Covert lives a life they are not proud of. They dress and act like a thug like their peers due to pressure and threats of violence otherwise. It was how they grew up, all the other zebras and ponies that live in his area are used to it. But Covert doesn’t like being a hoodlum and bullying others out of money, food, and other possessions. The jewellery and piercings they have, however, they enjoy, and their taste is music at least mimics their peers.
 
They mostly use the money they inevitably end up stealing to buy comic books to fuel their real passion, being a huge nerd in secret. Whenever they’re at home, Covert can truly be themselves, reading in their free time, spending time online with what they consider ‘real’ friends, and away from a life of being a petty thief. It’s a hard pressure to deal with, if they blew their cover, they know they’d get beaten for it, so they keep up the facade to starve off the inevitable future.
 
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If you’re wondering why I left the gender as vague as ‘they’, it’s because I didn’t decide on a gender for them and Zecora’s Zebra muzzles lend themselves well to ambiguity, so I left this Zebra’s gender up to interpretation. You can see them as what you want, male, female, both, neither, attack helicopter, I don’t care, just don’t fuck with the tags for what gender you see, please. I may change my mind in the future, but for now, they are a zebra with no defined gender.
 
Also yes, the tank top and leg band are based on the Team Skull Grunts from Pokemon Sun/Moon. The tank top is from the male grunt, and the leg band is from the female grunt.
 
Link to a naked version so you can see the stripes better.
 
There’s too many boring looking Zebra OCs out there, more color is needed.
 
I’ll be honest, I think that relating MLP Zebras to IRL human races and adding human race issues to it is, well, stupid. It’s not fun or funny and it just gives people excuses to be assholes about it. Pony race stuff is far more fun to play with anyway without any connection to human problems. Give me wing problems, horn problems, stripe problems? Just no “lol, they’re black” bullshit. Keep your headcanons to yourself and quit projecting your issues onto fictional equines.