speaking of peeing the bed it's been long enough that i can tell this story publicly. in high school i went to a party at some house with no adults, as you sometimes would, and at the end of the night like 10 people all clonked out together in the same bed. fully clothed, one of those teenage moments where you're like wow heehee how rule-breaking, because sure a lot of our parents wouldn't like us sleeping in a bed with a bunch of other teenagers and no adult supervision blah blah. fond memories. anyway.
i'm an extremely light sleeper, so i barely slept, and sometime around 6 am, i woke up to a girl totally panicking, very quietly, because she peed the bed in her sleep. and listen. this wasn't a group of mean kids by any measure. but there's no level of kindness or understanding in the world that will make peeing the bed when you're 17, surrounded by people you only sort of know, a gentle blow.
so i sat up and she was like "oh my god" and I signaled at her to be absolutely silent and I said I'd be right back. And I crawled over everyone and out of the bed like a stupid cat.
and the thing is, by senior year i wasn't getting bullied much anymore. i was generally pretty well liked by my peers, but, if this makes sense, people still didn't always expect very much from me. i was still figuring out how to mask (autistic) and i still often said or did something that made everyone remember i'm weird and they'd just be like "well. that's story for you. i guess." and for the most part i'd become pretty secure in that.
so what i'm saying is i had nothing to lose and this girl had everything to lose.
so i went downstairs and i made tomato soup. and by "made" i mean i put a whole can of tomato soup in a too-small mug and microwaved it until it was lukewarm so as to be convincingly "made" but not so hot to burn someone.
and then i walked back upstairs, and no longer like a cat, i clumsily "attempted" to crawl back into bed, loudly lost my balance, and spilled tomato soup all over the girl and her lap and several other people's laps and heads and the mattress.
everyone woke up confused and anguished and i was like, "oh my god, I'm so sorry. I just got really hungry and it's all i could find."
and everyone immediately accepted with absolutely no further questions that I would go downstairs, make tomato soup at 6 am,and bring it back to bed. everyone just begrudgingly climbed onto the floor and went back to sleep while I put the bedding right into the laundry.
i don't even know this girl's name. i only remembered this story recently because i'm in my hometown for a few months and recently a high school acquaintance said, "hey. do you remember spilling soup on everyone after prom? why did you do that?" and for a moment i genuinely did not and i stared at them completely dumbfounded while the memory loaded and then i started laughing too hard to answer for 2 minutes.
the best part is i can tell this story, and even if it reaches the people who were there, none of them will know which one of them peed the bed. thanks to tomato soup.
people keep pointing out how bewildering this must have been from her point of view and it's making me laugh to tears. i never considered it. i had such a solid plan in my head. i went downstairs to find something to dump on the bed and when i saw the tomato soup i knew it was perfect because it has a distinct smell that would cover anything else and a color which would do the same.
i was so focused on my mission that in the 14 years since i've never once considered what it must have been like for her to decide to trust me because she had no other options, sit there in anguish for three minutes, and then watch me walk back into the room and dump soup on everyone.
I am back at it with another tried and true rec list! This one is for @aplaceofnonsense and features various ratings, lengths, and plots that fall under the coffee shop au vibe.
I have read and loved all of these fics so they have been pre vetted!
If you would like a personalized wangxian rec list- DM me! I love putting these lists together :)
The request:
wangxian
coffee/tea shop aus!
that's literally it
Here we go!
1 for you, andante (35600 words) by xuanxuanwo
Chapters: 1/1
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Music, Musicians, Pianist Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji, Guitarist Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Kid Fic, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Existential Crisis, Unrelated Meng Yao | Jin Guangyao & Qin Su, Friendship, Romance, Light Angst, Happy Ending
Summary: āLooks like heās taken a liking to you,ā Wei Ying says with a huff. Lan Wangjiās world shifts another ninety degrees when heās pinned with the full force of Wei Yingās attention. The guitarist perches on the other half of A-Yuanās seat and slides an arm around the boy, smoothing back his hair before tweaking his nose. A-Yuan twitches, and Lan Wangji practically burns where Wei Ying had grazed against his shoulder.
Wei Ying leans over and sets his chin lightly against A-Yuanās head. Thereās a gleam to his eye, silver coins that put all other metals in the world to shame. The boy sniffs again, and slowly, under the hollow of the guitaristās body, he relaxes. āAnd who,ā Wei Ying continues, āhas bewitched my little radish?ā
--
On a rainy Thursday evening, after his final concert of the season, pianist Lan Wangji ducks into a bookshop, befriends a toddler, falls in love with a guitarist, and, ultimately, rediscovers his passion for music.
Notes: This fic absolutely gives fall energy. The vibes are rainy day nights, casual strolls, smoky jazz bar, and steaming hot drinks. I love this au so so much it really is a soul balm. It does ft a tiny tiny bit of angst, but the ending is solid. It's like the hot chocolate of fics.
2 Pan - we're queer here! (35279 words) by IBurbick
Notes: I adore the pan coffee shop verse. each fic in the series brings a wholesome joy I did not know I needed. This coffee shop au screams rom com but also found family in community. I love the portrayal of xichen in this fic and I love how desperately lan zhan does not want to fall for wei ying. It's pure magic at pans!
3 Let Me Lose My Shadow (55696 words) by Harleydoll
Notes: This fic is less coffee shop being owned by one of the protagonists and more so coffee shop meet cute. ofc wei ying cannot leave the hot quiet guy with the fancy tea and gel pens alone in the cafe. What starts off rocky soon evolves into the cutest little slow burn. This truly is a fall coffee shop fic; so much pumpkin spice and cozy energy.
Notes: The summary is short and the fic only around 10k but I swear it is so cute. It starts with a new cafe that opens without having coffee and turns into the cutest little romance. Wei ying just keeps going back and falling more in love with the cafe owner and baker. Lan zhan just can't stop giving his new customer custom orders and free treats. They are absolutely adorable- this is pure fluff.
5 The tea to my heart (83773 words) by blackmorphos
Chapters: 21/21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Additional Tags: Fluff, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Developing Relationship, Lan Zhan makes a friend, A Yuan gets a much bigger part than planned, A Yuan is very cute, Wei Ying is cute too, angst but it in the past, a drunk scene, Lots of Tea, some steam buns, Falling In Love
Series: Part 1 of The tea to your heart
Summary: A tray being placed onto the table in front of him startled Wei Yingās attention away from his phone. He looked up with a smile before seeing what the man had brought him.
Ā
āYou will have tea,ā the man said in a low deep voice that brooked no argument.
Ā
By the time that had filtered into his brain the guy had already walked away and disappeared out the back. Wei Ying looked down. No coffee, but there was a blue teapot with a small matching cup and a plate with a steam bun on it. Wei Ying blinked stupidly at it for a few moments before deciding it wasnāt worth arguing with the scarily intense man over it, and reached for the bun. It looked so inviting, and it was still warm. Biting into it Wei Ying then realised just how hungry he was, and within seconds the bun had been devoured. It was the best thing he had ever tasted.
Ā
A sleep deprived Wei Ying stumbles into a tea shop, meets an impossibly beautiful man, and is served a cup of tea that changes his life in more ways than he could have possibly expected.
A modern day meet cute with heaps of Wangxian fluff, mutual pining, and A-Yuan adorableness galore!
NOTES: I love this fic so much because Lan Zhan is aggressively taking care of Wei Ying; the exhausted hot stranger who walked into his not even open yet tea shop. Wei Ying WILL drink the tea and WILL eat the snacks. Eventually Wei ying WILL come over to his house to have his laundry done and a place to relax and he WILL have the things he needs for his "son". It is absolutely so cute. Wei Ying never stood a chance XD. Also the speed in which lan zhan wants them to get together breaks the sound barrier.
6 Three Hundred and Fifty-Five Milliliters (3615 words) by magicites
Notes: A very short but cute fic- lan zhan is a simp and cannot help but continuously 'accidentally' upsizing all of wei yings orders. They are too cute in this. A small absolutely fluffy fic.
7 Stilettos and Soulmates (4536 words) by Regency_Bunny
Notes: This is barely a coffee shop au- and really only a coffee shop au because they go to a coffee shop shortly BUT it is an excellent Wei ying rescues lan zhan from a bad situation fic. A very short fic but still cute. CW jin Zixun is terrible and touches lan zhan without consent - does not go very far. But heads up if that is something that is a hard no for you.
8 Milk, two sugars and some cinnamon (14,888 words) by GusuLanSectRules (JuweWright)
NOTES: I love a good barista WY fic and this is it. Lan Zhan falls for the barista's competency, navigates a new relationship, and really fucking wishes he didn't have to give his brother relationship advice. a solid fic with some light past angst.
NOTES: I am not going to lie this fic is rough- as in emotionally intense and filled with characters going through tough things. BUT I swear there is a happy ending. It does not completely feature coffee shops but so much of the plot is dependent on a coffee shop that I think it still counts. This is so much angst my friends, but also a HUGE fic! Read with caution but I do promise the ending is solid and happy.
In regards of the Trump government scraping all trans inclusion in its queer information portion of its websites I have made this thing. Spread the word. Don't let them pretend we never existed.
random thing but i realized it might be helpful for some people so uh. theres this thingy where you can upload an image and it gives you a color palette based on it !Ā
heres an example
and it also gives you the hex code values for them too its p neat !
Okay so we have this huge problem with forgetting about everything thatās happened by the time the next election rolls around so Iād like to keep a running list of things as theyāre happening to help remind us when the 2026 midterms roll around. And please add to this if Iāve missed anything.
January 2025:
Donald Trump pardoned 1500 people who participated in the insurrection of January 6th, including those who violently assaulted and nearly killed police officers.
Donald Trump has declared that trans and non-binary people donāt exist.
Donald Trump is working towards firing everyone in the government who isnāt loyal to him.
Donald Trump has effectively fired everyone who he claims is an āillegal DEI hireā ā¦whatever that means
Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization
Congress are trying to pass the Laken Riley Act to, effectively, round up every immigrant in the country, including LEGAL immigrants
Donald Trump removed caps on prescription drug prices.
Donald Trump wants to withhold federal aid to help combat the LA wildfires and help the thousands of people who have been displaced and lost their homes.
The Department of Justice has put a hold on all civil rights cases.
Donald Trump has cut off aid to Ukraine.
Laken Riley Act has been passed by Congress and is awaiting being signed into law by the President. Hereās the breakdown of the votes: House Senate
Donald Trump purged a dozen inspectors general from the federal government and intends to replace them all with people loyal to him.
Pete Hegseth has been confirmed as Secretary of Defense. Hereās the breakdown of how the Senate voted. Note, it was a 50-50 tie that JD Vance had to break.
Donald Trump imposed a 25% tariff on Colombia after the Colombian government turned away two airplanes carrying migrants. Columbia has retaliated by imposing a 25% tariff of its own on US goods.
Donald Trump has also issued a travel ban for Colombian citizens and revoked visas from Colombian migrants coming to the US.
Donald Trump has now backed off the tariffs and other threats against Colombia. Note for future reference: this comes just hours after Trump made the threat in the first place and he and the Colombian president got into a big fight on social media.
Nearly 1,000 migrants were arrested mostly in Chicago on January 26th by ICE and ICE has been told to meet a quota of 75 migrant arrests every day.
Donald Trump rescinded an anti-discrimination executive order from Lyndon B. Johnson
Donald Trump signed an executive order banning trans people from serving in the military and also ordered that people who were discharged for refusing to get mandatory vaccines be reinstated.
Donald Trump has frozen all federal grants to institutions.
After pressure from state governments, activist groups, and the general public, the White House has rolled back some of the freezes on federal funding.
This.
Donald Trump is trying to fire all federal employees who donāt want to return to the office (work-from-home saves the federal government millions of taxpayer dollars in overhead). He also sent an email to federal employees saying that if theyāre not loyal to him, theyāll be investigated.
Donald Trump has signed the Laken Riley Act into law.
Donald Trump has said he doesnāt think Palestinians should be allowed to return to Gaza but instead should be sent to Egypt and Jordan.
Also this.
Donald Trump has ordered undocumented immigrants to be sent to Guantanamo Bay
Donald Trump signed an executive order to expand federal funding for school choice programs. [x]
Donald Trump signed an executive order saying that he will deport visa-holding students who protest against Israel. [x]
Donald Trump has blamed DEI for the plane crash that killed 67 people in Washington D. C. [x]
Donald Trump signed an executive order that schools should no longer teach about racism and discrimination. And that schools should only teach history that is āpatrioticā [x]
Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna wants to add Donald Trumpās face to Mount Rushmore. [x]
Trumpās Department of Education has called book bans a hoax. [x]
The Department of Justice has barred certain news outlets from receiving information from the Pentagon. [x]
The Trump administration has fired multiple FBI officials who investigated the January 6th insurrection. [x]
February 2025
Iāll keep adding to this list as new things come up and, again, please feel free to add anything Iāve missed. I know that in this world of constant news itās easy to forget, so letās give our future selves a little help!
I present my link click x swan princess AU or what I call, The Swan Princes šš¦¢
(Part 1)
My notes on this AU:
Swan princes AUĀ
-Ql and CXS are from a neighboring kingdom from LG, QL's parents arranged to start bringing LG over to their kingdom every summer to try and matchmake QL and LG together so they can marry when they are older to unify their kingdoms. Ql and Lg do not have any romantic interest in each other at all right off the bat and end up more like siblings, Lg and Cxs (who is the adopted ward of the royal family) become fast best friends and all three of them are joined at the hip when Lg visits, and often arrange more visits outside of summer as well when they can.Ā
-QL's parents give up trying to get LG and Ql together but still welcome LG whenever he comes to visitĀ
-LG, Ql and CXS start making plans about the best way to unify their kingdoms (without marriage) when they reach their 20s, even though in general their kingdoms are really friendly already.Ā
-Not everyone is a fan of this idea, especially a faction of nobles in LGās kingdomĀ
-One of the times that LG is leaving to travel back to his kingdom, his convoy gets ambushed by a party wanting to overthrow the throne, and only a wounded messenger escapes back to QL and CXSās kingdom to tell them that there was this great beast that had attacked their convoy and he doesn't know if anyone survived, but that the beast isn't what it seems to be (like in the movie) but the messenger does not recover from his injuries and passes away shortly
-Cxs and Ql go out immediately when they hear the news to search for the remains for Lg's convoy (and possibly his body, because the messenger was adamant no one had survived.) but all they find is a bloody massacre (and no lg except maybe a personal item) leading them to believe he didn't survive
-They are both devastated, but Cxs is beyond devastatedĀ
-Cxs and QL start researching into the great beast and about the messengers last words about how it was a deceiving beast because they want to figure out what the hell happened (And Cxs wants REVENGE)
-Cxs starts hunting in the forest over the span of a month or two because they canāt figure out what the beast could be disguising itself as and also to unleash some of his pent up anger and grief over LGās ādeathāĀ when he comes across a Swan, (and like in the movie he assumes that's the great beast) so he chases it to the lakeĀ
-But just as he was about to take the shot with revenge on his mind the swan turned into Lg in the moonlight heheĀ
-both of them overjoyed to see one another
Random Notes:
-Lg can't talk as a swan, and can only honkĀ
-Ltx is part of the faction trying to overthrow the kingdom, but helps lg out when she can, she doesn't really have a choice of being in the faction or not cause her brothers in it also she doesnāt fully understand what is going on with the politics in their kingdom
-at some point cxs is brash and ends up getting turned into a swan too, Lg is less than thrilled with this development because how are two swans supposed to save an entire kingdom.Ā
-They figure out how to go honk to QL for help
-Lg didn't find cxs quickly originally cause he had to learn to be a swan and couldn't get to far from the lake, when cxs becomes a swan he has to teach cxs how to be a swan (fly, swim, honk, poop, eat etc)
-It goes as well as one would expect.Ā
Will upload more notes/artwork probably next week!
It's very important to me that younger queers understand this: to the people who you're trying to be more respectable for when you say things like neopronouns set the trans movement back or you're why the cishets don't accept us or including [aces/bi people with the 'wrong kind' of partners/non-binary people/kinksters/non-passing trans ppl/furries/polyam people] just hurts us, can't you wait until we get all our rights before we talk about some of yours? -- to those people? Pete Buttigieg is just a fag.
On Sunday at Pride Northwest, some kids -- late teens, early 20s -- asked what our button I survived Reagan for this? meant. All of the queer adults at the tables making up our ad hoc counter looked at each other and sighed a little. Emet and another adult started to explain the way that the Reagan Administration handled -- or didn't handle -- the beginning of the AIDS crisis. How many people died. How much we were ignored. The Ashes Action. The Time Magazine article which explicitly blamed bisexual men for passing the pandemic to the cishet community, playing on all the worst stereotypical bullshit. The way that even when the CDC started paying attention, they were so focused on gay men that they ignored AIDS in the lesbian community, leading to the "women don't get AIDS, they just die from it" poster. And so on.
I finished counting out change and passed the last Bear Pride raised fist pin over to a bear a little older than me, then turned my head and interjected, "they didn't care until it started infecting more than just the fags." I turned my head back and handed him his change. He laughed bitterly and said, "remember when they called it 'gay cancer?'"
That what I need you to understand. The people for whom you are folding yourself into smaller and smaller boxes will never see you as anything but a freak. A queer. A dyke. A tranny. A fag.
Never.
These are people who will stand by and let you wither away and die alone, gasping for breath in a cinderblock room, and not even claim your ashes, and they will say you deserve it, because of your lifestyle. If they speak of you at all it will be by the wrong name, with the pictures you hate the most. They will curse at your lover, throw him out of the home you shared, and steal the gift you gave last Christmas to throw it in the trash just so he can't have it and they'll say Jesus loves you! while they do it. They'll feel good and righteous and blessed and holy and pure for doing it.
And for them, you spit in the eye of your sister. For them, you disavow your sibling. For their sake, you trim away bits of your heart and lace yourself up tight. Never too loud. Never too queer. Never inconvenient or embarrassing, never asking for too much.
Pete Buttigieg is what happens when your Boomer dad turns out gay. Middle America. Parents still married. Suburban-sprouted. Valedictorian. Harvard-educated. Rhodes Scholarship. Military service. More power to him: I hope he and Chasten are very happy together. Genuinely, I do.
You couldn't create a more respectable gay if you grew one in a lab run by concerned voter focus groups.
But Pete Buttigieg? Is just a fag.
That's the part you don't seem to get: when they abandoned us, they abandoned all of us. Rock Hudson was a beloved movie star and even personally friendly with that horrid pair of ambitious jackals. Nancy Reagan refused to help him get into the only place in the world that could treat him at the time, and he died.
It was 1985, 4 years after the CDC first released papers on what would eventually become known as HIV/AIDS and 7 years after the first known death from an infection from HIV-2. Reagan hadn't even said the word AIDS by the time Hudson died.
Pete Buttigieg is just a fag, and so am I. Unless I'm a dyke, which seems to depend on who's yelling what from which window and what day it is.
Yes, there will be people who genuinely love and accept you. Those people are worth all the frustration of the rest, thankfully, and they're the ones who love you in a pup mask or a leather harness and a neon jock like the ones sold by the men up the row from us last weekend. They're the ones who laugh out loud when you tell them you hid the word "dyke" in your company name, the ones who love you in all your messiness and uncertainty and the way you don't fit into neat boxes all scrubbed up and clean.
Most cishets, though... well, they don't actively mean you specifically any harm, at least not when they have to look at you. Not when you're right there in front of them. Maybe they'll be okay with you, personally, especially if you're the kind of gay who makes a good rhetorical device, and as long as you remain a good rhetorical device.
They need people to know that they don't have a problem with the gays, after all, and there you are, being all convenient. You make a nice token, and as long as you do, well. You're useful.
But they call you by your deadname when you're not around, and they put the wrong pronouns in your medical record even though they met you years after you came out, and they won't put themselves out to save you. Not one little bit.
I didn't want to be here again. The year I graduated from high school was the worst year of the AIDS crisis. The world into which I became an adult was a world in which an advisor and friend to Reagan, William F. Buckley, openly advocated for forcibly tattooing the HIV status of HIV+ gay men on their buttocks (and IV drug users on their forearms), and in which my father not only told me that when I was 14 or so, but when was told me that he'd advocated for that tattoo being "over their assholes."
(Buckley wrote that in '86, but he doubled down on it in 2005.
Fucker.)
But yeah. I didn't want to be here again. I wanted my daughter to inherit a better world. I wanted Obergefell and Lawrence v. Texas and Hope & Change to really mean something. I work for it, today and all days. I haven't given up.
But I need you to understand that if Pete Buttigieg is just a fag, if that human embodiment of a Wonder Bread, mayo and Oscar Meyer bologna sandwich is not respectable enough for them -- and he's not -- then the rest of us have absolutely no hope of measuring up. Not even if we trim away every colorful, beautiful piece of our community, not even if the Sisters Of Perpetual Indulgence vanish into the ether, not even if we sacrifice the five elements of vogue on the altar of white supremacist cishet middle-class conformity: we can't trim ourselves down to something they'll accept.
The only other option is radical acceptance of our queer selves. The only other option is solidarity. The only other option is for fats and femme queens and drags and kinksters and queers and zine writers and sex workers and furries and addicts and kids and the ones who can look us in the eye and see all of us to say we're here, we're queer, get used to it just the way we did 30 years ago. It's revolutionary, complete and total acceptance of our entire community, not just the ones the cishets can pretend to be comfortable with as long as we don't challenge them too much, or it's conceding the shoreline inch by inch to the rising waters of fascism until we've got nowhere left to stand and some of us start drowning.
That's it. Either it's all of us or it's none of us, because if we leave the answer up to the Reagans of the world and all the people who enabled him in the name of lower taxes and Democrats who wring their hands, weeping oh I don't agree with it but we'll lose the election if we fight it right now, the answer is none of us.
Reiterating this again for those of us queers who think that assimilating and making our queerness more palatable to be accepted is the best course of action. Of course, if youāre in active danger, try and protect yourself. But the thing is, being the ārightā kind of queer wonāt save you, theyāll always eventually come for you too. So be queer out and proud when you can. Especially as the attacks get worse, it is our time to unify.
ellievsbear
snowghoul
amandla
vaporwave
andulkaphoto
