I am surprised I haven't seen this ship more often. Not only is the pop star who's too good for everyone changing her entire vibe when the one person she's into an incredible dynamic, but also their powers are really good together and both light based and I just feel like you could get some really fun stuff from that AND they both flashy public personas with Blazer's transformation and Prism being a pop star and it could be fun to unpack their feelings about that together.

like specifically give me mecha man blue who is the first mecha man to have social media of any kind. because yeah when astral was still kicking, there wasn't tons of options but there were a few but that doesn't mean he was using them.

give me robert who made and went thru the god awful process of getting verified on twitter and a bunch of other places. at first it's for very standard stuff, so he can give live updates on areas to avoid due to danger, et cetera. but he was also well aware, just growing up with the internet, that chaos would ensue it was just a matter of time.

he answers most questions sent his way, both professional and personal (within reason for both); he thanks & compliments folks for sharing any art of mecha man (himself or any of the others); folks will @ him in a storytime thread where they share what batshit wild thing they just went thru and how blue saved them or just was a part of it in some way; et cetera.

give me robert who is always very polite and respectful... until he isn't. then he's absolutely vile, but like only to the person whose earned his wrath. it's extremely rare but he will gladly call out a fellow hero if they were/are just absolutely dog shit at their job. like, not as in bullying new heroes or genuine mistakes. i mean more like in the vein of: hey you're clearly just here for the fame and it fucking shows and you keep getting more people hurt than you do saved and you should be ashamed of yourself. in the way that like only someone who also has the same job as you can like really tear you apart for doing said job badly. i do think that he has to be prompted to do that though most of the time.

also for everyone consideration, a non-exhaustive list of what i think should be his most famous posts/threads:

his up-to-date rankings of mech media. and no, it doesn't matter how niche it is he has seen it. he also details why he likes or dislikes each thing. the focus being more on how the mech component of it is realized and how much fun he thinks it would be to pilot.

MechaManOfficial: i wouldn't trade the mecha man suit for anything in the world... except for a jaeger that could be safely piloted solo

his also up-to-date lists of favorite places to eat in the greater LA area. broken into categories of what type of food it serves; then sub categorized by if its fast food, sit down, food truck, et cetera. note that he does not go to each of these places as mecha man, just as robert quite often, which does in fact send each of the places into a tizzy when they find out mecha man comes to their place and they had no idea. it does also, in fact, prove that this man has an iron stomach and a well-versed, stomach as he can and does eat literally anything.

less a specific famous individual one but he does often randomly appear in people's threads asking for advice when visiting LA completely catching folks off guard by a famous superhero replying to their spring break trip plans. it's always sound advice and realistic; he never suggests going to see any real major tourist spots (he will also patiently explain why it's just not worth it or he'll suggest an alternative).

his post revealing that he does have a mostly up-to-date playlist of any song that mentions mecha man (him or any of the others) directly or indirectly. he doesn't even care if it's in a positive or negative light or reasoning. he just chucks them into a playlist. he doesn't have time to personally go searching them down, so he mostly relies on pure chance; fans who ask him to listen to their music (he always does even if only once) and if mm is mentioned the song gets added (also music fans ask him to listen to has it's own separate playlist in general); and if it's pointed out that a song references mm.

random user: how do you even have the time to do all this hero work and make these lists!?

MechaManOfficial: a lot of hero work, esp. when you have more niche skill sets or areas of focus, can leave you with a lot of hurry up and wait time. also insomnia ✌️

and so on. i think he should just get to be a little silly. i mean, if he's gonna be a mecha man of the people, he's gotta talk to the people.

also also, have we considered the fan accounts? i mean have we really considered them? have you considered robert being acutely aware that it's a running thing/meme to catch blue just eating something sweet, because he has just an insane sweet tooth and it's like an extremely well known fact about him? or just people fawning over him? or just random sightings that he decides to respond to?

random user: [above a picture of mecha man, seemingly looking around] lmao why does blue look so fucking lost??? 😂

MechaManOfficial: because i was 😭

~~~~

random user #1: [picture of mecha man, that happens to give a great view of his ass] reason #1 im glad blue doesn't wear a cape: 🍑🍑🍑

random user #2: you should have more respect for superheroes, especially someone like mecha man!!!! stop objectifying him omfg

MechaManOfficial: it'd be a shame to hide my best angles

~~~~

random user: @/MechaManOfficial hasn't posted in a few days, is he okay????

1: The girls, smiling, sandwich Robert, who looks flustered. Hand raised, he says, "What is happening right now??"

mecha man is slandered on LIVE TELEVISION for failing to avenge his father. even after years of being a hero the world only admonishes him when he finally can’t do so; invisigal tries to rebut robert’s criticism of her in ep. 2 by claiming that he’s “no real hero”; mandy confides in robert about how tired she is of the “Blonder Blazer” identity, saying that people see the hero before mandy; flambae refers to mecha man as a “real, actual hero” (really interesting considering how fast he called out mecha man in the superhero bar. . .); and there is a continuous choice in terminology when it comes to royd and robert’s conversations in “making the man mecha”.

there is a consistent theme of attempting to be a REAL hero— and the utterly crushing toll it takes when finally achieved. people don’t care that you’re a hero, they don’t care how well or long you’ve been doing your job, they will only watch and stare at you for doing what is considered the minimum. it only matters when you slip. one of the strangest writing choices in my opinion (and I think a lot of people share the same sentiment) was robert being forced to cut someone. I remember distinctly getting to that part of the game, hearing blonde blazer say it’s to “raise the bar” and being so utterly confused?? like, gee whiz what an easy way to make your team hate you. and the fact it happens so early in the game as well? you barely know this team. you don’t know a lot about the team members, none of their motives, stories, etc. you are essentially taking a complete stranger and deciding to cut them off from their support network, friends, and job.

and I do think the game understands this— when cut, sonar/coop both go to red ring, which while sounding extremely banal, does make sense when you think about it. they have no other place to go to besides the phoenix program. with criminal records like that, they won’t find any work other than that of crime. as I stated before, you basically strip everything they had from them when you cut them from the team. where else are they to go?

invisigal plays a HUGE role in this convo as well. we know that she is probably newest to the program, compared to the other z-team members who are all extremely comfortable with each other (blonde blazer saying she “sees a lot of potential in invisigal”, meaning she couldn’t have been in the program for that long); she’s the rowdiest, insubordinate, and generally a wildcard. she’s impulsive and reckless and extremely immature. these are likely the traits the player likely gets from her first impression, and that’s why her argument with robert was so confusing to me when i first watched it. why is this defiant, arguably least hero-like hero out of the whole z-team trying to define what it means to be a hero, and to mecha man of all people? and not even to mention that this convo comes right after invisigal’s failed attempt at capturing thunderstruck, ending with an injured civilian.

and I think it’s all really just a heady dose of projection. invisigal understands the standard on what it means to be a hero because she’s always trying to hold herself to it. it’s very explicitly stated that invisigal WANTS to be a hero, she wants to be good. she is always holding herself to the framework of being a hero, and yet it is so unattainable for her. to not just be one, but to look like one; she patently states that she isn’t like blazer in the manner of which she can effortlessly be a hero, but that invisigal innately has “villain powers”. she is destined to be evil, because she doesn’t have the look, or the powers, or the destiny that allows heroism within the life that was bestowed upon her. that she’ll never be viewed as anything more than vermin, an average villain.

except that’s EXACTLY what the z-team aims to disprove, and that’s why I absolutely love them. the z-team is a fucked up group comprised of infamous, boisterous, unruly former villains, with their dishonorable lives and lewd humor. and yet they also saved the city. and yet they were able to pull together as not just a team, but the team that rescued la from a crime gang. and yet they care so very deeply for one another with their own flawed yet so very loud ways. yes, they were never the ideal group of elite saviors— they’re an insanely strange bunch of people. but they’re heroes, and they protect lives and community and their city. because they were given the chance to finally grow instead of being perceived as outcasts.

Guess my favorite 98 frame (lvl impossible) AHSJIDJBF

this is so funny… they’re the same genre of freak.

of course coops first thought would to be bringing stuff as an apology to blazer, considering she smashed her through the goddamn window of the SDN building. but that doesn’t exactly work, and subtly gets her written up.

she’s already apologized more than enough to Robert so then comes the z-team,

specifically sonar.

She knows he eats rats because they’re constantly in the back of the break room fridge. so she starts there. does he have a rat dealer? does he hunt and kill them himself? she sort of figures that out for herself over time.

then mysteriously sonar has lunch prepared for him every single day, placed at the front of the fridge with a sticky note on it. For Sonar, it says in cursive which arises some suspicion on his end.

So now the bat is on a mission to figure out whose handwriting matches the notes, especially after they start increasing in quality and quantity. one day it’s a tupperware container full of crickets. the next it’s more rats, and one day he even gets a dead bird in his locker. how sweet. meanwhile everyone else is fucking terrified.

Trigun Maximum | Volume 5 | Chapter 5

[ID: A single horizontal panel from the Trigun Maximum manga.

The Humanoid Typhoon

Robert wouldn't have continued on the Mecha Man legacy if his dad had no redeeming qualities. he admired his dad's heroism. he compartmentalised years of neglect because it was "justified" to him so thoroughly by hero work that Robert figured the only way to keep his dad with him was to... be mecha.

Robert II was a nice guy... but a neglectful father. you know the sort. gifts at every birthday and christmas, a nice house in a good neighbourhood. personable, and if you saw him on the street your head wouldn't turn at how grouchy he was. it wouldn't turn at all. sort of... not a particularly stand-out character. despite his efforts to provide materially, Robert II wasn't ever in that house, or at those birthdays. never really made Christmas. and always looking anywhere but his son for approval.