Essaything: Medusa & sexuality
We had that sexuality poll, and I was like "I don't really have that much to say about Medusa"... except apparently I do!
So this is my thesis: Medusa is sexual - she has sexual desires, and sex appeal. But she's not a seductress - not in the sense of "I am sexy and you want me and I am going to use that to my advantage."
As a canon example, look at Spirit. If she was interested in doing so, it would be almost trivial to manipulate Spirit into whatever she wanted. He's a spectacular womanizer and is attracted to her as the ~beautiful nurse~ - he literally clings to her leg. But her nurse persona is demure and uninterested, deferring to Maka to deal with him, and after her reveal she almost entirely ignores Spirit in favor of Stein. And that's not just a matter of power - Spirit is the most powerful weapon there is, in theory.
Stein is very different. Their relationship is sexually-charged. He asks her to dance, she tries to kiss him, she tries to talk him onto her side, she says he's cute, she tells him she loves him. But that's all intertwined with the other parts of their relationship, which is antagonistic, intellectual, competitive, and violent. He asks her to dance to confront her privately about her plot in a situation where she can't easily retreat. She tries to kiss him to slip a snake down his throat. She tries to talk him onto her side because he's a powerful fighter and a good scientist and she thinks his ideals align with hers. She tells him he's cute when he says he's a sadist who wants to take everything apart. She tells him she loves him as he "kills" her with a blade through her disconnected torso.
Some of her sexiest icons are actually from when Stein is hallucinating Medusa. And until canon contradicts me, I'm still playing that as a hallucination only, not anything Medusa is doing deliberately or has access to - so that's entirely a fabrication of Stein's mind, and says more about how Stein sees her than her herself. And even then, hallucination!Medusa is still arguing with him - about how Stein is like her, and should agree with her position more than Shibusen's.
In a recent development of note, Medusa steals Arachne's body. Arachne is taller, much bustier and curvier, with a voluminous black dress that's just spiderwebs at the top to show off her breasts, and long black hair pinned up. The only bit of this Medusa keeps is the hair color, and a tiny bit of the hair style (her hair is spikier than usual in the back). When her soul inhabits the body it slims down a lot and the dress transforms into her normal hooded outfit. It is not clear at all if this is intentional, or if any body Medusa inhabits will just warp to look like her normal form to a certain extent. But I think the contrast is interesting regardless - Medusa is feminine, but she definitely doesn't play up her sex appeal as much as Arachne.
Medusa even seems somewhat contemptuous of working that way, when Arachne taunts her explicitly about Stein (chapter 58):
Arachne: You can't even win yourself a man's heart, what good are you? Doctor Stein... was that his name? You had quite the little crush on him, as I recall.
Medusa: Well, naturally... Unlike you, he actually has creativity.
I am extremely fond of this line because it laid to rest any lingering suspicions of mine that Medusa is just interested in Stein to use him. Stein doesn't believe that Medusa's "I love you" can be true, because people like them aren't capable of it, and you can certainly argue that. It's definitely not fluffy romantic love, but she doesn't deny that she does like him in a romantic/sexual way, and for reasons that have to do with his personality and skills. That just doesn't take priority over her other plans!
(Imagine an articulate essay on why this makes the end of the anime so awful and OOC for Medusa here.)
And then there's the part where she has a child! Crona is very definitely Medusa's biological child; Medusa says so, and there's a resemblance. Crona could very well be a test-tube baby, but I think it's equally or more plausible that she had sex with someone, got pregnant, and just started experimenting on the baby as soon as it was born. It's possible Medusa has enough control over her body to shortcut that some, but it's straightforward enough, and Medusa always plays a long game. (As a side note, for some reason this idea hits my body-horror squicks more than the fact that she breeds magical snakes inside her body, but I do appreciate it as a counterpoint to the woman=mother=nurturing trope.) In that case, you might ask, who is the father? I have no idea. No one in canon seems interested in this, least of all Medusa.
In conclusion! Medusa is very in control of her sexuality. It's not about what other people want - it's about her and what she wants and likes. And she likes intelligence, strength, creativity and sadism.
I could flail a lot here about how cool it is to have a female character like that, and how much I love Medusa, but instead I will just link this: Already Trapped. Medusa/Free porn by me. Because I like the story a lot and I am not above shameless self-promotion.
aah I love playing Medusa so much
So this is my thesis: Medusa is sexual - she has sexual desires, and sex appeal. But she's not a seductress - not in the sense of "I am sexy and you want me and I am going to use that to my advantage."
As a canon example, look at Spirit. If she was interested in doing so, it would be almost trivial to manipulate Spirit into whatever she wanted. He's a spectacular womanizer and is attracted to her as the ~beautiful nurse~ - he literally clings to her leg. But her nurse persona is demure and uninterested, deferring to Maka to deal with him, and after her reveal she almost entirely ignores Spirit in favor of Stein. And that's not just a matter of power - Spirit is the most powerful weapon there is, in theory.
Stein is very different. Their relationship is sexually-charged. He asks her to dance, she tries to kiss him, she tries to talk him onto her side, she says he's cute, she tells him she loves him. But that's all intertwined with the other parts of their relationship, which is antagonistic, intellectual, competitive, and violent. He asks her to dance to confront her privately about her plot in a situation where she can't easily retreat. She tries to kiss him to slip a snake down his throat. She tries to talk him onto her side because he's a powerful fighter and a good scientist and she thinks his ideals align with hers. She tells him he's cute when he says he's a sadist who wants to take everything apart. She tells him she loves him as he "kills" her with a blade through her disconnected torso.
Some of her sexiest icons are actually from when Stein is hallucinating Medusa. And until canon contradicts me, I'm still playing that as a hallucination only, not anything Medusa is doing deliberately or has access to - so that's entirely a fabrication of Stein's mind, and says more about how Stein sees her than her herself. And even then, hallucination!Medusa is still arguing with him - about how Stein is like her, and should agree with her position more than Shibusen's.
In a recent development of note, Medusa steals Arachne's body. Arachne is taller, much bustier and curvier, with a voluminous black dress that's just spiderwebs at the top to show off her breasts, and long black hair pinned up. The only bit of this Medusa keeps is the hair color, and a tiny bit of the hair style (her hair is spikier than usual in the back). When her soul inhabits the body it slims down a lot and the dress transforms into her normal hooded outfit. It is not clear at all if this is intentional, or if any body Medusa inhabits will just warp to look like her normal form to a certain extent. But I think the contrast is interesting regardless - Medusa is feminine, but she definitely doesn't play up her sex appeal as much as Arachne.
Medusa even seems somewhat contemptuous of working that way, when Arachne taunts her explicitly about Stein (chapter 58):
Arachne: You can't even win yourself a man's heart, what good are you? Doctor Stein... was that his name? You had quite the little crush on him, as I recall.
Medusa: Well, naturally... Unlike you, he actually has creativity.
I am extremely fond of this line because it laid to rest any lingering suspicions of mine that Medusa is just interested in Stein to use him. Stein doesn't believe that Medusa's "I love you" can be true, because people like them aren't capable of it, and you can certainly argue that. It's definitely not fluffy romantic love, but she doesn't deny that she does like him in a romantic/sexual way, and for reasons that have to do with his personality and skills. That just doesn't take priority over her other plans!
(Imagine an articulate essay on why this makes the end of the anime so awful and OOC for Medusa here.)
And then there's the part where she has a child! Crona is very definitely Medusa's biological child; Medusa says so, and there's a resemblance. Crona could very well be a test-tube baby, but I think it's equally or more plausible that she had sex with someone, got pregnant, and just started experimenting on the baby as soon as it was born. It's possible Medusa has enough control over her body to shortcut that some, but it's straightforward enough, and Medusa always plays a long game. (As a side note, for some reason this idea hits my body-horror squicks more than the fact that she breeds magical snakes inside her body, but I do appreciate it as a counterpoint to the woman=mother=nurturing trope.) In that case, you might ask, who is the father? I have no idea. No one in canon seems interested in this, least of all Medusa.
In conclusion! Medusa is very in control of her sexuality. It's not about what other people want - it's about her and what she wants and likes. And she likes intelligence, strength, creativity and sadism.
I could flail a lot here about how cool it is to have a female character like that, and how much I love Medusa, but instead I will just link this: Already Trapped. Medusa/Free porn by me. Because I like the story a lot and I am not above shameless self-promotion.
aah I love playing Medusa so much