Geek Out Challenge Day 7 – A Fandom That Surprised Me

Yesterday’s Geek Out post had me discussing the geeky people who inspire me, which was probably my favorite post to write so far.  Today, Megan from A Geeky Gal has challenged us to write about a fandom that we fell in love with when we didn’t expect it.  Honestly, there are quite a few fandoms I could write about here, as I love to try things out of my comfort zone, even if I don’t have high expectations for the ultimate results of my experimentation.  There is still one fandom that comes to mind above the others, however, mostly because of how many tries it took me to get into the franchise and how close I came to giving up on it.

I bought Life is Strange when it first came out, but I didn’t really know anything about it.  When I started playing, I think I made it about an hour in before I determined that it was exceedingly boring and decided that the game was not for me.  Years later, I had heard more about the actual plot of the title and it sounded interesting, so I wanted to give it another shot.  Again, I made it no more than ninety minutes in and quit.  The introduction to the time-bending mechanics just felt so repetitive and nothing was hooking me into the story.  Why should I care about Max and Chloe?

After two failed attempts, I’m honestly shocked that I even thought about trying again.  Still, my husband was playing Minecraft one evening and told me to put on something that we could watch in the background, and for reasons I can’t explain, I thought Life is Strange could be an interesting experience to play together.  Therefore, I booted it up and promised myself that I wouldn’t quit until I had finished the first episode.  It turns out, that was what I needed to do all along to fall in love.

What followed was a period of several weeks where my husband and I binged all of the Life is Strange content available at the time, playing the first game, Before the Storm, and The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit.  While I’m certain that I would have fallen in love with this series on my own through giving it enough of a chance, my husband enjoying it made the experience even better.  Even when we weren’t playing, we were having deep discussions about the moral implications of the choices we made during our previous gaming session while picking out our dinner at the grocery store.

The best part is that the Life is Strange community is still alive and well.  The second game has come out, though I’m still trying to emotionally prepare for it and may wait for all five episodes to be released.  Additionally, there’s actually a comic book series that’s really interesting!  I’ve read the first four issues and highly recommend them to anyone who wants to see more of Chloe and Max.  This universe keeps expanding and I couldn’t be happier that I still have more to experience in the future.

As always, I just want to thank A Geeky Gal for coming up with these questions and letting me talk about awesome topics I might not have hit on independently.  Check out her response to the question here, and consider writing some responses of your own.  What is a fandom that you’re surprised you enjoyed?  Let me know in the comments below!

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