Gremlin D.Va

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About

Gremlin D.Va is a chibi-style cartoon caricature of D. Va, one of the playable characters in the team-based first-person shooter Overwatch, who is portrayed as a stereotypical gamer engrossed in esports subculture and lifestyle, such as frequent consumption of McDonald's, Doritos and Mountain Dew. The fan-made character became widespread among the fans of Overwatch on Tumblr in early June of 2016.

Origin

In Overwatch, the playable character Hana Song (a.k.a. "D.Va") is a professional Starcraft player who controls a large mech suit in the battlefield. On May 27th, 2016, Tumblr user radtone posted a chibi fan art of D.Va along with an IRC post about her gloves, gaining over 1,300 notes in the following week (shown below, left).^[1] The same day, radtone posted another fanart featuring the Overwatch character Soldier: 76 and the chibi D.Va, gaining over 7,400 notes in the following week (Shown below, right).^[2]

Spread

On June 2nd, Tumblr user fumeknight posted a comic of D.Va asking Mercy and Pharah in middle of the night to go to McDonalds, which gained over 17,000 notes prior its deletion.^[5]

On June 3rd, Tumblr user dakkpasserida^[6] posted an illustration of Gremlin D.Va, in which she is shown jumping with the caption "haha get rekt nerds" (shown below). In four days, the post gathered upwards of 1,200 notes. The same day, Twitter user @OhHeyDJ^[7] posted an illustration of D.Va eating a bag of Doritos chips while scratching her posterior (shown below, right).

On June 6th, Kotaku^[8] published an article about the illustrations titled "Overwatch Fans Have Turned DVA Into a Dorito-Eating Gremlin." The same day, Tumblr user automaton-dreams posted an aesthetic version of Gremlin D.Va (shown below, left). The following day, Tumblr user blackbookalpha posted a webcomic in which the Overwatch character Pharah shoots bottles of Mountain Dew at D.Va (shown below, right).

"Game On" Emote

On August 17th, 2016, Blizzard released a new patch update available for testing, which included several new emotes for the characters.^[11] One of the introduced emotes featured D.Va using her mech to play a videogame while eating Doritos and Mountain Dew, as a nod to the fan despiction of the character.