please convene: what if madatobi met through fanfic (30% meet-cute, 70% a psychiatry case study)
Tobirama is 29, a moderately successful academic molecular biologist, veteran of multiple fanfic forums and sites, and has been steadfastly writing for the same niche ship of the same obscure sci-fi show for eight years regardless of any new recommendations or requests he gets. He’s set in his ways (read, autistic) and will spend up to a week on research before committing to a single paragraph about any random topic that comes up in his fics.
Madara’s late to the game and comes in hot. His undergrad in literature has been an under-flexed muscle in his career as an architect (as a tyrant to engineers) and when he happens across fic for his new favourite high fantasy adaptation, he jumps feet first into writing for a popular (queer-baited) ship. Angst, smut, angst, graphic depictions of violence, character study, angst. He quickly becomes one of the most frequent names too see under the ship tag - and it’s not until a commenter sends a link for another fic with the message “if you like this trope you might like this -”
He reads it. He’s enchanted. He has no idea who these characters are or what the source material is about but this is literature with barely a dozen kudos. The language is delicious and the smut is hot and he feels very touched for a man reading a fanfic featuring a character being castrated.
Madara proceeds to read everything Tobirama has ever written and comments on everything. Tobirama replies to nothing and is scratching his head in the lab as to why someone is going through his fics chronologically. He ventures into reading Madara’s latest fic - his sexual-dysfunction-whump piece - and drops a kudos. Then promptly logs off again.
This sends Madara into a mild frenzy. It also leads him into skimming the (minimal) other works in the tag for Tobirama’s beloved show, finding the original material on a janky streaming site, and emerging after the weekend of binging like a man reborn, because THIS is unsung art. He sits down, writes a fic for the pairing, gifts it to Tobirama, and checks his phone at five-minute intervals while on site. (Outside, that is.)
A week later Tobirama logs on, blinks, clicks on the title, sits and earnestly reads for four paragraphs - Madara has misunderstood what an arcsecond is and carried the huge mistake through multiple lines. He clicks back and returns to the safety of his archived forums. Unbeknownst to him Madara is very depressed about this and writing rather mopey fics (his fans are being politely encouraging and are waiting desperately for a kink event to come around and get his ass back on track.)
The line that would make this has to be:
“You’re getting catfished,” Hikaku informs him. “I am one-hundred percent certain.”
“It’s definitely some horny twenty year old woman.”*
“He is not!” Madara howls.
*Hikaku does note the fact that he may be the first person in the world to express that sentiment.
