#patchworkprofessor

Does Stein count?

I’m enjoying it a lot! 

I’m frustrated at how expensive the Wii U version is, so I got the 3DS because there was a sale for Smash 3DS and one other game. Even on a smaller screen and having to get used to the awkward directional panel, the gameplay is consistent with the earlier N64, Game Cube, and Wii versions. 

Uploading Smash screen caps to Mii Verse is not supported, I haven’t tried Street Pass yet, but I appreciate having a game that I can carry around with me. 

Granted, the Wii U game would be playable on the cordless screen controller, and I have no way right now to compare the Wii U Smash to the 3DS Smash. I’m sure having the game on the bigger screen is a lot better. But being able to play this game anywhere is more attractive.

Plus, the conventions I go to tend to have rooms full of Wii U with Smash, so I can now jump into a game by putting in Smash into the 3DS then use the 3DS as a controller on the Wii U game. 

Tagged by soul-dwelling-not & shinigamikishin​

First name? Katharina Birthday? April 24th Where are you from? Bavaria Crush? DJ JLaw bruh Favorite Color? Turquoise & Black Write something in all Caps IT'S LIKE FUKKEN 4 AM I GOT UP AT TWO AND I'M TIRED BUT CANT SLEEP ANYMORE SEND HELP

Favorite band/artist? Alice in Videoland

Favorite Number? 13 Favorite drink? Diet Schwip Schwap, Ginger Ale, After the Funeral, I also like tea, coffee... Don't make me pick, no~? Oh and carbonated water of course.

Tag 10 People

5. Disgust

By and large, Medusa simply doesn’t care about things that don’t go her way; they aren’t worth her time. Disgust is reserved for the things that are worth her time. 

There are two main things I would pinpoint her as having a reaction of disgust to: Anything Arachne has ever done, and Stein’s clinging to order rather than madness.

Her reaction of disgust to Arachne is a result of fear, a result of the abuse she suffered at Arachne’s hands. Fear presents as disgust because she considers herself to be well beyond that now—and therefore, much better than it. 

On the other hand, her disgust at Stein comes from feeling that he could do better, if only he’d stop clinging to Lord Death and let himself follow his insanity and instincts. This is going to mesh with pity, below, so I think I’ll discuss it mostly there.

13. Pity

First I should offer an apology to stxtchesnsmiles who also asked me this question last night, but because I am not at my most observant at 10 p.m., I answered 23 instead. Sorry!

As above—Medusa is disgusted by Stein’s decision to cling to sanity, and I think she pities him for it as well. She thinks he’s capable of better, and that he’s been brainwashed into not wanting what he wants. I maintain that she fails to understand him, in this regard—sanity is his own decision, and one he fights for. Medusa can’t understand this because she has put so much effort into vanquishing her own duplicity and considers that to be the most elegant solution. So, she pities him for not yet coming to that conclusion for himself yet. She would be happy to help him reach that decision, of course. With violence and insanity-causing magic. That’s not what he wants? Tough luck.

Very, very occasionally she might consider Crona and think, “If you were born to a different mother, you might have been happy.” It’s pity, in a way, but it doesn’t change how she acts, and in any case she doesn’t think that way very often.

30. Arousal

Gonna go ahead and talk about Medusa’s sexuality in general, here. First of all, it’s not something that she considers more important than her work. It’s a luxury, when it comes up, but if she has better things to do with her time then she ignores it. 

When there's trouble, you know who to call...

Teen Titans got me through high school and college, patchworkprofessor, then graduate school.  (I've even used the theme song when teaching linguistics, translation, and poetry--so, it's been helpful.)

I definitely have some complaints (the later seasons had an awkward balance, in which the humor felt too unsophisticated for the increasing darkness; Derek Wyatt's style, especially in later series, does not appeal to me, and some of his conduct online is so bitter).

But Nauck and Torres's issues of the animated show's comic were excellent. And as with most things, I had fan fic ideas but never got around to writing them. 

Rambling about each season below.

[second answer contains a reference to manga chapter 87] 

♦: Relationship with my Muse

Aha. You know this is complex. =P

There’s a lot about Medusa that I want to be like: she’s able to take what she wants while disregarding the haterz, she’s in control of her emotions, she’s unshakably sure of herself. But at the same time, a lot of these things manifest in ways that make her unabashedly evil, so I guess she’s also like a cautionary tale for me? (Not that I’m teetering on the edge of turning unabashedly evil—more that she demonstrates how the desire for invulnerability can be twisted. Relatedly, I don’t actually think she’s in control of her emotions, per se.)

She’s kind of like a subconscious mirror for me. There have been a number of things I’ve realized about myself by writing her, a number of things that I’ve built into my headcanon that sure, I can back up with references if I need to, but the interpretations really came from the places where our minds work in similar ways. 

[Obligatory “but fortunately I don’t abuse children” disclaimer goes here.]

☄: What you think about your muse.

Constantly.

Oh wait, that says “what,” not “when.”

I think she’s incredible. Do you remember when I was translating bits of the Soul Eater fan book for you and I read the bit of commentary from her voice actor that said she was “pure”? (“Pure evil, maybe,” was your response.) It’s a weird word to use, considering that that word usually has positive connotations, but I do think it works in a way. She’s untainted and undivided by anything that would distract her. She has a goal—completion of the black blood—and she works toward it with a single-mindedness that makes her quite a force to be reckoned with.

And this doesn’t make her good, and it definitely doesn’t make her right in the head. She’s obsessive. She is so driven that she drives herself to her own death, and yet you still get fans hesitant to call her insane. I find that so fascinating. For all that she’s one of the cruelest, most horrible characters in Soul Eater, her cruelty is also so mundane in nature. Which can make her even more horrifying, and also makes her a lot of fun to write. 

Her “purity” makes her a great foil for Stein, too, whose divided nature is arguably the defining characteristic of his personality and character arc. I think this keeps her from fully understanding Stein, to be honest; she thinks that given no outside influence, he would embrace insanity, and thus encourages him to dispose of those outside influences as she herself does. When he fails to do that, that looks like a failure of will to her. She doesn’t grasp that both “insanity” and “sanity” are Stein’s own will—can’t grasp it, because she cultivates her own single-mindedness in order to keep herself invulnerable. 

And then by blinding herself to the possibility that she might be afraid, or at a disadvantage, or making a bad decision, she invulnerable-s herself right to death. And considers that a triumph. I’m in awe of it. Not at all the kind of awe where I try to imitate it, of course, but I think it almost makes her character a tragic one. Not in the “feel sorry for her” sense. More like “because of who she was, she never could have acted differently; it never could have ended another way.”