#forever is actually very badly hurt he just kinda doesn't realise it

[8km-2]

I always felt Maria dislike using blood to hurt. And that’s why she disliked bloodblades and why she would worked with the healing church in the first place (they used it to heal).

That's a really interesting way of looking at it. My idea was that she didn't like the idea of a person's worth being determined by factors that they were born with and not based off the skills/values they spent so long perfecting.

Also i totally agree with Maria being a hunter and caretaker as the same time/ through her life :) it made a lot of sense for me

Yay! Glad we have the same hc for that :3

Oh and you got me super intrigued with your « crack hc » with Ludwig as Maria’s apprentice 👀

Judging by that emoji, I'm assuming you probably want a bit more info huh? Oh boy... I apologise in advance if none of this makes sense.

So basically in my "story" (I don't really have one, just a bunch of concepts/ideas that are loosely connected) there is a certain moment in which a hunt involving Maria goes wrong. She's the only survivor and kinda went into a berserk mode, killing all the beasts there in a really brutal way. From that there's two main outcomes that occur:

Blood saints become much higher in demand by hunters

Gehrman upon seeing the carnage Maria left behind realises just how much she had been holding back this entire time.

Maria after this starts to really see just how badly blood saints are being treated. They are basically dehumanised and treated as nothing more than blood banks. Hunters will reject certain saints with blood that aren't up to their standards and there's also toxic rivalries/jealousy forming within the blood saints as well.

I mentioned before that I like the idea that the main reasons Maria left Cainhurst for come back to haunt her in Yharnam and well the treatment of blood saints falls under one of those two reasons. Basically this whole situation is bringing up some really bad memories for her.

So anyways, Maria seeing the way blood saints are treated directly challenges Laurence or whoever was the supervisor of the blood saints, demanding that they be treated better. And these challenges are pretty public too so Laurence/the supervisor have to on the spot come up with a very formal response like: "Yeah, we'll look into it and provide better resources to the saints, their wellbeing is our upmost concern"

Or just the professional way of saying "Yeah, no." without actually saying it.

After a while Laurence got tired of hearing all the complaints and came up with a plan to try and divert Maria's attention away from the blood saints. Gehrman at this point had confided to him that he's been trying to train Maria into being a more pragmatic/ruthless hunter the same way he is. Basically he wants Maria to act on that part of her that was present in the first event I talked about. And he's doing this because the hunts are getting worse and he doesn't want to lose her.

So during one of their meetings Laurence is like "Hey remember how you said, you were trying to make Maria much more pragmatic? Well why don't you give her an apprentice to watch over? You did say, you became a much better hunter after you took her under your wing, maybe the same will work for her?"

Gehrman thinks the idea is really great and goes along with it. Ludwig was a new recruit at this point and gets chosen to be Maria's apprentice. Maria is sorta confused by it, thinking she isn't qualified to teach but Gehrman then tells her a half truth saying, "Well I'm not gonna be alive forever, if anything happens to me, it'll be your responsibility to train new recruits. Just think of it as a learning experience for the both of you."

And that's how Maria gets an apprentice.

Okay so this is not really my main interpretation of their relationship, I much prefer the one where they are around the same age because it's less restrictive. But I do still like this one because it would be kinda cool to see three generations of teacher/student relationships: so Gehrman/Maria -> Maria/Ludwig -> Ludwig/Simon (?) or I guess just all of his church hunters that he lead. And you get to see how Gehrman's teaching methods influenced Maria's and later how Maria's teaching methods influenced Ludwig's.

Plus it would be kinda cool to imagine what kind of a mentor Maria would be like. I imagine the dynamic the two have in this version is something very similar to Anakin and Ahsoka with Gehrman regretting all of his life choices in the background maybe that's why I like it so much. And as for why Gehrman is regretting all of his life choices? Well, the expectation in this version is that Maria gets an apprentice right? But the unfortunate reality is that Gehrman now has two feral children to look after.

But in all seriousness, I do think Maria in this version is even more chivalrous/honourable in order to be a good role model to Ludwig. I also think my hc of bloody crow being her brother plays a much bigger role in this because Ludwig reminds her a lot of him and that's why she grows fond/protective of Ludwig rather quickly.

It's just hard to imagine storylines in this version and the ones I did come up with, I could do with my main interp of them. Basically one of my ideas is that during the early beginnings of the tensions raising between Cainhurst and the church certain trades between the two stopped leading to a rise in smugglers that they had to deal with.

Also, I guess the main hook in this version is whether or not Gehrman's plan is gonna work. Is Maria gonna become more like him? Of course we know the answer but obviously I do imagine scenarios where you're like "oh shit it's working :o"

Like if we go with my smuggler idea I thought perhaps Ludwig gets captured by a group of them and Maria, taking one or two smugglers captive of her own, interrogates/tortures them for information and once she gets the info she executes them (you know that scene in the last of us where Joel tortures those two cannibals? It's kinda like that). I know I did say Maria is much more chivalrous in this version to set a good example for Ludwig but of course there are gonna be moments where she will put that aside if it's to save her loved ones.

i'm really curious about why maria didn't approve of adeline becoming a blood saint and if it's connected to her not liking blood blades because there's so much drama potential if it was. (I just really like the idea that the main reasons maria left cainhurst for come back to haunt her in yharnam okay?)

And I don't mean just for their relationship, for one of my ideas it's kinda useful to get a glimpse into what kind of dynamic gehrman and maria will have after the fishing hamlet. Heck even my crack hc of ludwig being maria's apprentice comes from that drama...

Idk I just find it super interesting that the two main relationships for maria we get some insight into represent the two different parts of her life. And well... It's kinda interesting imagining those two relationships being sorta at odds with each other.