So a 2013 character bible just leaked on Twitter(unsure if it’s made it’s way here yet?) and a ton of characters have additional info in it. Most notably is that Norman and Paxton were sent to Sodor together, and Sidney just.. wandered onto the Steamship delievering them and never left.
In my human AU, Diesel, Paxton, Sidney, ‘arry, Bert, splatter and dodge are all brothers. They came from a huge blended family and both of their parents remarried to different people and had more children (there are way more children than the seven names I just listed) and one of their parents divorced twice and remarried three times and it’s all confusing unless I drew a chart out but you get the picture.
Their upbringing didn’t affect Diesel, Arry and Bert too much, Diesel is the oldest children of the clan and quickly got jealous when his siblings began arriving. He was also put in charge of the little kids when the parents went out. Diesel obviously abused this power by putting a baby spatter and dodge in an upside down wastebasket with books on top to keep him from having to watch them every second, and tying Paxton to a chair which Paxton vividly remembers. Diesel is devious by name and devious by nature.
The only thing from his childhood that really affected diesel into adulthood was that the best way of getting your parents attention was by hitting your younger brothers and make them cry.
On the other hand, Rebecca’s family is filled with relatives that she is somehow related to but doesn’t know how she is which makes family gatherings a bit awkward as there’s a ton of people who she never knew she was even related to. For example, she and Neville are cousins but for the life of her she doesn’t know how or why they are related. And it’s all weird and a huge mess but she doesn’t care, she finds Neville to be rather chill, aside from his social anxiety and awkwardness of course.
Canonically, Diesel is brother to Paxton, 'Aary, Bert, Sidney, Splatter and Dodge (there's also the mainland diesels but they're on the mainland so). Is that also canon in your au? If so how did the other diesels react to meeting little DJ?
Tbh, I don't really see all of the Class 08 diesels as brothers, I just see them as normal friends. I like to believe they all came from different factories and that Diesel was supposed to have a twin, but the idea was scrapped. It was until later on, the workers from Diesel's factory just suddenly thought "Hey, remember how we were gonna make that one black diesel during the 60s a little brother? Yeah, let's build him now" DJ was then built and shipped to Sodor the day after :)
In "Sidney Sings", Sidney passes by a field of poppies twice: once when he's first sent to Brendam Bay to pick up Percy's wheels before he forgets what he's supposed to be doing and then once more when he is again headed in the right direction.
Poppies, as mentioned in the World War I poem In Flanders Fields, are worn on Remembrance Day.
Been thinking of narrow gauge for a while, after learning more about Little Barford and Narrow Gauge Sidney plus after reading some head-canons on them, I thought I’ll try doing some first human versions of them! (I only found out about the first two recently and I adore 🥰💜💙🥺)
Just quick sketches of them, plus a mini Fred thinking about Adeline. He has a huge crush on her (who wouldn’t she’s super supportive and understanding and helps boost Fred’s confidence) and always works his hardest when she’s around, which she compliments and praises on, much to his delight and joy.
The Manning Wardle L Class saddle tanks really were cursed with having been made into characters that either the majority of the fandom hate (aka Billy) or are just indifferent about at best (aka Charlie).
At best indeed. I hate to say it but I've seen Charlie get a lot of hate (not as much, ofc). If he hadn't been displaced by Philip on the annoyingly-chipper-o-meter it would probably be worse.
And yeah, true that. But on the other rail, how many classes got more than one character (who weren't explicitly twins)?
hmm maybe i answered my own question, lemme know if i missed one though