#ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ i'll be your support on this mission (headcanons/about)

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Ingrid will be very nice to literally everyone (even Wesker, Arias, bioweapons, etc.) until they give her a reason not to be. The minute that happens, Ingrid will become very petty, short in her temperament and catty. She's usually pretty good at keeping that behavior to herself in her own mind, but the minute somebody gets on her bad side all holds are off. Things that get on her bad side are harming her agents, harming her or threatening her family. She will be the most sarcastic, petty little asshole you've ever met after that. She will do whatever she can to make them miserable. She'll sic the IRS on them or put a hold on their bank account. She'll order a drone strike on any property they own or places she knows they hold dear. The Geneva Convention becomes a Geneva suggestion at that point.

There is a reason agents respect her. She is fucking terrifying when she needs to be.

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In Ingrid’s villager verse, she’s an embroiderer/lace maker. She makes two kinds of lace: bobbin lace and needle lace. The difference is in the tools used. Bobbin lace, also called pillow lace, is made by braiding and twisting a bunch of threads using wood bobbins. The work is kept in place by like a million little pins as shown in the picture below. There are specialty lace pillows made for this lace work which is why it is also known as pillow lace. Ingrid has all of these tools. Ingrid personally prefers making this type of lace because it isn’t as hard on her finger joints. Ingrid usually works with silk thread for clients like Lady Dimitrescu and cotton thread for other villagers. All of this has to be bought through the Duke, of course. Below is a bobbin lace setup and an example of bobbin lace work.

Needle lace is exactly what it sounds like. It’s lace made with a needle, thread and scissors. It’s extremely delicate and painstaking work. This is Ingrid’s least favorite type because it’s more taxing on her hands. Often her joints will lock up, and she’ll have to take a break. Because she’s so good with needle and thread, she is also pretty good at stitching up people and animals. The picture below is an example of needle lace.

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Ingrid may or may not own a pair of black booty shorts that say “my illness is chronic, but my ass is iconic” across the cheeks with RA awareness ribbons on the sides. She bought them during an autoimmune disease awareness event that was in the DC area for a laugh. They’re actually very comfy. No one will ever find them or know about them though unless they barge into her house when she’s wearing them because all her other loungewear is being washed. Or they go digging through her closet.

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Ingrid is always a bit anxious when meeting people for the first time in person. Let’s be real, the only people she meets in person are usually the field agents she’s assigned to because homegirl has ZERO social life. So, this mostly applies to them:

Most people don’t expect to see Ingrid in a wheelchair when they first meet her in person. After all, they only see her upper half when they’re using the DSO comms system. Usually, she plans it out so she’s sitting behind her desk so people can’t see the wheelchair (kinda like FDR did in the Oval Office). Then she kind of eases them into it throughout the conversation. She just feels like she needs to address it gently, I guess?

She shouldn’t have to, of course, no disabled person should ever feel like they have to gently ease abled people into seeing their disability, but this is Ingrid. She’s all about keeping the peace and keeping people happy. She doesn’t want them stunned to silence when they see she uses a mobility device and then they feel awkward or embarrassed by their own surprise. Also, easing them into it gives her control over the situation, and she likes to be in control. She doesn’t like surprises. She likes to plan things out carefully and have a color-coded binder with all the failsafes labeled in alphabetical order.

So, if they just run into her in the halls, on the streets or in a meeting room, it makes Ingrid uncomfortable. She has no control over the encounter. The most typical reaction if she just runs into them is that they’ll initially stare at her wheelchair. Ingrid always immediately feels like a broken little disappointment of a girl then because they see her wheelchair, not her. It’s usually quick to go away though. She’s had a lot of years to get used to the stares. Then they’ll get this deer in the headlights look and just say “oh” in a surprised way, and Ingrid gets it. She really does. She’s different, and it can be a shock. She never blames them, but she can’t help that little piece of her that always hates that reaction because it makes her feel less than. And she feels like she needs to prove herself. In the rare case people don’t bat an eye or don’t have those reactions, she always feels immediately more comfortable and at ease with them.

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I want to talk about Ingrid’s C-PTSD related to her work. Like emergency aid dispatchers in real life, Ingrid is hearing, seeing and experiencing a lot of what field agents do.

Just think about what she goes through with Leon Kennedy alone. She hears and probably sees everything he does in real time. The B.O.W.s, the death, the violence, the torture. She’s experiencing all this with Leon, but she is forced to compartmentalize her feelings and emotions because in that moment she has to stay calm and vigilant for Leon’s sake. Like, this man’s life is in her hands. One wrong directive and he could wind up dead. That’s soooo much pressure on just one person! I headcanon that the FOS does usually have eyes on their agents either through aerial visuals (like we see in the beginning of RE: Damnation) or they have body cams of some sort by the time we get to RE6. So, Ingrid is seeing what Leon and the other agents she supervises see. She is getting a front row seat to all sorts of awful shit, and even though she’s just seeing that through a screen, that shit is still traumatizing.

Let’s look at what happens in RE4. Ingrid is trying to help keep Leon alive while he’s being essentially hunted by Los Illuminados, and the president’s daughter is at risk. That’s two people Ingrid is responsible for, but she has no control over them or what’s happening. She can’t go in and save them. She just has to helplessly watch and listen. Then she fucking loses all contact with him not once but twice (once when he’s infected, again when he gets to the castle). I mean, can you imagine the horror and dread of that situation? Someone you are personally responsible for in the middle of literal hell on earth has gone MIA. The last time you heard from them, they were in trouble, so your mind just starts going crazy with worst case scenarios. That’s enough to traumatize anyone. But Ingrid has to keep her emotions at bay and stay calm. She can’t healthily process what’s happening in that moment, so she has to deal with all that shit later.

I headcanon that just before RE4, Ingrid lost an agent in Algeria. She was helping them try to disable a bomb, and then their communications failed. She couldn’t see anything. Just all of a sudden, when she’s telling them which wire to clip, she gets static. When she tries to get an aerial visual, she just sees this massive crater with pieces of the agent all over the place. Like, that shit will change a person. And then to go through that again with another agent? Ingrid was on her last leg mentally that day.

Then there’s RE: Damnation. Leon is in the middle of a warzone, and she can see him. She sees rockets nearly take him out, sees gunfire, sees B.O.W.s everywhere. Dead civilians, soldiers being shot up. And then when she tries to guide him out of danger, he just disconnects her. So, after the hell of the disconnection in RE4, Ingrid gets another hefty dose of traumatizing fear and anxiety. Leon is blind on the ground, and she has no way to help him or warn him if she sees something coming. And he is her agent. Her responsibility. I think in those moments, she was probably just imagining all the agents she HAD lost. All the deaths she had to oversee or witness. The torture of having to declare someone MIA or KIA. That shit is hard to deal with for anyone, and Ingrid has no military training. A few sessions with a government offered therapist isn’t going to do jack shit for that.

Then there’s the horror of RE6. She loses contact with Leon and Helena, that’s, again, TWO people she oversees, when they go underground in Tall Oaks (which is, in her words "hell on earth"). This poor woman has been through the emotional wringer. On top of that, Simmons blames Leon and Helena for the death of the president and declares them enemies of state. Now Ingrid has a big decision, does she salvage her job so she can protect hundreds of other agents or does she risk her life for these two? Suddenly her coworkers and superiors can no longer be trusted. They’re all potential threats and enemies. She has no safety net besides these two now-criminals, and she can’t be in contact with them all the time. She can only offer snippets of help when she can call in and watch what’s unfolding from her desk.

Ingrid’s symptoms are usually that she frightens very easily. She can’t watch movies with jump scares at all, even if she’s warned what will happen ahead of time. The sudden scares trigger her. Her triggers are usually audio-oriented. So, for example, if she hears a scream in a movie, she’s going to suddenly remember that time she watched an agent eaten alive during a T-virus outbreak. Or if there’s a sudden blaring music, she’ll remember that time she watched an agent turned into a pulp by a semi truck or the agent killed by a bomb. Stuff like that. Halloween is not a fun time for poor Ingrid. She also struggles with pretty nasty insomnia right after being exposed to a new trauma. Sleep makes her vulnerable to night terrors. And the overwhelming guilt and shame she feels about some of this stuff could be a post all on its own.

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Ingrid was diagnosed with RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) shortly after she was adopted. RAD is a pretty common issue for adopted children and children in the system because they don’t form relationships with the adults in their life early on in development or they have unstable/toxic/abusive relationships with the adults in their life.

Her moms were warned this would likely be an issue since Ingrid was coming to them from an international orphanage. They noticed she had problems the first day she came to them, but they were prepared and were absolutely amazing about taking her to therapy and working with Ingrid. They did research, got Ingrid involved in special programs so she wouldn’t fall behind in her academics and were always incredibly understanding.

I’ll be going over the symptoms she struggled with most and will give examples where necessary.

Bossy with peers and adults (Ingrid was big on this one. Any imperfection she saw had to be fixed or she’d go into inconsolable tantrums. If one of her parents cut her sandwiches and it wasn’t perfectly straight, she’d order them to fix it. When her teacher’s writing on the white board was crooked, she would stand up and order them to fix it or, again, tantrums would ensue that would require that she be dragged out kicking and screaming by her school aide.)

Refusing eye contact

Food issues (She struggled a lot with food hoarding. In the orphanage, the adults often overlooked some children, so Ingrid wouldn’t eat somedays or would give her food to others. After her adoption, she’d ask all her classmates for the food they didn’t want and hide it in her bag. She had a dresser drawer full of half-eaten chip bags, chicken nuggets and whatever food she could find. She also stole from the fridge and pantry pretty often.)

Extremely clingy (Ingrid was severely attached to her mothers and her school aide. She demanded all of their attention and presence at all times though she wasn’t attached to anyone her own age. In fact, she was pretty averse to forming bonds with anyone her own age.)

Resistant to change

Need to control everything

Motivated by deep seated belief of worthlessness and un-lovability (I’ve talked about this before, but Ingrid struggled and probably always will struggle with this one. She was told for as long as she could remember that her parents gave her up because she was essentially “broken” (not true btw). And that’s stuck with her. When she was adopted, she constantly feared her moms would give her away because she wasn’t good enough. This translated to an obsession with perfection to make them happy.)

Feels out of control

Craves structure

Hypervigilance

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So some of y’all may be thinking. Geez, Hana what the fuck is with all the flowers? Well, I’ll tell you. They’re not just “flowers” (some of them are but ignore that). They’re specifically dahlias. And that is very important to clarify. While they are indeed very pretty, that’s not why I use them so frequently in my aesthetics and graphics. The main reason I use them for Ingrid is because of their meanings. Specifically, the red, pink and white dahlias. The meaning varies depending on the color of the dahlia, but I personally think they fit my depiction of Ingrid very well.

Red dahlias stand for perseverance and the ability to overcome hardship. My Ingrid’s backstory is filled with moments like this where she didn’t let the world make her mean. In spite of everything, she’s always chosen kindness. She has always chosen to push forward and break all kinds of barriers. She was on the swim team despite her disability, she was one of wry few women in the field of computers in the nineties. A time when sexism was rampant in that field of study. Pink dahlias symbolize feminine beauty and kindness. Now, I may be biased, but I think Hunnigan has that in fucking spades. I mean, look at her. She’s a total babe. Also she’s an absolute cinnamon roll. There isn’t anything she wouldn’t do to help someone in need. White dahlias represent new beginnings, which Ingrid also experiences in my depiction. As a Romani Romanian orphan during the Ceaușescu regime, her prospects were dismal. That’s without considering her disability. Very few orphans survived that awful time. It’s horrific what went on in Romania at the time. But when she was adopted by her parents, she could have a better life. She was able to finally get medical care. She could finally get an education and a chance at a happy life where she made it to adulthood and wasn’t as stigmatized for her ethnicity, as Roma face a bit less persecution outside Europe.

So this is all to basically say there is, in fact, a purpose to the flowers on my blog. They weren’t just a thing that I thought “oooh pretty stuff”. It was a very intentional and deliberate decision on my part when I made this blog. I wanted something that could symbolize Ingrid and all she’s gone through.

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Drabble ahead depicting Ingrid as a child. Warning that there is a lot of trauma in here she’s working through. It references a lot of abuse trauma behaviors like food hoarding and feelings of inadequacy. 

At least once a day, Sandy Hunnigan contemplated flying back over to Romania and killing everyone she and her partner encountered when going through Ingrid’s adoption. This was because at least five times a day, they would bear witness to the evidence of their newly adopted daughter’s treatment. It was horrific. How such a small little girl had managed to survive such awful conditions never failed to astound her, and it made her swear she would never let anything like that happen again. Some things she was certain they missed though; they weren’t mind readers and Ingrid still hid things from them. Both literally and figuratively. God the stashes were still so hard to work through.

Every once in a while, either Barb or her would find a baggie of days-old food stashed under the cupboard or under Ingrid’s bed. They’d done everything they’d been told by her counselor. Give her a drawer full of snacks just for her, but Ingrid still felt so unsure about food. She’d scarf down anything put in front of her in a few minutes. A few times, she’d started vomiting from it. She would sit at the table as soon as Sandy started cooking like a puppy waiting for table scraps. They finally managed to get her away from that. From constantly being on edge about mealtimes. But it was replaced by these stashes. All around the house there were stashes, and not just of food. Once, Barbra found a twenty dollar bill and two quarters in an old sandwich bag in the junk drawer. When asked about it, Ingrid apologized with tears in her eyes. She always just automatically assumed she’d done something wrong. It took an hour to console her and convince her that, no, they weren't mad, they just wanted to know why. But no explanation was ever given.

Then there was the emotional side of the hiding. Any perceived criticism given by any adult, Ingrid would immediately perceive as harsh criticism and take it to heart. That was easier to see, at least, because Ingrid always dialed up any perceived wrong to a hundred.  The last one was a report card. Ingrid’s teacher gave her a C in her grammar which, for a child still learning a new language, was fantastic. Even her teacher left a note saying how impressed she was. But Ingrid was despondent. She hid in her room, curled up in the fetal position, shielding her underbelly like she was under attack. She was shaking and breathing hard, begging Sandy to please not send her back, please anything but that. She was utterly convinced, after one careless comment, that there was no one and nothing in the world weaker or more pathetic than she was.

They never talked about it, though. Because any time they tried to, Ingrid clammed up and went pale, shaking her head vehemently. They didn’t want to push her. That changed, however, when Barbra found Ingrid packing a bag full of belongings like she was just going to leave. Sandra had just gotten home from work when she heard Barb call her down the hall. She was standing in the doorway of Ingrid’s room, flustered given how she was tapping her foot like a hummingbird flapped its wings. Ingrid was in the room, her lip shaking as she hid in the corner of the room in her wheelchair. She was hugging herself, looking anywhere but at them. Her gaze was instead fixated on the floor, her expression blank and eyes empty. Like she was anticipating backlash. 

“What’s going on, hun?”

“She’s running away, San. She packed a bag, look,” she whispered. “She won’t talk to me. She just…shut down. She’s been like this since the doctor’s visit to get her fitted for a custom chair. She won’t look at me. She won’t talk.”

The evidence was plain as day. It was Ingrid’s school bag. Sandra walked forward cautiously, as if any movement might spook their daughter into a panic. She carefully and slowly opened the bag, glancing up at Ingrid. She was watching her in her peripheral vision. Sandra smiled to try and show her it was okay, but as soon as Ingrid realized she’d been found out, her eyes darted away again. In the bag there were two changes of clothes, both meant for colder weather, Barb’s credit card was in there too. Then there was Ingrid’s diary her therapist asked her to keep and…and a family photo. Ingrid was sitting between Sandy and Barb, receiving a cheek kiss from both of them, one of her front teeth missing in her toothy grin. She remembered this photo. Her birthday dinner. She’d never seen their daughter’s eyes get so big as when they brought out that slice of cake as big as her head. She ate the whole thing too.

“For…when you thought we’d throw you out?” Sandra asked, realization dawning. Ingrid was terrified of rejection. Of not being good enough to be given simple human decency and love. She’d had so little love and affection that she expected it to be ripped from her small fingers at any moment. 

Sandy once again felt completely helpless. Drowning in the need to help, but unsure what to do. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Ingrid wasn’t supposed to be so broken when they adopted her. Were they even good enough to help her? What if they made things worse? This little girl deserved the world. What if she and her partner couldn’t give that to her? This was PTSD. This was abandonment issues far worse than what her therapist knew about. She needed to call them. Get Ingrid in for more appointments. They couldn’t go on like this. She had no doubt Barb was thinking the same or worse, given how she was still frozen in the doorway. This had come as a total surprise to both of them.

She abandoned the pack and immediately went over to Ingrid, kneeling in front of her in her too-big wheelchair she could barely reach the wheels of. She reached out cautiously and winced when Ingrid flinched like she was going to harm her. She picked Ingrid up. She was still so light. Too light for a nearly ten year old and still so small. Sandra carried her past Barbra to their bedroom and laid Ingrid down in the middle of it, laying down beside her to rub her back. She didn’t come to their bed as often as she used to. In the first year, she’d crawl up the center of the bed at four in the morning, knobby knees digging into both she and Barb’s soft bits before plopping down. She would starfish immediately so she was always touching them both, no matter how they tried to move away. Those times, Ingrid was relaxed and calm. Now, she was stiff as a board and shaking like a leaf.

She let the silence continue, just rubbing her daughter’s back as she laid down behind her. It took a while, but Ingrid eventually started to relax. Her breathing slowed down as every muscle slumped out of its rigidity. For a second, Sandy was convinced Ingrid had fallen asleep. Maybe that was for the best. Sleep healed a lot of things. She heard Barb on the phone with Dr. Cartwright, Ingrid’s therapist, downstairs. Good, they were of one mind then. They usually were.  

Then Ingrid finally spoke.

“You…mad with me, momma?” her voice was barely a whisper, but it sounded like a scream for how quiet the room was. 

“No, Birdie, I’m not mad. I’m just…I’m worried, is all.”

Ingrid shifted a little, scooting back until her back was pressed into Sandy’s chest. “Mommy mad with me.” Her voice sounded guilty. Sad.

“No, no, honey. Mommy isn’t mad at you. She loves you. We both love you. She’s just worried like I am. Why do you want to leave? That’s what you were doing, right? We thought you were happy here with us.” She almost didn’t want to hear their daughter’s response. It would kill her to think Ingrid wasn’t happy with them.

“I am…happy. Happiest I been ever. But…I not good enough. I think you…not want me no more. Make you want me thrown away.”

Sandra would normally have corrected her daughter’s English by now. It was important she do it right, but right now, she could give even the slightest fuck about that. Instead, she just rubbed her hand up and down her little girl’s arm. “We told you we’d never send you back, baby. You remember? At Dr. C’s office? We love you, Birdie. We’d never want you to leave.”

She could feel Ingrid doing the breathing exercises Dr. Cartwright taught her. Good. She was self-regulating. It was a good sign. Sandra heard a wet sniffle and watched as her daughter lifted her arm to rub at her face. “You…really want me? Not just…using words?”

“How long have you been our baby girl?”

“Two years.”

“Have we ever done anything to make you not feel loved in those two years?”

“No but not you. Is me.”

“Tell me why you think that, sweetie. Talk it out. You’ll feel better, yeah?”

She said nothing. Sandra just waited. In that time, she heard Barb coming up the stairs. In her hands, she had two brownies, some chips and a bottle of juice. She also had Ingrid’s favorite blanket. Ingrid reached an arm out as Barb came into the room, still sniffling. Sandra could see Barb’s eyes getting watery.

“Oh, honey,” she whispered as she sat on the bed in front of Ingrid. “Here, have a little juice,” she soothed, opening the lid and putting a straw inside. Ingrid sat up a little and sipped at the juice for a few minutes before laying back down. Barb put everything on the bedside table where Ingrid could see it before laying down in front of her, putting the blanket over their daughter’s body. “Better?”

“Yes, mommy. Thanks you.”

“Of course, Birdie.”

“I…orphanage grown ups. They said I too broken. Family didn’t want me. Sent me there. Said no one would take me. Romani girl, too broken. Too much bad. Not worth it.”

Sandra immediately just wanted to nuke the whole goddamn country. How dare they hurt her baby like this? How dare fully grown adults treat a little girl like she’s nothing but trash? How could someone look at little Birdie’s face and think anything but that she was precious. Who wouldn’t want to protect her at all costs?

“I sometime think not good enough. Body not good. Expensive. School not good enough. Send me away. So, I pack.”

She said it like it was such a simple explanation. Like she was telling them the sky was blue and that the grass was green. It wasn’t that simple to Sandra, though. It confused her. But to her daughter, that had been her entire life. No wonder she looked so tired and defeated. How could anything thrive like that? Thinking any misstep was going to make them unwanted or unloved? She squeezed her arm gently and watched as Barb bit her lip. She reached out and patted Ingrid’s hand even though it was covered in tears and snot. 

“I want to be good enough.” 

And that tore the soul out of her, to hear her baby girl say those things. She sounded so hurt. She didn’t think kids this young could feel that kind of despair and heartbreak. She could see now that this had been what molded and shaped Ingrid. Even now, it was what drove her. She was just a child. A child with an old, tired, lonely soul that lived in constant fear that she would lose her family.

“You are good enough, sweetie. You’ll always be good enough. You could never do anything that would make me or mommy stop loving you.”

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Since it’s Easter and Ingrid doesn’t really celebrate it, here’s some traditional Romanian clothing that people usually wear for big festivals. Ingrid has a dress like this from her time spent in Romania as an adult to find her family. She never wears it though, and it stays in an airtight garment bag hanging in her closet. It’s very special to her. It’s handmade and tailored to her.

In her villager verse though, Ingrid wears this for big events in the village pretty regularly as I assume everyone else does.

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Time to talk about Ingrid’s relationship with food. This is your trigger warning. If you have issues with food discussion, child neglect recovery or eating disorders DO NOT READ THIS.

Ingrid’s relationship with food has always been super complicated for her because, remember, for a good chunk of her childhood she was severely malnourished and was basically in survival mode 24/7. Like, I’m talking she was rarely fed more than twice a week if the orphanage caretakers remembered and weren’t trying to punish Ingrid for being Roma. Even when Ingrid was fed, she often gave some of her own food to kids who weren’t coping as well as she was or who were sick. Kids died in Romania’s orphanages often during the Ceaușsécu regime. They were severely overcrowded and underfunded, and the funds they did get were usually mismanaged. So, obviously Ingrid had an obsession with food. Imagine when you've been you’re hungriest, and it’s like that all the time. Food is literally all you can think about. You dream about it, fantasize about it. Also take into account the fact that the adults in Ingrid’s life weren’t reliable and often very abusive. Studies show that a lack of consistency or feeling of safety with adult caregivers even as an infant can lead to long term food preoccupation.

So, when Ingrid was adopted, her food insecurity was very, very obvious. She gained a ton of weight too. She was a really bad binge eater. She would eat until she got sick. After all, she wasn’t sure when her next meal would come. She hoarded food in her room. You could look in drawers and find plastic baggies of week old mashed potatoes. She’d eat half a cookie at school and keep the other half in her backpack pockets. Her pillow crunched when she laid on it because she’d keep chip bags under them. She was also always super worried about mealtimes. If her moms were even five minutes off on having dinner, lunch or breakfast ready, she’d have panic attacks and her hoarding would get way way worse. To help this, her moms were told by her therapist to give her a drawer full of snacks she could have whenever she wanted. They promised it would never be empty so she’d always have something to eat. Ingrid would often go check the drawer multiple times a day even if she didn’t get food out of it. It really helped with her hoarding, and eventually she stopped hiding food around the house and being obsessed with food.

One issue Ingrid sometimes struggles with is food defensiveness. As a child, Ingrid got extremely upset when people wanted food off her plate. When she ate, she often hunched over her food. Her moms called it “golluming”. She would literally act like Gollum with how she held her food or plates/bowls close to her chest and hunkered over them. It took a lot of work to stop that. She actually got in trouble in school because a kid tried to take some food off her tray and she throat punched her. If her moms or a waiter/ess tried to take her plate, she would literally yell. Present day Ingrid still gets this way sometimes. Usually it’s on really bad pain days or when she’s in a bad mood or having a bad day overall. She’ll get upset if people eat her food or want to try something on her plate. Like if her significant other took a French fry, she’d probably start a whole ass fight over it with tears and everything. She’ll also hunch over her food at those times. Usually, she’s more than happy to give some of her food or offer bits off her plate, and of course, once that bad time passes, she feels like an asshole, but during it, it’s insanely upsetting.

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Dogs or cats?

For me? Dogs most definitely. Dogs all day erryday. Cats are okay, but I like the devotion and affection from dogs. All the cats I've ever had/been around are very independent and not super cuddly. Or they were just plain mean.

For Ingrid, neither. Dogs need a lot of time and attention which Ingrid doesn't have a lot of. If she weren't working in the field she was, she might be able to have one. But they'd have to be pre-trained to be around wheelchairs. She wouldn't want the dog to get hurt. She has been offered a service dog, but she wouldn't want to put a dog through staying in an office all hours of the day. Also bathroom breaks would interrupt her concentration.

Her moms had a cat when Ingrid was growing up. They gave the cat free reign of the entire house, and Ingrid as a child had a hard time sharing space that was supposed to be hers and hers alone. She was extremely territorial and possessive, especially right after being adopted. Often she would come home to the cat being in her things or having knocked over her belongings or just invading her space, and it would stress her out and cause tantrums. Her moms tried to get Ingrid to live more cohesively with the cat, but it never worked out. Ingrid never liked that cat and it kind of tainted cats in general for her. So no, probably no cats unless its because someone she really loves has one already. Or if the cat is barred from a specific room. Especially given all of Ingrid's work and computers. Don't want a cat to accidentally step on the keyboard and post nuclear launch codes on Reddit or some shit.

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Self-Care Regimen

Repost, don’t reblog

What’s their go-to shampoo and conditioner combination?  

Ingrid uses a clarifying shampoo and conditioner because her hair is easily weighed down by product buildup and impurities. She uses a leave in conditioner made to strengthen and keep her curls healthy as well as locking in much needed moisture. If she doesn’t do this, her hair will be a frizzy, tangled mess. Once a month, she does a deep conditioning hair mask.

What other hair products do they use? 

She uses coconut oil, a leave in styling spray that makes her hair easier to work with and hair gel to keep herself looking orderly and pristine. Not a hair can be out of place or it gives her anxiety.

What kind of fragrances do they use?  

She likes the smell of peaches most of all. Her usual perfume and body lotion is peach scented. Other than that, she’ll use things that smell warm and sweet like vanillas or baked cookie smells. 

What skin products do they use?  

Her nightly routine is more complex than her morning one. At night, Ingrid uses micellar water to get her makeup off and then an oil cleanser for her eye and lip makeup. Then she uses a hydrating gel cleanser. Next is a vitamin E enriched toner with AHA in it. Then there’s the green algae serum that goes after that and an eye cream. Last is moisturizer. For the morning, she uses her gel cleanser again, applies sunscreen and then moisturizer again before putting on makeup.

How do they treat their skin conditions?  

See above. Thankfully, Ingrid doesn’t have many skin issues.

What’s their go-to toothpaste? 

She prefers mint toothpaste of any brand as long as it has fluoride in it.

How do they tend to their nails?

She has acrylic nails she gets done in the french style. It’s one of her few splurges she allows for herself. Sometimes she’ll get them in colors, but she prefers the basic french nail look most.

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Does Ingrid want kids?

Ingrid absolutely adores kids. For a long time, she considered being a foster parent. She felt like she’d be good at it because she had experience with being orphaned and dealing with a lot of childhood trauma and she wanted to help give kids a safe environment she never received as a child. However, she realizes that fostering is impossible. She can’t possibly take care of kids when she’s pretty much married to her work and has crazy hours. That’s not fair to any kids she’d be housing. Kids, especially those who have been uprooted, need structure and routine. As things are, she can’t provide that. I actually used to rp with a Evelyn blog, and Ingrid fostered her for the BSAA. It gave Ingrid the chance to give Evie a somewhat normal childhood.

She does also really want kids of her own one day either by natural means or adoption. She would prefer at least one child of her own if she was being honest with herself, just because she has no bio family around her and she yearns for that. She loves her moms, of course, but she’s always had that desire for family ties by blood. She kind of got that when she met her bio dad and her Roma tribe in Romania, but by then she and her bio dad were both adults and practically strangers. By then, her tribe also considered her mostly gadja because she wasn’t raised by Roma. But she’d also be more than happy to give an adopted child a home and family too, of course.

She’s aware she has to be careful about who she has kids with because of her health concerns. RA is mostly based on genetics. If the other bio parent ends up having autoimmune issues like Ingrid does, any child she has is four times as likely to be born with a similar issue. That’s one thing Ingrid is terrified of: giving a child her disease. She always feels a bit guilty for wanting kids because of this. It makes her feel selfish to want a biological family. Sometimes she also thinks her moms would be upset (they wouldn’t be, of course) that she wanted kids of her own instead of adopting like they did.

For now, though, she’s happy being a godmother.

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Ingrid has type 2C hair (think along the lines of Shakira’s hair). As a result, it gets very frizzy and wild, and it can take up to an hour (sometimes even two if her joints are hurting) for her to get all her hair straightened so it will go into her typical uniform bun she wears to work. She uses hair masks and an oil treatment once a week to make sure the frizz doesn’t get unmanageable. She really shouldn’t be straightening her hair since it damages it, but she prefers the straight look when it’s in a bun because it looks more uniform. If there are any fly aways, she starts getting anxious and has to redo the whole thing. If it’s straight and gelled down, there’s little possibility of her having to redo it which saves time and stress.

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Ingrid wasn’t used to kindness from adults, so when someone gave her affection (like her moms, teachers, school aides, etc.) she latched on and latched on hard. At the orphanage, adults were always cruel and distant. She could go a week without any contact or care or be locked in a dark room for a whole day on a whim. Her environment from infancy to age seven was extremely unstable. So, when she was first adopted, she used to get super jealous really easily of anyone who took affectionate attention from her (classmates, pets, a book, the TV).

The lack of attention triggered an impulsive paranoia that if they weren’t looking at her and paying attention to her, they’d just suddenly forget all about her and abandon her. Plus, the affectionate, kind attention was so foreign that she tended to get greedy with it. She eventually learned to work through it and get past the fear through a lot of therapy and time in a stable, loving environment.