Blizzard, Let Wuyang Be Queer

It’s time to let the waterbender be a bit more fluid. Gay shippers and fans of the multiplayer first-person shooter Overwatch are gobsmacked that a new comic in the game’s lore-widening Overwatch Undivided series has confirmed that support hero Wuyang has a crush on fellow healer Juno, a Martian. While the game has not previously delved into Wuyang’s sexuality, the hero has been the subject of an intense gay shipping with the hat-wearing Mizuki, a Japanese healer, whom the fandom have collectively dubbed #Mizuyang. In fact, a quick search of the hashtag finds plenty of hand-drawn tributes to the pair: For those who are unfamiliar, Overwatch is a first-person hero=based shooter that has a campy, cartoony aesthetic and many LGBTQ+ characters. As of this writing, the game has a total of 53 playable heroes, with six being confirmed as queer, including lesbian DPS heroes Pharah and Tracer; out gay damage hero Soldier: 76; nonbinary archeologist Venture; and healers Lifeweaver and Baptiste, who are pansexual and bisexual, respectively. Overwatch’s open embrace of LGBTQ+ heroes has engendered a fervent group of queer and trans fans, many of whom usually imagine that many of its characters happen to be queer beyond who’s already been confirmed. That is the case for both Wuyang and Mizuki, who hadn’t previously had any lore attached to their sexuality, until now. But the frustration with Wuyang and Mizuki being denied smooches is about much more than people upset that they can’t fujo out to their favorite first-person shooter. As pointed out by many fans, as well as Kotaku’s Kenneth Shepard, while Overwatch seems to embrace relationships among its core heterosexual cast — as they have with Wuyang and Juno, or Mercy and Genji in the past — love interests for their queer characters tend to occur offscreen. Blizzard has flirted with queer flirting in the past, though not an outright relationship. Shortly after pansexual Lifeweaver was released in the game, h