SFUAD Geeks Out

Posted by Charli Renken in Campus

Costume Contest. Photo by Ash Haywood.

Students in costume crept out of their dorms and across campus to the library dressed as a variety of characters from The Lord of the Rings’ Gimli  to Foxy from Five Nights at Freddy’s. May 2’s Kahn-Quest was a gathering of pop culture fanatics from all over campus. Events catered to every student’s “nerd at heart” and there seemed to be something constantly happening all six hours of the mini convention. Attendees went head to head in Battle Royale, sat in on stimulating panel discussions on fan fiction and cosplay, and the SFUAD League of Legends club even waged war during a real time championship. By the time the event was over, geeks were limping back home, heels abandoned, wigs off kilter, but all with smiles on their faces.

Students kick butt in Battle Royale. Photo by Ash Haywood.

Despite having to compete with both Bounce Day and Quadstock, Kahn-Quest had a pretty good turn out. After months of work from the Student Ambassadors, event organizer Caitlyn Carlile finally got to see the convention come together. “We tried to have something for everyone… We wanted this to be multi genre,” Carlile says. There was definitely a lot going on. Cosplayers—“costume play” AKA those who dress up as fictional characters— had the most opportunity for fun when it came to events. With two cosplay panels, one on Cosplay and Consent and another on Genderbending and Crossplay (a type of Cosplay) as well as a photo booth and the costume contest, Kahn-Quest became an on-campus Cosplay dream.

There was also a lot of fun to be had for League of Legends fans. League of Legends is a real time strategy video game that has become popular on campus this year. It’s a group game in which players have to defeat the other team by destroying its base. Part of SFUAD’s League of Legends club, who call themselves “DFG,” lugged their computers across campus to do a showcase of the game for Kahn-Quest attendees. “We were in the middle of a inter-school tournament so we thought, let’s show the championship right here,” said DFG member Christopher Sunga, who was excited about DFG’s win against the rest of the campus. Sunga is the top ranked LoL player in the school. “It was a good turnout,” he says. “We got exactly what we wanted.”

Another popular event was the Battle Royale where students engaged in head to head combat. Similar to the popular playground game Ninja, players were given large pool noodles with which to hit players with in a large square, cut into smaller squares. If players left their squares, they were out. Any limbs hit by a pool noodle were “cut off” and could no longer be used, even if that meant hopping on one leg. The winner was whoever had the most limbs still in action. “It went on for four hours straight once!” exclaims Carlile. Students just couldn’t get enough of it and watching people in costume bang each other over the head with pool noodles was quite the spectacle.

The costume contest was by far the biggest event with 11 cosplayers (and one dog) in attendance. Students dressed as a variety of different characters from Naruto’s Kakashi to The Avenger’s Black Widow. Cosplayers took time walking the stage, posing while three judges jotted down scores. They were all incredibly well made costumes, so much so that judges had a terrible time trying to choose the winner. There was only a seven point difference between the highest and lowest ranked cosplay with one point between each of the winners.

Amber Rego cosplays as Vi from League of Legends. Photo by Ash Haywood.

Vi from League of Legends. Property of Riot Games.

First place went to Amber Rego, who was cosplaying as Vi from League of Legends. For her cosplay endeavor, Rego received a prepaid Visa card and an Attack on Titans print signed by the anime’s voice actors. She had to take her huge, foam crafted fist off to receive her prize. Surprisingly enough, this was Rego’s first time cosplaying. She created the costume specifically for Kahn-Quest. It took her a month to create, impressive considering the sheer amount of it. Vi is dressed in full body armor, something beginner cosplayers don’t generally take on. Of course, Rego is a costume design major, so the task wasn’t exactly over her head. “Everything is pretty much handmade except my tights and the shorts and the corset that I had under my other corset that I made,” Rego says.

“We’re hoping to do it again next year,” says Carlile who started going to conventions at a very young age. Her mother is also a convention lover and began taking her daughter to ACon, an anime convention in Dallas, when she was just a little kid. “[Conventions] are a place that everyone can go… to be yourself and no one can really judge you because they’re also just being them.” Carlile hopes Kahn-Quest will continue to provide this space for students for many years.