The Art of the Con (???xMReader)

Thank You, Credits, and Happy Dahyun Day

I would love that you read my final message to you all.

To my dear readers,

It is I, JT, aka kofpoponce, author of this story. I would like to thank you, everyone, who voted, read, and added my first ever story to their reading lists. It was very hard to do considering schoolwork and my transitioning to college life. You all encouraged me through all this time and I am very thankful. This has been a roller coaster for me. You all motivated me to write and pursue this very fun endeavor of mine even though I would've enjoyed a bit more interaction with my readers from the get-go. Although I am relieved the story reached a satisfying conclusion, I find it slightly saddening that it is over. That being said, I will quickly say a quick statement here. If you enjoyed this story, please comment or vote and tell me you enjoy it. That's pretty much the only way I can know. That also means DO NOT PLAGIARIZE. I worked very hard on this story and I will touch upon that in a second. If you found that my story has inspired you to write a story, just give me a shout out in your book or even contact me. I would be happy to give you some advice and would be even more than happy to bounce some ideas with you.

As such, I have spent the entire spring semester of my senior year in high school researching heist/thief stories, studying different films and TV shows. I spent extra time researching because I wanted to make the story as "realistic" as possible. I even had a map of New York and its metro stations out in front of me as I wrote this story (I live on the East Coast, but many miles south of New York. I have only been there once so it was quite the challenge). I spent a heavy portion of my freshman year in college writing this too. For starters, I love stories and plots. However, although growing up in America, my English writing skills are absolutely sh*t according to my English teachers throughout my years. But I felt that my writing style changed throughout the book, so the writing style, in the beginning, will be somewhat weaker in comparison to the end. I challenged myself to write for fun because my mind is constantly bombarded with many different ideas for stories that I wanted to see written out. So I had to start somewhere, that being here with The Art of the Con.

That being said, credit must be given where credit is due. There were two TV shows that heavily inspired the story: Leverage and White Collar, two crime-based TV shows that I absolutely love. Firstly, Leverage. Leverage is an American TV series that essentially emulates a Robin Hood theme in a modern world setting. This TV show influenced the composition of the team in this story with a few tweaks: the mastermind, the hacker, the grifter, the thief, and the hitter. At this point, you should be able to tell who was what. The heist in this story was heavily influenced by the very first heist in the Pilot episode. It was an introductory scene to part of the group's teamwork and the creation of the Leverage team. I highly recommend watching this 5-season TV show. It's lots of fun and I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Also, a South Korean show that gained permission to remake it into a Korean series. As interesting as it looked, I highly recommend watching the original American one before moving on to this one.

Secondly is White Collar, an American TV series inspired by the famous con artist of the 1950s named Frank Abagnale Jr., only aged 15 when he appeared on the FBI's radar (see the movie Catch Me if You Can starring Leonardo DiCaprio who plays as Frank Abagnale Jr.). Consulted by Frank Abagnale Jr. himself, the series was meant to emulate his years helping the FBI catch other criminals. Based on Abagnale, Neal Caffrey (the main character) is a prodigy con artist who was more or less a one-man army of criminal skill. He could forge, grift, con, evade, practically everything. He was my inspiration for Y/N. Furthermore, (spoilers) the finale of this story was basically a regurgitation of the series' conclusion except probably done worse haha. The faking of the death was all done from the series and I absolutely loved it. I had a different ending in mind but my friend (I'll get to her in a second) suggested that I stick with the false death. I kept a part of an alternate ending of the White Collar series with Dahyun's ending. I apologize to anyone who may have been annoyed by the ambiguous ending. The coin flip was originally suggested in the series to be very loosely stated. The coin is flipped: if it landed on heads, the camera cuts to him being a legendary conman, constantly living on a razor's edge; if it landed on tails, the camera would cut to him being in an FBI office, showing that he's turned over onto a new leaf, becoming a legendary FBI figure. However, when he actually flips the coin, by the time it is about to land in his hand, the camera cuts to black. We never know what happened. I really liked this ideas as well. In this story, I kinda tried to produce that. Dahyun is left with a choice between having a normal life in New York or going out to find Y/N after learning he's still alive. Instead of cutting to black when it lands in her hand (cause how in the world would I do that), I decided to keep the end very loose, as it could go either way.