Flim has a golden ticket. Princess Twilight and her new wife Applejack desperately require his signature on some very important paperwork. Obviously this is the sort of thing that should be worth quite a lot of bits up front, with the potential for favors at some point in the future. Flim and Flam hold all the cards, and there's no way this could go wrong.
Oh yeah, and there's a foal involved too. Not that that really matters.
Written for the Writeoff Association's prompt "A Matter of Perspective."
Chapters (1)
a loved one.
Also, be still my beating heart.
This is indeed beautiful. Not perhaps as drawn out as your other works (Something I like about them) but still beautiful and it rings very true.
Bravo.
You mean this isn't the Sunset and Zecora entry?
i827.photobucket.com/albums/zz194/PepperPilot5/1456121770821.jpg
...
Ah well, still gonna upvote the shit out of this!
7224221 I'll get to that one eventually, I promise.
The hell is your fascination with lesbians? Good God man.
7224320
I've been into lesbians longer than I've been into ponies... If I had to make a guess, I'd say it has something to do with being a woman who's occasionally attracted to women.
Your story is really beautiful, I enjoyed it from the very beginning to the end. I really like how you portrayed the two brothers and created some good in Flim and Flam. I'll be sure to check your other stories, thanks you for such a beautiful tale!
Excellent work. The Long Con indeed. As the brothers age and eventually reach that time when they can no longer trick bits out of unsuspecting widows and orphans, they can be assured of at least one honest and probably well-to-do relative to provide them safe haven in times of trouble, trauma, or rheumatism.
Dammit, bookplayer. Now I can't get Grandpa Joe singing that out of my head.
Normally, I prefer your Romance stories over your typical Slice of Life ones but this one struck a chord with me. It's sweet and funny.
7224471
The hell with Grandpa Joe--now I can't get Eric Cartman singing that out of my head
7224821
Eh, I'm an old fart (at least in Internet years). I prefer the classics.
Thank you for the good read. What a great appraisal of the Flim Flam brothers, and nice job keeping them true to their despicable nature and sympathetic at the same time. The ending is both clever and sad at the same time... I like how you didn't show for sure whether it was him just convincing his brother or if he had really internalized it in such a way.
7224320 son, if you've got some kind of problem with lesbians, might I suggest that you're probably in the wrong place?
7224357
Stories about lesbians are stories about people!
7225917 7225718
Ok, lesbians are people, but they cannot have children of they own. Gays, as well. And if they adopt and inspire the child to be gay too, he/she won't be able to have children, either.
That's why I am for "don't ask, don't tell". Maybe not only, but we have to be tolerant here.
7225966 You are aware that every single psychology review, and scientific study done. Has proven beyond any doubt what so ever that the children of gay/lesbian couples do not in fact ...paraphrasing your own words here "become gay". I might suggest you rethink your 'view' in light of the fact it has no basis in reality or science.
7225966 Don't look now, but 60% of lesbian identifying households in the San Francisco suburbs have children. Some of that is probably adoption, but most is probably children from previous encounters or artificial insemination... It's actually not that hard for lesbians to have kids.
Not to mention what 7226047 said.
So your concern for the future of the human race is... we'll go with "misplaced."
7225966
Not really how that works. Good on you for trying to be tolerant though. It can be a long road, and it requires a lot of learning and unlearning. Its one of those journeys that no one ever truly finishes, but sometimes we meet people that have traveled further, who might be worth listening to. I wish you luck on your travels.
7225966 No one can "inspire" someone to be gay, son. Gay isn't a learned behavior. Please leave the 20s, come join us in the 21st century.
Great story, though I wish Flim and Flam where more complex, they still seem to be Saturday morning villains while you made Twilight and Applejack much more complex. Flim is a bit more interesting but he still doesn't seem to really care that much either way in the end, he's just going through life.
Also, did they re-name the kid Shining Apple? I wonder if that's going to interfere with him finding his cutie mark later.
Wow, 7 reds so far! I'm honored. Not Aurora level yet, but still ^-^
7226047
I'd be grateful for a link on one, or better some stats like percentage of people from gay families becoming gay themselves, compared to average. Honestly, I'm not sure whether someone can now publish a study that paints gays in negative light, especially as even Secretary of the Army is now Eric Fanning.
7226145
Children from previous encounters - are like adopted for another partner. Artificial insemination - that's like having sex with random people to get pregnant, except without sex. Anyway, children go after parents, aren't they? So there will be no role model for a boy in lesbian family. Widowed families face same problem, but they're clearly not a norm.
7226152
To be honest for me "tolerance" reminds about "immune tolerance". In other words, "those gays/pedophiles/black people are people too, it is not really okay to shoot them on sight". And I won't. But when every newspaper shouts "this is norm" - it's not tolerance, it's propaganda.
7226183
Yeah, I've heard like "some children look and SUDDENLY understand that they want to be gay, or change gender, or something like that". But in my opinion most if not all studies on that subject don't take media coverage in this account. When everywhere is sail like "gays are creative", "lesbians are good" and "if you're heterophobe, you're outdated", children listen to it and get ideas.
7226421
People like you are why when people like me are growing up they need to..."""get ideas."""
Which, in the real world, means "realize they are not crushingly alone, or alien monsters, and maybe don't have to be absolutely terrified of coming out and accepting who they are and what about themselves they are physically unable to change. Only maybe, though, because people like you continue to exist despite all the science and research showing that they're wrong." But excuse me, not alienating kids for things about themselves that they can't change is propaganda.
Go ahead and hide behind your shield of 'the science is still out on this' all you want, buddy, everybody knows you're a bigot.
7224320 Hey, Aj and/or Twi might be Bisexual too, not just lesbian
7225966 Just because a child is raised by a same sex couple doesn't mean they will grow up to be a homosexual.
The human race will endure.
I'm crying.
Why am I crying.
Seriously. I'm just laying in bed and crying.
7226486 Okay, in Africa there are still tribes who practice cannibalism. Let's assume that some people in Europe also do. If they want to come out, then what? Will you scream "Monsters" at them? Or will you tolerate?
Okay, not so drastic example - zoophiles. Will you be tolerant to them? Or, maybe, that's not a psychological disorder, but genetically coded state of mind? Maybe it should not be frowned upon, and legalized instead? (Ignore that we're on MLP site and there are lots of smut HIE fics: ponies are at least intelligent, and there are no other humans there -) ).
Or, pedophiles. I've heard that pedophilia is said to be a gene-defined property, not a mental illness. Okay, assume it is. But will you tolerate pedophilia, if one of them molests your child? I certainly hope not. And when I see all of this fuss with gay pride and transsexual WCs and "toleration of unusual behavior" under my windows - I feel like this. And the best part is that there's 5% of LGBT people in US at most, but they make it look like that there's 50%, if not 500%.
BTW, 14 dislikes on first comment. Any more haters?
7226683
And here it comes -- comparing homosexuality to bestiality, pedophilia and effing cannibalism. I think that's the new Academy record!
Dude, you're not fooling anyone. Your brand of "But think of the kiddies / future of humanity!" concern trolling is an old hat. And your appeals to tolerance aren't clever, aren't relevant and aren't interesting. They're stale wannabe gotchas, and you're not impressing anyone here. Get lost, will you?
7226421
Well, only 48% of kids, as of 2014, live with both of their original parents. The rest of them are adopted, live with a step-parent (so, "like being adopted by the other parent,") or live with a single parent.
And apparently living with a single parent, or with two adults of the same gender, is bad because... all adults of the opposite gender cease to exist? It's totally impossible for them to have teachers, uncles, coaches, grandfathers, or friends parents as role models?
I mean, I'll join you in your bold, Anti-Amazonian stance against segregating kids away from all males, but the people we're talking about actually exist in our world, where there are plenty of potential role models of all genders who just don't happen to be having sex with their mom.
So... let's say this is true. Let's say lots of people are actually bisexual, and they've only been straight because it seemed cooler, but if they think it would be fun they can have sex with people of either gender. So showing them gay people might make them decide that's more fun.
SO WHAT?
Why do you care if they decide being gay sounds like fun? Your continuation of the species argument isn't panning out. No one is forcing anyone to be gay. If we lived in a world where absolutely everyone could pick partners for sex, romance, marriage, and childrearing from either gender, how would this affect you in any way?
7226683
You can hide behind your false equivalency shields all you want, too.
Have fun being the next generation's version of a racist grandpa.
7226421 Hoss, if that sort of thing were changeable, I'd have willed myself Bisexual by now. But I haven't. Y'know why? Because that can't happen.
7226683
Here's the thing about your slippery slope argument that always makes it fall really, really flat to most readers: you're completely ignoring the issue of consent.
Cannibalism: generally speaking, the person being eaten probably hasn't given their consent to be eaten.
Zoophilia: unless we're talking about magical pastel ponies in a fictional utopian society, I'm pretty sure most animals aren't considered capable of consent.
Pedophilia: seriously, why are we still having this conversation.
Contrast this with...
Homosexuality: two people who want to have sex are having sex. Or, <gasp>, two people who are the same gender aren't even having sex, they're just dating and kissing and enjoying romantic time together.
I mean yes, I get it, you don't like gay people. But if you're going to argue that our culture is hopelessly biased in favor of deviant lifestyles, could you please try to find some compelling arguments that I can't shoot down in under two minutes?
Dangit, I feel like this deserves a sad tag for Flim and Flam. It's touching, and I would love to see what happens in 20 years, but he should have gone for that mailbox!
Also, decent title, but I would have gone with "All in the Flamily."
I reviewed this story as part of Read It Now #78!
My review can be found here.
7226421 I actually studied about the topic at my university because it has these topics in the studies as subjects. And well after reading a lot of the replies well how to put it....
Can all of you stop talking fallacies?
Ad hominem
Ad verecundiam
These are always the most used in these kind of debates.
Besides he has fair points, and rather than argumenting in the right way you decide to attack or give bad examples. Guys, face it a woman can't be a man and a man can't be a woman. They can act like one but at the ed is fake, is like trying to say that a common rock is a gem after doing a few things to it. Now I'm marked as a racist, discriminator or perhaps homophobic? But you ever wondered why you think like that? A person who is arguing against these things is marked as an everything bad that should be avoided, have you ever bothered to think why you think like that? You obviously didn't start to think like that out of the blue did you?
Then the commonly answer is love is unknown or love can come in many shapes, then before you can say that please answer me what is love?
If you thought Love is a feeling then you are wrong from that very point. According to real studies about the topic and not whatever thing the society or the internet tells you love is an art that must be learnt and practiced. And from there love is divided in many branches that divide it in types of love.
Now then comes the thing about equality, guys equality is already there. They can have a decent job, a decent house, decent food, same rights. You know something? Sometimes the worst thing that you can do is give them exactly what they want.
Also something that really shocked me to no end is this argument that is taught in some schools, you don't know your sexual preferences until you have proved them.
Seriously WTF
Wait you want more?
To be blunt my PERSONAL opinion about this whole thing is that homosexuality is only a mean to promote and sell sex to people.
Now with that said good work author the story is good sadly people take this to other levels that its main reason wasn't that in the first place.
7227483
Actually, what I'm really wondering is why you think it's important to comment on my story about this. The "debate" was over a long time ago, decades before I published this story. Your side lost. There are lesbian and bisexual women with kids.
I have no problem with you. I was just trying to help you out, since your
sock puppetfriend with a suspiciously similar name, writing style, and zero account activity in well over a year seemed to think it was still going on.Very nice story! I honestly didn't expect this touching, somewhat somber ending and was mostly expecting a comedic backfiring of epic proportions on Flim and Flam. The actual resolution rings true and feels totally natural while still unexpected. Impressive!
Flim and Flam's banter and back-and-forth are spot-on too. Their characterization is a real highlight of the story, and giving them a little extra background as career con-artists whose trade runs in their family is a very nice touch. This one is going on the ol' Favorites shelf.
He drank strong waters and his speech was coarse;
He purchased raiment and forbore to pay;
He stuck a trusting junior with a horse,
And won gymkhanas in a doubtful way.
Then, 'twixt a vice and folly, turned aside
To do good deeds -- and straight to cloak them, lied.
Interesting. You gave him a Han Solo moment--and then sort of yanked it back when you had him rationalize it as a long con. Who was he rationalizing it to, I wonder? Himself? His brother? Was he even rationalizing it at all?
The questions make me ask a larger one: do Han Solos even exist?
The good-hearted rogue, the fellow who'll lie, cheat, steal, seduce and abandon but, when it comes to the crunch, do the right thing. Is he real or just a myth? Because in real life I've found that somebody who's a jerk 364 days a year will be a jerk on Christmas Eve too. And even if he isn't he's still got that 364-to-1 ratio going. That's kinda defining.
But we all want to believe: You're clear, kid--now let's blow this thing so we can all go home! How they cheered. How I cheered. If the type disappeared from fiction we'd be a lot poorer.
If they aren't really real, then, goodhearted rogues can still be great to tell stories about. Like unicorns.
7227699
I find it's not uncommon for bad people to have a category of people they won't be jerks to. Mothers, family in general, or friends who have "earned it" are popular choices. It's up there with "but I had a good reason" in terms of how they avoid thinking of themselves as "bad people."
It's always been one of my favorite details that, as foils for the Apples, Film and Flam are also family (and seemingly close, given their habit of finishing each other's sentences and "brother o' mine" stuff.) I like to think that's genuine, and that's their line: ponies are marks, but family is different.
As for the rationalization, I think it's for both of them, to reassure themselves that their current life choices are still superior, and properly consider the kid as family.
7227841
Very true, and I've observed it in history myself. It's rather depressing how many hideous men were decent fathers and husbands.
But now we're talking about Tony Soprano rather than Han Solo.
I've been banging my head against my keyboard for hours trying to find the most polite way of saying I didn't like this story. I have considered that this was for a contest, and that there was a time, theme and word limit, so I don't think that all of the criticisms that I have would be fair. I will say that I liked the interaction between Flim and Flam—although I'm not sure Flim's personal characterization was very good—and it provided some good worldbuilding, characterization and potential for tension. Aside from that, though, the story felt really sparse in every other way—which I attribute to the word limit.
But considering a) I didn't participate in this particular Write-Off, b) the majority of my criticisms could be attributed to the word & time limit, c) this topic is something different and has something important to talk about, and d) the biggest criticism I have can be considered a nitpick and not related to the main part of the story, I'm going to avoid going too in-depth with my comment. I just wanted to comment that I did read it, and it wasn't for me. I apologize for that.
I wish you success with your future endeavors!
that ending reminds me of Jesse and James from Team Rocket. One brother's got a heart of Gold, the other has a good heart, but it's buried under heaps of nasty.
7227592 Honestly, Book... your fans are insane. Where do you find them?
It's always very inspiring to see such heated debates in comments sections. It's nice to know people still care about issues.
7227941
Well, consider what's the key thing about Han Solo in the movies: he changes.
He starts off as a mercenary scoundrel only interested in getting paid. He cares about his ship and Chewie, but that's it; he scorns the Force, sees the Empire as nothing but an obstacle to be worked around, and Rebellion as risky foolishness. Yet at the end of the first movie, he -- after having been paid handsomely for his part in saving Leia -- comes back to help.
Han never goes back to being that scoundrel he started off as. He grows to care about the Rebellion and the Rebels, joining their idealistic crusade even though it means he's now hunted by the Empire and Jabba's bounty hunters. Sure, his personality doesn't change much; he's still cocky, impulsive, daring, overconfident and cynical. But who he is, in relation to the rest of the universe, changes completely.
7225966 You can't inspire a child to be any sexual orientation. They either are or they aren't. Closest thing to what you're suggesting is when people confuse bisexuals like myself for being 'turned gay' or 'turned straight', out of ignorance, but that's a different ball of wax altogether, since people like you like to pretend we don't exist at all.
7225966 Oh god... I thought this shit was nearly over after two years of fighting against it.... instead I just find that it's spread to Fimfiction. IS NOTHING SACRED ANYMORE!?
7227699
I think 7228777 nailed it; Han Solos do exist, but they're the lovable rogues who go straight and stop being criminals. Being a criminal requires a fundamental disregard for the well-being of other people; Han Solos are the people who go to the brink, or maybe beyond it, and then change and decide to become better people because they've seen over the edge or simply realized that they aren't very good people, no matter what they say to themselves.
Though I suppose there's always kleptomaniacs.
7226706
Interestingly, it doesn't seem like this is a major issue to begin with. It is pretty well established at this point that children living in divorced single parent households are significantly worse off than children living in two parent households. However, children of widows and widowers do much better that children of those who break up with their partners, suggesting that the actual cause probably isn't the lack of an extra parent so much as it is the general stability of the household and stability of the parent.
So, kids probably don't need a mother and a father, and can make do with just one - the thing is, they need to be a responsible, stable human being. If you have two parents, one of them not being the best can probably be compensated for a bit. If you only have one, and they're a screw-up, you're pretty much hosed.