Curiosity

Her story!!
Curiosity is a special kind of mindworker called a "memory archivist" who did archival work related to the memories... kind of self explanatory, no? She helped log their information in the recall system by observing the events of the memory, assigning it important information to be stored in a large network that ensures Riley remembers info without needing memories to be sent directly to headquarters, and finally giving it a special series of keywords the emotions can search for. There are HUNDREDS of archivists and they act as a sort of counterpart to the workers you see in the movie. Still, she is high-ranked and thus has more responsibilities. Archivist hierarchy really depends on how long they have existed inside someone's headspace... because Curiosity was there since Riley was a baby, she has a lot of experience. Archivists come from revelations, questions, ideas, anything that can cause a small increase in brain activity. Curiosity does not necessarily represent being curious, but she was born when Riley experienced one of her first moments of true curiosity. Anyway, archivists usually work at night when Riley isn't making memories and the emotions aren't recalling any. They emit faint light and are more comfortable in dark environments. This is important later...

After the events of the first movie, when Riley's core memories got lost, Curiosity was promoted and given a new responsibility. Her new job was to visit Headquarters weekly to check on the core memories, write down any significant changes to them, document document document, basically write down enough stuff about them that if they ever got lost, the islands of personality can keep operating. These memories are constantly changing and have a HUGE impact on Riley, so this is not just a one and done job! Sometimes there will be less work to do, but she does have to stay for a certain amount of time, so she keeps herself busy. During this time, she became friends with the emotions, and she would tell them all about life outside of headquarters.

Every time Curiosity visited headquarters after Joy made her.. doohickey memory thing.. the emotions would hide it from her. They knew she would not like it! But, after the second movie when the archivists found out about what Joy was doing and found the memories that were never processed, they were all collectively FURIOUS! To them, it was like hoarding important pieces of history away. Curiosity was promoted yet again and was instructed to keep the emotions in line, ensuring minimal memory related disasters happen again. Now, her job is kind of swapped... instead of visiting headquarters weekly (or rather when necessary), she visits long term memory when needed and she lives in headquarters with the other emotions. Fun times!

Her personality!
Curiosity is generally introverted at first, but can open up fairly fast around the right people. Otherwise, she stays to herself. If she does get comfortable around someone, she can get attached very quickly! It is easy to make her laugh and she tries her best to be friendly and helpful towards everyone, even if she has not fully opened up to them and might even feel intimidated. You'll have to approach her if you need her help, though. She often observes and struggles to put her thoughts into action if she wants to help someone or give a compliment on someone's hair, that sort of thing. Still, to those she is shy around, her fashion sense gives away her more outgoing, peppy side. Curiosity loves to wear mismatched patterns and all sorts of colours in her outfits, regardless of the fashion trends. They are unconventional, but she always knows how to make it work. Her default outfit is honestly pretty tame! Anyway, all in all, she is a lively lady, but it may take time to see her personality at it's fullest. (Though, if she decides she doesn't like you at the start, there's a good chance you'll just get short, blunt responses to anything you say.)

Although she will often keep to herself with big groups, she has a habit of eavesdropping and is often intrigued by things going on around her. During her days of memory archiving, she could really invest herself in her work, and kind of over-analyze everything. She could notice things in the background of memories that the emotions never saw in the moment! Even in present moments, she has a habit of focusing on things that would usually be overlooked by others, like little pieces of trash on the ground. Her observance leads to her learning new things constantly, and she enjoys sharing the little facts she learnt from her work among her friends at any given time. Her random bits of trivia have actually aided the emotions in a few situations. She always has something to add whenever there is a discussion, but she struggles finding the right opportunity to say it. With the emotions, she sometimes feels like a floater friend, but this changed as time went on.

Essentially, her positive traits are being kind, open-minded, and sympathetic. Her neutral traits are being curious, reserved, cautious, and blunt. Her negative traits are being judgmental, and inhibited/hesitant.

General likes & dislikes

Likes

Dislikes

- Dim areas & mood lighting, reminds her of Long Term Memory - 1980s-2000s design aesthetics like Wacky Pomo and GVCH - Asking and being asked complex questions - Neurometeorology (the regular kind too) - Funky sweaters, 70s and 80s fashion - Daydreaming (about Fear?) - Libraries, also reminds her of Long Term Memory - Browsing Wittypedia (A site containing all of Riley's knowledge) - Listening to people when they need it - Sharing and learning facts - Foods with "predictable textures" - Ice cream floats, milkshakes, cold drinks in general - Earworms - Writing stories and poems (she has a fondness for limericks) - Archiving memories Fear made awhh

- Loud, stuffy or crowded places. Feeling confined - People who avoid answering questions or "getting to the point" - Getting distracted, both by herself and others - Tight clothing - Receiving nicknames from people she isn't close with - Bright lights - Hot weather - Profanity and explicitness, pg13 is its limit - Carbonated drinks, warm drinks - When the emotions are careless with Riley's memories - "Curiosity killed the cat" - Anything she would consider fast paced

General facts and nonsense:
Actual character/lore trivia
- Curiosity wears nightgowns to bed.
- Her glow is a little fainter than Joy's.
- Her favourite colour is a deep teal, but she also likes yellow.
-  You know how Janet from The Good Place always says "not a girl"  whenever someone calls her one? Curiosity does this. All the archivists  do. They're kind of like the Janets if they weren't as robotic!
- She  will often interrupt herself mid sentence, apologize for cutting  herself off, and return to what she was originally saying. She is fine with fem honorifics.
- Her hair is similar to the emotions', being made of little particles. It looks like a very dense cloud.
- She naturally smells like ozone, but masks it with perfume. All archivists smell a little chemical-y!
-  She is able to control the little thought bubbles that float near her  head. She uses them to emote and indicate her mood, similarly to how a  cat would use it's tail. Generally, if the bubbles float upwards, she is  happy. If they are floating downwards, she is upset. If they are shaped  like hearts, well, I am sure you can figure it out yourself heehee
-  Whenever Riley has a brainfreeze, Curiosity stays frozen much longer  than the other emotions. When this first happened, Fear thought she  died!
- If Curiosity was a human, she would be a museum curator.
- All memory archivists have a similar appearance, cool coloured skin and cloud hair.
- Curiosity has an unemployed dragon friend named Parchment. You'll see them later!
- Curiosity got her education at the hippocampus. She originally wanted to major in neurometeorology (study of brainstorms, brain fog, other weather events inside the mind.)
Meta trivia
- As of now, Curiosity holds the record for most favourites and images out of all (tagged) Inside Out OCs on the site.
- Curiosity was created in the summer of 2024, when Inside Out 2 came out. She had a major redesign exactly a year later for ArtFight in may 2025, which would be tweaked up a bit and become the one you're familiar with now!
- Curiosity's original design was inspired by arrows and pine trees.
- I have been shipping her with Fear since day one!
- Curiosity's original design was supposed to be in their early twenties, which I find funny since shes a whole decade older now.

Feariosity (Fear x Curiosity)!! It is canon, by the way.

Speaking of Fear... ever since she began working at headquarters, she has had a bit of a crush on him! Something about his goofy and somewhat eccentric demeanor charmed her, and she found it amusing how he could switch from confident to cowering (and vise versa) in seconds. It took her a while to warm up to the emotions at first, but out of all of them, she became friends with Fear first. They both thought they were very pleasant to be around, they liked each other's fashion sense, and despite her name, Curiosity was really open minded about his opinions and would often take his side during arguments among the other emotions. Fear felt like his worries were seen when he was with her, she never made him feel stupid or silly for being nervous about minor things. Instead, she'd agree that something can be dangerous, but she'd remind him of the positives too. They made a good team! 

When Curiosity told Joy about her feelings towards him, she could not help but laugh. Still, soon the other emotions were rooting for them to become a couple. They thought it would do him some good to have a supportive partner. For a month or so, they were being kind of flirty and they both clearly had feelings for eachother, but both were worried about confessing, regardless of how obvious they were being. Though eventually her and Fear went on a date while he was on dream duty, and they became partners after a few more. They made a great pair, Curiosity was always there for him whenever he got spooked or hurt, and Fear was always there for her when she felt upset or simply needed some company. She would often spend the night at Headquarters whenever it was his turn for the night shift, which led to him always looking forwards to it! The night would start off with them chatting and laughing at the bad acting or absurdity of Riley's dreams, but it would usually end with the two snuggling and sleeping in each other's arms. Archivists are more active at night so she didn't have many issues with staying up. She glows too, so if Fear got spooked, the light she emited would help comfort him. Of course, not everything went smoothly. At the start, although he knew she would never do it, Fear constantly worried about her cheating while she was working in Long Term Memory. Plus, Curiosity's pace in the relationship did not match his. She initially wanted it to move too quickly for his own comfort and when he expressed this, she interpreted it as rejection. However, they never kept things from each other and were always open about their feelings, that communication strengthened their relationship. They did consider breaking up before the events of Inside Out 2, because at the time Curiosity was only visiting Headquarters two or three times a week. They had limited communication when they were apart, and although they both loved each other very dearly, the distance took a toll on them both. It wouldn't be uncommon for one of them to be late (or not even show up) to dates because they had zero way of warning the other that something unexpected popped up and they would be delayed or too busy. It was a right person, wrong time situation. Luckily, after hearing the news that she would be moving in with the other emotions, they immediately agreed to staying together. The two become engaged a year after the sequel, and even if a few of the emotions saw them as a bit of a cheesy couple, they were all happy for them. :o)

Feariosity trivia:
  -Their fancy ship name is NightLight. Read below to understand why!!
- Curiosity thinks Fear's prettiest trait is his smile, she does not mind that his teeth are a little crooked. She thinks it is handsome!
- Fear thinks Curiosity's prettiest features are her eyes and her nose. He also loves how her hair is like a cloud, and he likes bumping his nose against hers.
- Fear owns many nightlights, but he owns multiple shaped like clouds. They remind him of his lover whenever she is away.
- Curiosity is as light as a cloud (literally), so she'll sometimes take a nap on Fear when they are watching dreams together. Is that even comfortable??
- Both use their hair as body language, often Curiosity's thought bubbles (the things next to her hair) will be shaped like hearts when they are together!
- They both claim to sleep better when they are together.
  - Fear's favourite pet name for Curiosity is sweetie/sweetheart, but he'll sometimes call her sunshine when he feels flirty. Curiosity doesn't use many pet names since she tends to dislike nicknames (though she allows them when they come from Fear), she prefers to just give him compliments and praise. She'll sometimes call him a cuddlebug to tease him.
  - Fear said "I love you" first, it happened during a moment of weakness.
- Whenever Fear gets hurt, Curiosity is often the first to come help him. It has been this way even before they became a couple. Though, after they began dating, if Fear got especially upset, she would offer to kiss wherever it hurts. Poor Fear, he's been getting many injuries on his face lately. Hmm.
- When they cuddle, Fear's teddy bear is usually between them.
- They always send each other love letters whenever they are apart. They used to be pen pals.
- They would never want to have kids (Riley is enough of a responsibility and they aren't biologically compatible anyway), but they like imagining how they'd be as parents.
- Curiosity is an awful dancer and Fear is worse (he believes learning to dance would be too dangerous. I'm so serious, he says this in Disney Infinity. Canon fact), this does not stop them from boogieing to the worst songs together!
- I headcanon Fear as boyflux. This means they're kind of nblnb disguised as hetslop. (buzzword buzzword)
- Curiosity has her own room in Headquarters, it is technically her office but it is where she sleeps too, so she calls it her bedroom. She has nightlights installed everywhere and Fear's favourite blanket is on the bed, since he prefers spending the night with her rather than listen to all the other emotions snoring. He'll occassionally miss his old bed though, so sometimes he and Curiosity have a sleepover! Curiosity uses a sleeping bag most of the time, but Fear almost always has some excuse for her to join him in his bed and cuddle, even if theres like, zero room.

Feariosity/NightLight is canon in my mind (literally), how about yours?