Five Figure Fanwork Exchange

Title: Team Fortress 2
Media: A multiplayer first-person video game, and a comic book series and collection of short videos where the plot and major character work happens
Approximate Length: To get a grounding, six comic book issues plus a short catch-up comic, 35 minutes of video, and as much time with the game as you like.

What It's About
Team Fortress 2 is a team-based first-person shooter video game that was released by Valve in 2007. Jokingly referred to as America's #1 war-themed hat simulator, the game doesn't take itself seriously in the least. You play as one of nine classes of mercenary hired to fight over a New Mexico gravel mine in an alternative version of the late 1960s/early 1970s in which Australia has long ruled as the world's technological superpower thanks to its deposits of wonder-element Australium. Mostly, you strategize with your team, shoot at the opposing side, and collect funny hats.

The game is a hoot, but it didn't spawn such a passionate fandom on its own. As staff at Valve put it:

TF2 didn't start with a lot of story. There wasn't room for one. But as the updates got more ambitious, we found the perfect way to explore the mercs' world: comics. Over the years, the comics have spawned ancillary characters, then assistants to the ancillary characters. Companies mentioned in passing became global empires three generations old. The game that started as a handful of guys in a desert shooting at each other slowly blossomed into the most labyrinthine story in Valve history.

This labyrinthine story includes century-long revenge plots, secret parentage, wizard roommates, Welsh crooner Tom Jones, corporate takeovers, classic comic homages, friendship, romance, loyalty, cross-species male pregnancy, and a whole lot of naked mercenaries (occasionally slathered in honey).

Where to Find It
Everything is free online!

Videos
Meet the Team (a series of 1-3 minute animated videos introducing each of the mercenaries)
Expiration Date (a 15-minute short film)
Other optional videos include canonized fan project End of the Line and ads for updates to the game like Mann vs. Machine, The Sound of Medicine, The Invasion and Jungle Inferno.

Comics
Catch-Up Comic (a primer on the canon)
TF Comics #1: Ring of Fired
TF Comics #2: Unhappy Returns
TF Comics #3: A Cold Day in Hell
TF Comics #4: Blood in the Water
TF Comics #5: Old Wounds
TF Comics #6: The Naked and the Dead
Other optional reads include supplementary and game update comics.

The game is available for free on Steam.

There is also an official wiki that includes information on all plot points, character moments, game assets and voice lines.

What I Love About It
I really like the chaotic humour and the wild flights of worldbuilding fancy. Even after consuming the canon an overenthusiastic number of times, there are still lines that make me laugh. But what keeps me coming back are the characters, including the ones I've requested like Medic (a mad scientist stripped of his medical license who canonically sold his soul to the devil), Scout (a super-fast young South Boston blowhard who talks a big game but secretly just wants everyone to like him), and Sniper (a polite and professional Australian who always uses his turn signal, enjoys hallucinogens, and is careful to observe proper protocol when murdering people for money). They're part of a large cast of off-beat and oddly charming people who can be thrown together in any combination to tell an entertaining story.

I'm Requesting
Predominantly shippy stuff for Scout/Sniper and Medic/Scout, with any amount of backstory, lore, or mission-based adventure that someone might be inspired to include.

Content Warnings
The series contains a lot of fairly graphic cartoon violence, most often easily mended. (ex. Two characters casually chatting while one operates on the other in the glow of a healing ray, or an argument over sharing the backseat leading to a character having his hand cut off—then sewn back on by a veterinarian at the next stop.)