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mean-scarlet-deceiver · 4 months

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Hmm… have I asked for Thomas and Henry, or just thought about it hard a couple of times? XD;;

Ooh, a fun pair.

“You’re too fat, you need exercise! 😤”

“Oh, I can’t wait for dawdling tank engines like you; good-bye! 😇”

“Run my train on time for one thing 😡”

“You’re the only danger on the rails, Thomas 🙄”

‘Oh, I guess you can go to York… some of us are still too useful to become museum-pieces… 👿’ (paraphrasing Henry’s copium here)

All right, maybe it’s more “fun” like the one in “dysfunctional.” But still!

The thing about this is that it’s a “minor” relationship in that, for most of their lives, they’re in each other’s periphery. Then again, they’ve been in each other’s lives sooooo long. So it’s a very sibling-y sort of relationship. They’ve been on different life paths as long as they can remember… but ohh, the embarrassing shit they remember about each other…

Birds’-Eye View

This relationship has an eternal tug-of-war quality.

Of course, Thomas by instinct plays tug-of-war with all the “big engines”! This is who he is!

But the relationship with Henry is different because there’s a sort of long-term… equality? Like, with Thomas and Gordon, like, Thomas is cheeky, but the one time he ever got really out-of-line with Gordon (i.e. THOMAS’ FIRST APPEARANCE?) Gordon pretty much put him in his place, and overall the whole point of their relationship is that Thomas acknowledges Gordon’s superiority in at least certain key points, it’s precisely WHY he likes to measure himself against him! (I’m thinking a lot here of many, many TVS-only incidents… but even in RWS there’s “Hurry hurry hurry,” he puffed, pretending to be like Gordon.) Thomas can’t look upon Henry the same way, for “Henry I”-related reasons not least of all (see section below). But with Gordon, the whole fun of the relationship for Thomas is to tease him in a way that only works if Gordon is on a pedestal. Thomas doesn’t try to knock him off… he just likes to shake things up, freak Gordon out, then do a campy little victory dance and make his exit with a shit-eating grin.

Then there’s Thomas and James, and in RWS… post-strike, James is never again seen to give Thomas any shit for being a tank engine? (Actual gold star, I can’t believe we’ve found an avenue of insult that even RWS!James has left untrod.) So a key feature of his tension with Gordon and Henry is, apparently, removed. Of course they do clash, if you go by TVS they clash a LOT. But in this relationship Thomas kind of has the upper hand, when you take the long view. (Thomas is more famous and favored, and James just gets so consistently shut down by the whole universe the moment he tries any shit. Plus, their foundational moment was Thomas getting him cleaned up after his first Sodor accident, and I think that colours the relationship forever – even after James is no longer prepared to just take Thomas’s patronizing airs (“Hullo James! Feeling better? That’s right! Oh, I must go, I don’t know what the Fat Controller etc. etc…” Betcha James shut down that shit before too much longer, lol.)

If Gordon has the dominant role in that relationship, and if Thomas has the dominant role in the one with James… then the fun thing about Thomas and Henry is that the scale never permanently settles one way or another. Whenever they have a lil’ flare-up, they feel like they’re on equal footing, and perhaps that’s why the barbs they trade feel ‘specially vicious! The field is wide open, no one comes in with the advantage, and they are both in it to WIN it!

But why are they like this?

Early Years

The thing I envision about their early acquaintance is the mutual bafflement. It’s a similar vibe to the one hilariously (and accurately) depicted here with Thomas and Gordon, except it’s not about different autisms, and it’s less confusion and dislike and more confusion and annoyance.

My headcanon for Henry is that Thomas was the first time he set eyes on a tank engine. So his initial reaction is like “what is this deformed… creature? (and why is he so mouthy?) (and what does he do here?) (what is ‘shunting’? oh nvm it’s not like i’ll ever need to know, i’m a proper engine)” Even if my headcanon is discarded, however, Thomas sure is Himself and the sheer force of his fussy, self-important Main Character Energy would have had a similar effect on young Henry, fresh from the shop and still dazzled by the wide world.

Thomas, though he has a fair bit more worldly experience under his boiler bands, still isn’t nearly as worldly as he thinks he is! — and he finds Henry just as baffling as Henry does him. Henry’s not like any other engine he’s ever met. He’s the biggest for one thing. He’s also far and away the un-reliable-est. I accentuate this in QLIR because part of the “scam” is that Henry is presented to Hatt as, not perhaps the engine he envisioned, but still an engine with some on-the-job experience. Total lies, of course. Far from “hitting the ground running,” Henry is a babe in the woods, constantly stumbling and fumbling his way around the rails. He knows nothing of railway operations, yard etiquette, or shed culture. Someone like Edward can take this in stride and just be like, All right, new chap needs a little extra looking after. It’s just a thing. No biggie. (Topham Hatt of course is in his office spitting nails, but this ain’t about him.) Thomas, however, is at just that childish stage where a) he knows all this stuff and b) he can’t fathom anyone not knowing it. So he’s constantly having the reaction of “What is he doing???” And, since he has no filter, drawing everyone’s attention to New Guy’s odd behaviors, every time (which does nothing to help Henry build confidence!)

(Then again, of course, sometimes New Guy legitimately does some very strange stuff – Once an engine attached to a train/Was afraid of a few drops of rain… That, erm. That Doesn’t Help.)

Then you add on Henry’s… mis-build, and Thomas’s befuddlement is cemented. He’s a cast-off on the Island Railway of Cast-Offs, of course, so the idea of mechanical issues aren’t new, but Henry’s are at a whole new level and they regularly disable him. Thomas is definitely 100% on board with the idea that you can manage to at least finish any job if you just try hard enough… and certainly you can at least get out of the shed in the mornings, yeah? Henry is the first time he encounters an engine for whom this just isn’t true. Same childish point of view: Henry is weird.

Again, I cannot emphasize that “Henry is weird” is an attitude coming from Thomas… who in his own unique way is one of the weirdest little engines ever built (affectionate).

None of this amounts, on either side, to anything like hatred. Annoyance on both sides, to be sure, but even then I don’t think it’s their dominant attitude towards each other. We see in “Thomas’ Train” that Thomas is… intrigued by the potential of his getting to fulfill his long-term Train-Taking Goals. But he doesn’t gloat over Henry’s misfortune, and I think TVS was so correct in giving him a worried face mask even as he slowly goes off to get the train ready… He can’t even be properly excited until he’s out of Henry’s vicinity, and, mind you, Henry’s too ill to be intimidating just then – Thomas refrains only because he really does feel bad for Henry, and doesn’t want him to feel worse!

We also have, later in the same story, Thomas thinking “Henry says it’s hard to pull trains, but…” So, you know, they’ve talked before. (At minimum, Thomas has listened to Henry fretting to other big engines!) Henry is a real person for him, so to speak, by now a consistent presence in his life.

As they settle in to their early-canon dynamic, I reckon it’s now characterised by mutual envy. Thomas would LOVE to take trains regularly like Henry – and can’t fully comprehend why Henry treats it like a burden! Like, he knows Henry gets ill, but at a gut level I don’t think Thomas could truly “get it,” because there’s nothing more he wants in the world than to have what Henry has!

Conversely, Thomas himself is always complaining, too (They’re both so good at having a good grumble!) and I think it would kinda drive Henry nuts that Thomas acts like he has it soooooo hard for *checks notes* having a job that he can actually perform to everyone’s satisfaction?... Vicarstown pilot Thomas may feel ignored by their manager, but that’s a million times preferable to being an eighty-ton disappointment to a manager who now has buyer’s remorse and a consequently short temper with you… :/

Keeping Each Other Grounded

I have no doubt that in the early years Henry leaned as far into the “big engine” identity as he could, largely to ensure that he wasn’t dead last in the pecking order. But I don’t know that this worked… especially after Thomas is promoted to branch line, and now Henry and the others don’t have a station pilot to kick around for a while…!

I don’t know for sure how I come down on about the TVS notion that Henry really grows out the big-engine trio vs. RWS, where the big-engine trio more slowly dissolves with everyone’s mutual consent. But if Henry did sort of lose interest in this identity when the other two didn’t, it makes sense precisely because the big-engine thing never let him rise higher than oh let’s say Thomas, and keeping a few paces ahead of that mouthy little tank engine (who always fails upward!!) was a big part of his motive for adopting it to begin with.

Similarly, Henry is so practiced at seeing the down side of anything. This makes him great at poking a hole in Thomas's balloon, any time Thomas gets too proud and puffed-up.

The Good Times

Right, I started off focusing on the tensions just because whenever one of these fellas takes a potshot at the other it’s always a classic! And because I think mutual befuddlement is the keynote of their early relationship.

As we get even in a little into canon, however, I want to emphasize that they usually rub along comfortably. They’re kind of on each other’s periphery, always, but they’ve lived and worked together for so long. And they’re both good-hearted sort of lads really. So it’s impossible that they don’t care about each other, even if it’s almost always at a bit of a distance. We are more likely to see them when they’re shooting a poisoned arrow at each other, but we know that what they’re usually doing when they see each other at the junction is pleasantly exchanging news.

This means that I approve of (virtually all) the little TVS moments that point to this kind of bond. Usually it’s one of them looking concerned when the other is jumpy (Henry) or missing (Thomas… dude, you sure do go missing a lot in TVS). I likewise enjoy getting to see them happy for each other at the appropriate moments (usually this is Henry for Thomas, most memorable for me is “That’s my boy!” <- cheering on Thomas when he’s kicking ass in the Shunting Challenge).

This is basic, background sort of stuff. But it’s also, I think, the most accurate representation of them. The zingers are incredible but they are a small part of their relationship. A basic, background sort of quasi-siblinghood is what constitutes the lion’s share of that bond.

I don’t like the TAB notion that Thomas went out of his way to say a few encouraging words to Henry and thereby cured Henry’s rain-related anxiety wtfffff… but I do approve of the general idea that, even (especially?) in the early days, there was certainly a time or two when Thomas hung back in the sheds to encourage Henry, just the two of them. It’s only that I think his brand of encouragement would be more like… Gordon or one of the BBBs had said something shitty to Henry, and (after getting into it with them, because Thomas is not one to back down from a fight!) actually remembering (for a change?) that this was all about Henry to begin with, and hanging around for a bit until Henry was cheered up. Although unlike Percy’s very frank, open attempt to cheer Henry in “Gordon’s Whistle,” I think Thomas’s approach would be more like “what a wanker…” Like, he wouldn’t show any pity, he’d just open the door for him and Henry to both talk shit about the guy for a few minutes. This is, indeed, Henry’s preferred method of being supported, well above being shown any overt pity! And Thomas would get it! (You wouldn’t usually find me doing an emotional-intelligence point-for-point comparison between Thomas and Percy where Thomas comes out on top, lol. But in this case Thomas’s nature – which includes being a casual shit-talker – would really shine!)

Not So Different?

Indeed, I wonder sometimes if these two aren’t the two most similar personalities on the cast — they’ve just been shaped by very different external factors!

They’re both fussy, both self-important, and neither is one to suffer in silence. They’re both good steady everyday grumblers, not aggressively, but in a very normal, perhaps even very English way. They both have good hearts and are quite willing to work hard… though they have both been known to throw a tantrum that sooner (tunnel & rain) or a wee bit later (banged-up snowplough) brings operations to a halt. None of which is unique to these two, by any means! All these traits are pretty common among the RWS cast(s?) especially. But Thomas and Henry’s traits match up point-for-point. They’re just living different lives, but underneath the externals they’re awfully alike.

Now, of course, there is a key difference — Henry is a follower, and Thomas would make a terrible follower; he can’t handle cliques (he’s rather too rough-around-the-edges to ever fit in one, methinks!) Then, too, when Henry thinks he doesn’t get enough respect (often), he just grumbles but has to wait for someone to present to him an opportunity (Gordon and James re: the strike, Duck re: six lovely tenders). When Thomas thinks he doesn’t get enough respect (again — often), he’s soon off doing something — usually something that ranges from foolish to catastrophic, but the point is that he’s more active and Henry’s more passive.

Those are real differences and not just down to circumstance. However, apart from these two points, if Thomas were a large ill-built tender engine, I think a lot of his behavior would be Henryesque. Same but inverted if Henry were a hale and healthy tank engine. Their natures were cut from similar cloth, even if they underwent different treatments and design. They’re not as irritable as James, as even-tempered as Edward, as bubbly as Percy, nor (even if they had been built to his design) would they be quite as proud, nor nearly so dignified, as Gordon. They’re both Just Guys, in a way.

What are YOU looking at?

I guess there’s one other way they differ… in TVS, Thomas is so proactive about going out and introducing himself and making seven bajillion merchandise deals friends.

I favor RWS for Thomas’s essential nature, though – and he’s notably absent in the nationalisation era, when the others are constantly bumping against B.R. engines. “He’s on his branch line!” Yeah, but, man – Percy somehow has a circle of B.R. admirers. Thomas could be mixing it up more at Tidmouth if he were inclined to. I think he likes staying on his home base. I think Thomas is a quite a bit more of a homebody than Andrew Brenner seems to, in short.

This also means that I think Thomas and Henry are alike in this way, too. They’re happy in the lives they’ve carved out for themselves, new acquaintances can approach them if they like – but watch out! (“What ugly wheels you’ve got.”) Newcomers to the book version of the North-Western can expect Duck to give you guidance, Percy to peer upon you with frank curiosity, James to self-importantly shove himself into your personal space and try to put you in your place, Gordon to officiously introduce himself if he thinks you’re important enough to merit such an honor, the Caledonians to maybe break you in with a practical joke if you stick around long enough, Edward to extract your entire life story if you stay longer than about 48 hours. Thomas and Henry? They’re hangin’ back. Not on account of shyness! And they’re not excessively proud I don’t think – but they’re both just self-important enough that they’re automatically suspicious of anyone with the nerve to approach them.

(That said, annoying Thomas is just a first step in befriending him. Annoying Henry doesn’t work out the same way! He’ll just tell you to get off his siding, lol.)

It’s like Ariel Wanting to Walk on the Beach… with Legs…

A final and very important similarity: Thomas and Henry both distinguish themselves by indulging in some notably un-engine-like behavior.

Thomas is discontent in early canon in a way I certainly don’t think is true for all shunters (hence part of my characterization of my OC Poppet, who would never dream of pining to be anything but a station pilot. She has a grand job! What more could an engine want than an important job? Variety? Society? Scenery? Pah. Because Poppet's a normie, is why.) Even early in his branch line days, we see him taking up a yen to fish like the anglers he sees at the Els river – and is apparently called out for it by every engine to whom he announces this desire. (“Engines don’t go fishing??? *mutters aside* Loony…”)

Henry, too, is given the trait in TVS canon of liking to sit ‘round on mysterious sidings in the middle of a peaceful forest and take in the beauty of it all. Now engines often want to be a part of things – it seems they have a social drive – but to want to do all this slow, solitary, un-useful nature hobby stuff, that’s really something else. This is such un-engine-like behavior that it’s downright impractical! RULE 55 But it puts Henry into what is (for the Classic and New Series, at least) a pretty exclusive club, pretty much just him, Thomas, and – later in the same TV season – Duck. And, like, I accept this as canon because it feels right. Yeah, they’re our weirdos (affectionate).

In Our Lanes. Thriving.

So, yeah. Two nifty dudes, with a sibling relationship that’s so basic and understated that it’s almost dangerous to write them, because you could very easy press your thumb a little too hard and ruin their balance!

There’s a little crop of fics that give them the shared spotlight in a story, usually in the Vicarstown days, when Thomas does something nice for a struggling Henry. That idea tends to work quite well. I can’t think of many other times when trying to put the focus on their dynamic wouldn’t foil their dynamic. As I say for the last time – a keyword here is “peripheral.”

Their connection is strong mostly because of time and shared history, strengthened by a similar temperament, and spiced up by their chronic squabbling. You could too easily try to give them a nice Moment and overdo it, because they’re in the same tight family-like circle, but it’s like they’re each on one of the polar caps – just waving at (or snarling at) each other every so often as their shared world keeps chuggin’ on.

#long post #ttte #the railway series #chatter #ttte thomas #ttte henry #1+3

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meili-sheep · 1 year

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So my thoughts on 3.5 spoilers included

Also, I'll talk about Dehya's quest and the event.

I'm surprised and not surprised that Kaeya was used more as a setup than a crucial plot point. He is a 4-star after all.

Which in my head. 4-stars are the less plot-important character who should be used for fun and to flesh out the world.

But at the same time, Kaeya and Diluc seem to have more end-game lore to them, and we did get quite a bit about Kaeya's family. So on to my thoughts

They didn't say this outright, but they pretty heavily implied that Kaeya is not a full-blooded Khaerian. Which makes a lot more sense. It would explain why he has seemingly escaped the curse. It could be that he covers up his eye because that eye doesn't have a star. And it would just draw more attention.

I would like to say I fucking called it.

Kaeya said he thinks his father left in Mondstadt to live a happy life. AND THAT'S WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYING. Of course, that doesn't mean I'm correct, but it makes sense with Kaeya being a half-blood. Especially if, at the time, Kaeya's father knew about Chlothar and had a kid with a wife who was a follower of the seven. I don't think they are the same person. I actually don't even think they are brothers. It could even be that Kaeya's father is another Illigimate son who is still full-blooded, but was brother into the house or was nobler. That could explain why he was focused on the preservation of the Alberich name. Because he was barely giving it being a son out of wedlock so he had to take a lot more pride in his name.

My second theory is that they are Chlothar's far far descendants. Children he had after breaking his curse. This sorta seems less likely too tbh. But he was buried next to a women so who knows.

I also want to point out that I don't think Khaenri'ah will end up being a place without sin. Now I'm still on the Celesta is probably bad train. but I don't particularly get the vibe that they were totally blameless.

Overall, this was a good amount of lore, they add. I have some more thoughts on the Sinner, but this is already getting too long, and I wanna talk about other things. I will say it was a pretty short feeling, and the break from Paimon and talking with her was good. I was a little disappointed by the lack of Dain. Like we only get that bitch once a patch, and I need some more investment in his character. Given how he said he was the last of his people, but we've now met 3 other of his people lolol.

OK ON TO DEHYA

So a quick note on my thought on her kit. While I think it's pretty shit, given that jumping stops her burst, she can't hit Azhdaha's tail... I have a theory.

Remember when everyone said Kuki and Thoma were totally dog shit, and then dendro came out, and now they are almost staples of dendro teams? Well, I've started to wonder if Dehya is built to introduce a new mechanic like they were. What it might be, I have no fucking clue. Does that justify it? Totally not. It's just a thought and probably a bit of the copium I've been huffing.

Now her story

It was good. I enjoyed it a lot. Probably one of the better-paced ones, and we do learn a lot about the character and do sort of see her grow a bit, which I love. Ranking it's probably one of the better ones. I'll kind of put it next to Cyno.

Also, I am in love with shy baby Dehya. She was so cute.

That kind of rolls me into the event! And honestly, I was dying. Mondstadt and the Sumeru gangs really do carry this game. There are just such better dynamics between everyone, and they all mesh super well together. I AM PRAYING TO GOD we see Diluc and Kaeya. Mostly because I want Kaeya to start to tip Collie off Diluc and helped her, only for Diluc to jab him in the ribs.

Besides, Diluc would be so gentle with Collie, to be honest.

Oh. and last little note. I feel with very patch and every mention of Diluc and Kaeya the pair are getting a little closer, and I love that. Because Kaeya might say he'd only tell Diluc if Kaeya's in a good mood, but we all know he's gonna tell him anyway.

#just a little ramble #this is late because i was farming lolol #it's a good update so far #it's made my diluc BEEFY #so ye #lol

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