curlicuecal:

I was thinking last night that maybe one of the more important experiences in my life was how this girl who spent an entire school year bullying me ruthlessly at recess wound up being one of my good friends a couple years later when we were in orchestra together. We didn’t recognize each other for a while. It was strange.

This isn’t my *only* experience like this, but it’s one of the ones that really cemented his idea I have that, like…. circumstances matter. Sometimes you just weren’t in the right place or time or headspace or context to connect and communicate as humans, but almost anyone *could* be a friend if life went the right way.

Maybe this is why I like the “opposites sides forced to work together” and the “enemies to friends” tropes so much, but it’s just… fascinating to play with context in fanfiction. What does it take for two people to understand each other?