Riley Andersen's mind

Not to be confused with the video series Andersen's Mind.



Riley Andersen's mind is the principal location of Inside Out parodies. It is an expansive realm, with Headquarters at its heart, though with many more locations to fully facilitate Riley's thought processes. Other characters also have their own minds, but those are never seen as extensively as Riley's, as their appearances are limited to the Headquarters counterparts and the other emotions.

In Inside Out
Riley's mind is the primary location of the plot of Inside Out, with the outside world being relegated to a sub-plot. As physical locations are more difficult to alter than characters are, the locations in Riley's mind are mostly shared between Inside Out and its parodies.

The leader of Riley's emotions is Joy, with Anger taking over as deputy leader while Joy and Sadness are absent throughout the plot of Inside Out. Collectively, Riley's emotions are known as "Team Happy".

Notably, Riley's mind, as well as other minds, is a metaphysical location, meaning that the emotions and the like do not literally exist anywhere in the physical world.

In parodies
Riley's mind is seen extensively in parodies, and is the parodies' primary location, similar to the Third Reich in Downfall parodies. In fact, many Inside Out parodies, with the notable exception of the main Andersen's Mind series, choose to exclude Riley entirely, in turn implicitly rejecting the reality that her emotions are controlling someone, instead assuming that they are simply living their own lives in a vaguely described, almost childlike country. This, in turn, is played with in the Theresa May's new Parliament series, in which emotion-like characters are shown to be running their own country, the United Kingdom.

Emotions
In the Inside Out universe, each character's mind is controlled by five emotions: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust. They treat controlling the character whose mind they are in as work, and are usually very serious about it. However, in parodies, the emotions have a much more relaxed work ethic, often going on holidays and adventures unrelated to taking care of their host.

As Riley's mind is the principal location of Inside Out and her emotions are its principal characters, they preserve these roles in parodies, to the exclusion of other characters in Riley's mind. Therefore, their dynamic is distinct and separate from any other mind, and becomes even more distinguished in parodies.

Other inhabitants
In addition to the emotions, there is also another type of employees in Riley's mind, named the Mind Workers, who usually have the resemblance to brightly colored potatoes. Their jobs vary; for example, the very first parody introduces the Forgetters, whose job (erasing old and unreliable memories) is compared to the work of Recdep in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Dream Productions, whose employees have the job of staging and then broadcasting dreams that Riley has.

Some other examples of citizens of Riley's mind include the likes of Bing Bong, the Imaginary Boyfriend and Cloud Town residents (the latter two of which are yet to appear in parodies), as well as many more professions taken on by the Mind Workers, such as manning the Train of Thought and activating/deactivating Abstract Thought.

Sub-locations
The principal location of Riley's mind, as well as the living place of all her emotions, is Headquarters. In this respect, Headquarters is the equivalent of the Führerbunker in Hitler Parodies, with characters rarely, if ever, leaving it. However, as a major arc of Inside Out is about Joy and Sadness leaving Headquarters and exploring the rest of Riley's mind, this is preserved in parodies, with them frequently going "on vacation".

Locations deep within Riley's mind include the Islands of Personality, Long-Term Memory, Abstract Thought, Imagination Land, Dream Productions, the Subconscious and the Memory Dump. The most reliable and quickest ways of transportation in Riley's mind are the Train of Thought, designed for various cargo, and the Recall Tubes, designed for memories. Both of them, however, can be repurposed to transport characters such as the emotions.

Trivia

 * Riley's mind, and frequently other minds, is often erroneusly referred to as a "Mind World". This term does not appear anywhere in the movie proper, but rather was used in the screenplay once, as well as behind-the-scenes interviews, and popularized by the fanfic Intercom.