Sans from Undertale won the Tumblr Sexyman poll, and I haven’t known peace since

Let it be known that the day of Thursday Sept. 8 was perhaps one of the most delirious days on the internet, and not just for the reason you’d think. Sans, the a skeleton character from the indie darling Undertale, won the Tumblr Sexyman poll against Reigen Arataka of the anime Mob Psycho 100. The contest prompted a flood of fan art and memes, filling up platforms like Twitter and Tumblr.

To reach the top, Sans had to conquer a “who would win” style bracket hosted on a Twitter account called Tumblr Sexyman OTD. The competition was stacked, with beloved characters from across media franchises — Wheatley from Portal 2, Almond Cookie from Cookie Run: Kindgom, and Raymond from Animal Crossing.

The bracket started on Sept. 5 and technically wrapped up late in the evening Wednesday, but fans celebrated the following day. Each day, fans would vote on their favorite “Tumblr Sexyman,” which is a term for character with a dedicated online fan following often expressed in the form of fan art and memes.

In Undertale, Sans is a goofy character whose name is inspired by the kind of font used in his dialog box, Comic Sans. Although he’s long been the stuff of memes everywhere, he wasn’t a shoe-in, because he squared off against the bumbling mentor and sexy salaryman Reigen Aratka from the anime Mob Psycho 100. (Just days before, Reigen had won both the ultimate DILF poll and the twink poll, putting him in a strong position to win Tumblr Sexyman.)

It was an extremely close competition in the end, with Sans beating Reigen by less than a single percentage point of votes.

Fans of both Reigen and Sans collectively went wild, and Twitter and Tumblr have since been filled with absolutely ridiculous fan art and memes of the two and other characters from the bracket and Undertale.

The same day fans were celebrating Sans’ win, the Queen of England died, so fans quickly ended up making memes combining the two events in what made for a delirious mashup that capitalized on fandom and a major historical event.

If all this wasn’t enough, Undertale creator Toby Fox, who generally doesn’t acknowledge the massive spotlight of his game’s fandom, came forward and wrote a brief entry of fanfic about the two characters to commemorate the event. (Or, as one fan pointed out, maybe it’s not fanfic and is actually canon, since Fox is the creator of Undertale.)

Regardless of whether it’s canon or not, it’s a genuine delight to see Fox recognize the fandom that’s still alive and kicking long after the game was first released back in 2015.