YMMV / Intercom

• Audience-Alienating Premise: The fact of this being a conversation between Emotions and Person rather than keeping the wall has prompted some people to be... less enthusiastic about the story.
• Awesomeness Withdrawal: Some readers have started to get particularly cranky with the long waits for new chapters, as the update schedule is incredibly inconsistent and often inactive. It doesn't help that the story has remained inactive since 2016, despite reported claims the author intends to finish the story.
• Base-Breaking Character: The fanfic's portrayal of Fear. Is he being a cautious sensible emotion, or worry wart who's doing more harm in his reactions than good?
• Broken Base:
  • Honesty Island: Necessary or Nuisance for Riley?
  • Riley's method of overcoming being Scatterbrained when studying for a biology test in chapter 9 is... controversial for reviewers to say the least. It doesn't hurt Honesty Island (though that might be because the core memory is still in), but Fear is still convinced that it counts as cheating.
  • When Riley finally does take the test by relying on the "notes" that she had Fear take down, Honesty Island actually cracks under the pressure of her innate sense of guilt. Needless to say, this leaves her feeling a whole slew of emotions ranging from disgust to outright anger at herself for having done such a thing and still not count it as anything other than blatant cheating.
  • In general, Intercom has 2 main camps of fans in how they say things are going to go forward. The first group are a kind of fatalists, assuming that thanks to Tempting Fate and the Drama label on the story, the inevitable end for Riley and her Emotions is separation, failure and despair. This can be for a range of reasons, but it in general sees that the fic will eventually return Riley to her old life not hearing emotions due to too much pain in the mind from their actions. The other camp are the optimists. They see the Friendship label on the story along with the love Riley and her emotions have. The optimists propose a range of more positive visions of the future, including one on the WMG page where the end of the fic will feature everyone becoming like Riley. There haven't been review wars yet (thankfully the review format on fanfiction.net prevents that), but they are 2 distinct visions for the fic which conflict with each other inherently...even when the story itself has both present at different times.
  • There has also been some division between the reviewers as to whether or not Bing Bong should be revived. The side for this route believes that it would be heartwarming, and allow Riley to finally reunite with him like he wanted. The side against this route believes that his revival would cheapen the emotional impact of his original sacrifice.
  • The value of the Inside (Mind world) vs the Outside (physical) world is also a place of many splits. Some fans, after seeing what Riley can do in there conclude that the mind world is preferable as a world to be in. Some say that due to danger and mental limits, there should be some separation between Riley and her mind. And a few try to strike a balance in trying to value both worlds.
  • The Darker and Edgier tone in later chapters. The Author has sometimes commented that the story was always planning to get darker, but some reviewers actually feel a bit uncomfortable with the descent into seriousness since the start of the fic was so much lighter and less threatening/heartbreaking.
• Epileptic Trees: As there's now a way for emotions to talk to their people, all kinds of questions and theories are being thrown around. Such as, why don't emotions talk to their hosts normally? Why do they do things a certain way with people? How long did mind worlds exist when people came to be? And other things that weren't important to the movie, but now start cropping up due to curiosity and wondering just what does make Riley unique (or if she's on the wrong road knowing her emotions).
• Hilarious in Hindsight: This line from the Inside Out Honest Trailer makes you wonder if the makers of Honest Trailers read Intercom;
  "A film that teaches kids they aren’t responsible for their actions, it’s just tiny people inside their heads pushing their brain buttons. You know, there's a word for that; schizophrenia!"
• Informed Wrongness:
  • The whole situation about the test can be seen as this if you're in the "not cheating" crowd, as the story never really goes into detail about why exactly she's in the wrong even though she isn't using any external sources. Some people are very good at storing information in their mind (i.e. remembering things), and it's expected that they'll take advantage of that when studying for a test. Riley is also very good at storing information in her mind; she simply has a very unique way of doing so. There's no telling whether or not the school administrators would consider it cheating, and if they don't, she can't be considered in the wrong.
  • The damage to Honesty Island is most likely not an example of Informed Wrongness, as since that exists in Riley's mind, it can only be affected by Riley's own belief that she's cheating, rather than whether or not she's actually taking the test in an improper way, as Riley (and by extension her mind) only knows what she believes is true. In other words, that isn't an indication that Riley actually did do something wrong; it's simply an indication that, deep down, she believes she did.
    • Word of God states this to be the case. It isn't a matter of if what Riley's doing is objectively wrong, only that it affects her mind because regardless of the objective nature of the act, she believes it was wrong.
  • There's also the argument that cheating on a test in general can be seen as Informed Wrongness, provided the grading isn't done on a curve, as when you really think about it, nobody is really hurt by it. The cheater is getting a better grade that they don’t technically deserve, but that alone doesn't hurt anyone, nor does it result in anyone else getting a lower grade than they deserve.
• Intended Audience Reaction: The author has admitted that she was actually hoping for the controversy regarding the Loophole Abuse mentioned above.
• Signature Scene:
  • Riley draws the emotions to get an idea what they're like.
  • Riley creating the first White memories.
  • The emotions talk about their perspective on the movie, and how much this hurt Riley.
• Sweet Dreams Fuel: Okay, putting aside the second half of the story, Intercom is a really cute fanfic that is sure to put a smile on someone's face when it's not destroying you on the inside. Even if you consider the thought of there being voices inside your head to be scary, the fact that said voices deeply care about their host and try to keep them out of harms way really make up for it.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: It's not a universal opinion, but the story began heading towards this direction starting with chapter 20, when things go From Bad to Worse big time and there just doesn't seem like there's much hope for either Riley or her emotions. Not helping whatsoever is the fact that the story hasn't updated in over two years now, and the latest chapter ended with a fairly massive cliffhanger that implies Riley may consider taking her own life to somehow remain in the mind world.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Intercom has a K+ rating on Fanfiction.net, which is generally the equivalent to the original film's PG rating. In spite of that, however, this story is pretty dark (at least once Cerebus Syndrome kicked in) as it features rather mature subjects such as mental disorders and Riley deciding to take anti-psychosis medication behind her parents' back, though luckily the latter point is alleviated when the emotions talk Riley out of it a few chapters after her decision.
• The Woobie:
  • Just like in the movie, Riley is this. By the second half of the story, she succumbs to rather painful guilt over "cheating" on her biology test, accidentally blurts out hints about the existence of her emotions (such as mentioning Disgust and the idea bulbs to her friends), starts getting accused of being crazy and soon discovers that people would likely go crazy if they knew about their emotions the way Riley did. Things only get worse from there when the events that took place during the move to San Francisco are finally revealed to Riley and eventually begins to fear that she might actually be suffering from schizophrenia once she realizes that symptoms of said mental disorder (visual hallucinations, forgetfulness, social withdrawal, etc.) matches what she's been going through.
  • Joy as well. It pains her deeply to see Riley like this, but after her adventure with Sadness, she knows that all she can do is just stand back and watch. She has also shown to feel understandably bad about how she treated Sadness before in the past and is still stricken with grief over Bing Bong's sacrifice. She gets more Hidden Depths in Chapter 17, where we're introduced to her Happy Place and her Tragic Dream of wanting to have parents and live like Riley does, giving her moment of talking to herself in the film a "Well Done, Daughter" Girl vibe.
  • Riley's parents seem to be heading in this direction as well. When trouble starts brewing up for Riley, they become increasingly concerned for her but (for rather obvious reasons) she won't tell either of them what's going on. When Riley finally admits to them that she has been hearing voices, this serves as bit of a drama bomb on them and even resort to searching through Riley's room for any clues related to her issues after she angrily flips at them when she thinks that they're going to send her off to a mental ward.