Line #62 Main/CoffeeShopAUFic


1	->''"I never knew just what it was about this old coffee shop I love so much. All of the while it was you"''
2	-->-- "'''Falling In Love At The Coffee Shop'''", ''Landon Pigg''
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4	Originally known as the "Barista AU", this form of fanwork began life on Platform/{{Livejournal}} but has since become popular across the board in fandoms. It is especially popular on fanwork-heavy sites such as Platform/ArchiveOfOurOwn, Website/{{Tumblr}}, and Platform/{{Wattpad}}.
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6	The origin of this AU is uncertain but it seems to have first popped up within the Music/{{NSync}} and Music/{{Backstreet Boys}} RealPersonFic communities in 2001. It later spread amongst ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' fans, and then ultimately other fandoms took note. The AU became especially prevalent starting in the early 2010s.
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8	Coffee shops are known for a comfortable, casual and urban feel that lend themselves well to all sorts of shenanigans. The default in this AU is that it's a {{shipping}} fic where [[ASideOrderOfRomance one half of the pairing is a barista and the other half is a customer]]; this type of AU is popular due to it being a form of MeetCute. Another popular form is for the coffee shop to be a LocalHangout where most of the cast either visit or work at. The third most common form is where both characters are baristas who work together.
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10	If a character [[MustHaveCaffeine loves coffee]], then expect a lot of coffee shop [=AUs=] involving them.
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12	The "Coffee Shop AU" is often seen as a counterpart to the HighSchoolAU. Due to writers [[WriteWhatYouKnow drawing from life]], teenagers will favor high school stories while young adults like coffee shop works. As a similar result, this AU often overlaps with the College AU fanwork: The characters either work at the coffee shop to help get through college or coffee shops act as the LocalHangout for college students.
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14	Sub-trope to AlternateUniverseFic and CurtainFic. Often overlaps with ASideOrderOfRomance. Related to ModernAUFic.
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16	----
17	!!Examples (by medium of source material):
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19	[[foldercontrol]]
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21	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
22	* The ''Literature/SoundEuphonium'' fic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11512296/1/falling-in-love-at-a-coffee-shop falling in love at a coffee shop]]'' is an AU where Kumiko works at a coffee shop called "Euphonium's Coffee" alongside Midori and Hazuki. One rainy night, Kumiko meets a cute woman who lends her an umbrella. The next day the woman, Reina, turns up at Euphonium's.
23	[[/folder]]
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25	[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
26	* ''Fanfic/TheBoltChronicles'': Played with in "The Coffee Shop," which is not a typical example of this trope. It is not an AlternateUniverseFic, for one thing, and baristas do not appear as characters. Bolt spends his time hanging out in a coffee shop, begging for treats while trying to find a possible boyfriend for Penny. He does so in Joe, but has to [[SelfInducedAllergicReaction make himself sick drinking coffee]] to get Joe to rush him to Penny's veterinary clinic and have the two of them meet.
27	* ''Fanfic/CafeLiegeois'' is a ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen\|2013}}'' fanfic where Anna meets her girlfriend Elsa while working at Starbucks. It doesn't actually focus on the coffee shop though, with it instead working as the backdrop for the start.
28	[[/folder]]
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30	[[folder:Literature]]
31	* ''Literature/TheHomestuckEpilogues'': In ''Candy'', which is something of a parody of a FixFic, John and Roxy find themselves falling in love at a coffee shop, even though John finds the scene incongruous and sort of awkward.
32	* Happens in-universe in ''Literature/HarrowTheNinth''. When Harrow throws up new {{Elseworld}}s as her original FakeMemories collapse, her last attempt begins as what is, accounting for cultural differences, clearly some version of a HighSchoolAU before it introduces [[spoiler: Gideon]] as a hot new barista (or "[[{{Pun}} BARI star]]"). It terminates just as the MeetCute begins when [[spoiler: Abigail Pent's ghost]], having had enough of this silliness, drags her back to reality.
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35	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
36	* The ''Series/RedDwarf'' fanfic ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379159 Three Sugars Please]]'' is an AU where instead of working on Z Shift, Rimmer and Lister work in a coffee shop on the titular ship, falling in love among the way.
37	[[/folder]]
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39	[[folder:Music]]
40	* Amongst the [[RealPersonFic bandom]], Music/PanicAtTheDisco and Music/MyChemicalRomance fans are especially prone to this sort of AU. Panic! At The Disco's Jon Walker once worked as a barista prior to joining the band. My Chemical Romance fans know of Gerard Way's love of coffee, and thus he frequents coffee shops a lot in fanfics.
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43	[[folder:Theatre]]
44	* ''Theatre/{{Hamilton}}'': [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31vEYPfhPsY This]] is a ''Hamilton'' animatic with a coffee shop AU premise. It's specifically an Alex/Lafayette ship one.
45	* And in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5gd1FR4UOs this one]], the guys of Broadway Backwards took the number "A History of Wrong Guys" from ''Kinky Boots'' and transplanted it into a Starbucks, in which Lauren is a barista (and also [[HoYay a guy]]) and Charlie is a regular customer.
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47	[[/folder]]
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49	[[folder:Video Games]]
50	* ''Fanfic/KirbysDreamCafe'' is a ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'' take on this. In it, Kirby's Dream Cafe is due to be demolished by Haltmann Works Company, who wish to turn it into a mall. Kirby and his friends have to stop them.
51	* Widowmaker writes about herself and Tracer in one of these in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sncun3BKMnw this installment]] of the ''{{VideoGame/Overwatch}} AWNN'' series.
52	* Two ''canon'' and ''metafictional'' examples in ''VideoGame/BungoToAlchemist'' in the form of ''Café Royale'' and ''Café Noir'' events, in which writers basically go to explore and purify Coffee Shop AU Fics and the player gets to unlock waiter costumes for the writers.
53	* In ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizons'', the Normal-type villagers will sometimes mention that they enjoy reading coffee shop AU fanfics, and then explain the premise of such fics to the player.
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56	[[folder:Web Comics]]
57	* HighFantasy webcomic ''Webcomic/{{Exiern}}'' had an [[OverlyLongGag Overly Long April Fools Gag]] in 2010 when it was suddenly re-tooled as a group of trendy twenty-somethings hanging out at a coffee shop.
58	* ''Webcomic/RWBYDoodleverse'': "Always Bean You" follows Blake as a barista for Pumpkin Pete Cafe and her relationship with recurring customer Yang.
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61	[[folder:Web Original]]
62	* ''Fanfic/ServiceWithASmile'' is a ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' fanfic where Jaune Arc opens a coffee shop in Vale after [[PointOfDivergence his forged transcripts are rejected by Beacon Academy]].
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65	[[folder:Western Animation]]
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67	* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': The show itself pokes fun of this. In "[[Recap/StevenUniverseS3E3SameOldWorld Same Old World]]", while flying over Empire City (their world's version of New York City) with Lapis, Steven mentions that she could move there and work at a coffee shop:
68	-->'''Lapis:''' So what ''does'' happen in Empire City?\
69	'''Steven:''' Well, if you moved here you could get a cool apartment and be a single Gem taking on the big city. You'd have a fun job at a local coffee shop and come home to a wacky roommate...\
70	'''Lapis:''' I have no idea what you're talking about.
71	* ''Fanfic/JustANormalCoffeeShop'' starts out as a coffee shop AU of ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse''. Then the following chapters repeat the day of July 19th with slight differences and deja vu. [[spoiler:Then comes TheReveal that the characters are trapped in Rose's Room, which is a LotusEaterMachine in the form of a college coffee shop.]]
72	[[/folder]]

Context Main / CoffeeShopAUFic