Basic Trope: A character others rely on due to their ability to shape people's understanding of something through each individual person's lens, and often being able to talk issues out.
- Straight: Ingrid constantly keeps in touch with some of the more trustworthy townsfolk, can collaborate with others on a whim with to get a medium-occupancy vechile appropriate for getting her friends out of a snag, and gives her own spin on the perks of new and/or risky scenarios.
- Exaggerated:
- Ingrid is so easy to respect that she can talk about people behind their back, disappear for a while, and then randomly return to the town because she's (purposely) indirectly convinced everyone that she's skillfully collaborating in that interim, even when it wouldn't realistically be possible.
- Breakout Character Mitt mentions fantasizing about being a spy for Ingrid, and the series in question implies that she may very well be one despite her not trying to manipulate the audience in-universe, due to her referencing the time she made friends with "x" vaguely-dangerous sounding person (an Amoral Attorney, an archangel, etc).
- Downplayed:
- Ingrid is good at reading people and talking things through, but can be a bit awkward when it comes to emotional support.
- Ingrid is a Fan of Underdog Vince and is more used to acting as a mentor for him in her own specific way, but is still capable of taking up the role of the social leader as long as he's already there, so she can fill him in on how things work in a larger group and then address the group as a whole.
- Justified:
- Ingrid is the Team Mom, and uses her experience acting as a guardian to act as the most socially experienced group member.
- Ingrid works as a social coach.
- Inverted: No Social Skills
- Subverted: Ingrid's classmates line up in front of her for what they describe as a "pep rally"...only for everyone to remain silent once they've arrived, until Ingrid mutters "There he is!", lends her VR headset to one of the students in the line, and sadly walks away while they play "Pep Rally Simulator".
- Double Subverted: Ingrid picked out that one person due to correctly suspecting that he plays the game every day, giving him a knowing nod as confirmation. The other students end up envying the both of them.
- Parodied:
- Any time Ingrid says something like "You Could Have Used Your Powers for Good!; What Would X Do?", a cyborg recognizes her historical accuracy and tries to recite a line from William Shakespeare to her; she instantly turns this around by putting a CAPTCHA in front of the robot, then smirks to herself.
- Once per Episode, Ingrid is introduced riding an exotic animal (i.e. a kangaroo), then winning the villain over with an extended speech in the animal's language.
- Zig-Zagged: Ingrid regularly holds conversations with kind scholars, but has Hidden Depths involving her worrying that she isn't always as sociable as she could be.
- Averted: Ingrid just goes with the flow.
- Lampshaded:
- "Story of my life—Bernard goes missing, Ron's plant dies and I have to get him a new one...wait, Vince, why aren't you the one retracing all these steps?"
- "You want to make Ingrid really happy? Take her word for something as long as reasonably possible. She'll remember it."
- Invoked: On vigilante missions, Ingrid always looks for the steakout at a crime scene, knowing that she won't have to wrangle a confession out of them, but will still have to explain her whereabouts to the police in her own words.
- Exploited: Ingrid drops her social sense for a bit and tries standing between social experts through magic-but-technically-legal loopholes, like trying to find a way to control a Jackass Genie, but makes sure to forget why she's not as focused on herself in the first place.
- Defied: Ingrid gets her opponent to agree to a treaty, but uses a pseudonym when signing her name, not wanting to continue look like she even might be leading anyone on.
- Discussed: "Ingrid's off counting her blessings...and probably the blessings of others as well. She seems to know her boundaries, though."
- Conversed: "How invested would the audience be in Ingrid if it wasn't directly shown whether she reflects on what everyone else is reflecting on?"
- Implied: Ingrid is an Apathetic Clerk and joins her co-clerk in snarking at the world, but takes note of the ways people keep up appearances of social awareness, which the latter doesn't easily catch onto despite being able to read people well.
- Deconstructed: Ingrid isn't used to the Silent Treatment, so when she receives it after an altercation with Ron, she worries that by being distraught, she's being an Attention Whore, not knowing the right time to ask another friend when they'd be ready to talk.
- Reconstructed: She simply decides to cut Ron some slack for whatever happened, stating that the right amount of distance can be hard to determine sometimes. Ron forgives her, since that was all he wanted to hear.
- Played for Laughs: When Bernard tells Ingrid about the latest braggart come to town, she complains about wanting to face a Con Man instead since they're easier to negotiate with.
- Played for Drama: While she regularly discourages her friends from pulling all-nighters, offering the right emotional support so that they don't do so, Ingrid engages in one herself after spending a while repairing her computer, leading to her obsessing about Going Cold Turkey.
- Played for Horror: Ingrid's social expertise is a literal curse—if she lies to her friends even once, the world will label her a Compulsive Liar, and she'll be forcefully exiled and nearly killed simultaneously. If she stays truthful, she will have to forcefully exile/nearly kill the right people using her social deduction, which guarantees horrible, horrible revenge down the line.
Back to The Social Expert.
