Thoughts of Joy

But someone has to pay for it, and this rich guy says he'll pay for the soup if he gets to attach a business card to each of the bowls. And that's okay, kinda, because it means you don't have to pay for it.

And THAT. That should be how things end up. But they don't stop there.

Soon business card guy gives the soup guy some extra money and starts putting business cards IN the soup. And, like, little pebbles with his name on them.

And then the soup guy takes "don't be evil" off his list of commitments and starts peeing in the soup, and the business card guy pays him some more extra money and puts hidden cameras up to spy on the people eating the piss soup.

but by now there's so much of their soup everywhere that you kind of have to eat it. If you're not eating soup from soup guy, then you're getting dinner from chicken wing guy who is also getting paid to have cameras watch you eat the business cards stuffed into the wings. And pissing on them, probably. And between them and the burger gang, they take up so much of the surface area nobody else can put much food out.

Anyway it's especially frustrating because there is a stage in there where it's working for everybody. Everybody gets what they want at one point in this process, and by all rights it should just. stay. there.

Right when it all really comes together, it works. We get the free soup, which is decent and piss-free with no business cards shoved directly into it. Business card guy gets his business card attached to every bowl, and it boosts his business. And soup guy gets to be known as the one giving out all this free soup while making a decent living taking payment from business card guy.

1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.

2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.

3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.

4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.

5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.

Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.

I also feel like The Shoelace President is Obama but I'm curious what Tumblr at large thinks