My first fangirl love was Mega Man.

I loved watching my big brother play Mega Man 1 because I thought Elec Man was a kitty. Air Man’s stage is burned into my mind. Finding out that Proto Man was Mega Man’s brother’s was THE MOST SHOCKING PLOT TWIST my five year old mind ever saw. I even loved Mega Man Soccer, a game so bad they forgot to make sure the ending played when you beat it.

Then Mega Man X came out and WHOOOA! I read that silver covered Nintendo Power over and over until I memorized everything about the game. I was nine years old and X was my first crush. I would actually secretly kiss the cover good night because I was 100% sure that’s what people in love did. I was heartbroken to see that X already had a girlfriend named Zero. But just as I accepted their love Zero was killed and I got my heart broken all over again.

In High School one of the first message boards I joined was on the Mega Man Network. Was it called that? It’s been so long I honestly can’t remember. I spent my days talking about the latest Mega Man games (Legends oh my gosh Legends that’s a rant in on it’s own) and was introduced to the world of fanfic. I’m talking “Bass is Not a Fish” and “Zero Tolerance” and this one where they tried to make X/Zero not gay by having X actually be Roll and, well, it was a weird time.

I bought a Game Boy Advanced just so I could play Mega Man Zero. Even with my desk lamp directly pointed at the screen I still couldn’t see anything.

Even though Zero dying and coming back was pretty much a joke at that point in time I still teared up at the end of Mega Man X5. His last thoughts were of Iris! It broke my fangirl heart all over again. I snuck the lyrics to the ending theme of that game onto one of my favorite art class projects. Also almost every notebook I owned. Although I played X6 I don’t remember a thing from it. Or X7. X8. Command Mission. I think there might have been more?

After High School I drifted away from Mega Man. I couldn’t get into Mega Man.EXE or the one with Mega Man twins (??) and there was one that had snake themed bosses and ugh. Sure, there was a brief shining moment where Mega Man Legends 3 was announced but that was crushed almost as quickly as it was announced.

Yet there’s still something about Mega Man I love. Even if I haven’t played a Mega Man game in years just thinking about the old Blue Bomber brings a smile to my face. I have the Mega Man amiibo on my shelf and a stuffed Zero next to my computer. I got it from NYCC, and next year I’m going to try to find an X to go with him. X/Zero was my first ship, after all. Even if I was slightly wrong about Zero’s gender.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is my life long love affair with the Mega Man series is why I picture all of the robots in my books having really big feet.