#due to having their free time but yget me. i also have no idea how like. libraries and Local Social Circles work. i don't know why i'm

[leatherbookmark]

tell us about abt old people chengqing!! :)

anon I am SO SORRY I saw this ask millennia ago and it was late so I was like ah! I'll reply tomorrow AND THEN I DIDN'T

anyway with old people chengqing I imagine a modern au they meet when they're already old. I think I should probably consider whether they'd have their spouses or grandchildren in this one but alas: I can't be arsed. so I'll just say that they meet in something like... hm. maybe it's a library or a culture center. maybe they live in the same neighbourhood and meet during a meeting about, idk, whether to build or not to build a new playground. who knows.

anyway, the thing is: they're similar. wq has never stopped saying what's on her mind, if anything, age has only made her care less about what people might say, because look. she's old. she's a retired doctor. can you prove she didn't assist your mother birthing you? you can't. are you gonna argue with someone who helped haul your ass into this world? no. sit down and shut up AND we're putting the money into the heating fund, flower beds can wait. (her speciality was cardiology and she didn't have That much experience with midwifery, but do people need to know that? also no.)

meanwhile jc learned to give less of a fuck what people, for example wei wuxians*, think about him, and this is also thanks to his age because you're gonna tell an old fart what to do? (at some point wwx told him that "old fart" does not suit such a fancy schmancy man as him. look at him. he's dressed way too neatly for a "fart". venerable flatus, perhaps. you're appropriating old fartery, a-cheng.) he often comes ready to Argue for his case, but then it turns out that either his suggestions are quite reasonable and everyone agrees, OR that wq has already given the people assembled a single Look and they suddenly found it in themselves to agree with her, oh, wholeheartedly.

*although whether wwx is a person or a nuisance sent to this green bitch of an earth specifically to torment jc, well that's a separate argument

so. they are being Shipped.

obviously -- one might say -- being old and bitchy at the same time and place does not mean you would make a good couple. tell that to the youths, though. you try and tell them. you accidentally bark at the kids to quiet down or watch out for their little sibling roughly at the same time and suddenly everyone's like ooh, isn't that cute! they catch you bitching about people who value looks over practicality and want the balconies to be renovated in a way that'll need further renovation in five years, utter idiocy, ONCE, and suddenly everyone's giggling, throwing you Looks, and asking if you've seen the flyers for dancing nights for the elderly.

of course you've seen them! you helped organise the whole thing. s o m e people need that, for interaction or something, and it needs to be done well, simple as that. no, they can't go. they've been there last month, the snacks were alright But this month they cannot. she has a book signing and he goes fishing with a-ling's youngest, you know how it is. maybe you kids should try other hobbies too, since you clearly have nothing else to do!

(the kids in question are like. 40-50.)

but. while it's annoying and bothersome, it's not like wq and jc actually hate each other. in fact, yeah, they like each other quite a lot, at least as much as you can like someone while like... coexisting. but this whole Thing with people making jokes like they were a bunch of schoolkids and not Old People does actually make them entertain, even just in their heads, the possibility of Getting To Know Each Other Better.

and while jc is, actually, interested -- she's a very intelligent, responsible woman, and physically she's quite excellent too -- he does get a bit shy in matters like these, so he just... doesn't really plan on doing anything, since he's quite pleased with how they are already. wq, however, does not like not knowing where she stands, so one day she just comes up to him -- when they're alone, mind you, she doesn't want to make a show for everyone out of this -- and goes, well, would you be interested in taking me dancing? and he. is glad he's put the book away, because his fingers twitch and he'd surely tear the paper. no, he says, i can organize this shit, but i don't like dancing at all. (there's a pause.) but if you were interested in going somewhere together, or getting something to eat...

(she is. and they go, like, right away, because a new cafe opened nearby and she wanted to try it, and then they go for a walk in the park and she tells him about her family, and he tells her about his, and they find another thing they have in common -- being surrounded by reckless fools, and also children -- and by the time a natural pause in their conversation arrives, one that happens because many topics have been exhausted, it's already dinner time, so now they go to a place jc likes... and by the time wgxn notice them it's too late to run away because they're in the middle of the soup, but jc suffers only a little because, see, the soup is good and so is this date, so really,)