Yes, Mega Man, you are a robot. I know that you are a robot, terrible Megaman 2 cover art notwithstanding, and clearly you know this as well, because you are sentient. But let me tell you something: If you are going to fight evil, and fight it with your usual array of 8-12 fancy guns, you need to at least give me the impression that you are wearing pants.

I’m not going to complain about the fact that there is now, apparently, a girl-you, and also a girl-Zero, which makes me clutch my face and moan in anticipation of the furious beatings-off which will occur in cascading waves all over fanficdom¹; I will also not, in my kindness, remark about the intense lack of interest I have in either purchasing or playing this iteration of your interminable series[es]. I am just saying, friend-to-friend: Please pretend to have pants on.

As a robot, I agree that you do not need pants, and that there are several pants-related concerns which we do not share. I have delicate external genitals; you do not. Were I to eschew pants in, say, Chill Penguin’s icy hinterland, I would be incredibly cold, and unable to fight for everlasting peace; you are a robot, and likely have biomechanical systems to regulate your temperature². I require clothing to display my sense of fashion; you have interchangeable weapons systems which do this work for you. I would never insist that you need pants, Mega Man. That would be a zero-sum game.

But I do insist that I need to pretend that you have pants. For are you not a simulacrum upon which I can drape my own fantasties of heroism? When I direct you towards countless powerups and valuable screws, am I not, in my mind’s eye, directing myself? When, in fifth grade, in my fleeting daydreams, I needed a methodology by which to dream of one day winning my crush’s heart, did I not envision her captured by Dr. Wily, in his floating fortress of metal skulls, and imagine myself as you, destroying all in my path, so that I could one day win a woman’s heart?³ You are poorly named, Mega Man, for you are 20XX’s Everyman. And every man, Mega Man, needs pants. Evil — as you well know by know — fights dirty.

¹ “MEGA MAN POWRED UP HIS DILDO BLASTER TO FULL CHARGE AND TRIGGERED THE BLASTER. MEGA GIRL MOANEED IN EXTASY AS HER LIFE METER WAS REDUCED BY THREE YELLOW BLOCKS. ‘IM AS HARD AS THAT LEVEL IN WILYS CASTLE WITH THE BLOCKS YOU HAD TO EXPLODE WITH THE CRASH BOMB AND THEN EXPLODE THE THINGS THAT SHOT YOU BEHIND THEM TOO, BABY’ MEGAMAN SHOUTED EROTICALLY.” Pop quiz: Was this article simply one long excuse to write fake sexy Mega Man fanfic? No comment.

² One could argue that this point proves that I am not dissimilar to a Mech; that assumption would be correct.

³ To be perfectly honest: Yes.