gall0pingsausage - Tumblr blog

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met a Little Guy in the park yesterday (PMRR #3, a 1907 Baldwin 0-4-0 :] )

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new tumblr feature unlocked: get forcibly logged out for trying to upload a 45 second train clip to a post

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Dance until your bones clatter. What a prize you are. What a lucky sack of stars.

Gabrielle Calvocoressi, At Last the New Arriving.

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Skarloey

💗🤍💜🖤💙

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me train-ifying my OFF ocs wasnt a joke lol. so heres one of my OFF ocs but in thomas

very normal middle aged man who definitely doesnt lead a cult/isnt trying to find a way to kill lady to gain her godlike powers, hes just a regular driver :)

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government assigned Just A Little Guy energy

I'VE MADE A UQUIZ WHERE YOU COULD SEE WHICH CASA TIDMOUTH CHARACTER YOU ARE

it's been in development since two months ago. 12 questions, none of them are romance-related however you might sense that it gets funnier the longer it goes. do share your results because I'm curious

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the episode in question! and the moment being referenced starts around 0:45 :]

his favorite part of the railway

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On Hank

(This one goes out to the anon in my askbox who requested Hank for the bingo meme. I'll do you one better <;3)

So to preface this I think some context is required. I’ll be brief.

When I started this train misadventure with @greatwesternway, I personally had no plans to watch beyond Season 6, which was the last season that I remembered watching as a child and so the last season I had any personal attachment to. Once that had been done, however, and I still wanted more trains, I skipped directly to season 17 (to see Duck) and then proceeded to watch the rest of the CGI (backtracking to season 13) and then all the movies and specials.

This watch order left a gap, Seasons 7-12. I was not looking forward to watching Seasons 7-12. I had no special memories associated with them, and knew from prior research that the characterization and writing was… shall we say, less than stellar. I also knew that these seasons added many one-off characters that the CGI would not end up carrying over, and which I had basically zero interest in. Who cares about Flora the steam tram? Not me, certainly.

Imagine my surprise, then, when Season 12 (of Steady Eddie infamy) delivered perhaps my favorite one-off character of the entire show, and a pretty good all-around episode in general.

Let’s talk about Hank and his episode, Heave Ho, Thomas.

Despite appearing in only one episode, we know a lot about Hank’s character. We know that he’s big, strong, gregarious, friendly, quick to compliment others, and– perhaps most importantly– American!

Yes, the engine whose color scheme is red, white, and blue and who has a Texan accent (which Michael Angelis is attempting so, so bravely) is American. Shocker!

I’m pointing this out primarily because it’s interesting on its own: the show never directly states that he is from America, but it’s made very clear to the audience that that is the case.

There are many American engines on Sodor (Rosie, Caitlin, Connor, Porter, Timothy, Victor) but Hank is the only one (aside from Victor, who I would consider a special case) who is shown to be Culturally American. Most of these other engines are given British (or in the case of Caitlin and Connor, Irish for some reason) accents and their status as transplants isn’t really commented on in the canon.

I’m not bringing this up in relation to Hank because I have a problem with this from a technical perspective, but because Hank being American is– I would argue– actually the crux of the whole episode and what makes it work.

(Hank actually gets a model face as opposed to a CGI one for this shot! This episode might have been planned for before the decision to switch to CGI faces had been finalized.)

The episode proper starts with Hank arriving on Sodor. Thomas and Percy are both excited to meet this new special and strong engine, but Thomas expresses some doubt that he could be stronger than any of the engines on Sodor. Already we’re seeing some hometown pride from Thomas, indicating both that Hank is an outsider and that wherever he’s from, Thomas thinks Sodor is better. Sir Topham Hatt gives Thomas his 3 strikes jobs for the day, which he instructs Thomas to do while showing Hank around the island.

Hank arrives and immediately sets Thomas off by calling him “one of the finest little engines [he’s] ever seen”. Thomas, being as he is, takes offense at being called “little”, disregarding of course that to Hank, the big fuckoff PRR K4 Pacific, every engine on Sodor is little. And of course, Hank doesn’t mean “little” as an insult either. He means… cute! But Thomas, being as he is, gets buttmad about it.

Hank sees the load of freight cars Thomas is set to haul to the factory and offers, quite magnanimously, to take them instead, setting Thomas off even more. And perhaps Hank is underestimating Thomas here, but on the other hand, to Hank it would be like offering to carry a child’s backpack. The narration even tells us that Hank is merely trying to be helpful. He’s got that Southern Hospitality thing goin’ on!

As these seasons adhere to a specific formula it doesn’t take a genius to see where this episode is going. Thomas doesn’t exchange his current train for the next as he was instructed and instead tries to do all of them together as Hank watches, offering each time to pull the train instead and getting turned down. Part of that aforementioned Southern Hospitality, though, is taking people at their word, and so Thomas struggles on in a valiant attempt to win the Cutting Off Your Nose To Spite Your Face Award.

(Thomas, all out of Puff and Pull.)

It’s here that gets called "Handsome Hank" in the episode by the narrator in passing. This is fun, because I love when one of the stereotypes Americans are given outside this country is that they're attractive. I suspect this comes from our only cultural export being film for 100 years, and so the impression that people who don't live here got was that Americans all look like movie stars.

Hank being called this is interesting though, in that sense, it characterizes him as American again without outright stating the fact, but it's also interesting because 'handsome' is not an adjective that gets ascribed to engines in canon. For this reason, I suspect it is a title in the vein of "Duck The Great Western Engine" or "James the Red Engine". It's a name given by humans to the engines as a form of address.

Because if it isn't... Well, how-dy Hank! Thomas (or the Narrator at least) thinks you look handsome! Add that to the list of things Thomas just can't stand about this guy! He swanks in here, disrespects Thomas, belittles him, and has the gall to look good while doing it. What a Hospitable asshole!

(Handsome Hank! I absolutely love these pieces of concept art and I'm so glad we have them.)

Hank is so Hospitable in fact, that when Thomas is completely out of steam and can’t whistle at the stations because of the heavy train, Hank announces in front of God and everybody that because Thomas is out of puff: he, Hank, will whistle for him! To Hank, this is just common courtesy. If he can’t pull the train, the very least he can do is whistle for his new friend.

Of course, this is about the worst thing you could say in front of an engine like Thomas. Thomas, who thinks everything is a competition, every offhand comment a slight against him personally, and every action he can’t do a knock against his own Usefulness. It’s not his fault, really. When you come up on a British railway with engines like Gordon and James, you expect to be belittled and patronized. But Hank isn’t being passive-aggressive here, he’s just being American!

Well of course, as it goes with these seasons, Thomas cracks a cylinder and learns a lesson about asking for help or somesuch, Hank has a party thrown for him and is promptly forgotten about for the rest of time forever, The End. It’s not a very satisfying conclusion or a particularly good episode when taken at face value, but I think it works if you look at it as a Cultural Differences sort of episode, where the sensibilities of two different railways come into contact and are, at least initially, at odds with each other.

And actually, doing some research for this episode, I found out that Heave Ho, Thomas was never shown in Japan on tv or released for home media. Maybe they thought an episode like this wouldn’t translate well for a Japanese audience? Interesting, either way!

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his favorite part of the railway

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just in case it wasn't obvious.

he's both literate and fluent in heavy death metal font!

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"Eleven!"

"Here we go," Oliver muttered, plucking the cigarette out of his mouth too late. "'Oliver' works just fine, Duck."

"I should think if it did, we wouldn't be having this conversation again," Duck bit back, striding into Oliver's space. "I don't know what kind of habits you picked up on that--" his eyes flicked down to the still-smouldering cigarette in Oliver's hand. "--Other Railway, but you are Great Western, and when you're on my branch line, I expect you to act like it."

"Yes, Sir," Oliver said, smile never leaving his face.

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you can give a duck some peas. as a treat

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(i'm a simple being, i see the mention of monster or yakuza and i cheer LOL) and thanks for the tag!! behold

Gordon (TTTE) as well

2. Wreck-Gar (Transformers Animated)

3. Dedan (OFF)

4. Kross (Rune Factory Frontier)

5. Gonta Gokuhara (Danganronpa V3)

6. Masada Sensei (Yume Nikki)

7. Ozu (The Tatami Galaxy)

8. Big the Cat (Sonic the Hedgehog)

9. C-3PO (Star Wars)

10. Marvin the Martian (Looney Tunes)

you looking at this? tagged. tagged. none of you are free from being tagged (if you want to do this too)

Ten characters, Ten fandoms, Ten tags

Thank you to @lethal-justice for tagging me 🤎

1. Kitana - Mortal Kombat (Video game)

2. The Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes - Marvel (Comic/Movie/Series)

3. Nico Robin - One Piece (Anime)

4. Josuke Higashikata - Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures (Anime)

5. Jacob Frye - Assassin’s Creed (Video game)

6. Bendy - Bendy and the ink machine (Video game)

7. Sans - Undertale (Video game)

8. Michael Myers - Halloween (Movie)

9. Hisoka - Hunter x Hunter (Anime)

10. Obstagoon - Pokemon (Anime/Video game)

No pressure tags: @theelderhazelnut @ghastlyrider @middlechildwhoescapedthebasement @bar10du @loverofthewindgod @loreoflemons @kabals-nose-scrunch @kmofficial @darialovesstuff @illmetbymoonlight

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Edward pick up your son he's bullying the adults!

@theflyingkipper has the best human designs so I had to draw my beloved boy <33

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wow im posting art again! but anyway guess who finally made an oc based off of that one post that has over 50k notes now. god

sodor gets a new engine/driver with a mysterious backstory/something off about him(hint: its the fact hes an immortal eldritch monster)

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Commission for @moominmamma-time of their OC Teddy, the super cute, super strong OQ-Class engine! Thank you again, loved drawing this adorable little guy! :]

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“We only have one bucket of lava for this, so sir Handel make sure you don’t- “

…

“shit”