The Cutie Pox

The Cutie Pox is the sixth episode of the second season of Legends of the Multiverse: Friendship is Universe and the thirty-second episode overall. The episode centers around the titular illness that afflicts Sheriff Lonnie, which causes many cutie marks to appear all over her body, making her constantly utilize the skills they symbolize. The term pox is used to describe a variety diseases characterized by pockmarks, and in the archaic sense, it may refer to disease in general.

Production
The library scene was at the animation rough cut stage on August 2, 2011. Two name options for the owner of the bowling alley that weren't used were Pony Bowl-ony and Mr. Incredi-Bowl. There were several deleted scenes of Apple Bloom displaying more cutie mark talents, one of which was a 'scootering' talent, which outraged Scootaloo.

The bowling alley
The episode opens with the Cutie Mark Crusaders outside a bowling alley, hoping to earn their cutie marks in bowling. They briefly brainstorm new team names (since, after obtaining their cutie marks, "Cutie Mark Crusaders" would then be obsolete) like "The Three Strikes" and "The Pin Twins", before settling on "The Bowling Dolls".

Aurora Amano rolls her ball into the gutter—but remains in high spirits—and Alicia Acorn bucks her ball and sends it flying all over the alley before it too rolls into the gutter. Sheriff Mulan clumsily rolls her ball and appears to knock over all of her pins. The crowd of animals cheers, with Melody Mermaid remarking, "Cool! A bowling cutie mark!" Lonnie excitedly examines her flank, which is still bare, and sees that the crowd's cheers were directed toward a colt who'd just gotten his cutie mark. To Apple Bloom's disappointment, her ball hadn't knocked over even one pin.

Heart's Desire
Alicia and Aurora comment on how much fun they had bowling, while Sheriff Mulan dejectedly walks alongside them. Alicia and Aurora try to cheer her up with a cupcake from Corona Sugarcube Corner, a party with Rapunzel, and a new hat from Nene Amano, but none of these work, and Lonnie remains despondent. She sulks off alone and wanders into the Everfree Forest, where she trips over a tree root, tumbles down a small ridge, and chips a tooth. Britney Akiwara and Jane Goodfairy finds her and brings her to her hut to give her a potion for her tooth. Lonnie expresses her frustration about her cutie mark, and Britney tells her that she simply needs to wait for the right time for it to appear.

Lonnie and Jane takes Britney's tooth-fixing potion, and her tooth is instantly mended. She then looks at the various potions and tonics around Britney's hut, looking for a possible brew to bring about a cutie mark. When Britney and Jane begins to make a potion to help a rooster fix his morning call, Lonnie notices a flower called 'Heart's Desire', which causes one's talent to "come into view" and will supposedly help the rooster crow again. Britney and Jane goes out to find amethysts to complete her potion, and Lonnie sets her sights on the flower in the bowl.

Lonnie's cutie mark
In the schoolyard, Lonnie exuberantly shows off her new cutie mark: a silver hoop. Aurora, Alicia, and Tootie Goldman try to figure out what special talent her cutie mark represents, to which Apple Bloom reveals to be loopty-hooping. She demonstrates her skill at loopty-hooping and various other tricks, with other foals cheering her on, much to the annoyance of Bonnie Rockwaller and Chloe Bourgeois. Caline Bustier hears the foals cheering Lonnie on and sees her prowess with the hoop, asking her to give the class a demonstration and help them play with hoops.

While performing an advanced hoop trick, Lonnie suddenly sprouts a second cutie mark: an image of plates rotating on top of poles. Chloe suggests the cutie marks are fake, but Lonnie denies it. Ray Ray Lee and Max Lee throw her two plates and poles. Lonnie balances the poles on her nose and spins the plates on top while twirling a hoop around her tail. The class is astounded by Lonnie's talents and cheers for her as they make their way down the streets of Multiville. In the streets, she nimbly performs tricks such as using a well-thrown hoop to style Kairi Sparkle's hair in the manner of Nene's.

The cutie pox
That night, Sheriff Mulan takes a tired Lonnie home, and Fa Grandmother, Fa Zhou, Fa Li Li Shang, Sheriff Ting-Ting, Sheriff Su, and Sheriff Mei congratulate her. Mulan tells her how proud they are of her getting not one but two cutie marks. After a long day of performing tricks, Lonnie heads off to bed.

Late at night, Mulan is rolling around in bed, being kept awake by an incessant tapping. She gets out of bed to investigate and discovers that the sound is coming from Lonnie's room. Upon opening the door, she sees Lonnie tapping her hooves frantically, as well as yet another cutie mark on Lonnie's flank: a tapping shoe. Lonnie, unable to stop herself from exercising her "talents" all at once, cries out for help while Mulan looks horrified.

Unable to stop Lonnie from moving, Mulan takes her to Kairi's library to search for a cure. Olaf and Navi retrieves the book Perplexing Animal Plagues for Kairi, and locates Lonnie's affliction: "cutie pox". The book describes this bizarre disease as being "a puzzling pony plague" that afflicted a population of animals in the Paleoanimal period. Random cutie marks appeared all over the bodies of those affected, making them perform the talents that came with them. Unfortunately, neither a cure nor the cause of the breakout was ever discovered, and the cutie pox disappeared as mysteriously as they had arrived. At that moment, Lonnie sprouts a fourth cutie mark in the form of a fleur-de-lis and starts to speak in French. The three animals decide it best to seek out Britney and Jane for help.

"Sacrebleu! Plus de marques de cutie! [gasps] Qu'est-ce c'est?! Je parle français?! (Darn it! More cutie marks! [gasps] What's this?! I speak French?!)"

- Lonnie

Seeds of Truth
While on their way to Britney's home, Lonnie's cutie pox begins to progress more quickly, with each new mark causing her to perform strange and arduous talents, mostly at the same time. The townsanimals become scared of Lonnie's strange behavior, believing her to be hexed, cursed, or enchanted. Olaf and Navi tactlessly points out the true nature of the disease to the townsanimals, causing them to panic, lock themselves into their houses, and run off. When Britney and Jane are comes into town, she almost thinks that the animals were still afraid of her. Kairi and Mulan tell her of Lonnie's affliction. Britney says that around the time Lonnie was alone in her hut, some of her ingredients "mysteriously" went missing, especially the rest of a certain special flower. Fortunately, Zecora has the cure for the cutie pox: the Seeds of Truth, which only bloom when "words true and pure" are spoken.

Mulan plants the seeds in the ground and pleads for somepony to tell the truth. Rapunzel attempts to confess to eating more corncakes than she claimed she did, but the seeds don't bloom. Lonnie speaking English again, finally admits to her misdeed. She admits her cutie marks are all fake and that she stole the ingredients—most importantly the Heart's Desire—from Britney and Jane. During the process, the townsponies all begin to calm down when they hear Lonnie's truth. Just as promised, the Seeds of Truth bloom into a flower, which Lonnie quickly ingests, causing her cutie pox to vanish.

Lonnie apologizes to everyone for the entire ordeal (including lying) - especially to Aurora and Alicia for getting too carried away with her cutie mark quest and to Britney and Jane for taking her ingredients without permission. Realizing how sorry Lonnie is for everything and how she learned from her mistakes, Britney, Jane, and Lonnie's friends accept her apology.

The importance of patience
Lonnie writes a letter to Princess Palutena about what she learned: there are no shortcuts to getting something you desire the most, including a cutie mark, and that good things come to those who wait.

However, immediately after Olaf and Navi sends the letter, the Cutie Mark Crusaders decide they've waited long enough and run off into the distance, eager to again try and get their cutie marks.

Heart's Desire
The Heart's Desire plant is introduced by Britney Akiwara and Jane Goodfairy as a cure for a rooster who "lost his crow". She says that "with Heart's Desire, his talent comes into view". Sheriff Lonnie takes interest in the plant, and encourages Britney to leave while she eyes the bowl with the plant's petals.

Cutie pox
When Lonnie develops a third cutie mark and discovers that she's unable to stop performing the various talents the marks signify, she's taken to Kairi Sparkle's library. After consulting her books, Kairi diagnoses the ailment as cutie pox. "This puzzling pony plague afflicted a population of animals back in the Paleoanimal period. Random cutie marks appeared all over the animals' bodies, causing them to perform all the talents that came with them. The cause of the breakout was never discovered, and the cutie pox disappeared as mysteriously as they arrived." Kairi suggests that Britney and Jane might have a cure.

Seeds of Truth
The Seeds of Truth are the cure to the cutie pox. Britney and Jane stops by Multiville and witnesses all the animals running scared from Lonnie's condition. She offers a cure for the cutie pox: "A cutie pox cure I have forsooth, for healing power is in the Seeds of Truth. These seeds must be planted in the ground, with the truth they'll grow and the cure is found." Lonnie eventually confesses that her cutie marks are all fake, and that she figured the Heart's Desire would help her get what she wanted most, so she "mixed up a special potion and put the rest of the Heart's Desire in it"; following her confession, the Seeds of Truth grow into a white-and-pink flower which Lonnie promptly consumes, and all of her cutie marks disappear.

Cutie pox afflictions
Throughout the episode, various cutie marks and talents afflict Lonnie. The following list of cutie marks and talents is sorted by time of appearance.


 * Silver hoop – Hula hooping and hoop related tricks
 * Sticks and plates – Performing plate spinning tricks.
 * Red tap shoe – Tap Dancing
 * Fleur-de-lis – Ability to speak French
 * Mallet and chisel – Sculpting
 * Cap and chimney brush – Chimney sweeping
 * Accordion – Playing the accordion
 * Whip and lion – Lion taming
 * Chess pieces (a rook and two pawns) – Playing chess
 * Crossed swords – Fencing
 * White long pole – Tightrope walking
 * Red glider – Hang-gliding
 * Drafting compass – Math
 * 1000-lb barbell – Weightlifting
 * A pair of sponges – Window-washing
 * Tornado – Whirling around

One of the cutie marks Lonnie receives is a red shoe which causes her to dance uncontrollably, like the main character in the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Red Shoes.

The equations Lonnie draws under the affliction of the Math cutie mark are difficult to identify without context, but the first two sections state the equivalence between integration of continuous functions and the sigma operation upon discrete functions - a concept important in digital signal processing. The meaning of the remaining three equations has yet to be determined, and they may be simply random math-symbols to fill the board.

Quotes

 * Sheriff Lonnie: Why, after today, we won't even be the Cutie Mark Crusaders anymore! We'll be the... the Three Strikes!
 * Alicia Acorn: That makes us sound like we've struck out.
 * Sheriff Lonnie: Mmm. How 'bout the Pin Twins?
 * Aurora Amano: But there are three of us.
 * Sheriff Lonnie: Okay then... Um... the Bowlin' Dolls!
 * Aurora Amano: The Bowling Dolls! That's it!
 * Alicia Acorn: Perfect!


 * Aurora Amano: I know just what you need to put the bloom back on your apple.


 * Sheriff Mulan: Yee haw, little sis! Congratulations on gettin' not just one, but two cutie marks! We're mighty proud of you, right Li Shang?
 * Li Shang: Eeyup!
 * Sheriff Mulan: I've never seen anything like it, have you Li Shang?
 * Li Shang: Nope!


 * Kairi Sparkle: Cutie pox. This puzzling animal plague afflicted a population of animals back in the paleopony period!
 * Olaf: Say that 10 times fast!
 * Navi: That Cutie Pox Lonnie! Cut It Out!


 * Sheriff Lonnie: Sacrebleu! Plus de marques de cutie! [gasp] Qu'est-ce c'est?! Je parle français?! (Darn it! More cutie marks! [gasp] What's this?! I speak French?!)
 * Sheriff Mulan: Really! My sister's speakin' in Fancy!


 * Lily Masuda: She's cursed!
 * Rose Huntsgirl: Hexed!
 * Daisy Margarida Orange: Enchanted!
 * Olaf: No, she's not.
 * Daisy Margarida Orange, Lily Masuda and Rose Huntsgirl: [sigh of relief]
 * Olaf and Navi: She just has some weird mysterious disease with no known cure called cutie pox.
 * Everyone: CUTIE POX?! AAAAAAAAAAH!


 * Rapunzel: Yesterday I told Arianna that I ate two corncakes, but I really ate three! [pause] Okay six! I ate six corncakes! [pause] Make it stop! Oh, make it stop!


 * Sheriff Lonnie: Yup! All good things come to those who wait. [pause] Well! I've waited long enough.
 * Alicia Acorn: Actually, that was way too long.