#joe protomen

[heraverick]

political hot take: i should NOT be increasingly relating so heavily to Joe Protomen

my veins should NOT be burning like they're filled with nothing but gasoline

[mulletsg]

“ The New Face of Fear ”

Bluesky

Twitter

[forestlingincorporated]

wait so where IS daini. i gotta know

He's fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine. I'm sure putting all the single pringles in one room won't go horribly wrong at all.

Oh look, I found where all the women in this franchise are.

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[koistudios]

[cicutagreninja]

MM doodles for my irl au. (it needs a better name.)

Might post the bit of writing I made for it soon! :D

[blueribbs]

have you listened to The Megas and/or The Protomen

oh yes dude i love both of them. more partial to the protomen cuz i feel like there's more consistency in the way the story is told but i like them both a lot. did some protomen fanart a while back in 2020. kinda wanna redo the first one cuz it was a neat idea but i think it's kinda ugly looking back on it

[julie-su]

It feels like something's gonna change But there's no use putting it in drive If all the wheels are stuck There's something wrong here Like this whole city wants to scream But no one makes a sound But, you've got to feel it, baby (something's wrong here) So I'm gonna find out what it is And I'm gonna tear it down

[wolfoftonight]

This song fucks so damn hard

[industrialdyke]

i said what i said. he/him butch lesbian joe forever in my heart

[koistudios]

then there's joe if he was a father (I don't have any)

Happy Father's Day to the Mega Man world's Okayest Dad

The dad who proved he would do anything for his daughter

and then there's this asshole

[janesmitish]

I love The Protomen so goddamn much and it definitely frustrates me (but it's also understandable) that so many fans have decided the "humanity isn't worth saving" angle is correct.

Like.... Light is wrong!! Proto is wrong, Mega is wrong! The point of the albums, at least to me, is in showing the folly of attributing a revolution to one man, of trying to let a single hero lead all the people to salvation, instead of teaching the people what revolution really means! Of going out to the ground, encouraging the common man to stand up and fight, showing him how!

That's what I think the singles we've gotten from Act III have been showing, that humanity IS willing to to fight, to rise up, if given the push. Roll is willing to stand up and fight, just like Joe was, but you cant just start fighting and hope people follow you into seemingly hopeless odds. You have to teach them, encourage them, band them together.

Hope CANT ride alone, it has to come together, and if we ever get Act III that's the message I feel like we'll end on, even if the ending is bittersweet

[mulletsg]

didnt wanna give these their own posts bc im not dat happy with em

[tarditzgrade]

So there was this post made by adelrambles a bit ago that pointed out the occurrence of the "Funeral" motif in the Protomen albums, specifically in Keep Quiet and Unrest. It encouraged me to start actively listening to the music in the albums and I reblogged it myself when I realized it was also in a few places in The Good Doctor.

However, after I made that reblog I also realized the "Funeral" motif appears in at least two other songs, both in Act I.

The first song is in Sons of Fate. At 4:12 when Megaman turns his back on the crowd and flees the city, the guitar plays the three note motif over and over again until the crowd gets loud enough and the background instrumentals fade out. Once the chorus takes over, I think they sing the motif until they also fade out.

The second one is in The Will of One, in two places in the song. I'm more skeptical about this first one since it's a bit different and it's hard to hear since it's buried under the guitars and much more recognizable keyboard tune. It starts at 0:47 and the three notes of the "Funeral" motif do appear, but are mixed into a phrase that I can't quite tell if it appears in the rest of Funeral For A Son. It might be a simpler version of the repeating phrase in Funeral, but my ears aren't that good.

Another version of it plays at 2:24 and cuts out when the crowd starts chanting, again buried under everything but it's there and I am more confident about this one being the "Funeral" motif. This one is much longer than just the three notes and matches basically the entire repeating phrase in the first half of Funeral. With how beloved this song is, it's probably been caught before, but this was my first time catching it.

What's most interesting about this in my opinion is that all the previous instances of the motif marked Light's actions. Funeral/Unrest marked him building Megaman and telling him about Protoman/the state of mankind. Keep Quiet marked him meeting Joe and beginning to help him with taking down Wily. The Good Doctor marked him starting up the robots and giving Wily his power over the city.

But these instances in WoO and SoF mark Megaman's actions, first his resolve to fight for the City and then him abandoning it. It makes the contrast between the two instances even more interesting.

If the "Funeral" motif does signal incoming disaster , then maybe the fact that the one(s) in the Will of One is so buried could be Mega ignoring the danger that comes with fighting against Wily or ignoring the fact that he might regret his choice to fight. If it signals hamartia, it could again highlight Mega’s belief that the people are worth fighting for/will fight with him.

The one in Sons of Fate is probably tying an end to the album. It plays as things get bad (TM) and so I’d guess it’s probably just signaling the fact that things are getting bad and disaster is happening. It’d be interesting to see Mega possibly regret his decision to run from the crowd in Act III, though. (or maybe the people regretting their compliance in the fight if it’s for them instead).

Anyways, a small bit of theory spouting. This is very interesting to me and I want to find other motifs in these albums because the protobrainworms have not let up.

A little bonus is that it may also appear at the end of The Stand in the guitar, but I’m already bad at finding when the piano is playing it, so I can’t be even 50% certain that it’s the actual notes.

[gyrrakavian]

[HD] The Protomen - Act II - Light Up The Night

The lyrics on this hit pretty damned close these last few months. Especially the line “It's like they've gathered up the city, they sold it to the Devil and now/ It's gone to hell and they wonder how.” lyrics below the cut:

[Verse 1: Joe] This city's sleeping like a soldier Trapped inside of an iron lung Machines can keep you breathing But what happens when you find a new war's begun? Flip a switch and turn it off, you won't be able to breathe So either way you're a casualty I've got this burning like my veins Are filled with nothing but gasoline And with a spark it's gonna be The biggest fire they've ever seen Cut me down or let me run, either way it's all gonna burn The only way that they'll ever learn- we've got to turn it off Flip a switch [Chorus 1: Joe] And light up the night There is a city that this darkness can't hide There are the embers of a fire that's gone out But I can still feel the heat on my skin And this mess we're in, where you and I Maybe you and I We can still make it right Maybe we can bring back the light [Verse 2: Thomas Light & Choir] (At the heart of the city) At the heart of the city There is a building that looks down over all there is (And the man in the tower controls it all) And the man in the tower controls it all Without raising a single fist (It's like they've gathered up the city and now) It's like they've gathered up the city, they sold it to the Devil and now It's gone to hell and they wonder how (It's gone to hell and they wonder how, oh) Well, a friend once told me Men, they would follow any man who would turn the wheels (Now the wheels are spinning out of control) But now the wheels are spinning out of control What would they do if we held them still? (If you destroy the working parts) If you destroy the working parts, what you'll get is a broken machine A beacon of light from a burning screen (A beacon of light from a burning screen)

[Bridge: Joe] Light it up [Chorus 1: Joe & Choir] Light up the night (Light up the night) There is a city that this darkness can't hide There are the embers of a fire that's gone out But I can still feel the heat on my skin And this mess we're in, where you and I Maybe you and I We can light up the night [Bridge: Choir] Light up the night Light up the night Ah, ah Ooh [Chorus 1: Joe & Choir] Then we can light up the night (Light up the night) There is a city that this darkness can't hide There are the embers of a fire that's gone out But I can still feel the heat on my skin And this mess we're in, where you and I Maybe you and I We can light up the night [Chorus 2: Joe & Choir] (Light up the night) There is a city that this darkness can't hide There is a fire that will burn through the streets of the city And we will stand in the light, we will stand in the light You and I Maybe you and I We can bring back the light [Chorus 2: Joe, Thomas Light & Choir] (Light up the night) There is a city that this darkness can't hide There is a fire that will burn through the streets of the city And we will stand in the light, we will stand in the light You and I You and I We can bring back the light

[panickedscribbles]

One thing that always sticks out to me when listening to The Protomen is just how terrible the people of the city are.

Like, a fairly standard assumption in Hero-centric fiction is that people, as a whole, are worth saving. Yes, there are going to be evil villains the hero must fight, and yes, there are going to be scumbags who really aren't worth the heroes effort, but generally there is good in the world and it is worth fighting for.

But that just straight up isn't true in these albums! It starts in Act II with the lynch mob from "The State VS Thomas Light", which I could sort of excuse. People do stupid things when they get caught up in the heat of the moment, and pack mentality is a powerful thing. But as things slowly get worse, no one stands up and says "this isn't right."

By the time of "Breaking Out", there are a grand total of two people willing to do anything about the state of the city, Light and Joe. Then following Joe's very public death, no one else stands up and says enough. Everybody just goes back to keeping their heads down and pretending nothing is wrong, for the next 12 years.

Finally, in "Hope Rides Alone", Protoman arrives to save the day, only to find he's entirely bereft of allies. There is no rebel alliance to help the conquering hero defeat the evil empire. It's just one man, standing alone against an never-ending army. He does his best, he fights his hardest, he gives it everything he's got, but it isn't enough. It was never going to be enough. Not alone.

And this is where the first real nail gets driven into the coffin. "We are the dead." The people of the city chant this as they watch their hero fall, but it's clear he isn't included in their mourning. They cry, not for their fallen warrior, but for themselves, for the fact that they will have to live under Wily for longer. They could step in, fight back, save Protoman. But that would mean risking themselves, and that's just not worth it. And I just have to drive this point home: a man is being beaten to death in front of them, and they're busy singing "Oh, woe is us, the Real Victims™ here."

Fast forward another few years to "Sons of Fate". Megaman arrives to finish what his brother started, only to be forced to murder the man he came to avenge. The crowd that gathers eggs him on the whole time. They don't care that the man he's fighting once fought for them. They don't care that he died trying to free them. They don't care that they're asking their new hero to murder his own family. They only care about themselves. Nothing has changed. No lessons have been learnt.

What else is there for Megaman to do except walk the same path his brother did, only this time with the benefit of hindsight. There will be no last stand, no heroic sacrifice, no warrior to stand between mankind and Wily's horde. This time they are on their own. This time they will have to fight for themselves, or they will be cut down. And Megaman is fine with either option.

I think that's a really neat direction to have taken things, and I'm looking forward to seeing how things finally change for the better in part 3.

[heraverick]

Are YOU in need of a Christmas gift for YOUR PYROMANIACAL Protomen fan????

WITH THIS PROTOMEN BRANDED LIGHTER, YOU CAN BE JUST LIKE JOE AND BURN DOWN THE GOVERNMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LIGHT UP THE NIGHT THIS CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!