Team Fortress 2

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Video game fandom
NameTeam Fortress 2
Abbreviation(s)TF2
Developer(s)Valve Corporation
Publisher(s)Valve Corporation
Release dateOctober 10, 2007
Platform(s)PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Genre(s)First-Person Shooter
External link(s)http://www.teamfortress.com/
https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Main_Page
See alsoValve Fandom, the fandom for Valve Corporation
TF2 Logo by Valve.png
Related articles on Fanlore.

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.

🔞Bel @Hazylulu said:

Scout tryna spoil his medic rotten

Pootis Sandvich @_PootisSandvich replied:

Because they're desperate. Even after Medic's VA yelled into the crowd that he only loves Heavy, they still have to draw disgusting shit like that.

🌻⚛️ Salty ⚛️🌻 | CEO of 2012 Apriltello @SaltySpitt00n replied:

robin isnt medic irl nor does he dictate the canon, literally stop talking 💀(also hilarious seeing you call bel desperate when your partner here has been @'ing robin daily)

Pootis Sandvich @_PootisSandvich replied:

"Heavymedic is not canon" says the person that ships two characters that barely interact with each other, have a huge age difference and don't even like each other.
You're just mad because Medic's VA doesn't care about your nonsense ship. I would probably be salty too.[1]

Anonymous asked:

I hate tf2twt, like once a month it implodes because of some shit like 'mediscout is ok' or 'I hc my spy as transmasc, not transfem' or smth else stupid

aprofessionalwithoutstandards replied:

To be honest with u all that same shit happens here too do u see the posts I gotta make sometimes. Fandom Twitter and Tumblr are two sides of the same coin the only differences are we get unlimited character count and they get to post boobs images
#like we have is SWORDVAN okay discourse on here. bc people just decided demo is old even tho a) he doesn't have a confirmed exact age#and b) sniper is like thirty he can fuck whoever he wants#ask#anon#tf2

somnolent-snufkin replied:

gotta be honest i really wish we didn't fight over ships like it's fucking 2013
except when we're fighting against spyscout. that shit ain't acceptable in any form and it seems like most of the community agrees with that sentiment[2]

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 its own wiki, Archived version on Wikia.

Fan Communities/Fan Events

Zines

Fan Art

Gallery

  • "DOKTOR EES TINY!" by Lintufriikki (2011)

    "DOKTOR EES TINY!" by Lintufriikki (2011)

  • Demoman, Sniper, Scout, and Spy from Requiem for a Pizza (Part 2) by alpal55 (2022)

    Demoman, Sniper, Scout, and Spy from Requiem for a Pizza (Part 2) by alpal55 (2022)

  • Fanart of Merscout by Dywaso and Blackmoonrose13 (2015)

    Fanart of Merscout by Dywaso and Blackmoonrose13 (2015)

Blogs

Collections

Fan Fic

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

Fan Music

Fan Podcasts

Fan Mixes

See Team Fortress 2 Fanmixes for more.

Meta

References/Further Reading

  1. ^ Scout tryna spoil his medic rotten, Archived version posted September 12th, 2022 on Twitter
  2. ^ I hate tf2twt, like once a month it implodes because of some shit like 'mediscout is ok' or 'I hc my spy as transmasc, not transfem' or smth else stupid, Archived version posted September 13th, 2022 on Tumblr
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