Tear Jerker / Intercom

Spoilers Off applies to all Tear Jerker pages, so all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

To say that this story will generate massive amounts of "feels" would be bit of an understatement.

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• Chapter 11, Dangers of an Open Mind:
  • Riley for the first time since really getting to know her emotions begins to experience a series of mental crises.
    • First, she feels swamped by guilt over getting Honesty Island damaged by cheating on her biology test (through the emotions).
    • Next, she's still upset about Fear saying "We" in her mind about her taking the test.
    • Then she actually snaps at Joy to get the idea "use emotions to study for test" out of her thought process, which of course hurt Joy's feelings because picking that lightbulb was her idea. But surprisingly, the real jerker there is that both Joy and Riley say sorry over the whole affair. Both know that what happened was bad, but both are also genuinely sorry for their part in the business. Which of course, makes the Dark Secret feel even worse, since whenever they get to that, ALL the emotions are going to have to acknowledge this as their same issue.
    • After that, Riley's idea proposition on the emotions runs into some personal attacks, leading Riley to feel down from the rest of the day.
    • And in thinking about it, she actually feels that she can only really truly be herself when she visits Mind World. Think of how scary that is. That a girl is having an identity crisis at that age.
• Chapter 12, Wavering Focus:
  • Riley sadly slinking back to her car after embarrassing herself by talking to the emotions in front of both her friends and Tracey. She knows the emotions are there, but doesn't want to further vindicate Tracy or have her friends or family call her crazy. It's never easy to see Riley sad, and when she mentions that she's not looking forward to go home for the first time, you feel for how something so amazing for Riley is now messing up her life.
    • Then there's Joy's reaction to all this. She wants so badly to just touch the console and cheer her up. But, after her adventure with Sadness, she knows that doing so is no longer her place. So all she can do is hopelessly watch her girl cry her way back home, melancholy that the day only got worse from the morning when they were cheating together.
• Chapter 13, Hidden Depths:
  • Riley is so upset about her day that she does not want do deal with a parental confrontation after what happened at Pizza Planet. It's rough knowing someone had a bad day, but for a day to go so badly that your child does not want to talk about it is heartbreaking for a parent.
  • Sadness turning a yellow memory of Pizza Planet blue. She does it because she knows Riley needs it, and that there is nothing happy about it anymore considering what happened after it. Also the way she silently indicates what she has to do to Joy, and Joy silently nods for her to go ahead.
  • The first thing Riley does when she enters the Mind World on her second visit is hug Sadness for comfort, and she has tears in her eyes. One is reminded of when Bing Bong hugged Sadness over his beloved lost wagon. Sadness comforts her, and eventually all the emotions come together around Riley for one comforting Group Hug.
• Chapter 14, Pure Imagination:
  • After Riley says that the moon in Imagination Land looks better than the one in real life, Joy suddenly remembers Bing Bong's wish for her to take Riley to the moon for him before fading away in the memory dump. She then attempts to sing Bing Bong's theme song in hopes that Riley still has at least some memories of him, but no luck.
• Chapter 15, Memory Lane:
  • After the Forgetters mention one of the memory tubes being destroyed by Joy and the Personality Islands crumbling (in their defense, they thought the emotions had already told Riley), we're left with a cliffhanger in which the emotions (specifically Joy and Sadness) are about to finally reveal to her everything that took place when Riley first moved to San Francisco, both sides scared of what they're about to hear/say.
  • The chapter also delves a bit into the Fridge Horror of all those viable memories falling into the Dump along with Joy and Bing Bong. Riley now has to deal with the possibility that there's a huge hole in her memory and she'll never have any idea what she lost.
• Chapter 16, The Story of a Girl. Can we go on record and call this the saddest chapter to date? No? Well, let us count the ways this chapter will turn on the waterworks.
  • First is the general atmosphere where the emotions are talking with Riley about the move. Even when tempers flare or some humor creeps in, there's a general sense of melancholy and fear among the emotions exposing all their failings.
  • Then there's Joy's sad realization that Riley knows how to understand Sadness's motives for changing memories than she ever did a year ago, wondering why she couldn't have been more like Riley back then.
  • When talking about Bing Bong, both Joy and Sadness are clearly shaken by his death, with Joy showing pain when first introducing him to the story, or Sadness talking about all he wanted was to make Riley happy.
    • Then when Joy talks about when he "died", both she and Sadness have a little cry remembering that part.
  • Finding out about the idea bulb for running away was literally like dropping a Drama Bomb onto Riley. Who suddenly arose from her seat, looking twice as mad and just as horrified "as if they'd killed a mind worker".
    • Joy for her part, seeing Riley's body and facial language suddenly understands exactly what Riley was going through while Joy and Sadness were lost. That all those miseries were manifesting in her now.
    • Which of course, when Sadness says it wasn't her (Riley's) fault, leads up to Riley's declaration "YES. IT. WAS!". Spoken in anger, but in truth, hiding something we wouldn't immediately suspect Riley of having: self-loathing for trying to run away, and refusing to pass the blame onto anyone else.
    • After that shout, Riley just breaks down and sobs onto her knees, still upset about the whole business, and refusing to let herself off the hook.
  • Even a year afterwards, Joy still cries when talking about falling into the memory dump.
    • And in particular, both her and sadness both shed tears when talking about Bing Bong being erased.
  Joy: That was the last I ever saw of Bing Bong...except when I see him in my dreams.
  • "Please don't be mad."
• Chapter 17: A Hole in Her Heart:
  • Riley is about to to bring Bing Bong back, finding one of her few remaining memories about him...but then stops herself. Why? Because she was worried she'd more likely create a clone rather than the real Bing Bong. And as she explained to the emotions, she didn't want to dishonor his sacrifice, or force the new being to live in the shadow of someone he was created in the image of.
    • While they all admit they're going to miss Bing Bong, Riley gives him one last send off before leaving.
  Riley: Thanks for everything Bing Bong.
  • Riley turns down Joy's offer to see the emotions' bedrooms, and places her memories from tonight back into orbs, and Joy feels horrible seeing how hard tonight was for Riley, even when this was suppose to be her hideaway!
    • Then Riley allows herself to drift back into REM, staring at the emotions with fear, anger and sadness, even shedding a single tear as she goes.
    • Joy even ran to try and stop Riley from ending her time like that...only to grasp air.
  • Turning in for the Night, Joy sinks into her regret and sadness, afraid that after this, Riley might hate them, despite her earlier pronouncements.
  • Joy goes back into Stepford Smiler mode as she imagines showing Riley around her Happy Place, but ends up breaking down in tears.
  • We find out Joy's secret wish: to have a family just like Riley does with Bill and Jill. But, being an emotion, Joy can never pick Bill and Jill as parents, and emotions don't have moms and dads when they enter a person's mind. So after tonight, she breaks down, unable to pretend to have them anymore after what happened with Riley.
    • This also gives her moment "assigning herself" in the movie a different kind of feel. That she was good at giving directions, but secretly Joy wants to know she's doing well too. Hence her pretending to be "Mom" sometimes.
• Chapter 18, Access Denied:
  • Riley ends up locking her emotions out of the console in order to act the way she wants to act without their help. The emotions are understandably pained by this.
• Chapter 20, Mixed Emotions:
  • After having just repaired Honesty Island (by confessing to cheating and getting in trouble for it), Riley's extended period with her emotions locked out reaches its limit and causes her to blow up at Ann and Jordan out of nowhere. This starts wrecking Friendship Island, and Possibility Island is also having some strange issues.
• Chapter 21, Color Turns to Grey is pretty much made of this:
  • Riley worries that she really does have schizophrenia, the console and memories begins to turn grey, and to make matters worse, Anger impulsively blames her for the mess. This is so catastrophic that a new core memory is created that doesn't have a hint of joy in it, and it will eventually lead to the birth of a new Personality Island.
  • The final line of the chapter sums up Riley's role in this situation as The Woobie:
  Riley: "I hate my life."
  • We get a look at Tracy's emotions, and it turns out her Sadness is in the same situation as Riley's in the beginning of the movie, except that her Joy isn't the one in charge, causing her to act more like a petty tyrant.
• Chapter 22, Fragile Mind, might just be the bleakest yet:
  • We find out what Riley's new island is: Isolation Island. She feels all alone and helpless in both the internal and external worlds. That's bad enough, but even when Joy tries to emphasize that Riley doesn't need to feel alone, she barely tries to let go of that feeling. And even worse, that loneliness is affecting how much she values all the other cores too.
  • Ann went after Riley, but Riley refused to trust Ann's suggestion to get some help and stormed off without even hearing her out.
  • The chapter was given a rewrite so Joy leaves on her own to gather the Core Memories instead of getting sucked out accidentally. What really makes it sad is that she knows this is what's best for Riley, as she couldn't help her feel joy now anyway.
  • Riley learning the intercom can never be fixed, meaning she's stuck hearing voices for the rest of her life. Hearing the mind workers talk about it causes Riley to shed tears of regret, fear and sadness, mixing with the rain falling down around her.
  • Seeing Riley experience something akin to Sanity Slippage, proposing a drastic action to take Antipsychotic drugs to try blocking out the emotions without consulting her parents or a doctor first. She even sounds like Anger last year in her crazed attempts to try and fix herself now.
  • The final line of the chapter. Jill finds out about Riley skipping class. Since Riley was the perfect angel of a student in terms of in class behavior as mentioned by her biology teacher, you know that this is only going to make things harder once the parents confront Riley about what's been going on.
  Jill: Riley did what?
• Chapter 23, Rage and Betrayal, is both this and Nightmare Fuel:
  • Riley blows up at Ann by refusing to come to band practice. Ann even thinks to herself that Riley came the closest to swearing that she ever heard. Needless to say, the 2 don't exactly end their phone call on a high note.
  • Ann and Jordan talk about Riley. Not only did they admit they lacked a certain "something" without Riley on drums, but Ann, having heard Riley's mini confession, is terribly worried about what to do with her. She doesn't want to bring in an adult or Riley would clam up even more, but she doesn't know how to get through to her either.
  • When Riley returns home, her parents sit her down to talk about the new information they've recovered/learned. While it's sad enough seeing Riley stressed about being sent away, the real kicker is when they reveal their knowing about her drawings of the emotions.
    • Riley goes into mini panic mode that they found it first, then goes into a mini spiral of emotions, first thinking to herself that even if the symptoms fit, she doesn't think she could keep up a mind world illusion for so long. Then getting hung up on the small fact that her parents went into her room without permission, she starts screaming at them about how betrayed she feels.
    • Which of course culminates in her pushing them out of her room, and even rejecting her parents in a private moment afterwards. Remember, when she moved, her parents became her only rock, and now, she's pushed them away yet again.
  Riley: I said Get out! Out! Out! OUT!
  • After everything that happened that day, even Sadness, who remember knows sorrow and "obsessing over life's problems" doesn't really have something to soothe Riley after what happened. Imagine how that must hurt for Sadness. She found her purpose, and now even she is facing a problem with an unknown solution.
  • Family Island begins collapsing. The first new island made after the move, and from Riley's paranoia and short temper, it's falling apart without the core. Even from Long Term, Joy froze in horror, recognizing that sound from last year.
• Chapter 25, Layers of Truth: Riley's Plan B is finally revealed: to never wake up and stay in the Mind World forever.
  • Crossing over with Fridge Horror, the fanfic hasn't been updated since.

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