Fuck this episode was actually...decent? I actually had a lot of fun writing and watching this episode. This feels like a David Mitton script, sans polishing and stretched out to a longer time than necessary, but still, decent enough script for the time! Shows off some varied locations of the Island, even if the trucks have a weird new cackle that might take me some time to get used to. And even the endign feels funny, even with the 'everyone laughs' cliche attached to it. So...I had a lot of fun with this, far better than I expected.

Now, reviews!

Reality Show Rejection: Hmm...interesting theories. And yeah, deconstruction's the new of this particular game, this time around!

Game-Watch: Agreed on both counts.

AaronCottrell97: My work here is done! XD. But I hope you're at least interested in seeing how it turns out, a bit.

MattPrice01: Yeah, the stuff in the seventies was a quick little gag. That's not coming back, but I'm interested to see how you take the rest of the season, considering the direction I am taking with this (Oh, and BTW, that 'essay' I was talking about? Coming in this season at some point. Hope you enjoy and stick with it.

Radical Sandwiches: Ha! I know, right?

UGX7: Agreed. Both good ideas, lacking the proper rewriting. And I'm still glad to surprise you!

jsw: Thanks! Glad you like it!

Garchomp65: Hmm. Okay. So here's the thing. Season 22 is...awkward to define. On the one hand, a lot of the humour can and still does work better than the humour of these dark times I'm writing about now. On top of that, I really like Rebecca. Not as a replacement for Henry or Edward (I'm still not sure why Molly couldn't have been drafted in but whatever) but as a character she's fun. And when the series sticks to Sodor I think it's a lot better. Also, a proper Edward episode! At last! On the other hand, Nia's bland, the way they addressed the change is clumsy at best, the dream sequences are now reaching the point of parody and a lot of the international stuff feels...well, tacked on. Not to say there's not stuff I don't like in that part, but I really prefer being back on Sodor. So...mixed bag, leaning towards negative, BUT it's not without it's positives. However, re:McCue...yeah, dick move on his part. For whatever reason I am thinking of ending TA at S21 nad JBS at present, just to go out on a (relative) high.

The Nerdinator: RABBISH!

Hughie96: Thanks! Yeah, it's something that happened primarily due to the mixture of stories changing as we entered Season 2 and onwards, I've decided to work it in. Ha! Wow, that's actually true. Scary. Hope it gets better again once the fans get a hold of it, like Sonic!

GreatWestern1522: Whoooo knows?

Aussie Mantis: I shall not confirm a thing! :)

CUE THE THEME!

THE PRESENT.

"Well, there's a repeat of James's chat show."

"Oh god, which one?"

"Does it matter?"

"No, not really. How's it going?"

"Well thus far he's attempted to kill Bungle. So I guess it depends on whether or not you enjoyed Rainbow or not. Oh, and there he goes, he's starting up his song again."

"Which one? Jamming with James? James's Song to Unite the World? James Solves World Hunger? James with Bob Geldorf...'s lesser known doppelganger?"

"Er…bloody hell. The musician's hand a few. Oh, it's the old 'James, King of All That is Great and Glorious'."

"Of course it is. How does it go again?"

…..

"Who was the first to be brave as could be?
Who's always been there for you, you and me?
Who's going to live til he's ten thousand and three?
Its James, it's James, really just James!"

Thus sang James. He continued:

"Who makes the Number Five simply sublime?
Who'd be arrested if being a national treasure was a crime?
Who, for the love of all that is good and pure does not want to be coloured lime?
It's James, it's James, really just James!"

"Not sure about the length of those verses, James." Henry remarked. "Or the tune. Or the vocals. Or the meaning behind them."

"Bah! What do you know, Mr…Non-Musically Gifted Related Insult? Eh? You probably find Nickelback entertaining enough!"

"Screw you too!" Henry stormed out of the wash-down with a furious huff. The huff decided to part ways with him. Ba-dum-tsh.

The Fat Controller's engines all want to be bright and clean. That is true of any engine or person really, but it has to be said, just on the off chance some sprog decides to refuse their bath.

James was enjoying the full works. A full waxing of his body, a full shine on his dome, and of course, a repainting at the workshop. He was very smug, and given that no one could touch him until they were finished with him, he had good reason to be. He was besides himself with joy.

Joy, of course, hated James, but had to sit next to him because

Oh, hang on. Note from editor. Apparently that's a really shitty joke that we've already run into the ground. What, after the first go? All right, whatever!

"Am I not the greatest!?" He declared. At last, he was repainted, his dome was gleaming and his blacking…black- Is that offensive?! No?! ….How?!

Er, well with all that done, he steamed out, happy as Larry, on his way back to Tidmouth Shed.

…..

"How the hell can you forget where you live for the past twenty years?" snapped Henry, as James finally chugged in, ten hours late.

"Don't know. It's a skill, though." Emily's smirk faded almost instantly, as James sidled into his place with a massive grin on his face.

"AREN'T I SCRUMPTIOUS?!" He declared.

"Hmm." Gordon looked around. "Might be, if you toned it down a little."

James looked at Gordon for a moment. Then he leaned in, took a deep breath and went to whisper-

"NO!"

-which was still like getting a foghorn blasted in your ear. Gordon winced and spent the next few hours working out whether he had tinnitus.

"AM I NOT SPLENDID? I am the best red that there ever was! Skarloey and Rheneas can go take a hike! No wonder ol Tubby thinks I'm special and wonderful and deserve my own TV show?!"

"Actually Rheneas is Vermilion, apparently. I don't see it myself-"

"WHO CARES, PERCY!? I don't! Not me! I'm far too important to care about silly matters like that!" James was in one of those moods. But Percy was worried. He wasn't getting repainted. Or red. Though that he thanked his lucky stars for, because James gave the colour red a bad name, shade and everything in between.

"Does that mean no one loves me!?" He asked, at the top of his lungs. Edward muttered something about engines needing to learn how to moderate their voices.

"Looking splendid and being useful are two completely different things! Isn't that right, Edward?!"

"I'm….not sure if that's a compliment or not."

"PAH!" James hissed. "You've never even looked like you're ten pounds! So don't have a go at me when I look like a million pounds, at the least! In this bad light, I could be one billion! I'm the one billion pound engine! And I'm BOTH of those…things you just said! An on that note-"

And thus he fell asleep. Mid-rant.

And thus, the nightly ritual of 'Shit-talking James when he's asleep' started up.

"What a prick." Henry growled.

"Hate him." Gordon agreed.

"He's not so bad."

"You're stuck with him tomorrow, Perce."

"He's a piece of trash!"

…..

The next day, work happened. Percy was shoved into the coal mines as punishment for Carlin giving the local stationmaster backchat once too often. Thomas and Emily took passengers up and down the rather harried consolidation of the local branchlines, both in a rather bad mood. Gordon was pulling the express as per usual. And making a pigs ear of it.

The Fat Controller came to see James, who was being a lazy git. He told James to go and join Percy in the coaling plant at once.

"Go and join Percy in the coaling plant at once!"

See?

"The coal gets to Brendam before the boat leaves! No dilly dallying, or my arse is grass! And the Railway Board is the lawnmower! What I'm saying is don't mess it up!"

"Me, sir?! Do I look like a dallier to you?!"

Sir Topham Hatt hesitated. "Well, I mean, there were always rumours about you- I mean NO. Not at all." He could see ER (Engine Resources) tapping their fingers in a menacing manner.

"Oh TODAY shall be a great day-"

And James immediately forgot what it was he was supposed to be doing, in favour of going on tour. No I don't get it either. Elsewhere, Hatt decided to calm himself down with another cream bun or eight.

…..

"Who makes Gordon seem like a out of work hick?
Who makes Henry want to be really quite sick-REFLECTION!"

"Whooooo outshines the tank engines with cunning so slick?"

"IT'S JAMES IT'S JAMES IT'S REALLY JUST JAMES!"

James took the long way around, besides the canal. The diseased canal, the one where the toxic sludge and radioactive goo was dumped. He could see his own reflection for yard after yard after yard, as long as he ignored the moaning wails of the cancer-stricken crabs.

And he was still singing.

"MAGNIFICENT!"

"Oooh ta!" said one of the workmen, kissing his muscles.

Having completely forgotten his purpose, and dallying significantly, James decided to go buy a new hat for himself.

….

"Bloody hell I'm knackered!" Percy declared, as he rolled up to the nearby workman with a significant amount of coal trucks behind him. "This is all your fault, Carlin!"

"Oh, everything is! Why don't you get a new f**king target?!" Carlin coughed as the coal dust entered his lungs. "Oh world, why do you hate me so, you f**king asswipes!"

"I think I've figured it out." The fireman said, holding his nose. "We're falling behind!"

The yard manager was growing crosser and crosser. "Why the bloody hell do I get all the shit engines to work down here?!" he asked, desperately. "What did I do wrong?! Was it the fraud? It must have been the fraud!"

…..

"Doop doop de doop! I'm the greatest!" James sang, terribly I might add. In both the lyrical and the tonal sense. And probably a few others. He was having a ball of a time with his brand new four decker hat, but there was no around to boast to. So he decided to go to the one place where it was logical that people would listen to him.

"COOOOOOOO-EEE!"

Wellsworth, where Edward hangs out.

Common sense is not the strong suit of the James, it must be said.

Gordon took one look at James and stormed out of the station with the express, passengers in tow. All were gone within ten seconds.

"Bother!" said James. "What could have possibly alerted them to ME?!" He ignored the sound of glass shattering and went on in his quest to be recognized, in the general direction of the branch-lines.

After, of course, he bought a pair of radical eighties sunglasses. Because anything to get attention was A-OK by him.

He passed Thomas, who was pulling Dead Weight One and Dead Weight Two to work. I mean, er, Annie and Clarabel, of course. "Look at me!" He slurred in his rather toxic accent. "Don't I look fine?!"

"You look like a twit. Go to work like the rest of us!" cried Thomas, who had been reading books about the working class killing the bourgeois, and was getting certain ideas in his head.

James had blacked out this part of the speech. "Look at me! Am I not perfection!?" he said to the world in general, and Henry, who groaned loudly. "Am I not grand? Am I not-"

…..

"A PIECE OF GARBAGE!"

Carlin and the Yard Manager, now best buddies thanks to their hatred of James the Habitually Late Engine, were taking it in turns ranting about said engine with great rage and anger. This time, it was Carlin's turn.

Percy wasn't enjoying being himself. The trucks were very…chipmunk like in their laughter. It was quite annoying.

"WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE ORDER NOW?!"

"Order?!" Percy laughed hysterically. "We're on Sodor, that word might as well mean mud here!"

"Aye-up!" James said, entering with hat, sunglasses and extra whitened teeth put into a massive grin. "All good here?!"

"All is NOT good here! You better make up for lost time and take the extra long line of trucks to the dock! Go wherever the hell you like, I don't care! As long as you get to the docks!"

"Perfect!" James beamed. "More people to introduce to the best thing about this Island!"

"It's reasonably priced chocolate cake?"

"MOI! It is THE place to be seen!"

"Trucks are being little shits as per usual. You need to be-" Percy was cut off by James hurrying around to collect them.

"What's that!? I can't hear you over my SWAG!" And off he set, for some reason pushing the trucks. To look even more heroic, as he would later tell it. Though there were some who argued that he had forgotten how trains worked for a scant few minutes.

He moved down the track and the hill with the grace of a swan…that had been hit by a car. But as he did so, the trucks decided the pride had gone too long, and the fall was long overdue.

One of them rocked. The other rolled. And thus the pattern began.

"You may think you will get the better of me, but you are sorely- NO! COAL DUST! GO AWAY FROM ME! MY SOUL IS NOT FOR YOUR TAKING YET, DEMON!" He buckled, and then with a tremendous roar of rage that would have put an anime protagonist to shame, he banged into the trucks.

A pity he was going down Gordon's Hill at the time.

As they hurtled towards the open line, James slammed on the brakes. Lumps of coal flew forward and banged into him. His hat was promptly sent flying. "RIGHT" he said, and hit the trucks harder.

This did not help matters. And so, with great hatred etched in his voice, he tried to motivate himself.

"Who's not going to lose to an overactive truck?
Who's got charm, cunning and ounces of luck?
Who is really quite cool and calm and collected and doesn't give a-FUCK!"

This time, he was fairly sure he had broken his own nose and inhaled too much dust for it to be legal.

"It's James, it's James, really just Ja-blargh!"

He didn't want to be seen anymore. But, as if Karma had notched her arrows into place, now everyone seemed to want a piece of him. First Emily, who appeared to be snickering about something or other relating to James. Then Edward, who took one look at him and let out a large groan. And then Thomas.

"OI! Red face!"

But James ignored him, as he trundled into the docks. "Activating stealth mode!" He bleated, hoping against all hope it would work.

"James?"

Gordon apparently possessed the ability to see invisible people. Or see through bullshit, as James trundled past him at a speed that could best be described as lethargically snail-like. "You look like a prat!" He crowed. James shrank a little in size. Now, nothing could be worse.

Percy puffed in, clean as a whistle, with the last of the trucks. "I like the new look!" He said, without any hint of sarcasm at all. "You look splendid! Old school?"

This innocent comment made James rage against the heavens. What had he done to deserve this? He had been a little preoccupied with being noticed, but hadn't the world met him? He was HIM.

He could, however, hear clearly. The trucks were laughing.

And despite feeling foolish, he had to laugh along.

Then he massacred all twenty trucks while breaking the sound barrier. He then fell in the sea, and had to be fished out by Cranky. So a pretty average day overall.

…..

"So how are you faring today, James? I may call you James, may I?"

"Unless you have AN ALTERNATIVE?!"

"….Yes, how about we turn the volume down a tad?"

"THIS IS ME TURNNG THE VOLUME DOWN A BIT."

"Uh huh. Okay. Seems like that's symptomatic of…something, but one problem at a time." Arthur's smile was like a mlllion lightbulbs. Pretty to look at, blinding after a while, and probably costly. "So. How's your day been?"

"TERRIBLE."

"Ah. I am sorry to hear that. So let us begin with a simple test! What do you see, when you look at this?"

The projector whirred into life.

"Me in the eighties."

Click.

"Uh huh. And this?"

"Me in the nineties."

Click.

"Me in my avant-garde phase."

"Hmm…."

"What?"

"Nothing. Nothing." Click. "This?"

"My worshipping fans."

"Really?" Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Okay, you know what you see. And, er, this?"

Click.

"That's…..the hell is that?"

"That's what I'm asking you, haha-"

"That's a photograph of me in the 80's getting called the 'Red Engine' repeatedly, over and over again. By a bunch of…numbskulls!"

"If you insist. An interesting link, but one that's useful. How about you tell me how you feel when you see that photograph?"

"Tip top!" The force of the cheeriness was quite something. "Never better! I'm James!"

"I see. You don't sound tip top!"

"How the hell do you know what that is? You're a B-List Celeb, whereas I am….higher than that!"

"Hmm, interesting, given that we've denied you most of your…ah, special tricks. To go and dazzle us with. Tell me, what do you mean by this is a conspiracy?"

"Ha! A joke! That's all! A joke!"

"Some jokes are funny. But not this one James-"

"HAVE I MENTIONED-" James blustered "-HOW GREAT I AM?!"

"You probably should!" Arthur's sudden demeanour change would have been a warning sign to anyone other than James. "Tell me a bit about yourself. Like…your early days?"

"Back then-" James said, loftily. "-I was always something of a rising star. They couldn't see it, of course. Back then I was just a-"

"Red Engine?"

"Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?" James's eye was blinking rapidly. "Yes that is a sequence of words that was applied to me for a very brief period in early nineteen eighty four. Your point being?"

"Why so sensitive?"

"Aren't you supposed to have bedside manner, or something?"

"Never been by a bed!" Arthur's cheeriness was beginning to anger James. "Too big to get into the house!"

"Okay, how about you come out and say it, whatever it is?"

Arthur made a great deal of looking at his notes. "Well, er, currently I'm working on the theory that you're doing a lot of what you do to cover up for the fact that for four to five months, you were referred to exclusively by engines, workers, staff, trucks, coaches and film crew alike as 'The Red Engine'. Bit of a blow to your pride?"

"I have more pride than you'd know what to do with!"

"I know! I've got testimonials from some of your old pals! Do you want to-?"

"Yes! Ha! You'll see when you hear about me! I'm massive everywhere! My old friend Tom Hanks, he'll tell you!" He looked at Arthur's confused face, and wilted slightly. "Then…Roger Moore!" Confusion, and another wilt. "Windsor Davies?" More confusion, and three quarters wilt. "…..Tim what was on Brookside?"

Truly, the scale of James's knowledge of celebrities was wide and varied.

"The Island of Sodor kind of friends, James!" Arthur cleared his throat. "So we asked around, and well, you'd be surprised. For instance, Toby said that you were probably deeply racist against anyone but yourself, but that he liked being around you."

"You see?" James bleated weakly. "I'm popular!"

"Emily said that you have the charm and charisma of a bull in a china shop with googly eyes painted on?"

"….Is…Is that positive, or-?"

"Not entirely sure, to be honest. And Edward said, and I quote "He's so full of it, I hate it when he starts talking because I'm fairly certain I'm going to stab him at some point. And then I remember I don't have arms, and I get even angrier. Also, he might be the best liar of the lot, better than Gordon. Even after all this time, I'm still not entirely sure what he actually thinks of us as opposed to being so far beneath him it's not even funny. Oh, but he's probably good deep down. I guess."

Arthur looked at James. "So, how does that make you feel?"

"Well they're wrong. Obviously. And I'm right. Because I'm me."

"Are you sure there's not a tiny bit of substance to the claim that you're essentially hung up on a little insult made twenty years ago?"

"YOU TRY BEING CALLED RED ENGINE FOR-" James let out a sharp breath. "I'd like to leave now. Get the rest of this awful day over with!"

"Of course! Nothing to stop you. By the way, er, just a little heads up, there's one last thing I need to do."

"What?"

"CATCH!"

….

Once James had recovered from the large bowling ball being thrown at him, he left very angrily and very furiously. He glared at Edward, and spat at him. The wind blew it right back in his face.

"What?" Edward looked baffled.

"Was that really necessary?" snapped Toby.

"You haven't heard what he's said about you!" James hissed. Henry nodded in a grave fashion.

Arthur looked at the notes he had taken.

-Very, very, VERY Narcissistic, might actually have that condition.
-Stews over decade long grudges and mistakes for a very long time, hasn't forgotten any of it.
-Very angry at being made a fool of. Despite it happening on an hourly basis.
-Impressively the holder of both a superiority complex and an inferiority complex. At the same time. I am stunned.
-Might actually be the best liar of the lot. Still have no idea whether any of the above or beneath has any relevance or if he's putting on the high strung act to mess with me and get him to underestimate him.
-Fascinated to the point of obsession with his own appearance. Would suggest OCD, but considering just how he is in general, maybe he's just weird as all hell.
-Apparently once beat up a giant monster shadow creature because he got a scratch on his paintwork, so there's that.
-Has a very weak skull.
-For the love of god, turn the volume down on his voice.

"All right! And now, if you would please….Toby!"

"Give me strength." The tram muttered. "All right, all right. If I'm not back in a few hours, apologise to Henrietta for me, will you?"