ILL GO, ILL GO, ILL GO, ILL GO, ILL GO. SHIT

Nine of Swords reversed and Three of Wands

kramer: see that? she platemogged you

george: platemogged? what does that mean?

kramer: look at her plate. expertly stacked, filled it with as much as she could put on there. and you... ? (gestures at george's plate)

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 think engaging in fandom and fan culture would be genuinely extremely constructive for secunit

Like yes it would get insanely frustrated over bad takes and fanon it disagrees with (to the point of hacking to find out the sci fi equivelent of peoples email addresses and signing them up for spam messages if it REALLY hates their take) but consider:

communication and engagement over the feed, no eye contact or stress about being discovered

shared topic of interest so it doesn't have to stress to find what to say nearly as much

Its feelings of media making it feel more like a person, of how its easier to care about fictional humans than real ones, and learning so much from its favorite media would not be alone, there would be connection and understanding with others, and maybe even learn other reasons the media it loves means a lot to people. Both validation and gaining new perspectives in a safe way