Tommytubbies

tommytubbies

Sunny

Because most of the episodes I watched and had on home video as a kid were from seasons 8 and 9, Emily's bossiness never stuck out to me. Due to how often the cast threw jabs at one another. I only saw her introductory episode maybe 3 times growing up and then forgot about it for over a decade. Her personality change flew right over my head.

Regardless, she quickly became my favorite character. Not only did I really love her spotlight episodes, but her daydreaming resonated a lot with me due to having undiagnosed ADHD at the time. I couldn't put a name to what I was experiencing, but I could recognize it.

i wholeheartedly agree! i grew up with most of the classic series on home video, but the HiT era eps were the ones airing on TV when i was little. so watching, say, season 5 then going to emily's HiT episodes I didn't notice much difference in terms of her behavior. if emily had been around during more of the classic seasons, some of her "bossy" lines would fit seams into them. as awful as the HiT era's writing can be, "oh, i AM sorry, sorry you didn't listen to me!" will forever be iconic. she killed thomas with that one.

i also thought her spotlight eps for the most part were pretty good. snowplow is iconic, emilys new route made her a sympathetic protagonist, halloween is perfect, emily knows best gives her an interesting conflict with toby, emily and the special coaches does the same with diesel, emilys rubbish is hilarious, and excellent emily really nails her more self righteous traits.

and while i myself dont have adhd, i do headcanon emily as some flavor of neurodivergent. she wants to do her jobs only in the way that she sees fit, sort of like duck, who a lot of people agree is autistic. also throwing in projection lol

thank you for this lovely, well thought out ask anon!

OP!!!!! YOU TOOK A SLICE OF MY BRAIN AND PUT IT INTO WORDS!!!! i love sonny. so much. fav cgi character. i completely agree, it really feels like sonny was made to stay. his relationships with a handful of characters were shown/hinted at, went through an arc, and got a whole episode to himself and a special with a b-plot! like...can you say the same for billy? flora? hank? stafford? its such a shame the series was axed at this point...if only for the sake of more sonny content. as much as i disliked BWBA, i could've put up with it if it meant sonny became a prominent secondary. i would LOVE to see an episode based around him meeting rosie for a second time, and trying to make up for being so rude to her at the beginning. people tend to forget she was the first sodor engine sonny interacted with, no matte how brief. ANYWAY im rambling good art and FANTASTIC analysis op :333 you have my heart <3

iiiiit's sonny!!

sonny is such an intriguing little character to me. i really like him, but am very curious about his character and his placement in the series. i'm gonna stick a few thoughts about him (and diesel, honestly, and their interesting dynamic) under the cut!

even though sonny first appeared in the Last Series of the show, he felt like he had been designed with longevity in mind (at least to me!). he had personal character relationships with thomas (positive), diesel (complicated) and james (intriguing). unlike a lot of the characters introduced at the very of the series run, sonny was given these relationships that made you feel he could have his own character growth and also influence other characters and their stories.

sonny and diesel specifically are an interesting pair. diesel had only relatively recently had his minor/major redemption arc in springtime for diesel, but more recent relevant episodes, in my opinion, are diesel glows away & diesel do right. these episodes have a very interesting understanding of diesel which honestly remind me quite a bit of james (which is probably odd to say!). he thinks he is great, and that his presence makes the railway a better place, but in reality… he isn't really helping all that much because his high opinion of himself makes him do his jobs worse than if he just… tried to do them himself. it makes the other engines have a worse opinion of him than if he just talked to them as equals.

this is where sonny comes in. diesel, who has learnt through his past few episodes that he can't make other engines like him by being a nuisance and that he must put his own effort in to do his jobs correctly, is introduced to a new engine who has no preconceptions about him at all. in fact, he seems to enjoy his presence! but this is a whole new thing to diesel, who has not really had a chance to have a new interaction without the other engine involved having been told about his ways~~. while he probably hadn't had toooo many interactions with nia before diesel glows away, it was never implied she was unaware of the way he is, where as this is clearly all new to sonny.

these interactions between sonny and diesel show the two growing close very quickly- neither has really had any close buddies at any recent point, as far as we know. nobody seems to particularly enjoy the company of diesel, and sonny has been implied to have been on his own engine-wise, with only baz and bernie for a while at least. sonny is shown as inherently good- he tries to help james, he tries to do the other engines jobs. diesel as shown as inherently bad- even though he has grown, and we have seen him grow, his first instinct when given the opportunity is to use someone for his own gain. but it is different this time! when diesel causes something to go wrong for somebody else, he apologises without having to make it a whole ~thing~, which was exactly what he struggled with in springtime for diesel. he could apologise, then, but not directly. now he was able to manage it!

sonny managed to bring out the best in diesel, get a direct apology from him ((and also a direct (though sliiiightly reluctant) apology from james)), and get himself into the good books of other engines in essentially one day. though this happens quite a lot in the childrens-morals stories of thomas, there is something about him that brought that out in the characters in a way that felt entirely natural. and i just think that is neat!!

soooo i made an ao3 account!! feel free to check it out, it would be greatly appreciated!

literally. purple best color <3

HUGE shout out to purple for being the only color that has like no losers. Deep purple royal purple bluish purple redish purple pastel purple dusty purple lavender periwinkle violet like. Banger after banger after banger!!

SONNY!!!!!

(06/04/24)

The Sonny Bunny!

Drawn as I was procrastinating on........ somethin else... hehe !

then I procrastinated on this and it also wasn't getting done BUT IT IS NOW!! HURRAH!! now everyone can look at him

sonny fandom please make yourselves known its very lonely here