If you're writing anything involving cons, scams, heists, or morally questionable characters who are very good at lying, here are some free resources I've been using for research. Saving you the "why is this in my search history" anxiety.
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.
Reblog to save for later. Your WIP will thank you.
sometimes you just have to stop and think about how they threw the Queen of Arendelle in the dungeon… (with perfectly fitting glove handcuffs) (did she have them prepared just in case??)
last colour key set for 2025 (off to thailand woo)
i needed to get the subway one done there's something so funny to me about getting ur ass beat in front of ur own fashion mag cover ad
ALSO it has probably been noted before BUT PLEASE they better make a pun about the VISUAL being named MIRA vis-à-vis spanish translation ie mira = look, Mira me = look at me
edit: close up of our girl Not having a fergalicious time since tumblr compressed the detail out of it
she's my fav i swear
Shoutout to the creative team/ netflix putting out the artbook for free tho
anyway the line "Mira has a chip on her shoulder and has to learn that she has nothing to prove and every right to her own destiny" IS INTERESTING. ELABORATE ON THAT GUYS (i sure have been lol it's basically the narrative point of my little project)
Also gumiho is chained by the honmoon i got nothing else
Gumiho is ancient like 200 bc so outfit not a joeseon hanbok more like goguryeo-esque. I'm not a writer so imagine Gumiho speaks in super old dialect
(G: i am chained yet you, Hunter, are the one to cower in fear
M: they say gumiho bewitch people, kill and eat them
G: ahaha i have seen your kind throw themselves at mountains on high in the vain attempt to conquer the peak. each time they perished or were turned back, yet still they continued in their obsession. are you to tell me these mountains bewitched these humans? no, only your kind seem incapable of gazing upon wild beauty without desiring to control it
M: So you don't kill?
G: indeed i did, and you would too, were you I)
IDK i just love themes of nature (and personifications of nature) being amoral ie the mountain doesn't care if you're right or wrong, good or bad. you survive it you don't conquer it. A monster (human or creature) might kill you, but the cold will.
anyway i hope in a sequel we get more references to korean folklore/history (look up the YEONGNO), would love to see og landscape painting like this rough ones i did below used for like, a spirit/honmoon world
Anywho below the cut are all the colour keys from previous posts (thank you for all the love you guys have given these, saving me from a quarter life crisis hahaha) since having them spread out across several posts was annoying meeee
Edit: also below are notes of the themes/ plot/ vibe of my imagined sequel for those seeing this for the first time (elaborations are on the previous posts)
if the first movie has "not all demons are evil" then i'd looove the next one to be "not all evil is demonic"
aka the chekov's gun that is Mira's family can't just not be developed
if we do get one i'd hope they go for a different plot structure/ genre-vibe personally i'd have on them going on like a global Hunt like a conspiracy thriller or smth since it can't be just Seal the Honmoon again so humans could willingly make deals w Gwi-ma - not a jinu gotcha situation but fully like yep dealing w the devil here
Say for example a construction tycoon orchestrates a dam collapse under the guise of negligence/accident and pledges the souls of the dead to gwi-ma in exchange for unmitigated expansion etc
mainly just getting into a more grey area that hunters past never had to deal w (or maybe couldn't????)
ultimately if we don't get an underground masquerade party scene where huntr/x rocks imugi, gumiho and derpy outfits and have to search through the crowd to find the real demon amongst the fakes then what's the point
i mean it's called kp demon HUNTERS (not warriors or fighters or smth) like c'mon go crazy w the relentless predator vibes
druglord pledges the souls of the people they poison in for legal immunity etc)
also MAJOR THEMES of trying&failing to escape the past - becoming what you fear/hate on the path taken to avoid it
reconciling w a legacy you never wanted
oh the things we do for love (psycho things)
hey i just think that there's a lot you can do w a character like mira who loves so deeply and knows what it's like to go w/o iti
m just a sucker for characters who have to go back to a past they swore they'd leave behind
would love it to be a present/ past situation like mamma mia 2
for the whole i want/need character thing (rumi = patterns gone/ self acceptance etc) i feel like Mira already has that in her girls SO to have an active protagonist there can be a THREAT from her Past that disrupts her Present which cannot stand
also please let there be spirits not just demons they didn't seal the honmoon they made it rainbow whatever that means just let me have a gumiho
Lightning Round! here's a bunch of concepts that i won't properly elaborate on!
-trying & failing to escape the past - becoming what you fear/hate on the path taken to avoid it - THE HORROR of becoming your parents
-faustian bargains, except it's the souls of others not your own
-Power dynamics ie stories abt family often have parents/ elders in main position of authority + power ie succession, so what happens when the child is a global kpopstar/ OP demon hunter in her own right?
-qualities ie persistance, intelligence, relentlessness, confidence & how they manifest positively or neg depending on the person
knowing that a coping mechanism isn’t good for you doesn’t mean you won’t fall back on it when things get tough… maybe the gloves work, maybe they don’t. but at least they’re giving Elsa a bit of suppression self-restriction discipline security when everything feels too much
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