Inside Out reImagined

Worth a Thousand Words

"That had better not be who I think it is." Disgust immediately noted, jumping to the console, finally ridding it of all the blue. In turn, Riley stood up and paced to the apartment door, still downcast, but at least ready to make the remainder of her day slightly better.

"Who? Who do you think it is?" Joy asked, once she had given up on following the Formative.

Disgust, though, only shook their head, knowing that everything would have to be explained to this new Joy from now on, before spouting: "Zhou Shilan! The girl who has no less than a thousand ways to ruin Riley's life in China!"

"I could've sworn, though, that you used to call her something else." Anger remarked. "Something like Bully Prime?"

"That's what I said, didn't I? And it is very important that she knows where we live, because that opens up a whole avenue of choices for her, like... like..." Suddenly, Disgust struggled immensely, before spouting out: "Why can't I remember anything from the action plan?!"

Sadness, though, already had an answer — which not many others in Headquarters expected. "You mean this action plan?" she said, pulling out the spiral-bound book from her purse.

Disgust rushed to Sadness's seat at the console and snatched the book from her, before talking to themself: "So it was a real object, huh? And someone just struck 'Bully Prime' from the title! It's like they didn't even care! It's like... the other Joy, just trying to put the girl's real name into the mind, and then, into the emotions! No worries, I'll just catch up with everything before the edits..."

In time, Disgust was out of commission at the mind in general. Sadness, though, still needed to process what it meant that Disgust was the one leading the action plan that only served to make Riley shun the idea of friends in China, as well as give a Counterpart in the mind an existential crisis.

It wasn't very difficult to see how most of Sadness's grief was with Joy — or at least, what she remembered of Joy, once she recognized that she had fallen into the trap of abuse. Yet, it seemed as though the other emotions had their own flaws of thinking — possibly inspired by Joy, possibly independently developed — all of which would have to be fixed.

In a way, Sadness had already done a lot, just to adjust herself and Joy to serve Riley, rather than both Riley and herself serving Joy. In another way, though, her journey of leadership had just begun.

In the meantime, though, Riley had already gotten to the door leading to the apartment stairway — and, indeed, her "want-to-be friend and tutor" was the one waiting there, carrying a schoolbag of her own, in purple, matching her plaid shirt. "Raoliu from Meiguo! What happen? Why you run away when we skate? And what is with tears?" she spoke.

"Oh. Um..." None of the emotions — including Disgust, curled up on the Headquarters sofa, still flipping through the physical action plan that they still didn't entirely believe in the existence of — knew what Riley should say, or even what she should do without breaking into tears again.

Sadness touched the buttons as gently as she could. Yet, Riley's response was still very much on the pessimistic side: "Even if you knew English perfectly, you still wouldn't understand."

"I can try to understand! That's why I bring color and paper here! We can just draw to understand!" the Chinese girl only responded, before rushing into the Andersen apartment to see where she could unpack.

In Headquarters, Joy immediately lit up — clearly, she had a thing for picturing new things, and in a way, saw drawing as the closest real thing to using her Imagination. The others, however, just felt like Shilan was violating some sort of privacy, and wanted to stop her before she did anything stupid, making Riley rush back in after her.