Zoot Marimba’s Musical Zamboni

I had first encountered her through a mutual I wound up losing touch with as the two had collaborated on a musical project. Both were experimental musicians with a taste for alternative music as well as prog and psychedelia, and both were also trans.

Holly was a really sweet, goofball of a person, not only a gifted guitarist but also a talented visual sketch artist and ventriloquist who was big into puppets. She was a big lover of kitsch and horror, with a real fondness for quirky, off beat movies. Her fashion sense was the most charming form of thriftcore, full of bright colors and idiosyncratic patterns. I also cannot forget her soft spot for animals, having worked as a volunteer at shelters and helping care for animals at a pet shop.

For all of her light, Holly struggled so much for much of her life. From severe mental illness to childhood traumas, Holly also had a very rocky relationship with her family (especially after coming out). Over the past couple years, she had been bouncing between places and struggled to hold down a job because of her various issues. She also had a really scary encounter with the police, resulting in one of at least two or three institutions. Eventually, she stopped posting altogether, went radio silent and I had no idea what was going on.

I shouldn't be surprised at all, but I still can't help but hurt. Hurt knowing that I couldn't do more for her beyond words of support, hurt knowing that it took me this long to know she was gone. But most of all, hurt over all that could have been. No matter what, I had always hoped things would look up for her, that it would get better for her and she'd find peace and happiness. Maybe we'd even get to meet in person, go to a club to see a performance, or one of those theaters with special movie screenings.

And then tonight, I remembered that this month is one year since I learned of Holly's death, after she'd been gone for three months.

It hit me how so much of what happens to a particular character lines up with how Holly's final years went, and unlike the character, she did transition. Yet even that didn't really help her heel in the end. Perhaps that's why I've started reading up fics where this character is able to return or be "unabstracted", because I can't go through losing Holly again. Though we never met in person and our interactions were through digital media, I still cared so much for her and kept holding onto hope that things would get better for her. And they never did...

I broke down sobbing tonight, just crying over Holly and how her life ended. It ended with her obituary skirting around using her proper pronouns, her being referred to by her deadname with her chosen name in quotation marks, her feeling scared, alone, isolated, and who knows what else.

This morning, my niece asked my sister and mom to take her to the hospital in a cry for help, and I thought about how I wished I could still speak to my therapist. I asked my mom if my insurance has come through since my dad and stepmom's divorce, and then asked if I could talk to my therapist again afterwards.

These past few months have been a drain on me, and this whole ordeal just seemed to be the tip of the iceberg.

Another reason why the E2 proved to be a surprisingly appropriate basis for Thomas; it's a class that was unloved and most would not have been that upset about losing. Doubly so if my HC of Thomas being some experimental variant/protoype that was deemed a dud for whatever reason was actually true. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised, then, that Thomas never really seems that interested in his Brighton/LBSCR roots.

Thomas' basis may not have been what Wilbert initially envisioned Thomas to be-that would be a Fowler 3F or "Jinty". In a lot of ways, the Jinty would arguably have been a "better" basis-versatile design, able to work as both a shunter and as a passenger engine-with several of the Jintys even being fitted for push pull trains, and is based within the LMS region and thus much closer to Sodor.

Yet Wilbert was, by all accounts, perfectly content with Thomas being an E2, and I don't believe it was just because Reginald Payne chose a real life engine as the basis. Let's not forget how much of a stickler for accuracy Wilbert was for accuracy, and how much research he often put into his stories. He likely would have started researching into the E2s and may have realized just how appropriate a basis it actually was for the character he was creating. Wilbert actively strove to create a character with flaws, a character who seemed to be such a screw-up, somebody who wasn't "supposed" to amount to anything. The E2s were not a very loved class during their working life, hence why none got preserved in real life. They were rather awkward engines in many respects, stuck to being shunters despite having been meant for more, they could be rather difficult engines for a crew to handle, and were too big for their role of shunters. They don't quite fit into the standard system, making them the kind of oddball that Wilbert was known to be rather fond of.

Although being an E2 doesn't inform Thomas' character as explicitly as being an A1 Pacific/J70/GWR 5700/BR Class 08 informs the characters of Gordon, Toby, Duck, and Diesel, being an E2 does inform his character. It's a big part of what makes him strive for bigger and better things for himself, it's a big part of what gives him his underdog status, it's a big part of why he feels the need to prove himself, why he strives for perfection. It's why he's so downright difficult sometimes, yet you just can't help but love him because you know there's good underneath it all.

It's rather fitting, then, clever even, that Wilbert chose an actual Jinty to fill in for Thomas during the Big London trip. I've made it clearly how much I love Jinty and her pal Pug, and I would think she held her own filling in for Thomas. Jinty did her job, made all the right stops, made good time, was friendly enough to passengers. She's ostensibly the perfect choice for Thomas' role, and yet as the passengers later note, she still couldn't really replace Thomas.

The E2 is nowhere the ideal, but it's what makes Thomas, well, Thomas. Unlike most of the railway's early engines, which are ones that you can at least somewhat reasonably see ending up on a railway right by Barrow-in-Furness (with even Gordon being closer to the Midland Region, helped by the fact that he was built to travel long distances), Thomas' place of origin was about as far off as you could be from Barrow in Furness without leaving England altogether. It's what helped shape Sodor's own idiosyncratic character (even disregarding the talking trains), it's what shaped Sir Topham Hatt's railway into being the Island of Misfit Engines we all know and love. From this one awkward, somewhat clunky tank engine that shouldn't have amounted to much, Sir Topham likely gained the confidence that he could fix a flawed bootleg like Henry, or that his railway would benefit from having one of George Hughes' fruitless experiments in James or an oddball saddle tank of ambiguous origins like Percy among the fleet. In turn, Sir Charles learned from his experience helping rebuild Henry as well as seeing the railway he inherited from his father that anything is possible, be it taking one of BR's biggest lemons and turning a member of that class into one of his most dependable engines or maintaining steam fleet even as the rest of British Rail was dieselized.

OOOOOOOOOOH Two lesser-known RWS characters who barely get any screentime? Free real estate!! Sign me up!!

(Have an idea for a prompt or want to see what I've written? Take a look here!)

(CW: canon-typical angst related to scrapping)