Kids these days have all kinds of memes, and most of them scare and confuse me. Then forgive me if it took me a while to understand the exact meaning of the “Semianual Sexyman Showdown”: a Twitter-hosted contest between several beautiful, fictional men for the title of “Ultimate Tumblr Sexyman”.
A sexy Tumblr guy, my many hours of research says, is really just a, uh, sexy guy? But on Tumblr? A sexy man on Tumblr. But, crucially, one with a sizable (and oh so vocal) fan base. The point of the showdown is to pit all of these favorites against each other in a brutal, sexy popularity contest.
Anyway, suffice it to say that this year’s braces winner – through the skin of his skeletal teeth – was Sans Undertale, who took on Mob Psycho 100’s Reigen (opens in new tab) and got away with a nail biting 50.1% of the votes (opens in new tab). Despite calls for a second referendum, Sans won the day. We also know why, because the creator of Undertale Toby Fox wrote a 300+ word fanfic (opens in new tab) detailing the heart-pounding final minutes of the vote. You can read it in its full, mind-boggling glory below.
After tricking his way into the final round of the competition, Reigen comes face to face with Sans, who got there by doing literally nothing. Although Reigen has an early lead, he decides if he wants to narrow it, he will have to work with his competition. He is surprised when Sans, who unknowingly entered the competition through his brother (he didn’t know what the competition was for), is happy to help him win for free. They both engage in a series of debates in which Reigen dismantles Sans by proving how utterly unattractive he is. As the debates go on, Reigen puts on boy band style and tries to be extra attractive. Nevertheless, Sans’ voice seems mysteriously only to increase. Sans mentions that Reigen forgot that being unattractive is one of the key principles of becoming a popular man on tumblr.
Emotionally crushed that he may have once been completely unattractive, Reigen considers dropping out of the competition. However, he is cheered up by Mob, who says that Reigen must remember what he taught him: he must have faith no matter what anyone thinks of him.
On the last day of the campaign, Reigen appears with rings under his eyes, a five o’clock shadow, and a father’s body. Without saying a word, he grabs a sandwich on stage and puts it in his mouth. He follows up on his ‘special attack’. sticking his fingers in his mouth like that one picture of Peter from Spiderverse. The crowd cheers and Reigen’s poll makes a huge comeback.
Finally, the results are revealed.
Sans won by a single vote.
Reigen can’t believe it. A voice!? How could he lose by ONE VOTE!? Even that stupid skeleton voted for him!
Mob shows up and casually says that since tumblr sexy men are unattractive, he wanted Reigen to be confident and not dependent on what other people think of him. That’s why he voted for Sans. Reigen doesn’t know how he must feel about this.
It’s… pretty complicated, but in the end it turns out that the key to being a sexy man is not being sexy at all – which is great news for me – and Reigen was let down by his conventional attractiveness. It’s really funny to read, even if you’re as scared and lost as I am in the midst of the Tumblr memory, and it’s great to see a legendary developer like Fox rear his head randomly to gain knowledge of what’s inside. essentially a long series of Twitter polls.
It also raises an interesting question. Is this… Undertale canon? I mean, the creator of a character who writes something about that character is technically fiction, not fanfiction. No one was prepared for this.
Anyway, it’s all we’ll get from Fox for a while, as the creator recently told us we’re not getting a new chapter of Deltarune (opens in new tab) this calendar year. But don’t worry, you can get a taste of the new chapters and their new music in a recent update on the Deltarune blog (opens in new tab). And if that’s not enough, you can always re-watch the classic first installment in the series with a friend using the co-op mod that came out last month. (opens in new tab). After all, isn’t friendship the true meaning of the Semi-Annual Sexyman Showdown?
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