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 rarely shows any strong emotions besides his usual serious nature, but despite that, he is very much willing to help out his friends and listen to what they have to say. 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 Colton 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. 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 or when the right time is to ask someone for an interview. 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. While Walter has not been shown in battle as of yet, he has a very high regard for strategy, as was shown during Colton's battle 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. It's implied that Walter is a very skilled battler, 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.

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.