#TTTE magazine characters

[the-time-lord-oracle]

The 1992 Marvel magazine story The Visitor saw Sodor play host to a red A3 Pacific named Flying Thistle. As a fun fact, his name is a hybrid of the names carried by two real-life A3 Pacifics; Flying Scotsman and Knight of Thistle. The red livery is completely fictional, but in hindsight gives me Hogwarts Express vibes. Maybe if they ever do comic book adaptations of the Harry Potter series the artist could use an A3 as the basis for the Hogwarts Express. It would be an appropriate choice seeing as how the train uses the A3s' old stomping ground of King's Cross and the A3s featured corridor tenders, which would facilitate Professor Lupin's chat with the driver in Prisoner of Azkaban. Back to Flying Thistle, he's a character that the CGI series could've introduced. All they'd need to do is recolour Gordon's CGI render! An episode featuring Gordon, Flying Scotsman and Flying Thistle together would be fun.

[thebunnylord]

Headcanons for my least favorite ttte characters:

Whiff is a huge collector, it’s not uncommon for people to throw out books, toys, clothes, lamps, and kitchen gadgets. Whiff likes to pick them out of the garbage, cleaned, and hung in his shed. He finds “human gadgets” fascinating as engines don’t tend to fully understand human gadgets, but whiff wants to understand them and figure out how they work and what they are for.

Whiff is also one of the few engines who is fully literate. It isn’t uncommon for engines to be illiterate as they don’t need to learn to read or write, stations can be memorized by sight, time tables are often spoken to them, and danger signs are often pretty obvious. Whiff had taught himself to read from the books he pulled out from the trash, his favorite books are surprisingly cookbooks and home improvement magazines. His driver made a simple device for him that will allow him to turn the pages easily and he would spend up to one in the morning reading store catalogs and adding up the prices and making a list of everything he would buy. Recently, he’s gotten into computer magazines and has read about computers for disabled people that they can use moving their eyes, he secretly wishes he has one but they’re too expensive and, well, he’s a steam engine.

[littlewestern]

Sonny's Title

I have a habit of making playlists for my favorite characters in ttte (you can find them on spotify or dm for a tracklist/link) and I like to name them after the engine’s full titles. Duck The Great Western Engine, Donald and Douglas the Scottish Twin Engines, etc. I think it’s a nice way to give the engines the respect and distinction of a full name and the playlist theming works well.

Which became a problem in the case of one of my favorite characters, Sonny. Sonny has so few appearances in canon and none in external media like books or magazines, so he’s never been given an official title. He has nicknames, but nothing akin to the typical format of ‘[Name] the [Adjective] Engine’. So I do what I always do in times of finding-canon-wanting, and turned to @greatwesternway​.

me: what did we end up going with for Sonny's title? did we decide? DJ: I like him as the Second Chance Engine 'cause that's pretty much the only thing we ever got about him. me: 😭 that’s so cute... DJ: Oh good! I was worried it was lame, but I didn't have a better idea. me: no, it’s perfect DJ: They never use these titles in the stories anyway. But I think it's nice for him because he's actually been given quite a few second chances. Even being found by his thieves was a type of second go of it.

Genius. Sonny The Second Chance Engine.

Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

[toast-com]

oh ! I have a good one, summer headcanons ?

Roseanna "Rosie" Southampton: She and Christopher hang out, and she loves cuddling with him.

Christopher Bickerstaff: Gets cuddled and the like by Rosie, despite his grumpiness, he likes being cuddled.

Emily Stirling: Often hangs out with Wilbert. Doesn't know that he's got a crush on her.

Wilbert Dean: Has a huge crush on Emily. The two hang out together often.

Holland Peckett (Thirteen): Hangs out with Donald and Douglas. He's a little clumsy, so the twins have to keep an eye on him.

Cabott "Captain" Baxter: Owns a small fishing boat, which he uses in the summer to fish, and boat.

Stepney Stroudley: Hangs out of Rusty usually, and his other friends on the Bluebell Railway.