Cynnamon Soul

Take a look — another one of Snezhinka’s kittens 🥰

Coffee shop AUs are, like... fine. They're not my thing, but they're hardly going to end the world. We don't need to have a moral panic about people enjoying coffee shop AUs. I'm also not about to come for anyone seeking escapism in the current hellscape.

However, I do think it's interesting to examine the tendency within these AUs to project a sort of idyll onto the coffee shop: here is a whimsical place where you can spend time with your friends and potentially meet your true love; here is a world where the greatest dilemma you may face is choosing the right coffee syrup for a new beverage or sneaking your number onto that to-go cup without being obvious.

The fantasy of the coffee shop AU is divorced almost entirely from the reality of an actual coffee shop. There are no abusive, creepy customers or bosses; there is no mention of the barista's wages; we don't see the dishwasher sweating at their station, the cashiers' aching feet; the person whose job it is to clean the (customer-only?) toilets. These topics are Political and Depressing and Must Be Avoided, because Political and Depressing things are antithetical to this kind of escapism.

The coffee shop AU exists, not in a world without capitalism (because this is a setting where commerce is actively happening) but in a world where capitalism has no teeth: a world where capitalism somehow works. In order to be convinced and soothed by this fantasy, you must suspend your disbelief and avert your eyes. You must filter the coffee shop through a neopastoralist lens.

Homeless people deserve clothing with good structural integrity. Victims of house fires deserve linens that are free of stains. No one should have to eat expired food. It’s disrespectful to give people scraps when they’re already hurting.

Anyway. If you struggle with negative self-talk I feel for you. It’s hellish, and it’s not something that can just be bludgeoned out of someone by telling them it sucks. We know! I’m not out of the weeds just yet by a long shot, but here’s some of the stuff that’s been helpful for me:

Fake it til it’s real: cliche, I know! but it really has helped for me, even though it makes me suuuuper uncomfortable at times. but literally tell yourself that you’re super charismatic and sexy and everyone loves you. or whatever version of that feels good for how you’d like to be seen. it’s gonna feel silly and untrue for a really long time, but it helps!

Reframe: I struggled to phrase this one, but what I mean basically is like… taking that notion of “hey negative self-talk sucks for the people around you too” and turning it into “wow, it is kind of mean to my friends to just assume they’re lying when they say they love me. I don’t want to be mean to my friends. I’m going to take the risk of trusting them”. Try not to go too far in the direction of “oh god I’m being mean to my friends” and stay on the path of “I want to and CAN do right by them”

Separate from it: I like to kind of act like my negative self talk is something of a different entity from me. Your mileage may vary on this one. I was a really mean really sad teenage girl once, and for me that kind of feels like the place the negative self talk comes from. So instead of being like “I guess I just hate myself and always will”, I can be like “I have this wounded inner child who is lashing out. I’m going to be gentle with her, but I’m also not going to listen to the things she tells me we are, because she is 16 and hasn’t experienced anything good yet.”

Referred to as “the Dusseldorf patient” to protect his privacy, researchers said he is the fifth confirmed case of an HIV cure. Although the details of his successful treatment were first announced at a conference in 2019, researchers could not confirm he had been officially cured at that time.