Notes:

The official Sonic JP account on Twitter (subsequently X) has been holding voting contest of various characters for some time now where the winner would receive official art alongside a gag story featuring them and that month's partner character. It was how Infinite got revived to be a singing partner for Shadow and Elise became the first human Sonic character to be given an official redesign in the modern style. All great stuff, the latest one (as of this post) had Silver as that month's partner character where the choices for who they could be paired up with being Shadow, Vector, Mephiles, or Sonic Man.
https://twitter.com/SonicOfficialJP/status/1744554950150222291
Shadow and Vector quickly became after thoughts once it became clear it would be a battle of attrition between Mephiles and Sonic Man. Official artist's and prominent fans from both sides of the sea came out to draw and lay out their reasoning for why their character should win. There was so much fanart and redraws too that I didn't post. Also all the votes were very legit and had no botting involved, I swear, and cumulated with Sonic Man overtaking Mephiles within the last hour to secure a slim 2% victory.