Literally Shaking Right Now

by Distorted Flare

First published

Harold is your typical liberal, who seemed to have it all. Until one day... *record scratch ...Donald Trump won the presidency. *Upbeat 90s music

Harold is your typical liberal, who seemed to have it all. Until one day...

*record scratch

...Donald Trump won the presidency.

*Upbeat 90s music

Now he's escaped to Equestria, and is desperately trying to fit in. But he's about to find out that opening a portal to another dimension in an overreaction to the 2016 election and winding up in a world inhabited by small horses...is not as easy as it looks.

A New York Times Bestseller

"Five stars. Laugh out loud hilarious." - Rolling Stone

Election Day

View Online

"Woohoo, Hillary has got this in the bag!" cried Harold the Liberal as he tossed a wad of "I'm with Her" buttons to his party guests, "there is literally no way the host of Celebrity Apprentice can win against [FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT] in 2016!"

"Wow, nice self-censorship Harold," complimented Carl, as he handed out rice Krispy treats with "sorry for being white" written crudely in frosting on them to the PoC party guests.

"Yeah I just figured I'd get a head start since that's what we're going to be calling Queen Hillary from now on."

"I can't believe someone who isn't a cis white male is about to be president!" cried Donna, the "plus size" woman of the group. I put "plus size" in quotes because really she's just fat. Newsflash kids at home, if you have trouble telling your cunt from your fat folds, you aren't plus size, you're a health and safety violation. Yes, it is possible to be big and sexy, I'm into big girls myself, but my god people there's a limit unless you're extremely black.

"Hey turn up CNN so we can see how our next president is doing!"

Harold obliged.

"Well CNNMan, looks like Hillary's got this in the bag so far." said a confident newswoman as she gleefully spun in her chair.

"Yes CNNWoman, we've gotten a whopping 0.7% of the votes in, with Hillary topping Trump at 50.1% of the votes, and based on those numbers we're estimating a clean sweep for Hillary. That means every single electoral vote will be going to her, including Alabama, that inbred hick shithole."

Harold and his intentionally diverse group of party guests all group hugged, right after signing consent forms to make sure none of them were being raped. Then they all sat back, singing songs about how great Marx was as they strummed away on their ukuleles.

"This just in, Trump has won the Electoral Vote in a near landslide."

Immediately all hell broke loose, as everyone at the party lost their collective shit. Carl was babbling like a maniac in the arms of his wife and her boyfriend while his wife's son, Jamal, looked on in horror. Donna had managed to successfully die of a heart attack before she'd heard the news, Harold was literally shaking right now, and everyone else was making picket signs that read 'Kill all Whites" for their upcoming peaceful protest.

Suddenly Carl began to spasm violently, as his skin began to shift and roil against itself. He could feel his Adam's apple grow, and he knew exactly what was happening.

"Honey, Adonde, I need you two to take Jamal and get out of here as fast as you can," cried Carl as he let out a horrifying screech, "AAAAUUUGH!"

"Hubby what's wrong?" asked his wife.

"It's...my... PRIVILEEEEEGE!!!" he screamed as his inner white cis male took over, compelling him to oppress everyone in the room.

Carl immediately grabbed his wife's boyfriend Adonde and bit his head in half with his now perfect, straight white teeth. Adonde fell to the ground as a foul-smelling black puddle oozed it's way out of what was left of his skull like cold, rotten molasses.

"Day one in Trump's America!" Screamed Harold, "You did this white people, yoouu diiid thiiiis!"

Unfortunately for the entire party, Harold's screams had gotten Carl's attention, and he turned and lumbered toward them, raping mother Earth every time his privileged feet touched the ground.

"It's ok guys, I know what to do." said Harold as he put on a pair of ruby slippers, "everybody take my hand."

"But, the consent forms."

"THERE'S NO TIME!"

So everyone linked hand in hand with Harold as he tapped his heels together.

"There's no Safe Space™ like home, there's no Safe Space™ like home, there's no Safe Space™ like home."

Suddenly, a ball of blue light surrounded Harold, not because his ritual had worked, but for a much more plausible reason. Harold was literally shaking right now, at a rate so incredible, it was tearing apart the fabric of space and time.

Carl lunged, but before he could make contact, Harold was engulfed by the ball of light, and when it dissipated, Harold was gone.


From Harold's point of view there was a lot of blue, more than usual in fact despite his home planet's surface being mostly covered in water.

"Well at least it isn't white," said Harold with relief, "white is so overrepresented amongst electromagnetic vortexes."

Beyond the blue he could see everything happening in ultra slow motion. His friends were being eviscerated by Carl at .05 times normal speed, which Harold found both interesting and sickening. As he observed the situation from his safety bubble however, he noticed that everything he saw was becoming gradually more misshapen.

Everything twisted into a sick, pretzel-like shape, as Harold's reality reshaped and recolored until Harold was surrounded by several miles of snow, and snow-covered houses.

Harold was mortified by the scene. Everywhere he looked he saw nothing but straight, white snow.

"OH GOD NO!" cried Harold as he literally shook right now, "snow is the worst of all types of weather. All this...WHITE...ice, smothering these brown buildings with privilege."

"Uh are you alright, whatever you are?" Came a sweet, womanly voice.

"Did you just assume that voice's gender?"

Uh look Harold, I already know who it is. Trust me, she's a woman.

"A WHITE woman?" Harold asked, spitting out the word "white" as though it were laced with cyanide.

Purple actually.

"Purple? What the fuck?" Harold turned to the source of the voice, only to find himself face to face with a small purple horse.

"Hi there, my name is Twilight Sparkle, what's yours?" She self-introduced as she held out a hoof.

"Harold..."

"Well Harold you look quite cold, you should follow me to my home. I'll get you some hot cocoa, and then you can tell me just what in the world you are." Replied Twilight with a friendly smile.

Harold eyed Twilight's still-extended hoof nervously.

"It's a hoofshake, do they not do that where you're from?"

"No, we do, just...do I have permission to touch it?"

"It's a hoofshake."

"That wasn't my question," replied Harold as a cold sweat slowly rolled down his face.

"Yes you have permission to touch my hoof."

Harold sighed in relief and clasped Twilight's hoof in his clammy hands, gently shaking it.

"Thank you for your consent, I was worried I might have been raping you for a second."

Twilight's pupils dilated as she stared worriedly at the hoof she'd just allowed into what may very well be the genitals of this brand new creature. Eventually however, after looking at yet another worried expression on Harold's face, she decided to ignore it for the time being.

" Whatever this thing is, it's incredibly skittish, thought Twilight to herself as she motioned for it to follow.

They trudged to Twilight's castle almost silently, Twilight preferring to wait until she could have Spike transcribe the conversation, while Harold was deathly opposed to talking to a woman out of turn.

"Criminy, you live in a castle?"

"Yeah, I used to live in a tree, but one thing lead to another and now I'm the Princess of Friendship."

"Wait, your country DOESN'T have democratically elected leaders? DISGUSTING, PATRIARCHAL! I'm going to have a serious talk with your king."

"Oh we don't have one of those, Princess Celestia rules over all of Equestria," lectured Twilight absentmindedly as she unlocked and opened her front door, "while Luna pretends to be her equal despite the whole country having been better off without her for literally a thousand years. Spiikke, I need you to come here and transcribe my interview with a new species. I'm entrusting you to write down complex biological terms even though you couldn't spell "brink" in episode one!"

"Oh your leader is a woman? That's okay then," replied Harold as he stopped literally shaking right now, "I was worried we weren't living in a matriarchal utopia. Men are the worst."

"So you hate men?"

"No, I'm a feminist, I believe in equality."

"Awesome, I'm getting mixed signals, which is fine I guess, but could you please wait til Spike is here to write them down?"

By this time they had reached the throne room, and a few seconds later Spike came waddling in with a quill and parchment.

"Fantastic, now then, I suppose we'll start with basic questions. I intend to find out more about you through observation, in as organic a way as possible, but for now let's start with some simple questions."

"Sounds good to me."

Twilight grinned giddily, not only was the person before her an entirely new species, but it was incredibly cooperative as well. In fact, she even had to cover her mouth with her hooves to keep from laughing excitedly.

"Alrighty, well first question, what species are you?"

"Well I'm a human."

"Biological classification?"

"Homo sapien."

"Interesting," said Twilight as she watched to make sure Spike was getting all this, "and how does your species breed?"

"However the fuck we want!" Said Harold defensively, "it's 2016, are you trying to tell me that we can't breed with whoever we want in what is literally the current year?"

"Uhh, no," replied Twilight cautiously, "if you're referring to homosexual couples, in Equestria we do not treat them any differently. Love is the greatest form of Friendship to us, and Friendship knows no gender."

Harold wiped his forehead with a damp cloth.

"I can't believe it, I might actually be in heaven, I'm not even literally shaking right now at all despite my self-diagnosed chronic anxiety," Thought Harold to himself.

"Well Harold, tell me a little bit about where you're from."

"It was a disgusting, alt-right, neoconservative filthhole! Everywhere you look racism, sexism, cisnormativity. The white man raped every other race and gender with a tyranny most foul. All of our problems were pretty much their fault. I actually teleported here after our country literally elected Hitler as president. I'm basically an undocumented citizen. That's cool right?" Harold inquired with a cocked eyebrow and a slight literal shake right now.

"That should be fine. We don't really have an immigration system in Equestria, we can pretty much live wherever, it just happens that most of the sentient beings on the planet live with each other, but they're free to move at any time."

Harold's eyes watered up, while at the same time, a smile broke out upon his face, confusing him deeply.

"I feel so happy, but why am I crying?" thought Harold to himself, "it kinda stings."

"Well anything else I could find out about your species I'd prefer to discover in as organic a manner as possible, so for now I guess just do whatever. You can stay here in the castle until you find a place of your own. You may want to get a job."

Harold's eyes became tiny pinpricks.

"You live in a capitalistic society?"

"Ehhh, sort of. We don't evenly distribute wealth, but occupation is second nature to our species. We literally have a magical symbol that tells us what job we should have. That said, we'd never let somepony starve, there are several government programs that keep our less lucky citizens fed and sheltered."

Once again, Harold smiled and shed a tear.

"It's actually getting a bit late Harold, I'll take you to a guest room."

As they walked, Harold realized something very peculiar.

"Twilight you do know I told you I teleported here, right?"

"Oh yes, why?"

"Do you not find that weird?"

"Not really," replied Twilight as she teleported to a nearby door, "I can do that too. Anyway, this will be your room temporarily, I'd give you the one with its own bathroom, but my prisoner is using it, so you'll have to go use the one down the hall and to the left, should be the first door."

"Prisoner?"

"Yeah, she's staying with me until she can be reintegrated into pony society. We believe in reform over punishment."

"Oh, ok," replied Harold shakily, "good night Twilight."

"Good night Harold," replied Twilight with a smile.

Once Harold's door was closed he started panting uncontrollably. He made his way over to the mirror, which was effectively every surface since the house was made of crystal, and looked into his own eyes.

"You did it Harold, you escaped a fascist regime and stumbled into paradise. There's a good chance you'll never have to complain about anything ever again."

Harold turned from the mirror and flopped onto the comfy bed, before bundling up under the blankets and drifting off to sleep, and he wasn't even literally shaking right now.