An Ode To The Cherished

some fanart based on scenes and designs from this amazing fic 'The echo garden' by @altraviolet 🙏 🙏

You ever wonder if the reason why Flying Scotsman calls Gordon his "Little Brother" is not because he was built first (because he was not, Gordon is older by virtue of being their class's prototype, and the second oldest would be Great Northern who was the first properly finished A1 Pacific, followed by Sir Frederick Banburry and THEN Flying Scotsman), nor because he's bigger than him (both locomotives are the exact same height and length), but because he was technically an older brother once before all his little siblings's lives got cut short?

Think about it. We've seen Gordon's side of things in the Railway Series. We saw how badly he was handling finding out that all but one of his siblings were decommissioned and cut apart for scrap. Surely Flying Scotsman was also trying to handle his grief... It would certainly explain why the Fat Controller managed to book for him to come to Sodor on such short notice (perhaps Flying Scotsman's owners and crew were also having difficulty getting him to run properly while he was mourning, so the chance to see his one remaining sibling was one they took with paid expenses because they hoped it would help him move on).

How can we be sure Flying Scotsman wasn't struggling just as much as Gordon? Sure, we know Gordon is the one engine who shuts down the most when it comes to change... But do we really know what goes on in his smokebox outside of the personable mask he wears for the public?

Maybe calling Gordon by that nickname is a (bad) way for him to cope because admitting to the fact he's not moved on from his own sense of loss would be absolutely mortifying. Maybe he feels like saying he needs more time or more help would somehow mean he failed his owners and crew, who arranged for that meeting all those years ago and spent "way too much" time and money doing so. Maybe he feels like he's somehow dishonoring his family's memory by not being the strong and unshakably powerful engine he's meant to be. The thoroughbred record-breaking Gresley A3 Pacific he was designed to be.

When everyone has this idea of him that he has to maintain in order to keep running and upholding his legacy (or so he thinks anyway...), it's probably very hard to be genuinely honest about his own struggles. And inevitably something has to give... Perhaps his and Gordon's bond as siblings.

oh how the turns have tabled

*Breaks into your house to stare wistfully out the window* Do you ever think that CTHenry is, at least by some perceptions, a corpse being kept alive by gold dust and the whimsy of a goddess whose motives are unknown? I do. *Puffs on bubble pipe* Anyway. I'm still holding out hope for a happy ending for our Miserable Train Gays. Iram gentlemen. Have a good day 💗

out of sight, out of mind

James & rosa

Assortment of SpongeBob SquarePants episode title cards (1999)