#louis bonnet

[smudgeandfrank]

Mary, Alma, and Louis kitties are a happy lil’ fluffy family (without Stede kitty present)! 💖🐈‍⬛✨ The kittens have adjusted to their father’s absence far better than expected, and Mary cat has started her painting career! She knocks over paint and walks through it. 🎨🐈‍⬛✨

[sherlockig]

[saltpepperbeard]

Stede + His Babies

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

one thing about me is that i do enjoy a good Dad Stede fic or fics where stede’s kids (and mary and doug) are important figures in his life and he has a great relationship with them, i like reading abt stede trying so hard to be a good dad

but at the same time i do not consider this to be stede’s canonical characterization. canon stede is an incredibly subpar dad to his biological children. not only does stede not know how to interact with said biological children when he’s not sharing his interests with them but also it has never once occurred to him that he should do other stuff with them. stede probably doesn’t even realize it’s possible to do anything with his kids aside from play pirates. he also does NOT have the emotional maturity necessary to handle when a toddler is throwing a tantrum, and thank fucking god he got out of there before they reached their teens. in s1 he mostly felt guilty for leaving them bc he did it in the middle of the night without saying goodbye but also because he still felt tied to the social obligations enforced on him by society. he still felt like he had a responsibility to be a Socially Acceptable Man, which includes being a husband and a dad, even tho trying to be a socially acceptable man made him fucking miserable. when he realizes at the end of the season that his kids and his wife are legitimately better off without him he leaves again without looking back.

and mark my fucking words he is never seeing those kids again. he said “two messed up kids, probably” so he’s at least somewhat aware that running out on his kids like that will most likely cause lasting psychological damage, but by god his children’s abandonment issues are not his problem. doug and mary can worry about that, he left them plenty of money to afford ye olde therapy if they need it down the line. and louis might’ve said “who are you, again?” but the truth is that stede only knew louis was his son bc he was sitting for breakfast inside stede’s house. that man could not pick his kids out of a lineup if his life depended on it. to quote @jaskierx, stede said “two messed up kids, probably” as in “my kids are messed up. and i think there were two of them”

[ask-louis-bonnet]

i know a lot of people are really sad right now, so i’m gonna share some moments from the inn visit that i forgot to share.

i saw mom and stede sitting outside talking about something important. i dunno what they were saying but it looked really pretty so i drew it.

here’s wolf and stede the 16th.

sorry i stacked them. but it might make you smile.

here’s alma fighting off the ghost from our closet. that may sound bad, but sir unicorn seemed like he was actually having fun.

here’s alma cheating winning at cards. Doug was laughing.

and finally, me. the reigning champion of stede-stack.

i have more moments that i can share so feel free to ask me about them.

I hope this cheered you guys up a little,

And remember, art has always been something that keeps on growing. Even as we lose moments together, we gain a new path to make more. bouncing ideas and growing closer to ourselves, our community and our species as a human by creating and coming together. making art, no matter how much we have to sacrifice, will always be worth it.

… idk what that has to do with anything, and idk why i said all of that, but it’s true.

[choco-cherry-chunk]

Had a dream about this and I’m adapting it to fit. Thinking about if Alma and Louis were brought on board the Revenge for whatever reason (I doubt there are any Mary haters in the fandom, but if there are, I’m not engaging). They come to adapt to the pirate lifestyle to a degree, coming to care for and connect to the various members of the crew. But especially Izzy, mainly because he’s one of the few that engages in some degree of “normal parenting”.

To some degree, the usual Steddyhands trio has been together for a bit, but communication is still as mediocre as ever. Izzy thinks he’s mostly there as someone to have sex with and he is fine enough with that, because it means he’s close to Ed and Stede. Ed is maybe throwing himself too deeply into things, struggling against the fear of being hurt again and the desire for love he’s never known before. Stede is scared of repeating his past failures and of falling into too familiar of a domestic state.

At some point - because this is one of my ideas - Izzy gets pregnant, but says nothing about it. Maybe he’s convinced it’s not going to keep, maybe he struggles to figure out how to tell them. But he is. When he finally settles on an evening to build up the reserve to tell Ed and Stede, he heads up on deck to talk to them, only to find the pair alone in the moonlight. Ed is in the middle of some speech, so Izzy tucks himself behind a mast. He listens to Ed wax poetic about Stede and their time together, and peeks out just in time to see Ed get down on his bad knee and bring out a ring he’d stolen from a previous raid.

It’s like he’s been cut open, reached inside of, and had his heart smashed with a mallet. Izzy clamps a hand over his own mouth and does his best to move quickly and quietly back to his quarters. So much so that he’s oblivious to who’s just seen him hurt away. Two children who snuck on deck to see what was happening and, oblivious to the stakes, wished to eagerly tell Izzy what they saw. So why is he hurrying away like that?

[paleoleigh]

Thinking about Stede building the Revenge for him and his family. How he knew he was unhappy and so was Mary and probably so were the kids, but his first thought/plan A was for them all to go live at sea together instead of running away himself. A stupid plan based on a self-centered idea of what might make things better? Absolutely, he clearly had a monkey playing symbols in his brain listening to Mary talk about her hatred of the ocean. But he built the Revenge as a home for his family, with a room for the kids (Jim and Olu's room?) and a library which contained children's stories and secret passageways for fun, for playing games.

Having listened to a lot of true crime podcasts with shitty-father villains, it strikes me how the idea that Stede could have just taken the kids is literally never touched on. Yeah, he probably knew he couldn't take care of them on his own, maybe didn't want to (we only really see him interacting with them by playing pirates), but Alma and Louis remain the only people Stede has canonically said the words "I love you" to (yes yes he loves Ed he was about to say it to him in s2e4 and switched tactics, but putting them in a similar category with Ed is pretty telling imo). Like...it probably never once occurred to Stede that another man might have taken the kids with him to spite his ex or to live their happy life of playing pirates on the high seas. Mary said I don't want a boat, I don't hate our lives, and Stede went welp, guess I'm on my own then.

There's a lot that can be said about Stede as a distant father who abandoned his family. I'm not saying he's the bastion of perfect fatherhood. But he's so clearly torn up about leaving them because he knows, morally, that was wrong, and even after he sets things right, he still talks about them ("two messed up kids probably/ didn't fit in with Mary and the kids") which tbh, I thought we were never gonna mention the Bonnet family again after s1e10.

Idk. I think Stede loves his kids as best he can for someone who probably never wanted them, and ultimately helped them out in the long run by not having them have to grow up in a miserable household with unhappy parents and an emotionally distant father who simply couldn't do better than playing games with them.

Also, thinking about how a lot of OFMD is thematic rather than verbally explicit...I think it's incredibly telling how upset Alma was when Stede came back, and that she wanted split the orange so they would still be connected no matter how far apart they were. That in a show with pretty heavy-handed symbolism of physically/emotionally abusive fathers and cycles, the kids are never, ever shown to be afraid of Stede, that when they play together they're all happy, that Stede says he loves them even though they were asleep and didn't hear it, and that the one time they physically touch, it's Alma reaching out to tug Stede's hair in a playful way, and he responds in kind. That Stede breaks the cycle of emotionally distant and abusive fathers by A. Not belittling them ever and B. Leaving when he realized his presence was making things worse.

Tl;dr Stede Bonnet is objectively a bad dad, but he still loves his kids.

[sky-fire-forever]

I have been thinking about Stede and his children lately. How he never wanted them and struggles to engage with them. How he used to play pirates with them and tried to participate in conversations with them. But he could never connect with them and how he just left them entirely. Without a word

I think about how his daughter resents him. How we see her be angry with him, as is her right. And how his son barely knows him

Does that stick with him? Does he ever look at his half of the petrified orange he shares with his daughter and miss them? Does he ever wonder who they grow to be?

[dimity-lawn]

[smudgeandfrank]

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[sherlockig]

[saltpepperbeard]

༻❀༺ Happy Mother's Day to Mary Bonnet ༻❀༺

[whatthefoucault]

He had known that Stede had two kids from his first marriage, of course, but tacit knowledge of this, and being confronted with the suddenly very real likelihood that he would meet and interact with these kids and that these kids would form an opinion about him that their esteem probably mattered to Stede and definitely mattered to Ed, were two very different things.

... in which Ed finds himself on stepdad duty for the first time.

A little gentlebeard server Secret Santa gift for Electrick_Marionett, who wanted to see some cozy times with the kids :3

[ask-louis-bonnet]

What was it like meeting Blackbeard??

he’s nothing like the books.

he’s way better.

[ayashitetsuko]

“Alright, I’m going to let you go …”

“No, I’m scared, Izzy!”

“You’ll be fine, Louis.”

“Yeah, just give it a shot.”

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t worry. We’re going to catch you.”

Izzy had been helping Louis Bonnet at the ice skating rink, with the boy’s sister Alma nearby—occasionally passing by to either help or taunt him. After a few hours of practice, Izzy noticed that Louis was ready to skate without his assistance, and he convinced the boy that it was okay to let his hand go.

At first Louis hesitated, but he soon found his footing, and was able to skate without tumbling down.

“I did it! I did it!”

“Wonderful!”

Meanwhile, Stede had been standing outside of the rink, documenting every minute and cheering at his children. “Oh, bravo! Wonderful!”

In the midst of his cheer, there were moments Stede felt gloomy, thinking about all the things he was not able to teach his kids. Ah, but he guessed that was why there was Doug and Izzy. They all completed each other in what they can give Alma and Louis, as co-parents. He should not be sad about it. Instead, he should be happy that his kids were so lucky.

Stede was still deep in his thoughts, smiling to himself, when Izzy shouted at him:

“Bonnet! Come here! Your turn now!”

[paleoleigh]

We don't see much of the Bonnet children in s1, but I think what we do see is extremely telling of Stede’s relationship with his kids.

In the episode 4 flashback, things are...pretty good? Mary has to nudge Stede to play with the kids, yeah, but everyone is pretty on board once he does; it's not super awkward.They're playing, they're smiling, they're having a good time. Alma reaches for his hair, and she and Louis are giggling when she does, so there's no suggestion of physical distance although we don't see anything more (Stede’s not a physical guy, anyway). In fact, this little bit of contact shows how comfortable the kids are with Stede and vice versa. He's the fun parent; he's not gonna be any use if you want to talk about your feelings or need help with homework or make you dinner, but the kids have absolutely no problem kidding around with him.

Furthermore, the only time Stede EVER directly says "I love you" to someone, it's to his kids. And they're asleep! So he definitely doesn't have to say anything! But his family is the center of his guilt, and the fact that he wanted to tell his kids he loved them one last time when all Mary got was "fond regards" not only suggests they might be the only two people he really loved before Ed, but that there was also a decent relationship between the 3 of them.

In fact, the only direct instances of anger and distance are A. When Stede’s sitting far away from the rest of the fam in his memory and they give him weird looks (although later all 3 of them are laughing at something Stede says in the same memory, and I've seen other post suggest Stede’s memories should be taken with a grain of salt) and B. After he un-abandons them ("I don't want your old food"/"Who are you again? I thought Doug was my father").

Personally, I think he's closest with Alma, since she shows up in his fever nightmare and is actually angry with him when he returns to Barbados, unlike Louis who straight up forgot him (validly). In fact, Stede and Louis barely interact even when they ARE interacting. Alma has all the lines and touches his hair when they're playing pirates; Alma gets mad at him at dinner; Alma cuts the orange in half to share. The fact that she wanted something to remember her father by and share with him is huge, imo. I think we're meant to see, not in as many words, how upset Alma is at Stede leaving. She's older and had more time with Stede; she missed him and is mad at being left behind; she's not HAPPY he's leaving again, but she gets why and could see that things were a lot better when he was gone for all of them. Plus, the way she delivers "Any last words, dog?"? That is STEDE BONNET’S DAUGHTER RIGHT THERE.

Stede has a decent relationship with and loves his kids/Stede was totally fucked for abandoning them are two things which can coexist, and I will die on this hill.