Trivia / Intercom

• Accidentally-Correct Writing:
  • Surely wondering whether or not having the beings of your Mental World help you on a test is considered cheating would never crop up in our lives, right? Well, assuming tulpas are real... The entire scenario of the story, right down to Riley deciding to not bring back Bing Bong in Chapter 17 to prevent an identity crisis, turns out to be very much related to tulpas. (Author added) It can really be surprising just how close the actual experiences of people with tulpas can get to some of what happens in this story. People with tulpas have very close friends who, while existing only in their minds, can think and act on their own. Many even create entire worlds where their tulpas live, and visit them there in various ways, including lucid dreaming. While there are certainly many important differences (namely that tulpas are as much a product of imagination as Bing Bong is), this is incredibly similar to the experience Riley has talking to her emotions and visiting her Mind World.
  • The fact that Tracy was the one who called Riley out in the "Not Wearing Pants" Dream was completely forgotten at the time that Tracy was introduced formally in the fic. She was simply picked as the one to be the antagonist due to noticing she was one of the ones who didn't look back at Riley in a concerned matter in the film's First Day of School scene upon rewatching the scene on Youtube. (Author added)
  • The emotions talking to Riley through an intercom? Turns out that was involved in one of the earlier film concepts. In fact, the only reason that the intercom isn't on the console in the fic was because I wasn't sure there was a place for it to fit. Though honestly, given the way things are going as of Chapter 22, I'm glad I made the decision to put it where I did. (Author added)
  • Here's a big one: there's actually a theory saying that in ancient times, it was common (as in near-universal) for people to hallucinate voices in their heads, that served purposes such as warning them about danger, and were actually for all intents and purposes fully-fledged intelligent beings. While people thought of them as "gods", this served the same purpose as the "gut feelings" people get about things today—that is, instead of (or maybe in addition to) just getting a feeling, they'll actually hear a voice telling them something like "Run!" In short? This theory basically says that people used to literally hear their emotions as intelligent beings in their heads. In real life. Is that accidentally correct enough for you?
• Ascended Fanon: This fic has an...interesting relationship with Fanon. It actually doesn't incorporate common crossover fanon like Bing Bong going to Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and doesn't seem to lean towards making Riley an Astronaut. However, often bits of the reviews get incorporated into the next couple chapters whether intentionally or unintentionally. One obvious instance is when Eric W joked that Disgust would say that the first school day while Riley could hear the emotions was "a C minus," paying homage to Disgust having a confused rating system. However, in the very next chapter (chapter 12), Disgust then says verbatim, "Scale of 1 to 10, this day so far has been a C minus."
  • She also said that Eric helped give her idea for naming white memories as "soul memories" as a small trivia.
  • She even pays more direct tribute to this in her comments, mentioning specific reviewers who gave her ideas for specific moments/concepts to use in her fic.
  • There is a more proper fanon ascended when it's mentioned that after the move, all the emotions now have the ability to change the color of memories instead of just sadness.
• The Danza: Sort of. Ann (the "cool girl" from the film) is named after a character from Parks and Recreation who was played by the voice actor for her emotions in the film's credits — she herself only has one line in the credits and who voiced her is unknown.
  • A straighter example with Riley, whose middle name is mentioned to be Kaitlyn in chapter 3, in reference to her voice actress, Kaitlyn Dias.
  • The Dream Productions director is named Paula in this fic, after Paula Pell who voices her in the movie (not to be confused with the Forgetter of the same name, played by Paula Poundstone).
• Flip-Flop of God: Chapter 22 gave the author a bit of trouble in terms of wording, tone, characters speaking, character intentions, etc. Especially with reviewers taking different views on the chapter. As such, the chapter went through 4 different revisions before reaching something they were more proud of serving their story going forward.
• Referenced by...: Tales of a Reset Mind mentioned the fic by name in Part Nine, and the intercom itself appears (and is a critical device for the plot) during most of the story.
• Schedule Slip: While the story never had an exact schedule to begin with^note updates usually took about a week or two, newer chapters have been taking much longer than usual^note between several weeks to a whole month. The author has blamed this mainly on writer's block (at least with the immediate chapters, while the larger plots have been planned out) and being busy with her personal life.
  • Then again, some of the chapters can be pretty long. Case in point, chapter 16 was about twice the length of a normal chapter and could have been (and almost was) split into two.
  • As of late, chapters have started taking over several months to be posted, which has resulted in Awesomeness Withdrawal for a few readers. Though the author has tried to justify her lack of updates, such as taking vacations, having computer issues, lack of motivation, and currently being busy writing a novel.
  • There was a huge gap in between chapters 25 and 26, with the latter chapter not being posted until over a year after the former.
• Series Hiatus: The story went on a long hiatus (and by "long", we mean it didn't update in over a whole year) following chapter 25. Word of God stated that it was due to a severe lack of motivation.
• What Could Have Been: The author had several names in mind for Riley's new personality island in chapter 22, such as "Depression Island", "Gloom Island", "Guilt Island", and "Apathy Island" before going with "Isolation Island".
  • For the story's One Year Anniversary, we got a peek at what Intercom originally was before the author saw the movie. The original version of Intercom was less "friendship drama" and more "psychological-thriller-madness-horror" that was arguably even darker than the final product. As it had been mostly written before the author had seen the movie and knew how Dream Productions really worked, it had a lot of focus on nightmares that caused Sanity Slippage in Riley, and featured as an antagonist a Dream!Riley who was basically canon Riley combined with the Joker.
    • The chapter also included a handful of cut material, including a fight between Riley and Tracy, (who was called Sarah at the time) a scene where Riley runs away, (which the author cut after seeing the movie) and a Nightmare Sequence where Riley sees a future version of herself, driven completely mad by her emotions.
    • Oh, and at that point the author thought Riley's last name was Anderson instead of Andersen.
• Word of God: The author provides this both in the author's notes and right here on This Very Wiki.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: At first. The author's note for chapter 18 reveals that Intercom started as an attempt to write a story about Riley interacting with her emotions before anyone else. As such, the overall plot hadn't been fully planned out at the start. The first chapter was written and released well before the premier of Inside Out, but the finalized plot didn't materialize until after the author had seen it.