SO sorry @splosh-crime for answering this ask so late! I had a very hectic April and early May, and then I accidentally deleted the actual ask 😭 so bear with me here
I LOOOOVE the idea of Desmond actually having bleeding effect with Maria Thorpe or one of his other female ancestors! It would be so interesting. One of the first things that comes to mind is Aveline’s male descendants that relived her memories and talked about how living as a woman, especially a Black woman during the Colonial Era in Louisiana, was so different from being a man. You can find the interview here, but he talks about how it was both physically and mentally different, even down to things like Aveline avoiding unwanted attention from men by crossing the street.
I think if we’re talking more specifically of Desmond having the bleeding effect with Maria, I imagine it’d throw him off being in a much shorter body, haha. Not to be crass, but I feel like it’d also be veryyyy weird for him to not have a penis, which is kind of funny. For Maria, if he was experiencing bleeding effect before she met Altaïr, I think it’d be interesting to see how Desmond feels when being around male crusaders and seeing all the atrocities. It’d also be so cool for Desmond to relive Maria’s memories of when she met Altaïr, like when he was originally planning to kill her. This is a specific headcanon, but I feel like some memories are different based on the person just based on how human memories actually work, so it’d be cool seeing that scene from Maria’s memories and what she actually coded.
Thank you so much for the ask!!