#but yeah... similar crisis as when i realised that valtomura actually crashes and burns as far as canon goes

[katyspersonal]

Small crisis regarding my former mariadeline impression

This post is basically just:

But I kinda need to put my thoughts here

I've been thinking recently back on my days when I still saw Gehrman as a ‘creep’, and it was a point in Maria’s story that she hated herself for feeling attracted to Adeline who WAS below in a status. In that version, she was deeply concerned of taking advantage of her authority - because she subconsciously projected, and sort of saw Gehrman in herself. Been long ago, but after I revisited the lore bit that triggered it, I was hit back with just how many layers have to be undone to get to mariadeline ship being fulfilling and happy. We have the fact that Adeline still addresses Maria as superior ('lady' in localisation, '-sama' in original, sama is used to politely, formally address ones of higher rank). The subordination was probably never broken in canon!

Also, Maria didn't want Adeline to become a Blood Saint but Adeline wasn't convinced, most likely out of her pursuit to be someone meaningful - "grooming" of Blood Saints isn't canon, in Japanese original it says that they merely were prepared physically, to produce unique blood within their body, so that certainly allows there to be willing, conscious ones. I feel like Maria would have a huge weight of guilt for failing to convince her that she didn't need to put herself through this.

But things also get soooo much worse around Research Hall, because Maria is associated with the reason why these experiments are a thing to BEGIN with! Yes, evolution is nice and all, but patients are writhing in pain and beg for it to end. That meant Adeline too - not only she mutated horribly and Maria was no longer able to see her beautiful face, but also Adeline is restrained with more belts than any of the other patients, and then additionally restrained to the chair. She must have had it extremely hard if they had to put extra effort in holding her still... My guess is that Adeline was going too rabid when devoid of brain fluid for too long. And Maria had to watch her go through this, mutating physically and forgetting her worth psychologically. But who knows, what if none of that had happened if Maria didn't "help" with Fishing Hamlet? Someone who took her own life over a collective crime strikes me as someone more prone to blame herself, ALL herself, rather than sharing guilt. She did not come after throats of Willem and Gehrman for initiating Fishing Hamlet massacre, despite the fact that the leaders are probably more guilty than the followers, you know...?

I wonder if the real reason Maria went nonverbal with Adeline (Adeline being accustomed to her walking in without a word, Maria giving her the balcony key without explanation since Adeline still thinks it is "a charm" when we meet her) was not shyness but anxiety. Maybe she felt like she didn't even dare to touch her, maybe she was not able to start talking to her without crying - and she needed to hold it back. She wanted to stay strong and worthy of Adeline’s respect, even if she probably didn’t deserve it.... But Adeline deserved someone to admire, rather than the gods that only make people feel small.

I mean, the status imbalance itself is already a very fat hint that they never got official and whatever was there from one or both of them probably lingered in the status of unresolved romantic tension until the end. The fact that Adeline still sees Maria as her superior even as a patient effectively hints that it was still the case back then - so as a Blood Saint, and before that. Basically, the only time in canon they COULD have been in true relationship is during Research Hall events, but I think the setting full of pain, misery, fear, insanity, body horror and death was uhhh... not very favourable for happy fluffy love to bloom. Adeline was going way too caught up into Eldrich truth to care about something as human - an requiring her humanity - as normal relationship, and Maria, the one who would care enough to pull her back, failed to do so at least two times by now.

_______

So yeah, all in all I briefly addressed that mariadeline probably never came to fruition in canon, then I forgot all about it and got sold on happy portrayal of the ship within fandom, but now I am thinking back on it and considering even more nuances. I’ve just grown so used to take this ship as a given that it does feel like a slight crisis to realise that they probably never dated? There is a possibility though; Nightmare features a hunter version of Maria, that she forsaken in “reality”, ie Nightmare dials back into troubled and painful past. So maybe it dialed Adeline back TOO - to her more desperate, tormented state as a patient, when she still wasn’t Maria’s girlfriend too; when in “reality” she DID, in fact, feel better about herself and the women got to be happy witch each other for just brief time... Again, past Adeline already being a mutant. Like, odds are, all stuff depicting mariadeline happy and established when Adeline was a Blood Saint, or before so, or a patient that still looked human is an AU? Because it is not filling blank spaces, but contradicting canon? It is just that... I was not THINKING about it this way much? That so many things we just assume and take without questioning in fiction actually are rather different in reality?

I am probably becoming very old like I said before, but it is even strange how we as fans can look at two characters caring about each other and instantly jump into fluffiest, most shippy interpretation, forgetting the nuances. Like... dear god, this ship has so many underwater rocks (no pun intended).