Inside Out reImagined

Fear's Dream Duty

All in all, Fear started the night thinking Anger's pep talk worked, and that the two, as well as Disgust, were ready to spring into action and "ruin Joy's day", whatever that meant.

Every single bit of the motivation worked. Joy was messing with something that should not have been messed with, and was already causing greater trouble for the mind, ignoring basically everything that didn't align to her regime, from Anger's unworkable ideas to Disgust's Bully Prime action plan to Fear's simple, primal longing for Sadness. And, as each of the three emotions was specifically wronged, and knew the others were standing up to Joy, as well, they would get just that extra bit of bravery — a resource Fear desperately needed in these trying times.

Yet, even separation of the emotions into those who were ruining days and those whose days were ruined had made him uneasy. As the elements of Imagination, they were only complete as a whole, and even the disappearance of one of them just meant that the others would try to fill in for the missing emotion — a task of pure futility, if Sadness's absence was anything to go by.

It was funny how this strict order and cohesion had extended to every facet of work at Headquarters. One couldn't ignore that each emotion had a highly individualized room and place at the console; yet, the details even extended to something as minor as the unwritten rules of Dream Duty.

Indeed, the emotions thought they were volunteering for the job of their own volition — after all, Fear volunteered for this night, and Disgust volunteered for the night before, and Joy, even before that — but when the larger scale was unpacked, each of the five emotions got their own fair share of nights, and even the idea of one of them being absent from Dream Duty, let alone Headquarters as a whole, was unthinkable.

Which, of course, brought Fear neatly onto the subject of Dream Duty, itself.

He couldn't say he was the biggest fan of Dream Duty, but not for the same reasons which others indicated — like cheap props, to be taken care of by the Reality Distortion Filter, or formulaic plots, to be taken care of by the emotions' forgetfulness. Rather, he didn't like Dream Duty because, on occasion, Dream Theatrical Studios were good at their job, evoking the precise emotion that they wanted to evoke — and if that emotion was Fear, then any hopes of a peaceful night would have to go the way of Sadness.

However, whether or not they would be repeating their success was to be determined by the first dream, and until then, it was a long wait, during which Fear's thoughts were inevitably pulled back to the situation at Headquarters.

Surprisingly, though, what terrified him the most was not the prospect of failure and Joy's grip continuing to tighten, but rather, the prospect of success.

He allowed himself to suppose everything went according to plan. There was little of a plan to speak of, but the beats were clear: the other emotions would aggravate Joy, she would learn of the balance of the mind, perhaps Sadness would be brought back, and order would be restored within the mind.

But what would this order be like? Barring a complete and utter magical transformation, Joy just wouldn't be able to do her usual leadership duties once the epiphany dawned upon her, and she would step down and give up the position of leadership... to whom?

Fear himself was almost definitely out of the question. No one liked a leader who was frightened by the smallest thing, and if anyone thought just getting him to agree with Anger's plan was difficult, they were clearly not prepared for him needing to make similar decisions for Riley, almost every day.

It clearly couldn't be Anger. He was still the hot-headed one of the bunch compared to Joy's calm, if overly optimistic, insinuations. No doubt, if Fear had to pick between the two, despite everything that he had seen of the two emotions so far, he would still pick Joy, even in her current state.