UK PonyConline report, part 2 (Saturday, first half) – All hail Mult1C0rN!

Mult1C0rN in all his glory. If that's the right word

Now, normally I make quite an effort to catch the early parts of UK PonyCon, even when it's online and standing in a queue in the rain for an hour isn't a risk. However, this time I missed a couple of hours. I did have a rather good excuse, though, in that I had a pressing appointment at the local Covid vaccination centre. There aren't many things more important than ponies, but one of them happened to arrive on this Saturday! Happily everything went smoothly and I was home again by midday.

Just in time to catch the first highlight of the weekend, the Bad OC Contest! This was organised by people from PoniesOnline (another online con) and was pretty much what it sounded. You won by creating a bad OC, and by winning over the crowd in the UKPC Discord since that was how voting was done. With five entries, there was just time in the one-hour timeslot to allow a round robin format, with everyone's OC pitted against all the others.

And guess what? My OC won! You can see the victorious Mult1C0rN at the head of this post. I find it immensely amusing that my very first win in any convention contest came in one where I had to be as bad as possible. Mult1C0rN was drawn entirely by mouse in GIMP, and this seemed to work quite well as he demolished all competition. It wasn't just about bad visual design, though: a winning Bad OC also needed a Bad Backstory. And yes, I'm going to inflict Mult1C0rN's on you:

Mult1C0rN draws his extreme power level from the multiple transparent horns. They're transparent so he can use them as lightsticks for raves, and he can grow new ones at will simply by shouting, "Multi Multi Multi!" His red body signifies the blood of his enemies and the coloured hooves show his softer side. He can use his massive tail as a sunshade or football scarf as it can change colour.

He has two shapeshifting cutie marks, both almost the same colour as his coat and allowing Mult1C0rN to disguise himself as a blank flank to trick his prey into thinking he's just a harmless colt who happens to have a sick and intimidating design. Although the cutie marks can shapeshift, Mult1C0rN can't. In any case the cutie marks can only change to other shades of red or occasionally black, as no other colour is cool enough.

His head is mostly shaved to take his style points over ten thousand (over nine thousand just isn't enough for him!) but he has a silver mane around the back because silvermanes are wise and know everything. Although most of his coat is red, his legs and hooves are all different colours. This is to reassure other ponies that he isn't Tirek doing a bad cosplay. He wears no horseshoes because he's just too tough for that.

Mult1C0rN most likes to hunt and eat Victoria Sponge cakes from the staff room at Ponyville Schoolhouse. His sworn enemy is Cheerilee, who he hopes one day to defeat in single cake-bat. The best way to anger Mult1C0rN is to mis-spell his name as he is very proud of the numbers in it. His favourite number is twenty-four million, five hundred and sixty-seven thousand, eight hundred and thirty seven.

Start as you mean to go on, that's what I always say

After this extremely entertaining panel, it was straight off to "How to be Ace at Photography 2.0", presented by two good friends of mine, Ace himself and Zenfox. They'd done a similar panel at a previous UK PonyConline, and this was a rather slicker version. Ace's remarkable AJ impression is sadly indescribable. At about this point, also, I finally gave in to entreaties from the Discord to bring Mult1C0rN to the UKPC Pony Town server. This proved to be very interesting!

Pony Town, for those unfamiliar with it, is a 2D pixely game in which you create and control pony characters and interact with others in a simple world, either a public one or (as here) a closed server for a specific event. I'd never played Pony Town before as it didn't sound all that involving, but in the event I ended up spending a good deal of time there during this con. I still don't find it especially deep, and I know I'd get bored if I spent hours every day there, but I will be keeping it bookmarked!

Next time: Stormy Art, conga lines, Elley-Ray and minor meme status