Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2 is a 2007 First-Person Shooter video game created by Valve as a sequel to the Quake mod Team Fortress. It was released on the same day as Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Portal as part of The Orange Box. The game became free to play in 2011.
Team Fortress 2 has had a large, active fandom since its debut in 2007. In Tumblr Fandometrics' Year in Review 2013, it was ranked 9th for most reblogged Video Game fandom that year. Team Fortress 2 has a placement on every Tumblr Fandometrics' Year in Review since. Fanac for Team Fortress 2 can be found in the form of fic, art, fan animations, mods and fangames, cosplay, and so on. 
== Characters ==
Team Fortress 2 has nine playable characters, the mercenaries (or 'mercs' for short), referred to as 'classes' in-game. The mercs are Scout, Soldier, Pyro, Demoman, Heavy, Engineer, Medic, Sniper and Spy. This is the order they are listed in within the game, and this order is more used when categorizing them than alphabetically. The canon also includes several non-playable supporting characters, such as the Administrator, Miss Pauling, Saxton Hale, and Bidwell. 
== Shipping & Fandom-specific Tropes ==
See List of Team Fortress 2 Relationship Names for more ship information.
The most popular ship between the mercenaries is Heavy/Medic. Other popular ships are Engineer/Soldier and Sniper/Spy. Remaining well-known ships are Demoman/Soldier, Engineer/Spy, Scout/Sniper, Medic/Sniper and Spy & Scout. Miss Pauling/Scout is also common.
Team Fortress 2 shipping is somewhat unique in that its playable characters are game mechanics first and characters second. There is no difference between a RED and BLU merc in-game. Multiple players can play as each class, such as Sniper, for example, who are all the same character model, but with different chosen weapons and accessories. Even in the official comics, Valve avoids addressing whether both teams canonically have clones of the same mercenaries by only featuring canonical characters in the comics. This has led to wild fan-theory and fandom-specific tropes.
Some fandom specific tropes include, but are not limited to:
* Coworker or Enemy?: Every ship between the mercs can be crossfaction or same team. While some ships, such as Heavy/Medic, are almost always same team, others, like Engineer/Spy, are often cross-faction. Demoman/Soldier particularly is almost always cross-faction because of official material, where RED Demoman and BLU Soldier had a friendship but was driven to rivalry by the Administrator.
* RED or BLU?: Despite being as likely to be on either team in-game, mercs may be more portrayed as RED over BLU and vice versa. This is often done because of official material. For example, Meet the Heavy starred RED Heavy while Meet the Spy starred RED Spy and BLU Sniper. Fanon may also cause this. Requiem for a Pizza: Part Two, a popular SFM which popularized Demoman/Sniper, features cross-faction BLU Demoman and RED Sniper. Demoman/Sniper fanworks may show them cross-faction and on these teams after this video's release. 
** More likely to be RED: Scout, Pyro, Demoman, Heavy, Engineer, Sniper 
** More likely to be BLU: Soldier, Medic, Spy
* Respawn: Team Fortress 2 features a respawning mechanic like most FPS games. Although most fanworks feature respawn, others do not have it at all or have it break-down at some point, causing tension.
* So... Are They Clones? Or?: Fanworks often leave this vague or not delve into it. In Soulbrand, a Heavy/Medic Soulmate AU by Camelot_taurus and HarveyDangerfield, it is implied respawn does not exist and both BLU and RED hire various mercs in the position of classes when they die in battle, meaning no clones.
* +more!
== Early Fandom==
Team Fortress 2 has had a fandom since day one. Most Fannish activity from the early years were on online forums and imageboards, such as 4chan's /v/, Oekaki, plus4chan, YouTube, and Valve's own Steamcommunity forum. Many of these fans came from Half-Life fandom, another Valve game. Garry's Mod was used to help create fanvideos for the game (it still is,) and mods for the game itself were plentiful (it still is.) TF2 received regular content updates, which added to the game's gameplay, lore and characterization of its playable characters (the last major update from Valve was from 2017.) 
TF2chan was an important anonymous imageboard created in 2008 which allowed fanworks of almost all kinds to be shared to a larger community of TF2 fans accustomed to slash and shipping culture. TF2chan was where the fanfiction Respawn of the Dead was first shared and Tentaspy was first conceived, along with Merscout. It also had a section for Left 4 Dead.
One notable fanartist who was a TF2chan regular, Makani, had her design of the Administrator canonized. She was later hired by Valve. 
== Later Fandom==
Source Filmmaker, a free 3D animation program created by Valve to animate the Meet the Team advertisements for TF2, has been used to create a thriving fanvideo community since its release to the public in 2012. Portmanteau ship names have also been popular in recent years, replacing older ones that were created on anonymous forums.
Ship hate is somewhat common, as with most fandoms. This may be over the age of the characters, (Scout is 25 or under while Sniper is said to be ~30,) or the idea that Heavy/Medic is so implied that it should be counted as canon.
==Example/Notable Fanac==
Tentaspy and Merscout is a popular AU of TF2 that was created out of a crossover with Beauty and the Beast on TF2chan.
Freak Fortress is another popular AU that was created from the Garry's Mod side of the fandom in 2008. Christian Brutal Sniper and Christian Pure Spy have produced a considerable amount of fanac on Tumblr. It has on Wikia.
=== Fan Communities/Fan Events ===
*TF2 Big Bang 2023.
*TF2chan
*, a ship bracket for TF2 hosted on Tumblr.
*, a community on DeviantArt.
*, a community for Genderbent AU fanworks on DeviantArt.
=== Zines ===
See List of Team Fortress 2 Doujinshi and Zines for more.
*At Ease, Soldier.
*Rocket Science!
*Tales of Teufort.
*TF2SonaZine.
*Cum Dolore: A TF2 Gore Zine
=== Fan Art ===
*, fanart for Heavy/Spy.
*, Freak Fortress and Good Omens crossover fanart.
*, Bakery AU. Official models, custom assets and Photoshop were used to make the fanart. Hosted on a forum dedicated to TF2 3D asset sharing and discussion.
==== Gallery ====
File:Tiny doktor by lintufriikki.jpg|"DOKTOR EES TINY!" by Lintufriikki (2011)
File:Requiem for a Pizza fanart by alpal55.jpg|Demoman, Sniper, Scout, and Spy from Requiem for a Pizza (Part 2) by alpal55 (2022)
File:Merscout.png|Fanart of Merscout by Dywaso and Blackmoonrose13 (2015)
=== Blogs ===
*, a Fuck No blog.
=== Collections ===
*, a collection on AO3 for fanworks of Pyro portraying them as Nonbinary or otherwise genderless. It has over 250 works as of September 2023.
=== Fan Fic ===
*Running Blind.
*, an incomplete English fanfic which features a Scout "breeding farm." It has the most kudos out of any work in Archive of Our Own's Team Fortress 2 tag as of September 2023, and has had that distinction since 2015.
*Respawn of the Dead.
*, an English work-in-progress Medic/Female!Reader fanfic. It has the second most kudos out of any work in the TF2 tag on AO3.
*, lists many commonly-brought up tropes in TF2 fanfiction. Another Tumblr user "completed" the board using example fanfics.
*, Superpower AU hosted on Tumblr.
=== Fan Films ===
*Emesis Blue [SFM] by Fortress Films, a nearly-two-hour film made in Source Filmmaker using TF2 models to create an original psychological horror story. It has produced a considerable amount of Fanac everywhere fandom lives.
=== Fan Videos ===
* by the late kitty0706, A machinima portraying exaggerated shenanigans during a game match. As of September 2023, the video has over 29 million views.
*, a multi animator project reanimation of "Team Fabulous 2" made to honor kitty0706 and to raise funds for leukemia research.
*Requiem for a Pizza, a popular two-part absurdist comedy SFM by ItalianNinja.
=== Fan Music ===
*Songs from the Dustbowl, an album by Phemiec. Phemiec has also done fanmusic for Homestuck.
=== Fan Podcasts ===
*, a TF2 podcast.
=== Fan Mixes ===
See Team Fortress 2 Fanmixes for more.
* teufort nine mix by neptunoroto (2018)
* music to murder robots to by yourunderwaterskies, aka Measured (2012)
=== Meta ===
*, a shipping trends survey.
*. Hanktalkin (Botos) is a BNF in TF2 fandom.
*, a collection of all Red Oktoberfest-adjacent material released by Valve that is "even remotely canonical, official, or in any way important." In English. Ship manifesto.
==References/Further Reading==
Category:Team Fortress 2
Category:Valve