FiM Cast [Tier-3] Ingrid Marie [Final]

[Bellosh]

Roleplay Type: World of Equestria RP – Tier 3

Name: Ingrid Marie

Sex: Female

Age: Mare (middle-aged)

Species: Unicorn

Coat Color: Light gray

Mane/Tail/Markings Color & Style: Mane and tail are dark gray, with faint gray highlights running from front to back. Both the mane and tail are cut short.

Eye Color: Blue

Cutie Mark: A shining red apple.

Physique: Her size is average for a mare her age, but has slightly more natural muscle strength than the average unicorn due to her earth pony heritage.

Origin/Residence: Spent her early foalhood on a farm in the Solstice Heights, but currently resides in Canterlot.

Occupation: Guidance counselor for Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.

Motivation: To ensure that everypony attending Celestia’s school achieves academic, career and social success.

Likes: The School’s student body, tutoring, country life, gardening, hiking & camping

Dislikes: Serving on entrance exam panels, directionless students, ponies with elitist & populist attitudes, cacti & agaves

Character Summary: Ingrid Marie is in many ways a seldom seen combination of two different worlds. Her mother, an earth pony, traced her descent from one of Pokey Oaks’s brothers, while her unicorn father was the estranged son of a prominent Canterlot businessmare. Living on her family’s apple orchard in the Solstice Heights for the first few years of her life, Ingrid’s loving parents freely encouraged their daughter to use her unicorn powers to help out on the farm.

And use her magic the young Ingrid Marie did. The unicorn filly discovered that she had an affinity for “connecting” with plants, allowing her to figure out the specific needs of her family’s apple trees in order to bear the best fruit possible. Neighboring farmers didn’t think too highly of Ingrid’s ability at first, given the assumption that natural earth pony instincts could accomplish the same thing without fancy-schmancy horn magic. Ingrid did not let the naysayers get to her however, so the filly submitted apples she nurtured into a fruit-tasting competition in Canterlot. She won a respectable seventh place for her efforts, surprising given she was both a foal and a unicorn up against dozens of other local farmers. Proud of getting such an award, Ingrid Marie found herself rewarded with a shining red apple as her cutie mark that day.

Convinced that their daughter could do much more with her powers than work on a farm, Ingrid Marie’s enrolled her in Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. While Ingrid herself was among the lower half of students as far as magical aptitude was concerned, her instructors took great interest in how she frequently helped other students develop their abilities to great success. Based on the recommendation of her guidance counselor, Ingrid chose to pursue a degree in education at Canterlot University after graduating from the School. The young mare paid her way through university working as a freelance magic tutor for foals attending Magic Kindergarten, and after many hard years earned her Ph.D.

Unfortunately, these formative years also saw Ingrid Marie losing her connection with her family and their way of life. Letting friendly jabs at her way of speaking get to her during her time at Celestia’s School, Ingrid purged herself of her country accent as a means to fit in. As a college student, Ingrid’s busier schedule kept her from visiting her parents often except for about two-to-three times a year. Yet it was Ingrid’s first professional job after graduating from college which completed the process of disconnecting herself almost entirely from her roots; a position as a magic instructor at Neighton Preparatory Academy.

A prestigious secondary school located in Canterlot with astronomically-high enrollment fees, Neighton Prep mainly serves to educate the children of many of the richest and most influential families in Equestria (those families that don’t rely on private tutors, that is). Ingrid's job at Neighton was a tough one; not only was she expected to teach the young nobleponies advanced magic spells regardless of their actual affinity, but also faced incessant scrutiny from their powerful parents who demanded only the best education possible. Instructors at Neighton like Ingrid were also expected to attend numerous high-society functions as part of their official duties of promoting the Academy. Even though the job's stressful workload kept Ingrid from keeping in touch with her mom and dad, it paid very well. Concerned, Ingrid's parents tried to convince their daughter to find a less soul-crushing place of employment; she had none of it though, and instead cut herself off from her family out of spite.

Ingrid Marie’s tenure at Neighton only lasted for a few brief-but-miserable years; her old guidance counselor from Celestia’s School did not forget about her, and upon retirement, hoofpicked Ingrid to be the next counselor. For Ingrid, being the school counselor was… and continues to be, a dream come true even if she makes much less money than at Neighton. The counselor loves nothing more than helping students refine their magical talents, seeking out educational and career opportunities for students and to assist those with difficulties in maintaining friendships with their classmates. If there is one part of the job that fustrates Counselor Marie to no end, it would be proctoring student entrance examinations; absolutely too many unicorn parents attempt to enroll their foals without bothering to ascertain if they are actually gifted in magical aptitude or not.

The most notorious incident involving such a “questionably-gifted” applicant was Twilight Sparkle, a blankflank who apparently convinced herself that it was her destiny to become a great magician. Adding to the situation’s absurdity, Princess Celestia herself made an extremely-rare last-minute change to the filly’s examination, ordering that a standard assessment test be replaced with the much more difficult task of hatching a dragon egg. Just as Counselor Marie and her fellow proctors expected, Twilight’s examination started poorly as the blankflanked filly utterly failed to hatch the egg. Just as Counselor Marie and the other proctors were ready to officially reject Twilight, a mysterious sonic rainboom occurred and provoked the filly to unleash the full extent of her powers. Among other things, Twilight’s outburst caused Ingrid to hover helplessly in the air and turned Twilight’s parents into a cactus and an agave. Fortunately, Princess Celestia arrived in time to bring the filly back under control and to take on Twilight as her personal student. Counselor Marie has total confidence in the Princess's ability to tutor the young prodigy; nonetheless, the counselor believes to this day that Twilight requires the assistance of all the School's resources to best control and harness her powers.

Now that many long years have passed since burning her bridges to the past, Ingrid Marie has finally begun to question the point of hiding her country roots. Ingrid is still very reluctant to face her mom and dad again, but she has considered getting herself acquainted with her distant Apple family relatives, whom she never got a chance to know well even in her foalhood (her relatives on her father’s side pretend that he and his family don’t exist, as they never approved of her dad’s choices in life). While Counselor Marie has no intention of ditching her beloved job to spend the rest of her life back in the countryside, she has taken up gardening and outdoor excursions as hobbies to help her reconnect with nature and to sharpen her special magic abilities, which she hadn't had a real need for since foalhood. Just don’t show Ingrid any cacti or agaves at all; they bring back unpleasant memories of the Twilight Incident…..

Edited September 9, 2012 by Bellosh101

[SteelEagle]

Hey there! Overall, strong application and in discussing with the other Apples nothing major came out against it. However, there are several things that strike me as perhaps needing to be looked at:

"Given her need to keep the respect of both her students and their elitist parents, Ingrid Marie simply opted to not tell anypony about her origins. Her parents tried to convince their daughter to not be ashamed of the earth pony side of her heritage; Ingrid had none of it though, and instead cut herself off from her family. Worst of all however, years of disuse rendered Ingrid’s ability to “connect” with plants with her unicorn powers almost nonexistent."

- We should try and shy away from having ponies being ashamed/elitist to the degree of discriminating against one of the three types to any degree. Also, losing her magical connection would be a much bigger deal as it was the source of her cutie mark. I would personally advise against having her connection power effected at all and would suggest a clean-up of this section.

"Despite writing to Princess Celestia numerous times about the issue, the counselor never got a response back, resulting in Ingrid developing a minor grudge against the princess."

- Also something you should perhaps reconsider for two reasons. One, she herself seems the type to not really have cared much for a 'healthy social life' considering the social life she chose is decidedly unhealthy. Secondly, we want to avoid anything resembling the possibility of dislike for Celestia.

These are relatively minor complaints, overall the app is well done.

[Bellosh]

Edits have been made.

[SunsetSombra]

Aaaaand welcome to the apples!

Enjoy your stay!

[Imagination]