#maria lives au

[madychi]

What if I gave you… a Maria Lives AU?

[tamblerdraws]

M a r i a

I saw a few cute outfits on pinterest and I decided to draw Maria in one of em

Except I didn't know how to draw certain aspects of one or the other so I combined em

I wanted to highlight her hair but the white background was a bother so I did. space thingy (also I know the lighting is probably wrong however. lighting is whatever I want it to be)

Also

my Maria Lives au but Also she's movie Maria now

Also I realized that I could make Maria's spiky pigtails point up and look like Shadow's quills,,,, yippieeee

I also wanted to add in red highlights bc I have decided that they either put Black Doom's dna or Shadow's dna in her to stabilize her and I wanted to put the red streaks in her hair (is it accurate? No. However that is Oki bc I like It)

[tuhbanbuv]

Y’all heard of Mobian Maria but have you heard of Black Arms Maria?

Basically this au is the standard “Maria Lives” au but she gets turned into a Black Arms. Cuz reasons.

I mean she no longer has NIDS but now that’s the least of her concerns—

[hersheysmcboom]

(SONIC 3 SPOILERS!)

(Shadow finds out Maria is alive and turned into an assassin by G.U.N)

Shadow: Maria?!

Maria: who the hell is Maria?

[brucenorris007]

Maria lives and as a consequence Shadow ______

Yes, that’s all interesting, it matters, it does fundamentally change the foundation of narrative, his motivations, etc.

But what about Maria herself? Every side character in a larger narrative is the main character of their own life.

So. Maria Robotnik: What if she lived?

Would she be messy? After spending her whole life in a largely sterilized, nearly monochrome industrial environment alongside a population of scientists keeping samples, experiments and etc. in order, would she throw that aside once free from that environment, leaving things where she wanted, going back to get them, making piles at random?

Does she dig her toes in the sand and splash in the shallows of the sea? Would the smells, sights and sounds of nature–after so long in the artificial, manmade world that was the ARK–ever fail to quicken her pulse, spark something in her soul, at times terrify her?

I headcanon that she played chess; how else did stimulate her likely precocious mind on those days her body struggled the most?

How would she react to other Mobians? To the rest of her extended family, who may not have spoken as kindly of her, may not have been as proactive about her illness as Gerald, in a timeline where her life wasn’t a tragedy?

How would she have ‘raised’ Shadow, insofar as she might have done so as his sister? Gerald would’ve pulled every string possible, blackmailed up to and including POTUS to keep her from becoming a ward of the state, I think. Would she largely depart from civilization, discourage any interest Shadow showed in military weapons?

How does she express herself? Was she better with words than her little brother, or physically affectionate? Would she nurture plants? Dance? Sing? Run through the grass and forest and creeks barefoot until Shadow begged her to stop, worried about her health?

Was she a bookworm? Naive, or secretly quite perceptive and calculating? Was she introverted as her brother; or an extrovert who would’ve asked after every scientist’s life story had her illness not so often sapped her energy?

What’s her favorite food? Life on a space station, the meals probably weren’t all that diverse or exciting. What would she eat for the first time on Earth that caused her to burst into tears?

Would she be a night owl or an early bird? Time zones are worth mud on the ARK, after all; time actually dictated by the Earth’s rotational axis and circuit around the sun, could there be a bigger adjustment?

Did she share the apparently familial interest in the sciences? Would she have been as fascinated by ancient history and the chaos emeralds as her cousin and grandfather?

After walking on Earth with Shadow at her side, would she turn her eyes to the stars again; would she ever want to return to space?

She loved life; that we know for certain, if little else. She obviously knew something of the flaws in humanity in the hours immediately preceding her death, yet she chose kindness anyway. Would a decade, or two, or even five among humans bolster that strength of character, or erode it? Would she carry a pocket of simmering resentment, lethal yet contained by her persisting choice to be compassionate?

Had she lived, who might Maria Robotnik have been?

@generic-sonic-fan

[captainsparklefingers]

It's always interesting when an old hyperfixation reemerges and hits you like a truck and drags you back into it, especially when the other currently active fixations don't go away but sort of just get shuffled around.

Like. I'm still working on Unhappy Families, and I've started to feel the flow coming back (not for 1947, unfortunately, THAT chapter still refuses to cooperate)...but suddenly the Sonic movie comes out and beats me with the 'youve liked this since you were 11 and now youre gonna feel things again whether you want to or not' hammer. And the flow is now split between the thing I want to/should work on...and a stupid dumb au idea that I shouldn't do anything with but can't stop thinking about.

So, to get it out of my system, let me tell y'all about my Maria Robotnik lives au, where a tragic lab accident does what it does in comics instead of in real life (aka: so now you have superpowers and a dash of Captain America-esque 'man outta time' vibes).

Lemme go ahead and shove this under a cut and get this out of my head for now. It's 1230 in the morning, my cat is draped all over me like a fuzzy heated weighted blanket, I can't sleep, my brain is going weird places, let's roll with it.

Spoilers for the Sonic movies (particularly the 3rd one).

OKAY SO.

We don't see what actually killed Maria in the movie. I mean, yes, it's the explosion of chaos energy caused by an errant shot, but the specific thing that kills her isn't shown. Could be a blow to the head or traumatic internal injuries, nothing good, but nothing as direct and obvious as a shot to the back like in the games.

And many a fictional individual has been 'blessed' with superpowers following a lab accident or exposure to radiation/mysterious energies/etc. I think you can see where I'm going with this. I mean this is a world with alien hedgehogs, teleportation rings, chaos emeralds, I think one can be allowed a little wiggle room in the name of an au here.

SO. Boom. Explosion. Maria appears dead, her family is devastated and the seeds of revenge are planted,Gerald is carted off, Shadow is put into cryo, all that.

Maria's body is taken by GUN (presumably alongside those of anyone else who died), probably put in a morgue somewhere...aaand that's where she wakes up, screaming, unleashing a wave of Chaos energy that shorts out all electronics in the area, and promptly passes out again.

So. GUN is now in possession of a preteen girl who should be dead, WAS apparently dead, who was exposed to something they were studying and couldn't understand/found too dangerous to mess with, who now appears to have strange abilities that both have kept her alive, given her superpowers, and also seem to (at the moment) be physically taxing to the point of not being able to maintain consciousness for long periods of time.

SO LET'S STICK THE UNSTABLE SUPERPOWERED GIRL INTO CRYO TOO, because that seems to be the standard MO at GUN for these sorts of things at the time. Walters, having been the one who made the call to put Shadow under, is given clearance here as well, as somebody who knew Maria before everything went horribly wrong. And maybe he feels guilty and responsible that this girl is going through this, because of the organization he works for, because he wasn't able to stop those men from pointing weapons at children with intent to fire. So, he lets her out every so often, giving her a chance to physically stabilize, to get an idea of what's been done and what she can do, and to let her know that she hasn't been forgotten.

(of course nobody tells her grandfather about this because why would they, this is all classified and he's a dangerous criminal element now.)

Maybe her memories of what happened are fuzzy. Years in and out of cryosleep following a comic book esque tragic origin story might do that to you. Maybe she's not fully aware of how long it's been, or the fact that she doesn't appear to be aging normally (is it the cryo sleep or the superpowers? Idk. Ask Steve Rogers, it was both with him ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯).

Anyway. Records slip through the cracks, particularly after information about Robotnik is purged by the government post first Sonic movie. And with her being more physically stable and having ways to channel this energy now (let's continue the family theme of science and robots here and make her a bit of a technomancer with machine buddies and robots she communicates with and channels power through, or something along those lines), her scheduled return to cryo sleep gets put off, and put off...

So we have a girl out of time literal computer wizard who's body can only handle so much of the energy it has going through it at once before exhausting her (it's not the same as having a terminal illness, obviously, but it'd be at least something to call back to the game character a bit), who's got patches in her memories, has (to her knowledge) lost her family and doesn't have anyone, who's whole existence is a bit of a cover-up to hide a civilian casualty...

Aaaaaand that's all I have right now. I'm trying to figure out what the best way to get her out of GUN would be while also not having her and Shadow cross paths/know about the other for a good long time (because I enjoy the angst of thinking your closest friend is long dead or gone and having to live on). I'm sure I'll figure out something, there was enough chaos caused by the events of the third movie that I could see her using it as a chance to break herself out.

I dunno. Maybe she ends up with Agent Stone for a bit since they've both lost somebody important. That could be fun. I'm sure there'd be some sort of dramatic reunion or something eventually, but that's all I have for now.

It really isn't much, and I don't want to take away from the impact her death had on Shadow or the importance of it to the story, but at the same time, I'm sort of enamored with this idea of this tween from the 70s who does computer magic and has exhaustion and pain who's trying to find a place in a world that literally forgot her and buried her 50 years ago.

(and maybe I want Stone to have a friend, too, after everything.)

(and maybe some dramatic meetings and reunions too, someday.)

[shinymisty-blog]

GRUNKLE SHADOW! I LOVE IT!!

Also, I love the whole "you would technically be my nephew" bit with Shadow and Eggman. Because it is true.

You CANNOT make a Maria is alive AU and not share the dynamic she may have with Dr. Eggman! Can we see that please?! I feel like he'd be very casual with her when he's not being evil and all that!

I'm now realizing that there's actually not a lot of Maria here. Oops.

It's the Robotnik family!

[euanpc]

a member of the royal gaurd prepares to kick black arms arse

[gravityglitch-blog]

Okay, let me start by saying that I haven't played this game yet. Spoilers don't bother me much, and I've been using my various fandoms as shields against life lately.

So, like a fool, I just had to watch the cutscenes from Shadow's story and OMG...

The memory of his adoring big sister has always been part of his strength, no one can convince me otherwise.

The way he tries to hold on for even just a few extra seconds, it's too much😭

Sega, you are paying for my therapy!

[d0d0-b0i]

silly

[mightyfoz]

Unicorn wars but the unicorns swap places with the bears!! not sure if anyone has thought of this idea, but i just thought what if the bears were just as vicious as they were in the movie, but instead they weren't the ones to evolve, but the unicorns did instead.

[madychi]

More of the lil sibs ever!

[tamblerdraws]

I made a sonic au

Maria lives au :D

Basically she gets kidnapped by g.u.n. after the whole incident thing to like continue grandpa robotnik's work ig

She didn't know that Shadow was still alive tho (g.u.n. probably told her he was dead)

But then Sonic saves her (idk why they had to break into g.u.n. just yet,,, but they did) and tells her that Shadow is a-ok and so they get to reunite yippieeee

And now Maria hangs out with the whole cast :D

Additional stuff: I wanted to give her crow's feet after the savening bc I remember hearing that it happens when you smile and I think she would smile a lot after being rescued (you can't really see them tho womp womp)

Also I wanted to make her chonky to show how she is like doing well now,, also also she still usually wears the dress and stuff I just didn't know how to draw that and make it obvious that she was chonkier so she got the dress shirt and khakis treatment

Also (the final also) she turned her headband into goggles

[tollsoftheclockwerkbelle]

what gets me about the shadow/maria dynamic is that it takes the trope of "weak helpless girl dies for a tragic plot device" and subverts it

Maria wasn't helpless in her fate. She did have a choice. Shadow would have been strong enough to protect them both (Where else could they even go? Would he need to hurt someone?) but instead she made a choice to protect Shadow.

Shadow's story isn't tragic because he failed to protect Maria and now spends the rest of his life tormented over it. Shadow's story is tragic because he is the strongest creature alive, but raw power isn't always enough, and his loving friend made a sacrifice to let him go hoping she was giving him a chance to learn compassion because she was strong!

Maria's purpose isn't that she's a weak little girl who dies. Maria's legacy is that she protects the strongest creature alive, and teaches it the strength of love.

Her character gives the moment purpose, not the other way around. Her willingness to die so he can go free, asking him to use his strength to protect the people of Earth, despite everything. It's her proof of love that gives Shadow's burden that kind of extreme weight. Shadow will live forever and with so much limitless power, would life be easy to discard without a second thought? Not Maria's. Not when she asked him to protect it. That weight will remind him, always.

[hersheysmcboom]

Sonic: Maria, are you okay?

Maria: (on the verge of tears) oh yeah, I never been better.. better.. (Maria breaks into sobs as the wachowskis tried to comfort)

[brucenorris007]

So there aren’t a lot of them, but I’ve seen a few Maria Lives AU’s floating around, some more developed than others. And they are developed and thought out and they explore themes they want to explore well.

My brain just tends to go... a different place, I guess? Might be the gremlin brain in me, but sometimes AU’s just put me in a mind of “But all those events in canon and” grabble grubble etc. So I wonder how a Maria Lives AU would actually work with the canon that, let’s say the games, have set up.

I mean, it’s unlikely that she’d ever get to actually meet the Mobians that Shadow usually interacts with; and Shadow himself wouldn’t interact with the Mobians we know (Rouge, Sonic, Tails, etc.) the same way either, since presumably he wouldn’t have been captured and put in stasis for 50 years if GUN hadn’t killed Maria.

He’d be 65 to Sonic’s 15, and Maria would be in her late 60′s if she lived long enough to see any of the events in the main canon happen. Adventure 2 would’ve unfolded way differently, assuming Eggman gets up to the same schemes he did in the game.

Which is plausible, since Shadow and Maria would both probably still have some mixed feelings about the ARK, even if they did spend formative years there. And GUN clearly though the place was haunted or whatever the reason they basically left it to be a floating satellite for that many decades.

I can picture Shadow, whose only signs of age are his general outlook on the world and on life, meeting an Eggman who still wants his help with some dumbass evil nonsense and just letting out a sigh. He plays along for a while if only because he knows Gerald’s scientist grandchild has a reputation that’s only grown as the breadth of his schemes gradually escalated from terrorizing remote islands to major cities and then the planet.

The redemption element of Adventure 2 would be lost, and even if Shadow did make friends with Sonic, their friendship wouldn’t be the same as what it is (okay, what it briefly was before Sega gave up on making him a nihilist and just made him Kmart Vegeta.)

And with no memory loss, any team up with Omega and Rouge would be purely incidental, though he would still take up a fight against Metal Sonic; and of course Black Doom would meet with an unimpressed black hedgehog.

“Shadow, the time of the ritual draws near; collect the Chaos Emeralds and-”

“Earth doesn’t need any solicitors, missionaries or terrorists today, thanks and rudely fuck off.”

Then one has to consider how his dynamic with Gerald might be affected by a few extra decades and the benefit of hindsight, especially alongside a Maria who survived to walk the Earth with him.

Well, that’s where my mind goes.