Tracer/Emily

Pairing
Pairing:	Lena Oxton/Emily
Alternative name(s):	Lenily, Tremily (uncommon), Emilena, Lemon Tea
Gender category:	femslash, f/f
Fandom:	Overwatch
Canonical?:	canon
Prevalence:	popular
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Tracer/Emily is a very popular Femslash pairing in the Overwatch fandom. It features Offense hero Lena Oxton and non-playable character Emily. It is the first canon F/F Overwatch relationship.

Canon

Emily was introduced in the Overwatch comic Reflections during the Christmas season 2016. Tracer is seen trying to buy her a gift, but she is too late and the stores are closed. Fortunately a child gives her a scarf as a Christmas present, which she then gives to Emily. After this, Emily kisses her, confirming the ship as canon.

For some time after this comic, Emily was not present in the game, other than mentions in voicelines such as Lúcio asking "Hey, Tracer, you and Emily wanna hit the slopes some time?" In June 2018, a spray for Tracer was added that is a portrait of Emily.

Fandom

Emily's appearance and Tracer's confirmation as gay were mostly well-received in the shipper fandom, such as on Tumblr. On the Overwatch forums and on Twitter, there was some wank and complaining that Overwatch was focusing too much on sexuality.

User Stormy said (on a highly downvoted comment):

Yay a gay hero that "represents me"....Awesome I really don't care lol. I mean you know i'm sure its awesome for those that wanted a gay character thats awesome. Im not saying I didn't want one but people took it way too damn far. Too many posts about people moaning and !@#$%ing "Wheres the gay character? Blizzard is homophobic because there is no gay character. wah wah wah." I mean really get over yourselves lol.

Fortunately, negative views were the minority of opinions, and the overall reaction was much more positive. Many people commented that it was encouraging to see the first canon queer character of the Overwatch cast was the game's unofficial "mascot", such as Amanda Jean and Cora Walker, writing for Remeshed (a woman-centered gaming news site).

Amanda: Tracer’s been front and center in Overwatch’s promo.

Cora: She’s the cover girl. There’s some expectation that a cover girl type would still be available for the fantasies of the male audience. For months I feel like I’ve been defiantly calling her a lesbian, while feeling like nothing would ever come of it. I think making her a lesbian was an interesting decision and one of the better statements they could make.

Before Emily's introduction Tracer was mainly shipped with Widowmaker, establishing Widowtracer as one of the most popular femslash pairings in the Overwatch fandom. Its shippers' reactions to Emily were mixed. Some fans were excited that Tracer was confirmed to be gay, further supporting the possiblity of their ship, whereas others were disappointed that another canon pairing for Tracer would destroy Widowtracer's hope of becoming canon. Nevertheless both pairings have an established followership, with Widowtracer having 1149 works on AO3 and Tremily 587 as of October 25, 2018. Some other shippers embraced the chance and created the polyamorous triple ship of Emily/Tracer/Widowmaker, which has gathered 133 works on AO3 so far.

There was some questioning whether Tracer was bisexual or a lesbian, but lead writer Michael Chu confirmed on twitter that Tracer was a lesbian.

Notable Fanworks

Fanfiction

• Moonlight and Sunshine by orenjikitty
• The Little Things by vinetini
• First Kiss by ParadoxMage
• Welcome Home by spencerdee

Fanart

• Cheers Love the cavalry's queer by Nikki452
• Tracer's Christmas Present by mariasaurio
• Lenily by laeddis

Archives and Communities

• Lenily on Deviantart
• emilena on Tumblr