"You have the heart of a pharaoh."

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.

And a painting is just chemicals on a canvas.

Music is vibrations through the air.

Your condescending snark is also a chemical reaction in your brain (as are all human thoughts and feelings).

the same thing happened over those rapes a few months ago, in the name of protecting women and children. you do not care about women and children. this is the same population with one of the highest femicide rates in europe – the perpetrators of which are almost always white men – and yet you don't riot over that. you only riot when it gives you an excuse to profile entire racial groups and harm innocent people.

Yeah. Yiiiikes. They also moved some settings from Web and App Activity settings to uhm. I don't know I think it's to the new Search Services History settings where the media saving setting is.

[Transcript:] If your saved media is used to train our AI models, it is disconnected from your Google Account. This training data will be kept for up to 4 years, even if you delete the original activity. [End transcript. ]

Oh great I have no control over it haha that's great /sarc

Google also has this to say (from this article):

[Begin quote:] We take your privacy seriously and take steps to protect it when using your Search Services History data to train our AI models. For example, data is disconnected from your Google Account before it is used to train our AI models or reviewed by our trained service providers. We will seek your permission before sharing your media with these providers for human review as part of the model improvement process. We use filters designed to automatically remove a broad range of identifying info or sensitive personal information. We are constantly working to improve our filtering and safety systems to better protect your privacy. When Search Services History is off, your future activity won't be used to train Google’s generative AI models, unless you provide feedback. [End quote. ]

:/.

Thankfully, you can turn this off. Under the cut is a tutorial for doing this, as well as more (I'd say rather important) info about this media-saving feature. If I've missed anything (especially since the wording on Google makes it seem to me that this may be one of several new features), do feel free to add onto this!

Like sugar, wedding dresses and basic literacy, the luxury of a skinny, petite physique, unmarred by the rigours of physical labour, the kind of work that peasants do because they have to, is something that people aspired to centuries ago. Like elaborate clothes and long hair and nails, it was a sign that you had other people to do that work for you and that you were wealthy enough to do nothing all day. That we still enforce this as a standard of beauty for women is a whole Thing, an outdated kind of performative impracticality.

Nah.

They be warped genderbent versions of these guys:

Mischief and ragebait galore

Friendship is magic Twilight Sparkle.

Also:

Convince me otherwise.

I don't know man. I'm a sucker for AU's where Gary and Ash coexist with Green and Red so sue me.

And you cannot tell me Ash is like Pokespe Red because Yellow is RIGHT THERE.

With the friendship is magic imma level you up to 80 from pure love alone because I believe in you.

AND THEN THERE’S THE AURA SHIT. YELLOW IS BASICALLY A PSYCHIC AURA WIELDING POKEDEX HOLDER OF THE VIRIDIAN FOREST. LIKE ASH'S AURA GUARDIAN LUCARIO SHIT PLUS THE EMOTIONAL BULLSHIT OF GRENINJA'S BOND PHENOMENON.

AND SHE HAS A GODDAMN PIKACHU.

IT SAYS ASH ALL OVER IT YALL. AND YELLOW'S SECOND CATCH IS QUITE LITERALLY CATTERPIE LIKE ASH.

Plus Ash's first cross dress disguise had him have YELLOW HAIR.

And Blue (F). Don't get me fucking started. It’s more of a headcanon more than anything because I made Gary a lot more mischievous then the usual must-be-better-than-rival schtique.

Besides, with Ash's other regional rivals, it does feel as though Gary is the third wheel if he were to be on screen with Ash's other rivals. Since the main rival wouldn't be Gary anymore. Like if Ash, Paul, and Gary were to be put in the same room, Paul would be Green (M), technically Ash would be Red alongside being Yellow, then who's Gary?

FUCKING BLUE. HE MOCKS PEOPLE LIKE HER TOO C'MON.

Blue (F) is a clever lady with thief-like tendencies and can con people by baiting and tricking them into handing her their shit. Gary is a smug little fucker that goads people into making mistakes by mocking them in the most extra way possible with a convertible with cheerleaders to get them to improve and challenge him like a little shit.

Menaces. The two of them.

And since I sorta gave Gary a Ditto for reasons and Blue already has a Blastoise I said okay, why not?

I will say that Blue is a lot more lighthearted than Gary and Gary is a bit more of an edgelord with tricking people. Not in a sense that Gary has been through more shit, because Blue's backstory is a LOT, but in a sense he plays a dark rival persona in contrast to Blue's innocent girl please help me persona so Gary plays the part to be overestimated and intimidating while Blue plays the part of being underestimated and approachable.

Plus Gary would look sick as fuck in an all black dress. I made it his disguise with his Ditto.

And Blue and Gary are opposites in a sense where Blue was raised outside the system without anything to stand on while Gary is born in the system with prestige with a shit ton of expectations.

But both are Evolvers and Rivals in a sense they strive to improve.

Just in VERY different directions. And reasons.

So is Ash and Yellow.

Yellow heals pokemon through connection while Ash believes in pokemon through connection.

Welcome to my bullshit. I love pokespe so sue me.

Yellow is technically based on Ash. It isn't a coincidence that they line up so well.

Each arc is loosely based on a game, with Yellow being very loosely based on Pokemon Yellow. While the plot itself is original, they still clearly took bits from it such as surfing Pikachu and being able to see Pikachu's emotions on the Pokedex.

The Yellow video game was based on the anime, as the anime had gotten so big. It added a lot of Pikachu gimmicks (Pikachu being your starter, the following Pikachu, reading it's emotion, surfing Pikachu) to match Ash and his Pikachu as well as some other details such as changing some of the grunts to be Jessie and James.

Red had already gone through his journey in the RBG arc, so they made Yellow to fill the protagonist role in the Yellow arc.

Also, Game!Red's default name in the Yellow video game is literally "Ash."

In making a protagonist for the Yellow arc, which is based on the Yellow video game, which is based on the anime, they are making someone who is at least partially based on Ash.

It wouldn't surprise me if Yellow's first Pokemon she caught on her own being Caterpie was a reference to Ash.

In honor of us working toward our next stretch goal, an original FLY theme song, I wanted to share the playlist that helped shape the story while I was developing it.

A lot of these songs became part of FLY’s DNA. They helped me find the story and the feeling of freedom at the heart of Eli’s journey.

Any theories about which songs inspired certain moments?