Walter

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

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.

Details

• Met: The Wild Area
• Ability: Shadow Tag
• Favorite Move: Counter and Mirror Coat
• Nature: Calm
• Characteristic: Sturdy body
• 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 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. 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, 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.