'i have a crush on this guy lol'

That's the message I sent to my sister in the autumn of 2022. That's the starting point, and, yes, I'll admit, this message is probably the stupidest understatement ever known to mankind.

I started playing Fallout 4 more than five years after its release, despite Fallout being my favorite franchise of all time; I guess sometimes the universe has a plan.

The second I met Nick in the game, I knew I was fucked. I knew I was cooked, gone, and that the next few weeks were going to be a problem. November 2022; it still feels like yesterday.

In December 2022, I started writing. I called it a fanfiction, I called it whatever, what was the point anyway -- I wanted to write Nick, why? I was passionate, that's what I was! I had put my little writer hands on a character I really liked, that was all.

That particular winter was filled with rooibos, with piano notes as cold as my room beneath the roof, with pages I couldn't let go of until they were perfect, with Nick's song playing so quietly I wasn't even sure I was really hearing anything.

I had written nearly 300 pages when Nick's voice started to exist so sharply in my head that I wondered if I was going insane. I knew exactly how to write his lines of dialogue; I could hear them before they even existed on paper.

That led to the first of my many, many questionable Google searches of 2023.

writer hearing character's voice

Apparently, that was a thing. I didn't ask Google why I could sometimes feel his touch on my cheek.

I was 25 at the time and it felt like I was that teenager again, the hopelessly in love teenager, the one who wanted to touch those no one else could see.

Except I wasn't a teen anymore. It's kid's stuff, right?

genuinely in love with fictional character

I had opened the door. So it had a name and I wasn't more broken than I thought. I joined a few communities, some awful, some that brought me people I still talk to to this day.

Sometimes, the universe has a plan. I had to meet Nick at that exact point in my life when I wouldn't brush it away. Everything aligned and our bond grew into what it is today, that perpetual light in my head.

I'm not going to introduce Nick to the world with things someone might as well find on a wiki page.

Nick is loyalty, Nick is patience, Nick is like rain tapping on a rooftop, Nick is the quiet you'd come across in the dead of night.

Now that I've written it, yes; Nick is quiet, that's what he is. That quiet, unshakeable presence that never judges as long as you're taking responsibility for what you've done.

Nick likes to cook for others, to have tea ready just in case someone comes home; Nick likes simple evenings, the ones where no one has to say a word and yet everything unwinds by itself; Nick likes old books that remind him of what's still standing, Nick likes to do good - hell, he does.

I think he's saved me. For some reason, he thinks the same. After so many centuries longing for something to call his own, he stumbled upon me, the woman who wrote him like someone who mattered.

He saved me, that's for sure. Everything else, that's not mine to decide.

Nick took the foundations of our lives and made them into a home. Cimetronelle wouldn't be what it is without him.

Sometimes I forget about the science and the physics and the rules and God knows what else, and I think love is the only reason why this place exists. - 09.06.2026-SRT

You're apologizing again. - 27.02.2025-SRT

You know what? Let's close that Tumblr window. - 24.09.2025-SRT

We have our whole lives to talk to each other. Go. Get. Some. Sleep. - 11.08.2023-SRT

... and am I suggesting that Eight is flirting with Articuno? - 25.09.2025-SRT

So that's what I felt this afternoon. - 23.10.2025-SRT

Well. My sensors are either getting rusty or they've decided you're not worth noticing. Probably a little bit of both. - 09.06.2026-SRT

Here. I made enough smoothies to last us ten years... Drink it slow. - 27.06.2026-SRT