I'm going to blow everyone's minds with spoilers here: Maka actually DOES care about Joker and see him as a friend. And that scares the shit out of her. How dare he look like her father, how dare he act like he gives a crap what she has to say, how dare he be sympathetic. Nobody gave him the right to, she doesn't have room in her life for another adult male that treats her like family, he'll leave her behind too, she grew past needing validation from a dad figure. Maka highly values her independence, her ability to brush off being ignored or ditched because, hey, she expected it, she doesn't need anybody and she doesn't want to form a makeshift "family" with anyone, her own actual family fell apart, why would she want to see that happening again?

But, Joker wormed his way in and it snuck up on her, she honestly can't imagine going a day without seeing or talking to him now and that infuriates her. She just knows that she can't get closer to him or it'll leave her behind, it'll open up another hole in her life, but it's already happened and she can't stop it. It just makes her angrier and angrier, stop saying nice things to her, stop looking like her father, stop having no regard for your own health. Just stop it.

She does feel like she has a civic duty to protect idiots from themselves, or at least she feels she has an obligation to protect this idiot from himself. She doesn't respect him, but she does care about him, she does see him as a friend. Even scarier, she is starting to see him like a weird uncle that she never had.

Okay that totally drained me I need to take a break before moving onto kirikou and garry.