loser geek or whatever!
mel | 28 | they/them
picrew credit: Cartoony Maker here
Hi, I'm Mel and I'm an ex-college student living somewhere in the foothills of rural California. I have many hobbies that I can really only afford to be half-interested in, but my main interests and the ones you'll probably find me indulging in on social media are being an equestrian, playing video games, and writing stories I'm not actually brave enough to share with the public beyond a niche group of close friends.I'm nonbinary, asexual, and aromantic. I am also autistic. My experiences in living with these aspects of my identity may sometimes come up in personal posts.
links
twitter, insta, tiktok - @mlaenie
tumblr - razanartuk
pinterest - razanartuk
there is no extensive dnf/i here, just don't be a bigot.
+ if i discover that you are, in fact, a bigot or you just don't know how to behave even when you have the entire internet at your disposal to learn how to behave, you will be blocked.
horses
As a small child, I wanted to be a horse trainer. I fell in love with horses as a toddler, and I was privileged to have been born into a family where they had been a central part of life. My maternal grandmother started breeding Arabian horses in the 1960s and my mom and her two sisters were brought up in the profession as well. There was never a time where there weren't a number of horses on the ranch, whether it was for old farm work or recreational riding.My first horse friend was a bay Quarter Horse mare named Wonder. My grandmother had bought her from a friend and former client as a lesson horse for my sisters and our cousin. She was a very well-trained, easygoing, sweet mare and was the perfect kids' horse, worth her weight in gold.She belonged to all of us to share, though as my older sister advanced in riding and started leasing a horse from a family friend, our cousin moved far away from the ranch, and my youngest sister grew disinterested in horses completely, I was the last one still riding Wonder, and we all sort of agreed she was my horse.
My current horse Rosie II, or more often referred to as R2, was bought as a green 6-year-old. The plan was for my mom to train her up a little more until she was safe enough for me to ride, and in the meantime, I would continue riding Wonder to build confidence.Wonder colicked on December 11th, 2006. It was my birthday, which I had spent with my paternal grandparents after not seeing them for a few months because of school. I had just settled down after a long drive home when my mom sat me down on the couch to break the news. I think she got as far as "Wonder colicked" before I started crying because I knew she was gone. I was 12, but I knew a colic case in a nearly 23-year-old mare didn't have a good prognosis for recovery.I spent several months despondent over Wonder's death. I refused to go to the ranch, or if I did go I avoided going outside with the horses unless I absolutely had to. By Spring 2007, I was ready to try again. I started asking my mom if I could ride. She said I still wasn't quite ready to ride R2, but I could at least start handling her from the ground. She taught me how to do a basic showmanship pattern and how to lunge, and helped me give R2 a bath.By 2008, I had spent enough time with R2 that my mom said it was probably okay for me to start riding her. The only drawback was that I was usually swamped with schoolwork and so stressed out that I couldn't even think about riding most of the time. I got to ride a handful of times per year if I was lucky.We have had our ups and downs over the years as I have learned how to, and how not to, train a horse, but I think we're on the right track to a better partnership through positive reinforcement.
VIDEO GAMES
There are two kinds of gaming when it comes to what I enjoy playing. I tend to prefer single-player RPGs with strong, engaging storylines, but I'll try pretty much anything and I think I play a pretty industry-standard lineup on my Xbox. I like having the option available for multiplayer, but I am incredibly shy and not very skilled when it comes to actually playing multiplayer. I am also a fan of the niche genre known as "horse games" which I play on PC.
xbox games
Assassin's Creed (I...have only played Black Flag and never actually finished it, but I did watch a partial Let's Play series for Syndicate, Odyssey and Valhalla)
Fallout 3 & 4
Grand Theft Auto
LEGO
Minecraft
NASCAR Heat
Red Dead Redemption
Sea of Thieves
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
horse games
Equine Passion
Horse Fable
Horse Isle
Rival Stars Horse Racing
Wild Horse's Valley
MUSIC
I started playing the clarinet when I was in 4th grade, as it was the only wind instrument I could reliably produce any kind of sound from when we were given a chance to test drive them. At first, I didn't take it seriously. I used music lessons as a way to evade my regular class for an hour a week. I did this not because I was lazy or because hated doing real schoolwork, but because I was treated very unfairly by our teacher and I would get very anxious any time I needed to confront her, or any time she decided it was necessary to confront me about something. As time went on, though, I started to relax into the new routine and realized that I could create pretty sounds with friends. From then on I started taking band just a little more seriously.In middle school, I was surprised to learn that there was only one band class and we were all one ensemble who practiced together every day. I quickly realized I needed to step up my game and take practicing more seriously. I also taught myself how to actually read sheet music and memorize note names.My first exposure to high school band was when our middle school ensemble was invited to join the high school band in their annual Christmas concert. We were each partnered with a high schooler to help us through our shared songs. My partner said to me, "You're going to hate band next year. You should quit." and I couldn't understand why.I was about to start my freshman year of high school when I finally understood. We were asked to attend band camp the week before school started, and I was completely overwhelmed just 5 minutes into the first day. I remember calling my mom on the phone that evening because I was staying in town with my grandparents. I wanted to go home, I wanted to quit. I didn't think anything could get better, I lacked any shred of confidence in myself, which didn't mesh well with our band director's teaching style. His name was Dr. Smith and he was a retired Army veteran. It was easy to see why.The next day, I told our assistant director that I wanted to quit, and he told me that I wasn't the only one. He wouldn't manipulate anyone into staying if their heart really wasn't in it, but he had spoken with our director and they were going to work together and try a different approach. That was enough to make me stay.Dr. Smith could still go into drill sergeant mode from time to time, but he softened his direction a lot. I improved my musicianship significantly under his guidance. Our tiny 30-piece marching band won several competitions and was gifted invitations for multiple performances worldwide, though we had to decline as we simply could not afford the expenses for them. We did fundraise to travel to New York City and San Diego to perform in the Band of Pride event in celebration of Veteran's Day. We traveled to Washington D.C. and performed in their Memorial Day parade, and we traveled to Hawaii and performed for the 75th anniversary commemorating the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and we even won a Grammy.I started taking classes toward an A.A. degree in music in 2015, but was forced to take a break from college by mid-2017 due to rising gas prices and tuition fees as well as I felt my heart was no longer set on pursuing a career in music. I also had very little idea of what I could DO with a music degree aside from going into education, which was something I wasn't interested in pursuing.
writing
Admittedly, I've always thought my creative writing skills are lacking, but this has never really stopped me from trying my best. I started writing short stories for fun when I was around 8 years old. At some point when I was around 10 or 11 I discovered that there were entire message boards on proboards and invisionfree dedicated to roleplaying. I liked horse-related ones where you could write from the perspective of a wild horse or pretend you owned a big, successful horse ranch, because of course I did.In middle school, I started to write short stories based on songs I was listening to. I came up with quite a few Beatles-inspired stories that ultimately went nowhere, a few Portal fanfics, a passive-aggressive Phantom Stallion dis fic, and other super cringeworthy things. I never shared most of these things with anyone.In 2014, I stumbled across a message board that harkened back to my childhood. It was a Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron roleplay where you could apply with your own Spirit OC. I looked up a free lineart from deviantart I could use and started designing a rogue stallion character. His name was Akecheta and he was supposed to be like what Kovu is to Simba in the Lion King. He came from a rival band. He was going to fall in love with Spirit and Rain's daughter and try to win her over. The roleplay died before anything could happen in the story, and eventually, I moved Akecheta to Spirit Source.
After abandoning Akecheta and Spirit Source by accident, I discovered the tumblr roleplaying community while I was deeply obsessed with Lord of the Rings. I made a blog for writing Samwise Gamgee as a friend of mine was going to write Frodo, but we both forgot about it. It wasn't until 2017 that I would join the tumblr rpc for real.I started out writing a canon character, but I also picked up an idea for an original character and I created my first iteration of Emily McArty. My first draft of Em was...not great. She tended to be impulsive and prone to melodrama. She would react without truly thinking things through and often in an effort to protect her own feelings, she ended up hurting the feelings of people she cared about and pushing them away by doing so. She was obsessed with looking cool and impressing others even though she claimed she didn't care what anyone thought of her. She was a #relatable teen protagonist in the worst possible way, which might've worked in a different story, but since my goal is to create a story where she is a compelling main character, none of these traits were particularly encouraging.
Later versions of Em became more complex and sympathetic.