Inside Out reImagined

The Reverberation

The moment was difficult to process for everyone in Headquarters.

At this point, Anger had seriously started to doubt that Joy's path was the best for Riley. He wouldn't bring it up, of course, so as to not get on his leader's bad side, but even in this moment, he knew that if Joy had delivered a similar demand to him or anyone else, he would refuse to comply and defend whoever it was — even if it was Fear. This was not fair treatment; all the emotions needed respect, and the only reason he didn't do anything now was because Joy had just done something he didn't even think was possible.

Joy, too, had slightly quaked; it was almost as though she had a mild case of guilt herself. Yet, she knew that as a leader and commander, she couldn't show any of it. She simply spoke, hoping to project calmness: "So. Any remarks as we put this behind us? And most importantly, any reassurance that I'm a great leader who did everything right?"

"Well... an emotion being relieved of duty is definitely up there with worst case scenarios—"

"Thank you. Now, can we proceed?" Joy responded, seemingly not even having listened to Fear's words.

Lastly, while the full weight of the sudden change in Joy's attitude and Sadness's employment status had yet to dawn upon Disgust, there was still a more pressing matter for them, namely that while all of this had happened, the console's glow retained aspects of blue — as if the Formative continued to affect the affairs, even in the emotion's absence — and consequently, Riley continued acting accordingly: partly anxious, partly nostalgic, and fully like she didn't want to see another person ever again.

"Um, if you haven't noticed, we're still making a mess out of ourselves and none of those kids should see it, and especially not that girl. She's, like, our worst enemy right now." they spoke.

"Then why don't you..." Anger wanted to speak up, but one glance at the Consciousness Screen revealed that Disgust had already managed it as well as they could, as Riley was no longer in the classroom where the party was happening. Clearly, with how botched the first impression was, no one was ever going to take the risk of gracing the Chinese students and teacher with a second impression.

All of this, however, just served to underscore that Riley had become a far cry from the girl that Joy, and every other emotion (except for Sadness, perhaps), wanted to present.

One could describe the physical predicament that she was currently in, or the outward expression that she presented, or even the sorts of memories that came forward, seemingly without any emotion needing to do anything. Yet, all of it was largely unnecessary when a simple sentence could convey every single detail and then some.

Right now, Riley was a literal disaster.

"I'm doing the best I can," Disgust commented, regarding their own console input, "but I'm afraid I can't do much in the face of a literal disaster." Much like with "everything is in Chinese" from yesterday, "literal disaster" was a thought almost shared between all the emotions in Headquarters.

This thought, however, was not one to be indulged in for any extended period of time, lest it do considerable damage to an emotion. Fear became the first example of this, as he inadvertently shouted out: "Aaaaah! What are we going to do? There is no solution to this, I'm telling you!"

On any other occasion, Anger would have punched some sense into Fear. However, this time, he just didn't have the heart for it.

Joy, on the other hand, did. "What we are going to do," she spoke, rather sternly, even for her, "is accept that I did what I had to do, and move on past it."

"You did what you had to do... what does that even mean? Do you understand what you just said?" Anger asked.

"Why, yes, I do," Joy snapped back. "It means that the outside world, and even Riley's inside world, is unpredictable, and it's all accounted for in my plan."