User:T'Mar

At a Glance

Name: Melanie (aka Mel)

Location: Huntsville, Alabama, USA

Age: 33

Occupation: Human Resources Coordinator

Hobbies: Reading and Retro Gaming primarily

Joined UFOP: August 2012

Writer ID: A238908T10

About Me

Me at Busch Gardens with some friends

Generic Information

Here's where I guess I get to tell you all more about me. In case you were curious or something. I was born and raised in the Metro DC area. My dad brought me up with Star Trek so I have been watching since I can remember. I also enjoy writing. My first college degree was in Liberal Arts; I studied Poetry and Music before switching over to Business. I have a MBA in HR. Currently I work in Human Resources for a Behavioral Health company. I have been vegetarian for 10 years and was vegan for 3, which resulted in much joking from my friends on the Apollo. When I am not working at my full time job, I am always hanging out with my husband who happens to be my best friend (and he did a short stint on the Conny as well).

Those who know me, whether in RL or in OOC chats, know that I have a strange (to put it nicely) sense of humor, which is a genetic trait apparently because everyone on the one side of my family has the very same sense of humor. Those who know me in RL also know that I have a strange addiction to dying my hair. Most of my friends have never seen my natural hair color. That is an extremely sad fact. I usually end up back to my red hair, though.

CURRENT HAIR COLOR: Boring brown (check back as it's always changing!)

I tend to read a lot of sci-fi/fantasy books. I am trying to expand my reading genres, though, and have been reading a LOT of different types as of late. I am also attempting to write a story for my own leisure (Fun fact- part of my inspiration to join the fleet was to increase my typing speeds again. The last time I posted on a ship I was typing well over 100 wpm and I had been down to 40 wpm. I'm now about 70 wpm, so I am on my way!)

My History with Gaming

I have been big on gaming since I was a kid. Growing up, my friends and I created the equivalent of what is now known as LARPing. We each had our own characters and we would make up quests that we would play out. From there I got into video games. I am a Nintendo-girl myself, so I played a lot of Zelda, DK, Mario, etc. and I never really moved on from there. I still play the old school games instead of the newer ones, although I love COD. I dabble with computer games, but I typically would play on my friends computers and not my own (system requirement issues, ftl). I also have a Table Top gaming group now as well.

Back in the 90s, on of my Trekker friends told me about this thing called a "PBeM" for Star Trek. Soon after I was an addict. I was on three different ships at one point (fun fact: one of the characters was named T'Mar and had striking similarities to my current character, although she was not Betazoid). I was a Captain on one of the ships, however, the ships soon reached the common fate for many of those ships: one by one the members started leaving and soon there was not enough to keep the ships going. In the early 2000s, one of the ships (the USS Cavalry- formerly part of the BravoFleet) attempted a comeback and it gave me a taste for the simming world once more, but about a year later it had reached the same fate again. Despite my desire to play with that group that had become like family, I knew a third attempt would never happen. Around that point I was in high school anyways and switched over to gaming and shenanigans with my friends. The PBeM world quickly faded away as I began growing up and thinking about my future.

Fast forward to the summer of 2012. I was working at two different internships, both of which had a lot of down time, due to being unpaid work. While I was working I realized that my typing was much slower than the days where I was posting on three ships for fun (I averaged well over 100wpm back then). It started as an idea to help me increase typing speed, but I quickly realized I missed the action and even more, the friends that came with PBeMs. A quick google search brought me to UFOP and without taking any time to talk myself out of it, I signed up. There would be no going back from there...

My Characters

Current Playing Characters

• LtCmdr. Cassiopeia Shanta - USS Constitution

Current NPCs

• PNPC Lt. (JG) Loleh Rejock
• PNPC Lt. Katelynn Meyer
• PNPC Ens. Sarai Porter
• Cmdr. T'Mar - USS Constitution
  • T'Mar's Bio Sandbox
• Cmdr. Sarah Mason - USS Constitution

Former Characters

• MSNPC Aida Midasti- Town Healer on Planet Eridea
• MSNPC Commander Koval- Rogue Klingon extraordinaire
• MSNPC Lt.Cmdr. Sarah Mason

OOC Contributions

• Podcast Team Contributing member/Co-host; 9/28/2012 to 10/9/2016, Co-Facilitator; 12/1/2014- 3/2015. Facilitator; 3/2015- 8/2015. Co-Facilitator; 8/2015-9/2015.
  • Guest Host appearances prior to Facilitating:
    • UFOP: Starbase 118 Podcast: Episode 2390-1
    • UFOP: StarBase 118 Podcast: Episode 2390-4
    • UFOP: StarBase 118 Podcast: Episode 2390-6
    • UFOP: StarBase 118 Holiday Podcast & Award Preview
    • UFOP: StarBase 118 Podcast: Episode 2391-4
• UFOP History Team Contributing member, Co-facilitator, observer; 4/4/2013 to present (on and off)
  • T'Mar's History Sandbox
• USS Gemini Newsletter Team Initial Facilitator and contributing member; 11/2014- 12/2014 when the project was ended
• USS Apollo Mentor; 7/30/2013 to 2/2014
• USS Gemini Mentor & Facilitator; 2/2014- 7/2015
• USS Gemini Chat Facilitator; 2/2014- 3/2015
• Top Sims Contest Judge USS Apollo representative; 9/1/2013 to 2/2014
• Publicity Team Committee member/occasional contributing member; 7/28/2014- 11/25/2015
• Training Operations Team Trainer/Member; 10/9/2013- 12/19/2016
  • My Character: Jaina Webb
• Newsies Team Interviewee
  • Lower Decks interview: Found Here

Game Goals

My main goal for T'Mar was to become a Captain of a ship. In the long term, I still intend to do this, although with the recent change of characters I have not decided if T'Mar will be at the comm. I hope to return to XO and eventually move up as CO. When I started simming with this group, I had much more time to invest due to my job at the time having tons of times I could write. For a short while there, I was in a position that would not even allow me to check my email at lunch, and I was working about 50+ hours a week. This put me behind on my path to promotion, but I am now in a position where I can write during the day on my break and I am back on the right track to meet my goals. This also means I can focus on participating in more OOC activities to help the community as well. While I have had to step back from the XO role due to health and the like, I hope able to focus more on facilitating OOC groups again which is a lot of fun for me.

I also want to delve more into T'Mar's internal conflict with the battle over logic or empathy. Vulcan or Betazoid. I have yet to decide if she will choose to accept her emotions, but that is the fun of writing for her. So far this indecisiveness has shown through her by making her take more and more risks. At some point I will have to make a decision and I think that time is coming soon.