"Do you ever look at someone and wonder", 'What is going on inside their head?' Well, I know. I know Riley's head." A newborn baby is swaddled in a yellow blanket, held by her parents. Out of the blackness steps a yellow glowing figure. This is Joy her skin is glowing yellow and blue hair that's in a pixie cut, she has a lime green dress, speckled with blue firework-style flowers, that goes to her knees. The entire room is black except for a bright consciousness screen.
"Hmm?" In front of her is a single large button, she pushes it. The baby gurgles and wiggles happily. "And there she was..."
"Hello, Riley." Riley's mom said
"Oh look at you. Aren't you a little bundle of joy?" Her dad continued. A golden glowing sphere rolls from behind the screen. It's a memory of what just happened. Joy walks over to it and picks it up.
"Whoa" She rolls the memory on its track, illuminating the room. She turns back to the button and pushes it again. Baby Riley gurgles happily.
"It was amazing. Just Riley and me, forever...". Suddenly Riley begins to cry "...for 33 seconds. Joy looks to her side and sees a new, droopy, blue female emotion touching the button. Unlike Joy her skin is blue and short, her hair is down to her sholders, she has large round glasses while wearing a grey turtle neck sweater dark blue jeans and black shoes.
"I'm Sadness." She says putting her arm out to shake./p
"Oh, hello. I'm Joy." She shakes her hand and then looks at the screen for a moment before looking at her and tried to muscle past Sadness to press the button.
"Can I just... if you could... I just want to fix that. Thanks." The two start to struggle for the "And that was just the beginning. Headquarters only got more crowded from there." Riley, now age 3 barrels through the house pulling a wagon as she runs through the house. The two original emotions are at the console while an new purple male emotion known as Fear "supervises" Joy, who drives. Fear is the tallest out of all of them and wears a sweater vest with a houndstooth design over his collard shirt but unlike the other two he has one strand of curly hair.
"Very nice. Okay, looks like you got this. Very good, sharp turn." He says watching the screen carefully looking out for any dangers. Then Riley approaches a power cord on the ground. "Ahh! Look out! No!" Fear then leaped to the front of the console. "That's Fear. He's really good at keeping Riley safe." Riley immediately stops. She cautiously steps over the power cord.
"Easy... we're good! We're good." A purple fear memory rolls in.
"Whew!"
"Nice job."
"Thank you! Thank you very much." Once that was done Joy jumps back into driving position.
"And we're back!" Riley continues her sprint through the house when suddenly she's picked up into highchair. Her mom puts on her bib then tray then bowl.
"Here we go. Alright, open." The emotion sees her dad lifts a spoonful of food to Riley's mouth. Her dad has Brown hair and trimmed beard and mustash and wears a yellow shirt with a tie.
"Hmm. This looks new." Joy says as Fear and Sadness get closer to the screen
"Do you think it's safe?" Fear ask worried
"What is it?" Sadness adds on
"Wait what's safe and what is what?" A orange female emotion steps infront of the consle and presses a button while outside Riley makes a confused face, she's shorter then Joy and Fear but taller then Sadness. She wears a dark orange sweater with a question mark infront, black sweatpants and pumpkin orange shoes, her hair is almost like Joy's but a bit longer and like Sadness she also wears glasses.
"This is Clueless she never really understands what going on which is why Riley ends up asking questions here and there" An orange clueless memory orb roles in.
"Okay, caution! There is a dangerous smell, people. Hold on, what is that?" A green female emotion walks up to screen to take a better look. She has long green hair reaching to the shoulders, long eyelashes, emerald green eyes, pink eye shadow, and painted orchid colored lips. She wears a pink scarf tied around her neck, a spring green dress without sleeves and a mint green belt with a buckle, forest green tight pants and pink ballet slippers.
"This is Disgust. She basically keeps Riley from being poisoned, physically and socially.
"That is not brightly colored or shaped like a dinosaur... Hold on guys... It's broccoli!" She gags and pulls a lever.
"Yucky!" Riley says swatting the broccoli. It flies into Dad's face. A green disgust memory rolls in. "Well, I just saved our lives. Yeah. You're welcome."
"Ah yes that broccoli was definitely going to kill us" A maroon female emotion says making Fear yelp in well… fear. She has bushy hair and wears a red skirt with pink lines and a dark pink "This is Sarcasm she only came because of Riley's cousins teaching her it and since they visit often she likes to take control when it happens, although she and Disgust get along… sometime"
"Think what you want to think Sar, one of these days we are going to get poisoned because you didn't listen to me"
"Alright break it up here" A tall teal female emotion comes in. She has long cyan hair which sometimes glows, she wears a black long-sleeved shirt and a dark teal skirt which is being holed by a blue belt.
"That's Fangirl she showed up when Riley became obsessed with one of the TV channels which makes her hair glow" They got quiet again when they heard Dad speak up.
"Riley, if you don't eat your dinner, you're not going to get any dessert." Suddenly a red male emotion looks up from reading his newspaper.
"Wait. Did he just say we couldn't have dessert?" He has no hair and is the shortest amongst all, he wears a white shirt and a gray tie with red triangles separated in the middle by a zigzagging line of yellow, as well as a brown belt, red trousers and gray shoes.
"That's Anger. He cares very deeply about things being fair."
"So that's how you want to play it, old man? No dessert? Oh, sure, we'll eat our dinner, right after YOU eat this! GrrrraaaAAHH!" Anger takes the controls as literal flames blast out of his head. A red anger memory rolls in, meanwhile in the kitchen Riley begins to throw a fit until dad distracts her, he does the 'Here come the airplane' trick
"Hey, Riley, Riley, here comes an airplane!" Immediately Anger stops screaming.
"Oh, airplane. We got an airplane, everybody."
"Ohh!" Back in the kitchen Dad "lands" the food into Riley's smiling mouth. A golden happy memory rolls in. The others leave Joy alone at the console with Sadness. "And you've met Sadness. She... well, she..."
Memories of Riley crying come in like the broken toy, spilled ice cream, tantrum in the supermarket and wanting out of her car seat. "I'm not actually sure what she does." She gives sadness a forced smiled before Sadness exits "And I've checked, there's no place for her to go, so she's good, we're good. It's all great!" Joy turns to the wall of golden memories.
"Anyway! These are Riley's memories- and they're mostly happy, you'll notice, not to brag." She inspects one of the golden memories, Riley and her friend Meg both age 3 going down a slide. She rewinds it, relishing the happy moment. "But the REALLY important ones are over here. I don't want to get too technical, but these are called core memories." She pops up the core memory holder, inside are five intensely bright golden memories.
"Each one came from a super important time in Riley's life. Like when she first scored a goal? That was so amazing!" Two-and-a-half-year-old Riley shoots a hockey puck across the ice. She trips and accidentally scores a goal.
"Heeey! Would you look at that?! We got a future center here!" Her parents congratulate her. In her mind a super-bright core memory rolls in. It rolls to the Core Memory Holder clicking into position, a lightline shoots out. The Emotions follow it to the back window and watch a new island of personality form.
"And each core memory powers a different aspect of Riley's personality. Like Hockey Island!" Five islands of personalities float in space, miles from Headquarters, connected by lightlines, their power sources.
"Goofball Island is my personal favorite." Toddler Riley runs naked from the bathroom, underpants on her head, laughing wildly while Dad chases her with a towel.
"Come back here, you little monkey!" Goofball Island activates lights, movement, etc. while in the house naked Riley does the goofy dance on the sofa.
"Yup, Goofball is the best! Friendship Island is pretty good too." Joy looks at friendship island. Riley and Meg walk leg over leg, arms linked, laughing. Joy moves slightly to inspects Honesty Island. "Oh, I love Honesty Island! And that's the truth!" A guilty Riley stands by a broken plate as he reveals a hammer from behind her back.
Joy examines Family Island. "And, of course, Family Island is amazing." The family decorate cookies together as Riley stuffs one into Dad's mouth. The Emotions look out over the Islands of Personality. "The point is, the Islands of Personality are what make Riley... Riley!" In the bathroom Riley splashes water around the bathtub.
"Look out, mermaid!" Back in the living room Riley climbs the couch and looks at the floor. Joy projects an imagination of lava onto the screen making Riley see the floor as lava.
"Lava!" Riley jumps from couch to chair to avoid the lava. Another memory shows Riley drawing on the wall. strong "Who's your friend who likes to play? Bing Bong, Bing Bong"
Six-year-old Riley skates across the ice backwards.
"Hey! Very nice! Where did you learn that?" Her mom says. Inside her mind Joy skates around the room, in sync with Riley. Another day Riley and Meg slurp frozen drinks when Riley grimaces realizing that she was slurping it to fast.
"Brain freeze!" Fear yells out as the rest of the Emotions scream as Headquarters freezes over and even freezing Anger's fire.
At a kids' hockey game Riley takes a shot and scores!
"Yaaay!" The Emotions celebrate. Now night time the parents tuck in Riley into bed and turn off the light.
"Good night, kiddo!"
"G'night, Dad." She looks up at the stars on her ceiling and falls asleep. Back in headquarters Joy watches the screen go dark. She inspects the shelves mostly populated with golden memories.
"And... we're out. That's what I'm talking about another perfect day!" Joy exclaims "Nice job everybody! Let's get those memories down to Long Term." She pulls a lever. Memories cascade down the shelves.
"All right, we did not die today! I call that an unqualified success." Fear says
"When in the world was there a moment where we would have died" Clue ask
The memories pachinko down the shelves and up a tube. Joy runs to the back window to watch them glide through the distant tubes towards Long-Term Memory like falling stars. strong "And that's it! We love our girl. She's got great friends and a great house. Things couldn't be better. After all, Riley's 11 now. What could happen?"