Zecora wasn’t all that social, for multiple different reasons.

She was a Zebra to start with, and being amongst a town of ponies would already get her more attention than she’d like. She, like most other creatures, valued her privacy, and having a bunch of ponies asking about her unusual coloration, magical talents, speech patterns, etc. wasn’t exactly something she cared for.

Unfortunately, despite living in a hut in the middle of a dark and dangerous forest that few ever entered and managed to live, she did still have to go out into that town of Ponies on occasion, and amongst all of the expected questions about her non-pony-ness were a set of them that she absolutely despised.

Her abilities in alchemy were far beyond that of any pony in that town, and with how some ponies could get during their heat, perhaps it was inevitable, but it really did feel like some elaborate and disgusting form of psychological torture with just how many times she had been asked to make potions relating to sex!

Oh, to be fair, some of them were alright; just help dealing with getting in the mood or getting off, but most were far more explicit than she wanted to think about.

How many times must she tell them that that’s not how her potions work!?

She had utterly lost count of how many times otherwise relatively normal ponies had asked her about something to accentuate their sexual experiences for nothing more than pleasure, with little regard for how feasible what they were asking was, or even her own discomfort with the prospect of creating those potions.

She was certainly capable and willing to make brews for those who had actual issues in the bedroom, and couldn’t properly express that type of love to their beloved with that issue unresolved, but so many of those requests weren’t just perverted in what the results would entail, but also perversions of her entire craft and culture!

Zecora sighed in exhaustion as she looked across the many batches of flowers, fruits, roots, and other natural resources she had collected from her recent trips through the Everfree Forest, with the sharp blue of Poison Joke standing out amongst them.

She knew very well of the plant’s strange and chaotic properties, and all of what it had done to other creatures in the past, and she couldn’t help but shudder in disgust at her memories of a few ponies asking her if those flowers could perhaps be somehow used in that way as well.

Some of other ponies had even been exposed first-hoof to the dreadful and horrifying nature of the plant, so as to why they’d ever want to get close to it ever again was beyond her.

Heck, she had half a mind to just go up and toss some of it in their faces to shut them up about the prospect of using it for pleasure ever again, but knowing them, they’d probably just tell her to ‘figure it out’.

She scoffed in irritation, and spat to herself as if quoting one of those perverts, “Zecora, you can certainly figure it out; I hardly know what this magic is all about.”

They, with their punitive knowledge on magic, seemed to assume it could do anything, and while the new librarian had already tried to prove them wrong on the case of unicorn magic, but with how Zebra magic was even more mysterious, surely it could actually do anything.

She swore to herself, cursing out just how stupid and disrespectful ponies could be--and that really was only ponies. The other types of creatures she had met, be it crass Gryphons, gleeful Sea-ponies, honourable Longmas, or even that young Dragon the new librarian had with her were all far more respectful about her craft and culture, likely due to them not only interacting with others of their kind like ponies did.

Seriously, for as peaceful Equestria was in comparison to her rather unsafe homeland of Zebrica, its leaders and subjects really ought to get out more.

Maybe that would also stop them from being so perverted to ask her those disgusting questions...

Author's Note

This one’s less of a criticism or venting about the canon itself, and more about the actual MLP fandom.
I’ve seen a lot of stories and images that have Zecora as just a one-stop shop for sex potions, and I find that immensely disrespectful towards her character.

I myself have actually gone towards that at one point in the past (my second fic specifically), but even back then, the potion she made wasn’t explicitly sexual, even if it did end up resulting in something that went that way.

I know it’s easy for people to treat characters as just placeholders that they slap onto whatever sexual fantasy strikes their fancy, but I’d argue that they should really be trying to respect the characters in some way, else there’s literally no point to having them in that specific position.
I’ve certainly fallen into that trap with my earlier fics, but I’ve really tried to rectify that in my more recent stuff, as even though the stories are basically just smut, they have enough actual substance to them to actually respect the characters.

I know a lot of the reason characters get put into situations that don’t respect them is simply because the author/writer simply doesn’t know them that well, and while I’m hardly advocating for someone who wishes to create art or a story to learn everything they can about a character before making something with them so that they can be ‘respectful’, or even for people to just stick to characters that they do know to actually respect them, I do still think it’s worth considering just how often characters get stripped of all that makes them who they are just because someone doesn’t know or care enough about them to actually make a piece of art or storytelling that actually fits them.