wayward Children books?

Maybe a fic centering on the Wayward Children books?

My TBR list is already so long!

Yes, I'm also climbing Mt. TBR - both print and electronic. It does eliminate the dread of not having something to read.

[makes room for JZ on the bench, offers candy]

I want to see these two people fall for each other. That's really interesting to me. It ended badly in real life, but we're not doing real life because we've got a Polynesian-Jewish man from New Zealand playing Blackbeard.

Jenkins gets it.

Yay, candy! I'll pour us some brandy.

I keep thinking and having feels about the bathtub scene--I spent most of the series identifying with the overly earnest, overly enthusiastic goofball, but that scene... ugh. It felt horribly familiar to me as someone wrestling with chronic depression--I know Ed's is situational and trauma-related, not necessarily chemical and chronic, but it still looks and feels the same. The wretched curling up and hiding, recoiling from kindness and moaning "No" and banging his head when someone who loves him says, "Hey, I'm your friend," because in that moment, in the grip of it, even the most loving and compassionate words feel like lies because the person can't possibly be talking to *you*, only to the completely different person they imagine you to be when you know the terrible truth about yourself, and kindness becomes physically intolerable.

And Stede's quiet, patient, almost motherly persistence is the only thing that pulls him back out of it, just barely (I heard an interview with Rhys Darby in which he talked about *mothering* as one of his keys to playing the role, that every character is a little lost and needs, among all the other loves they're missing, parenting, and for whatever reason seeing it as mothering rather than fathering made the most sense to him as an active choice for Stede).

Oooh, thank you! And now I shall wave my other hand at everything you wrote and say "Yes, that".

And now I shall wave my other hand at everything you wrote and say "Yes, that".

No! You have to say things too! I don't want to be the only one flailing and babbling like an addlepated ... thing that's addlepated. I need to hear from all the other thinky meat!