#Caffrey Conversation

[penna-nomen]

Festive fics - twelve days of Christmas

Spread some holiday cheer and self rec your festive fics. Can be Winter, Holiday, or Christmas fics.

Thanks for the tag @a-noble-dragon! You tagged me right after I'd started wondering if 11 years of writing fanfic has led to a dozen holiday fics. And if I include stories my dear co-writer @silbrith has contributed to our joint series, there really are 12 stories.

So my plan is to post a link to one story per day! All of these are in the White Collar fandom.

Day 1: Caffrey Conversation -- the first story in the Caffrey Conversation series, this story is set mostly in early December, and one of my favorite bits is loopy, feverish Neal singing "The Little Drummer Boy" and getting confused in the chorus, unable to find his way back to the final verse

[silbrith]

For Dragon Lovers

National Appreciate a Dragon Day on January 16 is for the dragon lovers of the world. Count me as one of them! I've written about dragons in three of my fanfic series—Six-Crossed Knot, Tales from the Library, and Arkham Files—and even managed to sneak them into Caffrey Conversation. My preference is for lovable dragons with plenty of personality. I have no interest in reading about such magnificent creatures being killed. You won't be surprised that The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman and All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness rank high in my story recommendations. True, the dragon in All Souls Trilogy is actually a firedrake, but that's close enough.

Other recs:

Tales from Verania (5-book series) by T.J. Klune

Guards! Guards! (Discworld) by Terry Pratchett

Champion of the Scarlet Wolf (2-book series) by Ginn Hale

Dragon's Egg Blue by @penna-nomen. In my post about werewolves, I'd already recommended this gem of a Discworld fanfic. It's a must-read for dragon lovers too!

Smaug in The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien gets an honorable mention since he has personality in spades. I do wish he'd turned over a new leaf. Couldn't Gandalf have gotten to him before he became such a destroyer?

Who are your favorite dragons?

A special shout-out to @penna-nomen on her birthday! May all the dragons in your life be as adorable as Bonnie!

[penna-nomen]

Fascinating analysis, and it hits on something I've been thinking about in my White Collar fic. People often describe Neal as having the impulsiveness of a child. Some of that, I think, is because he lives in the moment, plus acting on whim makes it harder for people to catch him. Plus he has Mozzie to rely on for actual planning... Anyway, I've heard Neal described as Peter Pan, and a line from canon that sticks with me and breaks my heart is when he says he can't be a true artist because he doesn't know who he is.

What I think is happening in my AU is that he's growing up. He has the time, the space, and the safety to learn who he is. He's putting down roots. He's moving from being Peter Pan to being Wendy. And while Peter Pan impulsive Neal is fun, I'm happy to see him reach his full potential. And that makes Peter Burke happy, too! Wendified Neal is going to stick around and be a life-long friend.

Everyone always wants to talk about Hook or Pan. Everyone always wants to debate which one is good and which is evil - who we’re supposed to follow and who we aren’t. The Peter Pan mythos has pretty much shrunk down to nothing but Hook and Pan (Hook, SyFy’s Neverland, Pan, OUAT, etc). Occasionally Tinkerbell factors in (Hook, Disney’s Tinkerbell, OUAT, etc). There’s one character, however, that always gets sidelined - which is puzzling since they are the main character of both the play and the book. That character is, of course, Wendy Darling.

Peter Pan is Wendy’s coming of age story. Wendy who decides to run away from home. Wendy who realizes that she must grow up - and that there’s no shame in that. Wendy who sees Peter as deficient and sees Hook as empty and decides that, no, she doesn’t want to be a part of that. Wendy gets the adventure she’s always wanted and she turns away because she realizes that it’s lacking. She’s the only one who truly sees the hollowness of being young forever. Barrie even says “You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than other girls.”

People always debate on who the hero is. When they learn that Peter could be horrid they assume it has to be Hook. Of course, the answer is that neither of them are the hero. Wendy is the hero of the story. You’re not supposed to be like Peter, who kept every good and bad aspects of being a child and can’t tell right from wrong. You’re not supposed to be Hook, either. He let go of everything childish and loving about him and became bitter and evil. They’re both the extreme ends of the scale. You’re supposed to fall in the middle, to hold onto the things about childhood that make it beautiful - the wonder, the imagination, the innocence - while still growing up and learning morality and responsibility. You’re not supposed to be Hook. You’re not supposed to be Peter Pan.

You’re supposed to be Wendy Darling. 

[penna-nomen]

Merry Christmas White Collar fans!

I'm thrilled to announce that the White Collar fanfic I've been working on since March is finally complete, with all 7 chapters of Overcomplications posted!

The title accurately describes the writing process. I'm very grateful to beta reader @silbrith for helping me tame the story. This is a twisty tale featuring a heist planned over Thanksgiving. There are some nods to Christmas, as the mansion is being decorated at the end of the story. Much of the story is told from the POV of the women of White Collar, specifically Sara, Diana, and Lauren. I was inspired by Ocean's 8, wanting to feature the women, to pass the Bechdel test, and to pull of a heist.

Did I have any idea how complicated heist stories are? No. No, I did not. Fortunately Mary Robinette Kowal offered a class on structuring heist stories earlier this year.

I posted several of the first stories in the Caffrey Conversation series over the holidays in 2013, writing them to get through a difficult time in my own life. Since then I've tried to post something around Christmas each year, for people who need a distraction -- whether it's from grief or from overwhelm during the holidays or something else. Hopefully this story provides some respite, whenever you happen to be reading it.

[silbrith]

A Day for Geeks

Pi Day is a holiday created by and meant for geeks. Held on March 14, it celebrates the mathematical constant π (pi). In honor of the occasion, I'd like to give a shout-out to my favorite fictional geeks:

Spock in Star Trek Illya Kuryakin in The Man from U.N.C.L.E Samantha Carter in Stargate SG-1 Gibby in The Extraordinaries (T.J. Klune) Colin in The San Andreas Shifters (G.L. Carriger) Kiram in Lord of the White Hell (Ginn Hale) Mozzie in White Collar

And I can't end without mentioning two OCs I created who'll always have a soft spot in my heart -- Travis and Aidan in Caffrey Conversation. Happy Pi Day!

Tagging anyone who'd like to celebrate their favorite geeks!

[penna-nomen]

trick or treat! 🎃

Thank you so much! Do you remember the episode of White Collar where Neal and Sara go on an extravagant spending spree? We get a moment in the loft where he's strumming a gold guitar.

In the fic I'm working on, there's a crystal-covered guitar that's part of a heist.

[silbrith]

Lady with a Hellhound

You could call Crossed Lines a fix-it series. It places the Supernatural characters from roughly the start of their second canon season into the world of Caffrey Conversation. Thanks to @penna-nomen's series, Neal and Mozzie are on their way to much brighter futures. In Crossed Lines, Dean, Sam, Bobby, and yes, Crowley too, all have a chance as well.

One character has been pleading entry for quite a while, and that's Crowley's hellhound Juliet. She appeared in a couple of canon episodes but was very disappointed with her role. Juliet pointed out I'd already laid the groundwork for her arrival. Crowley's already displayed his affinity for dogs. Doesn't he need one of his own?

Juliet gets her chance in Lady with a Hellhound.

Happy Holidays, all!

[matt-murdockk]

hilarious white collar moment in 4x13 where diana goes undercover as a cigar girl and ends up interviewing a suspect and later they're all in the office listening to the recording and collectively decide that they can't be arresting this guy cause he seems nice

[penna-nomen]

This is my fic-writing origin story

when no one has written the exact fic to scratch a very specific emotional itch and you absolutely do not have time to write it yourself but you still want to read it dammit

[whatsagirltoblogabout]

Me: I haven’t read a Caffrey Conversation fic in a while, maybe I’ll just dip my toe back in a little-

*6 fics later*

Sleep, you say? What’s that?

[penna-nomen]

Seven Sentences Sunday on a Monday

thanks for tagging me @a-noble-dragon!

In honor of your mustache theme, I'm going to feature Peter from White Collar, in a scene I'm working on for my fic Overcomplications

“Could I borrow the babymobile?” he asked, referring to the Burke family’s new SUV.

“I’ll drive the babymobile,” Peter said.

“You don’t strike me as the wheelman type,” Ellen said doubtfully.

“He is,” said Neal, Henry, Diana, and Jones.

Diana grinned and added, “I can’t tell you how many times he mentioned acing his evasive driving training at Quantico.”

“He’s a terror behind the wheel,” Neal concurred.

“Enough,” Peter said decisively. “I’ll get the crystals where they need to be, but how are we smuggling them out of the mansion?”

I couldn't find a gif of the scenes of Peter with a mustache, so let's see him driving instead

Tagging any fic writer fans who want to share something they're writing

[penna-nomen]

Me writing White Collar fic -- exactly 10 years!

Finding a new favorite fictional character is like, will you be temporary or will you become a permanent part of my personality for the next 10 years?

[silbrith]

Pirates of Manhattan

Neal Caffrey has visited New Orleans once before. In Voodoo Remoulade, a doubloon cursed by the pirate Jean Lafitte, along with a vampire nest, almost wrecked his plans to celebrate Mardi Gras. Sara's never been to New Orleans, and when Neal suggested taking her there to celebrate her birthday, he didn't expect lightning to strike twice. Peter probably wouldn't be so optimistic if only he knew about Neal's previous misadventure.

Pirates of Manhattan on AO3

[buckxtommy]

nothing will ever convince me what neal caffrey and peter burke had was platonic like. that show is everything but a straight fbi procedural let me tell you

–the day peter catches neal for the second time, he remembers the suit peter was wearing almost 4 years ago, the day he arrested neal for the first time. in another episode, neal points out that peter got a new suit. this guy has either plenty of suits or a few suits that look pretty much identical. what do you mean you know his wardrobe like that?? why do you care ??? (rhetorical question. i know why. neal caffrey i know what you are)

– neal never once shuts up about peter like he is physically incapable of doing so. "he's like the superman without powers." (raising his glass) "to peter burke. the man who we want to be more like." & the whole conversation between him and scott (the young conman/robin hoodie) when neal tried to convince him to turn himself in. "this is not about me. this is about peter burke. he's the smartest man i've ever met. he caught me, he will catch you." "no one's that good." "but he is, scott."

– similarly peter being constantly amazed by neal's tricks ('guess the number' game, forging signatures etc) and the way he operates when they're on a mission. peter "couldn't have done it without neal." burke i know what you are too

– the most giddy and happiest neal has been throughout the entire series is when peter calls him partner for the first time

– remember how heartbroken neal was when peter said "you failed me"?? he cared less about being in jail/being falsely incriminated and more about what peter thought of him

– when peter confronts kate for the first time, he promises to get her what she wants (the music box) in exchange for letting neal go and not playing with his emotions anymore and then kate asks him the million-dollar question, "why would you do that?" like yeah?? why would he?? at that point neal was just a criminal he locked up twice and they barely knew each other back then. yet he says "because he's good. he's the smartest man i've ever met." after that, he asks her if she ever really loved neal like it's any of his business. i'm

– whatever the fuck this is:

– neal risks jail time & his life for peter more times than anyone can count (changing the federal judge's incriminating tape with a blank one, falsifying evidence in order to get peter out of jail etc). the conman, who has done everything in his life for money and his own personal gain, who never gets close to people because he knows he lives on borrowed time, gives up 2.5 million dollar ring to save the man he's not at all in love with. and he doesn't even try to take credit for it. whilst not gay

–peter canonically listened to neal's daily horoscope on the radio. peter. listened to. neal's daily horoscope. fellas is it gay

– the way they look at each other actually make me nauseous bc what the fuck !!!!!!!

[ejzah]

A/N: Since I’m still thinking of Neal revealing more of his past to Peter, here’s a little fic on that topic. Yes I’m, shockingly, taking a tiny detour from my usual fandom. Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon.

***

The Conman Revealed

Peter has known for some times that Neal didn’t exactly come from a stable family. Most people didn’t end up criminals because they had a happy childhood. Plus, there were the various kernels dropped over the years, dolled out almost like strange gifts or slips of the tongue.

He’d never graduated high school, his dad was a dirty cop, and on it went. A part of Peter had wondered if some of these details were the complete truth or just another example of Neal Caffrey creating his own legend. He could usually tell when Neal was being completely earnest though; not to mention Neal didn’t reveal more than the bare minimum in those moments.

So, Peter sits at a crappy picnic table, eating his fancy takeout, and listens to Neal unravel his past. Neal’s voice is a little softer and quieter than usual, even though it’s just the two of them out here. Peter knew this would be a difficult conversation, but didn’t anticipate how vulnerable Neal woul be.

“When my dad went away, my mom just checked out. I mean, she was around, but she wasn’t around, so Ellen looked after me,” Neal says. His eyes shift from Peter to just beyond and then back again.

It takes Peter a moment to process Neal’s revelation, and another to decided it doesn’t make sense.

“Well, how could she look after you if you she was in witne—” breaks offs, and now Neal looks him in the eye, his look knowing as he lets Peter put the pieces together himself. “You grew up in witness protection,” Peter says, and Neal nods, his voice a little rougher when he confirms,

“I was three when the marshals took us away.”

Everything makes sense now: Neal’s ability to create new peronas, to live those personas so vividly, his strange mix of self-preservation and extreme recklessness. His impressive ability with firearms; Peter smiles a little when he thinks of that particular skill.

In the following weeks, Peter learns a little bit more each day about Neal’s childhood. He’s slightly more open now that the biggest secret is out in the open and Ellen shares bits and pieces with the kind of calculation that makes Peter believe she must have been an excellent cop. He even sees signs of Neal’s shrewdness in her.

One morning a couple weeks after Neal’s revelation, they’re set up in Peter’s office with a stack of fraud cases. Every so often, Neal throws often a question or observation, which Peter makes note of. It’s not the most riveting work, and Peter finds his mind wandering back to Neal, his parents, Ellen.

“What’s stumping you? You’ve been staring for the last five minutes,” Neal says, catching Peter off-guard.

He hadn’t even realized he’d been staring or that Neal had noticed. Peter briefly considers deflecting, but quickly shuts that notion down. They’re trying to be more honest with each other, even if it’s not always pleasant.

“I thinking about what you said about being on WITSEC. If your mom was dealing with her own issues and I assume Ellen was working some of the time, what did you do during the day? Who took care of you?” Peter asks as neutrally as he can.

Neal doesn’t bother looking up from his file. “You’ve been talking to Ellen,” he surmises and Peter shrugs, not denying it.

“She tells some pretty good stories.”

“What do you want to know Peter?” Closing the file, Neal sits back with his arms crossed, perturbed but not completely closed off. That’s a good sign.

Peter sets his own work to the side since it’s not like he was making any progress with his thoughts on Neal’s past.

“Between what you and Ellen have shared, it sounds like you were left to your own devices a lot,” Peter starts, approaching the topic carefully. Even so, Neal visibly bristles.

“Ellen did the best she could,” he objects emphatically. The fact his mom isn’t included in that defense doesn’t go unnoticed.

“I’m sure she did.” Peter holds up a hand to head Neal off before he gets too worked up. “I didn’t mean anything against her. I can tell she cares about you a lot.”

That seems to mollify Neal for the moment and he sighs, rubbing his forehead. “Sorry. Touchy subject.” He smiles, maybe at the understatement. “Ellen tried to take care of me as much as she could, but she did have to work and especially when my mom,” he sighs again. “Sometimes my mom could barely even brush her own hair. She wasn’t in any state to take care of an energetic little boy, so I figured out how to do things for myself when she couldn’t.”

“That had to be a lot of responsibility for a kid.”

“Well, I didn’t have a lot of options.” Neal says with a shrug, his eyes softening with a combination of fondness and melancholy. “I remember when I was seven, there was one day that Ellen had to go into work early, and mom was still asleep. There wasn’t anything ready to eat, so I pulled a chair up to the stove and started making eggs for both us. Mom came out about halfway through. I thought she’d be so proud of me, but she was furious—in restrospect I realize she was terrified I would burn myself or set the apartment on fire—and told me to never touch the stove or oven without an adult around.”

Peter feels profound sadness and a touch of disquiet as Neal finishes the story with a slight smirk, which looks somewhat genuine. He conceals his reaction, knowing that Neal will not appreciate pity or worse, horror, in this moment.

“So what did you do?”

“I learned how to use the toaster and be a lot quieter until I was about ten and she randomly decided I was old enough to handle open flames without supervision,” Neal says, like it makes perfect sense, and Peter sees a little bit more of how the conman was born.

“I imagine you got pretty good at pulling the wool over adults’ eyes wherever you went,” he observes. For once, Neal doesn’t take it as a compliment.

“I had to if I wanted to stay with mom, and Ellen. I mean, it wasn’t like I was being hurt, I just didn’t have anyone around some days or mom wouldn’t have signed the paperwork for a field trip, so I learned to do it for her. My crimes were pretty harmless back then.”

“It’s a shame it came to that ,” Peter can’t help but observe. He wonders what Neal would have been like if he had a solid parental presence in his life, if he hadn’t felt forced to lie and fight his way through his childhood. Clearly Ellen had done her best, but she had her own demons and life to deal with.

“Hey, I could have turned out worse,” Neal points out with a charming smile that lacks the sincerity of moments ago.

“That you could have,” Peter agrees, chuckling as he shakes his head. He tosses his open pen on his desk, grabbing his suit jacket off the back of his chair, and stands, gesturing to Neal. “C’mon, let’s go get a coffee. I’ll even buy.”

Neal makes a show of checking his watch. “It’s only 9:45 and I thought we had important acts of fraud to uncover.”

“Are you going to turn down a free cup of your fancy, small batch roasted coffee?”

Neal tilts head, eyeing Peter suspiciously for a few moments, then his mouth morphs into a massive, and this time genuine, grin. “Peter, are you attempting to make up for my crappy childhood with overpriced drinks and quality time?” he asks, clearly delighted.

“Hey, if you don’t want the coffee, then we can just go back to—”

“Oh no, I’ll take any excuse to leave.” Quickly pushing his file to the side, he stands and doffs his hat with an extra flourish. “If you really want to make it better, I’ve been dying for a cinnamon scone all week.”

“Don’t push your luck,” Peter warns him, though there’s no heat behind it. They walk down the stairs, through the building, and outside together, they’re halfway to Neal’s favorite cafe when he nudges Peter’s shoulder.

“Thanks, Peter.”

[penna-nomen]

This Showrunner’s Challenge fascinated me, so @silbrith and I talked through it in our recent writing retreat, using White Collar as the fandom.

We went through two rounds. The first was starting fresh with the canon material, and the second looked at how I would approach it in our White Collar AU, Caffrey Conversation. It was a lot of fun, so I want to share the results with you. I want to keep spoilers to a minimum, so I focused on season 1 of WC.

Overview:

Round 1: Honestly, the WC writers did most of this in the first season. 

Round 2: Honestly, in an AU that’s nearing 3 million words, we’ve done most of this, too. I focused on stories I wrote, but we could do this for Silbrith’s stories, too

The details: Below is the original challenge and how we aligned it to WC and CC.

Begin writing a fanfic. 

1 Everything at once. (we treated this as starting the story)

Round 1: The White Collar pilot

Round 2: The first story in the CC series

2 Product placement! 

Round 1: Peter’s car. Obviously there was a product placement deal regarding the Ford Taurus in the first seasons. Other product placement opportunities included coffee. Or in S1E2 “Threads” there could have been ads for a line of clothing or for Project Runway.

Round 2: CC Story #2 “Choirboy Caffrey” mentioned a rental car and that would have been ideal product placement. I had a Toyota in mind but I don’t remember if I mentioned the brand.

3 Fan favorite. Your most recently mentioned character (or named object) is now beloved by the audience. You must give it a bigger part in the story

Round 1: S1E4 “Flip of the Coin” gives El a larger part because her best friend needed help, so we see her at the FBI offices.

Round 2: In CC story #4 “By the Book” OC Henry gets his moment to shine.

4 Executive meddling. You must change to a different genre. 

Round 1: S1E3 “Book of Hours” has a lot of focus on miracles and a book that can supposedly heal. When I first watched that episode, I wondered if the show was veering into a supernatural genre.

Round 2: CC story #38 “A Caffrey Christmas Carol” sent the characters into sci-fi territory.

5 Audiences are craving more coziness. The next chapter must be completely low stakes and set you at ease. 

Round 1: S1E12 “Bottlenecked” – okay, I don’t remember much about this episode, but the main plot is a competition to fool an expert into believing a newly created bottle of wine is actually a couple hundred years old. 

Round 2: CC story #68 “Movie Night” was mostly about a competition to pick the best movie for viewing at a holiday gathering.

6 Audiences are craving more suspense. The next chapter must take place entirely in a single location, ideally just a single room, and build tension with every exchange of dialog. 

Round 1: S1E8 “Hard Sell” spends much of the episode at an estate on Long Island with a particularly suspenseful scene in a room that is rapidly running out of air.

Round 2: CC story #5 “Caffrey Envoy” is set almost entirely in the WC offices, although there are flashbacks to a townhouse in D.C. The scenes of Neal and an Air Force officer in Hughes’ office, viewed by Peter through the glass wall, had some suspense. But I had more suspense in CC story #9 “Caffrey Disclosure” in the scenes where they have a bad guy with a hostage cornered in a warehouse.

7 Audiences are craving more action. The next chapter needs to involve at least one extended fight scene. 

Round 1: S1E13 “Front Man” included some Neal whump. I’d have to go into later seasons for a true fight scene – I’m thinking of the one between Neal and Keller during The Treasure arc, where Peter comes to the rescue.

Round 2: CC story #7 “Caffrey Flashback” included a fair amount of action, such as a life-or-death rush to the hospital, a chase scene in the hospital, and someone stealing Peter’s gun and using it to threaten someone in the hospital. Plus there is a flashback to a child struggling against an abductor. And Peter shoots someone. Fight scenes really aren’t my thing, though, so I can't think of an example of hand-to-hand combat.

8 Audiences are craving more romance. The next chapter needs to involve a deep, sappy confession of either love or admiration 

Round 1: S1E10 “Vital Signs” contains the “You’re the only one I really trust” scene between Peter and Neal. It doesn’t get better than that.

Round 2: CC story #54 “Lavender Dreams” has a wedding, many references to couples in Jane Austen novels, and a proposal. 

9 Go to the most recent line in your fic that references a brand. Due to ongoing legal action, that brand cannot be mentioned again, but you score 1 audience point every time you allude to it in a way that paints it in a negative light. 

Round 1: It would have been easy to add this to S1E7 “Free Fall” by turning the diamond theft into a lesson about blood diamonds and the diamond trade.

Round 2: This one’s tough because I’ve tried to avoid mentioning brand names in fic. CC story #6 “Written in the Stars” mentions Star Wars, which gets mentioned again in later stories, so that could be an option.

10 The two most recently mentioned characters' actors have, IRL, gone through a VERY messy divorce or friend breakup. You cannot put them in the same scene, but they must both remain relevant parts of the show.  

Round 1: It would have been easy to add this to S1E9 “Bad Judgement” and later episodes in S1. Agent Fowler has an important role, but he’s also getting into trouble at the FBI so he’s working behind the scenes. So that could work if the actors portraying him and Peter had a beef.

Round 2: CC story #9 “Caffrey Disclosure” would work well for this. A lot of the plot focuses on looking for OC Henry, who is working behind the scenes, so a friend breakup between the actors portraying him and Neal works. There’s also a section in the middle of the story where Neal is traveling and only catches up with Peter over the phone, so that could have been a temporary friend breakup between those two actors.

11 The most recent negative event is now the center of a very real IRL news story. You must immediately pivot away from all plotlines involving it and, if possible, also find away to apologize for even thinking to include it. 

Round 1: I went with The Treasure arc in season 2 for this, tying back to fans being upset about the source of the treasure.

Round 2: In CC story #4 “By the Book” and following stories there were originally references to a series about a school of wizardry, and I replaced those references with a fictional series when I learned what the author had been up to.  

12 The most recently mentioned character's actor has decided to leave the show. You must write them out in the next chapter.

Round 1: S1E14 “Out of the Box” – No details in this post, to avoid spoilers for people currently watching on Netflix

Round 2: an OC who had a big role in the story dies in #9 “Caffrey Disclosure”

You win if you can complete the fic in a state of relative coherency.

Conclusion: Are White Collar and Caffrey Conversation coherent? Maybe not always, but they are fun!

Thanks for following along!

There should be a fanfic writing game called the showrunners challenge where someone writes a story and partway through someone else can play things like "actor leaves after 4000 more words" or "topic now too politically sensitive due to unforeseen world events" or "lost rights to that reference"