It's been a long time coming since I conceptualized this guy, but I think I'll finally introduce him to tumblr: meet Lenny!
I've been cooking with his character on discord; long story short, he's Diesel's near-identical, scaredy cat cousin that has a severe phobia of steam engines after a one-sided altercation left him with a permanently broken nose
He genuinely means well and does want to be a useful engine, the problem is his fear results in him physically malfunctioning to the point that he blows his engine out more often than not from fear; on a technical level, nothing is wrong with him, it's just his psychological issues heavily impact his ability to work
Both his US Voice and UK Voice would be Mr Nervous from The Mr Men Show
I've had many a talk with @superarti over her character Whisper developing a friendship with Lenny, as well as the ocs of @lunamooo @british-hero @railwaycreature and @dieselworks-devotee
If you want to learn more, feel free to drop questions about him!
"You monster."
Hey y'all, switching things up and sharing some art of one of my TTTE OCs I've had in the works for a lil bit! <3 With a lil bit of lore to go along with it hehe
~~ Full version and lore below ~~
Meet Frank! It's short for "Frankenstein's Monster". It's definitely not his original name but he doesn't remember his old one (if he even had one), and it's a bit of a fitting name given his past.
No one quite knows where Frank came from, not even Frank himself. He's a heavily modified 4-4-0 tender engine, whose build suggests he was originally built sometime in the early 1900s, but his mangled assortment of mis-matched parts makes it hard to know for sure.
All Frank remembers is that he was once an engine on a Railway. Then he was put in a shed, and people came to take pieces away and put new ones on in a neverending cycle for what felt like decades.
He was a bit of a "project" engine, if you will. One that never saw the light of day, as he was inevitably abandoned in his haphazard state before finally being found again many years later.
Rendered without a true sense of identity (his old one now long gone after all that heavy modification), Frank is a anxious old fella but he's kind at heart. His memory is nothing like it used to be, and he's constantly struggling with his sense of identity and purpose.
After all, a bright new paint job may make him look a little more cohesive from the outside, but on the inside he still feels terribly misshapen and almost wrong.
And one of the things that haunts him the most is never knowing where any of his parts came from, or who they might've belonged to.
But for the sake of his sanity, it's probably best he doesn't think too hard about it.
~~~
AAA I'm so excited to finally be able to share this guy!! <3 Him and his emotional support tank engine (or at least what's left of one... I'll share more on her another time ;P) have been so fun to work on and I already adore them sm. ;;;
And I genuinely had so much fun drawing him here hehe! So I hope you guys can enjoy it too ^^
And as a thank you for sitting through all my loredumping, here's a bonus lil sketch of Frank too <3 Bc lookit him, I love my anxious old man train
Enjoy the art everyone! <3
And absolutely feel free to ask any questions you might have about him, I'm always happy to ramble more about him LOLL /lh /gen
Never before have I felt so bad for being paid to do art bc omg are you kidding— I got to draw my two beloved TTTE humanisations AND it’s for one of my favourite people in this fandom AND it’s for a scene in their amazing fic which I absolutely see happening in my AU?
The stars have aligned 😩🤌💫
Thank you for coming to me with this and for the support you really didn’t have to give but did anyway. You are a saint and a friend. 💖
Yall PLEASE go read @locomotive-paws ‘s adorable fanfic this piece is based on. I never allow people to use my humanisations for personal stories/projects but I just love this fic too much and it’s too perfect for the characters that I couldn’t refuse.
i was listening to a playlist to stargaze with your comfort character to and thought of Douglas but then remember I actually took him and Donald out to watch the lunar eclipse a few days ago and showed them around the sky and even let them peak through the eyepiece of my telescope 💙
He's. helped me through a pretty odd time in my life. Not at my worst but for the past months I've been struggling to enjoy astronomy as much as I've been for years and that's a pretty major aspect of myself so I felt lost. He and Donnie help me through that while I try to bounce back :)
Also they ended up being comfort characters in the most wholesome way possible. We had TTTE DVDs from a looooong time ago that had some episodes from the model series, and I decided to fix myself a delicious hot chocolate and relax in the living room with the lights off at midnight and that like was one of the highlights of the year because I felt so young again,,,They kept appearing in the intermission and I was so curious to know who they were and to my astonishing luck we had their debut on DVD
So, hang on tight! It may not seem the best right now but something will come your way! It may not be tomorrow or the next day, but it will come to you some day! Just keep going forward! Hold on to the things and people you love, they love you back!
THIS IS YOUR FAULT. ALL YOUR FAULT. YOUR FAULT! YOUR FAULT! LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID TO MY GORDON HE TURNED INTO AN EQUINE HYBRID ROBOT!!!! YOU TURNED THEM INTO UMAS!!! YOUVE INFECTED ME AGAIN1!!!
Sooooo yeah. I have a sizeable TTTE OC collection. Current number is 48. Only seeing as I'm a busy person, I don't got the time to draw all of them. However, one I was able to draw is Ruaridh, my personification of the P2 LNER no. 2004 Mons Meg. He's got his own crazy lore.
Fuck it, lore drop time.
Gonna drop some Ruaridh/Mons Meg lore:
1) In a past life, this guy was a human. He was born Ruaridh Gardner on February 4th, 1906 in Edinburgh, and died July 10th, 1936
2) If there was a contest for “most anxious man in the UK,” he’d win it. He’s got terrible social anxiety, a fear of loud noises and the crowds which make them. Which of course wasn’t treated properly.
3) He was a physics professor at the University of Edinburgh and an "amateur" astronomer (Also joined the BAA)
4) His death was a result of an unholy mixture alcohol, adrenaline and years of untreated anxiety, which ironically came from an attempt at “loosening up” for a night. His old friends from his uni days noticed that his mental health seemed to be getting worse than usual, and wanting to help him, invited him out for some drinks. And Ruaridh, in the spirit of adventure and friendship, agreed. Unfortunately, he overdoes it with the booze, becomes convinced that the entire pub is out to get him, ends up sprinting from it to get away and in the end when his friends finally catch up to him……..his heart just can’t take it anymore and gives out. He died of a heart attack. Poor guy.
5) Once christened “Mons Meg” as a locomotive, he lost the ability to say his human name and had to fight against forgetting it.
6) He was pissed when Pluto was demoted from planet status to dwarf planet status. It was discovered as a planet during his human lifetime after all. It was a big surprise for the other engines of Sodor when the usually mild mannered Mons Meg was seen ranting about “the cunts at the IAU” to his driver on the day of August 24th, 2006. He liked Pluto, and it's a CRIME that this happened in the year of his 100th birthday.
Also FYI all of this spawned cause I thought it would be funny if the engine named for a cannon hated loud noises.
Hahaha you guys this is super fucking dark but the diesel deserved it.
-
Summary - The Gods have been thrown out of the kingdom of heaven. What happens to them next is… very biblical.
-
Prayers were common in the scrap yards that dotted England’s rail system.
The engines, once Gods, now assuredly mortal, prayed often.
Gone were the terrified prayers to them from those beneath them
Gone were the desperate pleas to their own bodies
Now it was the last entreaties of the condemned
please let me see tomorrow
please let someone buy me
please don’t take me
please don’t take her
please don’t take him
please take me instead
please don’t make it hurt
In one yard, somewhere in the middle of the country, a proud diesel sat. He was long, and filthy. His numbers were so obscured that only the first two could be made out: 45. His eyes still shone, as he looked about the yard, trying and failing to find something, anything that could aid in his escape.
The sun slipped below the horizon, and, like most nights, he wondered if he’d ever see another sunrise.
The dark fell quickly, and the yard around him fell silent as the workers ceased their daily mutilations. The moon was gone, and the only lights were around the small portakabin that served as the site office, leaving him in inky black darkness that was so total it was suffocating.
How long later it was he didn’t know, but a noise drew his attention. A clanking noise, like an engine with a stuck bearing or untrued wheel, seemed to be rolling through the yard. His eyes had adjusted to the night’s darkness, but even then he could scarcely see anything, until a pair of bright red eyes opened just a few dozen feet from his face.
He sat there, mouth agape, the breath stolen from him by shock, as the light from the eyes revealed huge strips of metal that could possibly be called teeth, arranged into a horrible, awful smile, set into the smokebox of a steam engine.
Hello, it screeched in a chorus of the damned. You’ve reached the end of the line, haven’t you?
The diesel couldn’t even muster forth a scream.
Scrap-man got your tongue? It asked, mockingly. I get that a lot.
This is a nightmare, the diesel thought.
Not quite. We haven’t even gotten started yet. The… monster(?) said, as though it had read his mind.
The diesel choked, and sputtered. His tired and worn motor tried futilely to start, to turn over, to get him away from that, but nothing happened.
You’re not getting away that easy. The ghastly horror in front of him rumbled. I’ve got all night.
“WHAT ARE YOU?!” The diesel finally found his voice, several octaves above where it should be.
That caused the deformed smile to droop into an evil sneer. I’m fate. Or something like that. You’ve been a very naughty engine, haven’t you?
“How dare you!” The diesel retorted automatically, defending his honor like the vengeful God he once had been.
The sneer curled into an irritated glower. Maybe this will jog your memory.
Please just leave me here! I won’t tell no-one!
Did he really say that about me?
You’ve got a lot of nerve, coming into my yard and saying that!
I knew I could trust you, 116.
Just you wait, diesel! One day this will be you!
You did this to us.
Why are you doing this to me?
What did I ever do to you?
Stop. Please.
I thought we were friends...
All we ever wanted was to be useful!
Each voice that emerged from the horrifying face was different from the last. They all had a ring of familiarity to them, and a heavy weight of recognition began to build in his fuel tanks as he realized why the monster was saying those things, in those voices. “You speak for the steam engines.”
“No, 116” The monster said, with a voice that oozed familiarity and fuel oil in equal measures. The diesel realized that it was the voice of one of those hydraulic failures from ages ago. “I speak for all of the engines.”
It looked him in the eyes, and spoke with its own unsettling voice. And they said a lot about you.
Still looking into his eyes, the monster’s red pupils suddenly flared to a blinding brightness.
When his vision returned, the diesel was bathed in sunlight on a siding, somewhere far from the yard.
‘Where am I?’ He wondered to himself, before the silence of the area was broken by the arrival of a small shunter.
He tried to speak to the engine, to get any sort of information out of it, but it stared seemingly through him with distant, glassy eyes, before running around to the back, and buffering up to him.
“Where are we going?” He asked.
The shunter didn’t answer, and merely began pushing.
The rails quickly became older and rustier, the sleepers starting to rot and sag. Obviously some kind of industrial siding or spur line of some sort, but to where? Despite rolling through an industrial area of some kind, there was very little sound, other than tools and machinery in the near distance.
Wait.
Tools.
“Where are we going?!” He asked the shunter with manic intensity as they rolled through a level crossing and over a bridge.
“i’m sorry” was all the shunter said in return.
They crossed the bridge, and in that moment, the diesel knew his life was to end.
The scrap yard was piled high with engines, coaches, railcars, and everything in between.
At the rear of the yard, a pile of locomotives - types two and four, including some of his own siblings - was stacked three high, while cabs from others were piled in macabre heaps, their dead faces staring out at nothing, expressions fixed in terror, fear, and pain - their last moments.
Off to one side, a stone faced excavator was methodically tearing a coach to ribbons.
Directly in front of him, a pair of frames, traction motors and wheelsets still attached, sat on the rails.
The locomotives - his brothers - to whom they belonged were nowhere in sight.
“i’m sorry” the little shunter whispered again, before retreating to a siding near a group of parked and shell-shocked looking-excavators.
-
Prayers were common in Vic Berry’s slice of hell.
oh god i’m going to die here please someone help me
There was only one who could possibly hear.
The big diesel sobbed as the monster reappeared in front of him. He did his level best to throw himself at the creature’s twisted buffers, begging for mercy, promising to change, hoping against hope that this was all some sort of twisted, Dickensian dream.
The monster looked at him, wailing piteously.
No.
And vanished.
The diesel looked where the monster had gone, and despaired.
Then there was a noise. A sound of creaking metal and breaking glass.
Voices rising from the scrap.
All around him, the dead, the dying, and the soon to die were looking at him with forlorn gazes. Some had only one eye. Others had none. They still looked too, empty sockets fixing on him.
Joooooiiiin uuuuussss They groaned as one.
Jooooooiiinnn uuuuusss
Jooooiiinn ooouurr rrrraaannkksssss
The horrible moan emerged from every mouth, even the decapitated cabs.
The diesel screamed. He screamed and he screamed and he screamed, until an group of dead-eyed excavators brought their claws down on him, again and again, cutting and tearing away until there was a third set of frames, traction motors and wheelsets sitting in a row.
Hahaha you guys this is super fucking dark but the diesel deserved it.
-
Summary - The Gods have been thrown out of the kingdom of heaven. What happens to them next is… very biblical.
-
Prayers were common in the scrap yards that dotted England’s rail system.
The engines, once Gods, now assuredly mortal, prayed often.
Gone were the terrified prayers to them from those beneath them
Gone were the desperate pleas to their own bodies
Now it was the last entreaties of the condemned
please let me see tomorrow
please let someone buy me
please don’t take me
please don’t take her
please don’t take him
please take me instead
please don’t make it hurt
In one yard, somewhere in the middle of the country, a proud diesel sat. He was long, and filthy. His numbers were so obscured that only the first two could be made out: 45. His eyes still shone, as he looked about the yard, trying and failing to find something, anything that could aid in his escape.
The sun slipped below the horizon, and, like most nights, he wondered if he’d ever see another sunrise.
The dark fell quickly, and the yard around him fell silent as the workers ceased their daily mutilations. The moon was gone, and the only lights were around the small portakabin that served as the site office, leaving him in inky black darkness that was so total it was suffocating.
How long later it was he didn’t know, but a noise drew his attention. A clanking noise, like an engine with a stuck bearing or untrued wheel, seemed to be rolling through the yard. His eyes had adjusted to the night’s darkness, but even then he could scarcely see anything, until a pair of bright red eyes opened just a few dozen feet from his face.
He sat there, mouth agape, the breath stolen from him by shock, as the light from the eyes revealed huge strips of metal that could possibly be called teeth, arranged into a horrible, awful smile, set into the smokebox of a steam engine.
Hello, it screeched in a chorus of the damned. You’ve reached the end of the line, haven’t you?
The diesel couldn’t even muster forth a scream.
Scrap-man got your tongue? It asked, mockingly. I get that a lot.
This is a nightmare, the diesel thought.
Not quite. We haven’t even gotten started yet. The… monster(?) said, as though it had read his mind.
The diesel choked, and sputtered. His tired and worn motor tried futilely to start, to turn over, to get him away from that, but nothing happened.
You’re not getting away that easy. The ghastly horror in front of him rumbled. I’ve got all night.
“WHAT ARE YOU?!” The diesel finally found his voice, several octaves above where it should be.
That caused the deformed smile to droop into an evil sneer. I’m fate. Or something like that. You’ve been a very naughty engine, haven’t you?
“How dare you!” The diesel retorted automatically, defending his honor like the vengeful God he once had been.
The sneer curled into an irritated glower. Maybe this will jog your memory.
Please just leave me here! I won’t tell no-one!
Did he really say that about me?
You’ve got a lot of nerve, coming into my yard and saying that!
I knew I could trust you, 116.
Just you wait, diesel! One day this will be you!
You did this to us.
Why are you doing this to me?
What did I ever do to you?
Stop. Please.
I thought we were friends...
All we ever wanted was to be useful!
Each voice that emerged from the horrifying face was different from the last. They all had a ring of familiarity to them, and a heavy weight of recognition began to build in his fuel tanks as he realized why the monster was saying those things, in those voices. “You speak for the steam engines.”
“No, 116” The monster said, with a voice that oozed familiarity and fuel oil in equal measures. The diesel realized that it was the voice of one of those hydraulic failures from ages ago. “I speak for all of the engines.”
It looked him in the eyes, and spoke with its own unsettling voice. And they said a lot about you.
Still looking into his eyes, the monster’s red pupils suddenly flared to a blinding brightness.
When his vision returned, the diesel was bathed in sunlight on a siding, somewhere far from the yard.
‘Where am I?’ He wondered to himself, before the silence of the area was broken by the arrival of a small shunter.
He tried to speak to the engine, to get any sort of information out of it, but it stared seemingly through him with distant, glassy eyes, before running around to the back, and buffering up to him.
“Where are we going?” He asked.
The shunter didn’t answer, and merely began pushing.
The rails quickly became older and rustier, the sleepers starting to rot and sag. Obviously some kind of industrial siding or spur line of some sort, but to where? Despite rolling through an industrial area of some kind, there was very little sound, other than tools and machinery in the near distance.
Wait.
Tools.
“Where are we going?!” He asked the shunter with manic intensity as they rolled through a level crossing and over a bridge.
“i’m sorry” was all the shunter said in return.
They crossed the bridge, and in that moment, the diesel knew his life was to end.
The scrap yard was piled high with engines, coaches, railcars, and everything in between.
At the rear of the yard, a pile of locomotives - types two and four, including some of his own siblings - was stacked three high, while cabs from others were piled in macabre heaps, their dead faces staring out at nothing, expressions fixed in terror, fear, and pain - their last moments.
Off to one side, a stone faced excavator was methodically tearing a coach to ribbons.
Directly in front of him, a pair of frames, traction motors and wheelsets still attached, sat on the rails.
The locomotives - his brothers - to whom they belonged were nowhere in sight.
“i’m sorry” the little shunter whispered again, before retreating to a siding near a group of parked and shell-shocked looking-excavators.
-
Prayers were common in Vic Berry’s slice of hell.
oh god i’m going to die here please someone help me
There was only one who could possibly hear.
The big diesel sobbed as the monster reappeared in front of him. He did his level best to throw himself at the creature’s twisted buffers, begging for mercy, promising to change, hoping against hope that this was all some sort of twisted, Dickensian dream.
The monster looked at him, wailing piteously.
No.
And vanished.
The diesel looked where the monster had gone, and despaired.
Then there was a noise. A sound of creaking metal and breaking glass.
Voices rising from the scrap.
All around him, the dead, the dying, and the soon to die were looking at him with forlorn gazes. Some had only one eye. Others had none. They still looked too, empty sockets fixing on him.
Joooooiiiin uuuuussss They groaned as one.
Jooooooiiinnn uuuuusss
Jooooiiinn ooouurr rrrraaannkksssss
The horrible moan emerged from every mouth, even the decapitated cabs.
The diesel screamed. He screamed and he screamed and he screamed, until an group of dead-eyed excavators brought their claws down on him, again and again, cutting and tearing away until there was a third set of frames, traction motors and wheelsets sitting in a row.
me with my ertl models uh i mean my 1 month old donlet and douglet i adopted fresh from the factory 💛💛💛💛 theyre so weak and stupid and i give them so much love and care
The relationship between Eleanor and Maria is growing to be that of a mother and daughter. Cadencia, who was the latter's abusive mother, was in the mug in Krampus' workshop. Did he show her that....? She did start hugging Eleanor in that last panel
The relationship between Eleanor and Maria is growing to be that of a mother and daughter. Cadencia, who was the latter's abusive mother, was in the mug in Krampus' workshop. Did he show her that....? She did start hugging Eleanor in that last panel
