Walter

"You are very eager about the news, Braker."

Walter is Leonard Braker's Wobbuffet, and the first Pokemon he acquired on his journey.

Appearance

In his Pokemon form, Walter resembles a regular Wobbuffet, though he is sometimes seen with a pair of glasses and a camera. The glasses show up more often in his human form, though.

In his prospective human form, Walter appears as a roughly thirty-year old man with perpetually squinting eyes and a pair of square glasses. He has slicked-back blue hair and is dressed in a light blue suit as well as blue jeans, with black shoes. He also wears a black bow tie around his neck.

Personality

Walter is very much like his namesake, the great anchorman Walter Cronkite-- he is, for the most part, stoic, serious, and, as is natural for his species, patient. He is perpetually calm with almost everyone around him, and treats everyone he meets with respect, including his enemies. Walter is very much willing to help out his friends and Trainer and listen to what they have to say, and serves as a confidant for the people and Pokemon around him. He is rather observant and introspective, often picking up on people's habits and pointing out whether or not something they do or say doesn't seem right for them. Most notably, he was the first one to suspect that Kim and Ian's relationship after the former finding out about the latter's involvement with the Fanatic had gone sour when Kim insisted on going to Spikemuth on her own accord, even when Walter pointed out that she normally enjoyed traveling with Ian and Evelyn. His observant nature also allows him to pick up on the opponent's strategies in the heat of battle, and has also contributed to him easily being able to tell whether a move that is used is physical, special, or status just by the sight of it.

Nothing really gets Walter particularly angry- and even when he is angry, it's relatively hard to tell due to his perpetually squinting eyes. For the most part, if Walter is annoyed by something, he will usually resort to deadpan sarcasm. This was most notably shown when he, Braker and Cuddles were watching Kendall in battle and saw 9-Volt. Upon recognizing him as the Galvantula from the news, both he and Braker lamented the fact that the news forgot that Bug resists Ground due to their amazement at the idea of a Galvantula withstanding an Earthquake. That being said, however, while Walter normally doesn't emote much beyond his normally stoic nature, he is still very much capable of emotion during particularly serious moments, much like his namesake. He was notably horrified upon hearing about Jigsaw attacking Kim (and later on upon him seeing it for the first time), and showed visible sadness and concern upon hearing about Lithium's old Trainer. Later on, during the meeting, he was struck absolutely dumb upon hearing about the J-Team's involvement with the summoning of the Fanatic, and particularly regarding Ian's involvement (though it was still Kim who had the most extreme reaction, as she'd known Ian long enough to make her disappointment and anger at him known).

Due to his patient nature, Walter will often serve as Braker's "minder" of sorts, and reminds his Trainer of when he should be patient about certain things or when the right time is to ask someone for an interview. This was most notably shown during Braker's first appearance in the RP, when Walter tried in vain to calm his Trainer down upon the latter finding out about Kendall's battle against Marnie. Evidently, some of Walter's behavior has rubbed off on his Trainer as a result. Like his Trainer, Walter cares very much about the truth, and strives to get his information as accurate as possible. Due to this, he has very little tolerance for blatant liars, although little white lies are fine. He also has little tolerance for anyone who achieves things through dishonest means, such as cheating or stealing, as well as newscasters who go directly against their code of ethics for the sake of a good story. Walter also is very much against most TV reality shows, believing them to be nothing more than elaborate scripted scams that directly lie to their audience. That being said, though, Walter isn't absolute about his devotion to his ethical code, and will sometimes be okay with people lying or newscasters compromising their code of ethics if it serves the greater good or ultimately ends up achieving a good result. Due to his devotion to the truth and reality, Walter also has a slightly lesser tolerance for nonsensical humor. While he is exceedingly patient with mons like Caboose and KL-RY, he's not above knocking them both down a peg if need be.

Walter has a great amount of loyalty to his Trainer, and aspires more than anything to protect Braker at all costs. Anyone who hurts Braker in any way, or makes fun of his sexuality, will immediately find themselves on Walter's hit list. Walter has a very high regard for strategy, as was shown during Kendall's battle against Raihan where he admired Sylveon's use of a Quick Claw to allow her to make the first attack. Later on, during Serkis' battle against Panto prior to the latter's capture, Walter similarly admired Braker's use of priority moves such as Water Shuriken and Shadow Sneak in order to take advantage of the Trick Room that Panto had set up. Walter will often be in the audience with Cuddles and Caboose during Kim's battles, commentating on strategies used, items used, and major events (such as Ringo's evolution). On the actual battlefield, Walter is very skilled, often using his Counter and Mirror Coat moves to immediately shoot the opponent's moves back in their faces and catch them off-guard. He also tends to use Encore after a particularly powerful move in order to use either Counter or Mirror Coat to shove the move back in the opponent's face repeatedly. If he's down to low HP, he will often use Destiny Bond to cause the opponent to go down with him. These strategies evidently served Walter well in battle, as Braker has all eight Galar Gym Badges by the time of his debut. Walter often ends certain sentences with the line "that's the way it is," which serves as a reference to both his species and his namesake (see "Trivia" below for more details). This is particularly true if he is finishing up a broadcast.

Similarly to Cuddles, Walter is often seen outside of his PokeBall. His favorite Gamecube game, according to Goldenheart388, is Mug Shots.

Background

Unlike his main partner Cuddles, not much is known about Walter's backstory prior to meeting Braker, though it can be assumed that even prior to meeting Braker Walter had the same opinion regarding the truth that he currently has now. For the most part, all we know about Walter's life prior to meeting Braker was that he lived as a wild Pokemon.

Details

• Met: The Wild Area
• Birthday: November 4th
• Ability: Shadow Tag
• Favorite Move: Counter and Mirror Coat
• Nature: Calm
• Characteristic: Sturdy body
• Likes: His Trainer, his friends, traveling around with Cuddles and Caboose, the truth, the news, learning about new news stories, watching Gamecube with the rest of Braker's mons, the Gamecube game "Mug Shots", battling, analyzing battles from the sidelines
• Dislikes: Liars (though little white lies are fine), cheaters, thieves, anyone who hurts his friends or Trainer, Jigsaw, the fake news media, anyone who insults his Trainer due to his sexuality, horrifying news stories, any news reporters who misuse or go against their code of ethics, whenever his Trainer gets too overenthusiastic about the news, anyone who touts Braker's news as fake and/or propaganda, modern reality television
• Ball: Poke
• Hasslemon typing quirk: Capitalizes the first letter of every word that Begins with the letters, C, B, or S, as well as words at the Beginnings of Sentences and proper nouns. However, the word "i" is not Capitalized, like it is in regular Speech.

A prospective fullbody Walter gijinka, as done by Goldenheart388.

Relationships

• Leonard Braker: As Walter's Trainer and his closest friend besides Cuddles, Walter has a great deal of loyalty to Braker, serving as his minder, confidant, and protector. He has sworn to not only protect Braker with his life, but also to help him on his quest for the truth, as well as his quest to become a major newscaster. Walter has expressed a desire to join Braker as his main co-anchor if Braker ever gets an actual career as a newscaster.

• Cuddles: Cuddles has been by Walter's side before either of them were even caught, with Walter serving as Cuddles' main confidant. In return, Cuddles would help to comfort Walter through some of his major hardships. As members of Braker's team, Cuddles still serves as Walter's closest companion, with Walter serving as a confidant and advisor to him. Despite the latter's exciteability and naivete often wearing Walter down somewhat, Walter greatly admires Cuddles' desire to help anyone and everyone around him.

• Kimberly Bond: Kim is one of Walter's closest companions, and even if Walter doesn't interact with Kim as much as Cuddles does, he still cares very much about her and is willing to help her through any problems she might be having. He also is willing to help her in regards to battling advice.

• Caboose: Walter and Caboose are about as different as night and day-- the former is stoic, patient, and very much devoted to a code of ethics, whereas the latter is energetic, airheaded, ditzy, and prone to immature humor and some disregard for the rules. Despite this, however, the two are surprisingly good friends, with Walter being able to tolerate most of Caboose's antics. The two have routinely traveled together and analyzed battles since Spikemuth.

• Ian Salberg: Walter and Ian, despite not seeing each other as often as Ian and Kim do, are nonetheless good friends with each other, and are willing to help each other out when the time calls for it. The same thing also applies to Evelyn Promeneau.

• KL-RY: Walter and KL-RY have a slightly complicated relationship. While the two of them are still mainly on good terms with each other, Walter's natural inclinations towards truth and reality mean he often gets frustrated (well, as frustrated as he can get, anyways) towards KL-RY's beliefs that he is a human being despite him obviously being a Porygon. Walter is privy to sarcastic bickering with KL-RY, who is far more oblivious and set in his ways (though this might be because, as a Porygon, KL-RY does not truly understand sarcasm). Nevertheless, however, Walter is still very much willing to help KL-RY out and answer any questions he may have about human technology or human concepts.

• Lithium: Walter and Lithium more or less serve as direct foils to each other, given the former's extreme patience and the latter's daredevil-esque nature. Often, Walter will try to steer Lithium away from any particularly crazy stunts or anything that he feels will put Lithium in danger. That being said, though, Walter does care very greatly about Lithium, and feels immense sympathy towards his plight regarding his old Trainer.

• Jigsaw: Jigsaw is Walter's sworn enemy, with him having felt nothing but hatred for Jigsaw since the moment the two of them met on Halloween night. That hatred only grew after Jigsaw took over Kim's mind and made her believe her own lies about herself and her relationships with her friends (particularly those with Ian, Evelyn, and 9-Volt). He notably recorded the battle with Jigsaw as a means of exposing him, and later on presented it on a news livestream to thousands of people. Walter's hatred of Jigsaw stands in sharp contrast to Cuddles' immense pity of him.

• Chernobog: Out of all of the members of Braker's team (besides Cuddles and Caboose), Chernobog is the member that Walter gets along with the most, due to them having extremely similar calm and patient natures. Most notably, Chernobog gives Walter news on any major celebrity deaths that happened that day, which Walter promptly will discuss in a news livestream. Even though the two of them have only just met, Walter has considered Chernobog one of his closest friends.

• Snoop: Snoop served as Walter's first introduction to Gamecube, and ever since then Walter has enjoyed watching the show as his main pastime along with the rest of Braker's Pokemon. He often commentates on the show directly along with Cuddles and Caboose. Besides Gamecube, however, Walter enjoys Snoop's presence on Braker's team, and admires his general optimism and his relatively relaxed approach to life.

Known Moves

• : Counter
• : Mirror Coat, Amnesia
• : Safeguard, Encore
• : Destiny Bond

Trivia

• Walter was named after famed news anchorman Walter Cronkite, due to a pun surrounding his species name. Wobbuffet's Japanese name is Soonansu, which is homophonous with the Japanese expression sou nan su. The expression roughly translates to "That's the way it is". Walter Cronkite's famous sign-off line, used at the end of every broadcast he made on the CBS Evening News, was "And that's the way it is", followed by the date, which is also how Walter signs off during Braker's live news broadcasts. He was also named after Cronkite due to his stoic personality and desire for the truth; Cronkite was referred to as the "most trusted man in America", and, with a few notable exceptions, rarely showed emotion on screen.
• According to Goldenheart388, Walter's Hasslemon handle is trustedAnchorman (TA), which serves as a reference to the fact that Cronkite was called the most trusted man in America, as well as a reference both to Walter's general reliability and his job as the main anchorman for GBC-2. His typing quirk in Hasslemon serves as a reference to Cronkite's main job-- serving as an anchor for the CBS Evening News.
• According to Goldenheart388, Walter's regular character theme is "Good People" by Jack Johnson. The song was picked for Walter due to it being a somewhat sarcastic takedown of the modern media industry, as Johnson asks where all the "good people" in the media went to- reflecting both Walter's slightly sarcastic nature as well as his desire for truth and reliability in modern news media and on television in general. His Broadway character theme is "Wait for It" from Hamilton, and his headcanon voice is not the late Walter Cronkite himself, but rather one of the more modern, yet similarly trusted news anchors: Anderson Cooper. His Japanese character theme, meanwhile, is "My Dearest" by Supercell, the first opening to Guilty Crown. The song serves as a look into Walter's desire for truth and reliability, but delves moreso into his loyalty to his Trainer and his desire to be with him until the ends of the earth as a protector and friend to Braker.
• Walter's birthday, November 4th, is shared with his namesake Walter Cronkite.