@kleptomage  
It very much give her a right to act indignant when someone meddles in personal affairs when they lack information and permission.
 
It is not “out of character”. Because at no point have they ever meddled in her past and personal affairs.

@Pause  

 
Not in any panel I read.
 

 
Both Applejack and Zecora could have communicated better. That doesn’t make it ok for Zecora to act so indignant when Applejack meant no harm.
 

 
Because Zecora was being cryptic and overdramatic instead of just explaining. Something along the lines of “It’s personal. I don’t want to talk about it.” would have been enough.
 
This whole thing is a contrived and out of character conflict. Zecora didn’t even react this angrily when the ponies broke into her house and accused her of making a soup to cook Apple Bloom.

@kleptomage  
Zecora answered why she didn’t ask.
 
She assumed if she was going to be called it must be something important and quite dire. She said that in one of the other panels.
 
You want to know how Applejack could know? Asking.
 
AJ did say sorry and Zecora told her it’s bad to assume. To which AJ got visibly upset and tried to go “I’m doing this for you!”.
 
Yes it is wrong to act entitled to an explanation of someone else’s personal life when you’re not entitled to it. If she desired to keep it personal that should be her right.

@Pause  
Why at no point did Zecora ask where they were going on their friendship mission? One would think, if she has such a problem with her homeland, her agreement to come would be dependent on that information.
 
It was a fair assumption that Zecora would want to take a trip to her homeland. How on earth was Applejack supposed to know her home was such a sensitive topic to Zecora when she never mentioned it? Applejack even apologized if she caused offense and Zecora didn’t have the good grace to accept her apology and let it be.
 
 
@Pause  

 
FFS, it’s not wrong to expect an explanation when someone refuses a favor you’re trying to do for them. But Zecora couldn’t be bothered with any kind of explanation. She spoke in riddles and AJ got mad at her obfuscation because she is a very straightforward character.

@kleptomage  
Applejack volunteered Zecora for something without knowing any of the details. A Zecora told her not to assume. And Applejack had the audacity to get pissed off and even act somewhat entitled to knowing someone else’s personal life just because.
 
Was pretty clear cut.

@Daneasaur  
Either your reading comprehension is terrible or you’re deliberately misinterpreting the page, because that’s not what happened.
 
Applejack did not order Zecora to do anything. She was trying to be nice to Zecora and apologized when she thought she had caused offense. If Zecora had just given a nonspecific reason why she didn’t want to go home, everything would have been fine. Instead Zecora spoke cryptically and blew up at AJ for not knowing something she never explained.

@kleptomage  
Okay, so the situation we have is:  
~AJ orders Zecora to go with her “back home” because she thinks Zecora will want to go to her homeland.  
~Zecora is attempting to say “You’re trying to force me into doing something I very much don’t want to do and that you don’t know any of the details involved in it, such as WHY I CHOOSE to live alone in the everfree forest INSTEAD of in the far away land.”  
~AJ basically says, angrily, that she doesn’t care and that she thought she was doing a good thing.  
~Zecora tries her best to say “I don’t want to go back and I don’t wanna talk about it.”  
~AJ refuses to listen to the fact that the subject is evidently extremely sensitive to Zecora and demands Zecora spill why she isn’t going with it.  
~above page happens.
 
AJ seemed to push and push and push without any thought as to why Zecora said “no I’m not going” and “I don’t want to talk about it, just leave it at that.”
 
Because it’s such a sensitive topic, Zecora blows her stack so hard she stops rhyming, which generally only happens when she’s exceedingly emotionally distressed.
 
At 0:45 in this clip, Zecora refuses to rhyme while RD is destroying her hut as it’s a surprise and unpleasant, though she eventually composes herself.
 
This indicates how she rhymes by choice.
 
Back to Zecora’s statement; she cleanly states “what if I invited you to an event to which you were to bring your mother, and when you told me about your mother, I chided you for not being happy?”
 
This brings AJ off of her moral high ground and realizing just how sensitive a topic returning to her homeland is to her.
 
The situation was a powder keg that AJ lit the fuse on and then fanned the flames.

@AC97
 
She was sick, and even then she still kept trying. We’ve also seen her being angry enough to yell, during which time she was still rhyming. I guess she is capable of stopping but I’ve always figured that her commitment to rhyme speak was comparable to a mime’s commitment to silence.

Can someone please make a vector of Applejack’s angry face?

@Azerdoe  
b Ut nO RymINg bAd

@Angrybrony  
Not necessary, as I described there’s a reason behind it. Sometimes breaking character is one of the more human things one can do when infuriated or offended, it adds depth so long as it doesn’t come out of nowhere. In this case, it didn’t. There was a catalyst behind it.

@Azerdoe  
no rhyming bad tho!

Personally I like how she drops the accent and rhythmic tone of voice when she’s proper pissed. Cuts deeper as to me it shows it’s a coping mechanism for Zecora. That perhaps she does it for her own sake rather than purposely trying to be cryptic and vague in her speech. Adds another layer to her character instead of it being seen as “out of character”. Everyone is different and everyone has a means to cope in a world where they’ve suffered great loss or hardship that’s unbeknownst to others. I think Zecora just couldn’t take the bs AJ was spouting which triggered her inner insecurities and lashed out unintentionally. I’ve done the same many times. I had a way of conducting myself while in school and work, I was very timid and very quiet most of the time. But I still spoke with respect to everyone. But when people acted badly towards me which was reminiscent f past trauma I’ve suffered, my entire disposition and demeanour changed and people get frightened of me. They never expected me to say the things I did or do the things I would normally never do and thought of me as “completely out of character”.
 
I guess I relate to Zecora in a way, cause there’s only so much you can take before you drop the act and show who you really are underneath the mask of insecurity.

@Red-Supernova
 
Which means that one way or another, pressure can induce her to not rhyme, even if it wasn’t anger in that case, no?
 
If she had to rhyme to speak, you’d think she couldn’t talk at all in that situation.

@Dustcan  
I know, and I’m sure we’ll see it come up again.
 
@AC97  
Zecora was ill at the time, it was clearly messing with her mind.

@Spinny
 
Where were you for A Health of Information?
 

 
I’m curious where it was established she can’t stop rhyming, when it seems to be implied to be a habit.

@Red-Supernova
 
She goes back to rhyming after this though.
 
I mean sure having to think of a way for everything to rhyme would be difficult. But that’s not why it was skipped here.

Why am I not bothered by this? Probably because I’m not too big into Applejack and Zecora outside of porn. Also, I knew we would get to a point where she would stop rhyming. Rhyming just looks very hard to work with.
 
@Wild Stallions  
To be fair, I wouldn’t have minded either version since my expectations for Applejack and Zecora are very little.

@Pause  

 
Huh?

@raritylover20  
And who’s fault is that?

Honestly, I just love all of the salt in the comments. Y’all don’t know diddly about Zecora

@InuYugiHakusho
 
Eh, all he said was ‘there’s a reason and it’ll be explained later in the story.’
 
He also said it was a 4 parter. Didn’t know that. Neat.

@InuYugiHakusho  
The fact that you need an infromation from fucking twitter to understand this, pretty much shows to me that this comic is suffering from bad writing…

Jeremy Whitley provided some context for this in a Q & A on his Twitter.

She’s not rhyming in two situation
 
When she’s sick and almost die because of a tree and when she’s angry