Inside Out reImagined

A Toast to Remember

Overall, Sadness appeared to be taking to the new position of leadership a lot better than expected.

Granted, her absence from Headquarters meant an inevitable gap in her knowledge, no matter how many Mind Reader articles she read. Yet, even from her earliest moments after returning, she could see that Riley was struggling with studying, and needed to slow down. If anyone else had any objections to it, then she would gladly counter that it was still winter break, and Riley had never even attended a first formal lesson, meaning that she couldn't have been assigned any real homework that would reflect on her grades.

Sadness already knew how much grief Spanish had caused for Riley, as did the concept of homework, and, to be fair, most complex, involved subjects other than hockey. That being said, she already knew the rough idea of the path going forward: continue studying, but make sure to slow down, and really follow the new Joy. If she was excited to dive straight into Mandarin, then by all means, she should be allowed to drive, but if it was apparent that she was struggling, then Sadness would know to slow down and not push it.

However, what she didn't exactly realize, but nevertheless had a hunch about, was that at least some other emotions had... kind of ignored her and assumed the position of leadership, themselves.

Joy, of course, didn't know that there was much to lead, and even if she did, she would have voluntarily declined the leadership — and even if she hadn't, others would no doubt have raised concerns. Likewise, Fear was mostly concerned about job security, and didn't think standing up and proposing an alternative leadership was going to do much good — even if he was opposing Sadness of all the emotions.

However, Anger and Disgust were different. They were far more difficult to read than either Joy or Fear, but Sadness immediately flagged them both as suspicious. They even seemed to be talking behind Joy and Sadness's back about something.

And, she highly suspected, even if her own position as a leader was to be acknowledged by them, her direction of leadership still wouldn't be. Most of what the other emotions thought of Sadness was still, no doubt, shaped by Joy's previous self. And while it was obvious to see that this Joy was gone, her beliefs went absolutely nowhere, especially as there was nothing to replace them with, except for more hunches by Sadness.

That, though, was when she realized the perfect tool to help her cause, that she had been half-jokingly considering before: the bottled memories.

Of course, she couldn't just offer bottled memories to the other emotions straight up, either from the bottle or poured into some sort of glass. She could already picture Disgust's response about not trusting "the weird blue liquid", and, in fact, wanting to knock its glasses out of the hands of anyone who was willing to drink it. Nor could she go the Winston route and just hit the others with bottles; what would everyone else, and especially Joy, think of her?

That being said, she was already formulating a more covert plan, which started by her going into her own room.

As it stood, Riley was sitting there, briefly having laughed to herself about how nonsensical everything regarding the Chinese languages was — that much corresponded to the console finally working on Joy. Yet, Sadness was now very much the dominant force, and though she knew to be subtle about slowing down, it clearly showed that the console was desperate for some more of the blue, and Riley, likewise, was on the verge of tears.

Even during an extended period without further input from Sadness, the console remained blue — and the other emotions didn't take long to notice, starting with Disgust: "Riley really wants you at the console, huh? Kinda makes me lose all respect for those who don't, if I'm being honest."