HEY I LOVE POKEMON TRAINER BLACK

this boy is literally me what the fuck

Has anyone headcanoned him as autistic? Cos seriously SO many relateable moments! Or another neurodivergence/mental illness or just social awkwardness in general. He's every relateable everything!!!

But seriously tho there are so many ADORABLE moments of him being awkward and super enthusiastic and AAAAAA! like he's literally introduced appearing out of the shadows stuttering so quietly that the postman thinks he's a stalker and judo chops him into a pond. And then his idea of a logical way to prove his identity is to take the postman to his house, ask the neighbour if its his house, and then WALK BACK TO THE POND WHERE THEY WERE ORIGINALLY TALKING INSTEAD OF GOING INSIDE. Like even 'here's the package back, lets start over from scratch'. And then in contrast to how shy he was earlier he's all BOMBASTIC when he meets the other two heroes, he appears out of nowhere on a Braviary screaming about justice and dreams and then vanishes again just as quickly after he's saved everybody. So he's so relateable to me cos he's both shy and loud! Im like that, im so MAXIMUM 110% POWER when im with people im comfortablw with but thats only like 2% of people. And the autism relateableness really comes from the part where he cant control his loudness when he's talking about his hyperfocus? Like literally its treated like a SUPERPOWER in-universe, and the justification for the games being called black and white. "Black can't focus without his Munna eating his dreams, because he gets carrried away thinking about becoming the Champion and cant see what's right in front of him. He needs to turn all those blinding white thoughts back to black!" So seriously he's literally written having a problem that gets in the way of his daily life and using a support pokemon for it, and its literally a problem about hyperfocus and ALSO on top of that he has difficulty talking to people. I'm not just being nuts seeing autism relateability, right?

Also this manga made me appreciate Tepig more! They gave a lot of personality to the starters, showing them fighting each other while waiting to meet their new trainer. Tepig is exactly what you'd expect so far, a reckless shonen hero type who's a glutton for food and gets into trouble because of it. And then Snivy is the snooty beauty queen/king who gets all cold fury at Tepig whenever its stupid antics end up splashing dust or berry juice ln its beautiful tail. So they fight, and then oshawott is the shy pacifistic one who tries to break it up. BUT also it has kind of a demonic temper when you push its patience past the limit! Ten minutes of "but guys you should calm down hey maybe lets just talk about this over a nice cup of tea"and then "SHUDDUP AND DRINK YOUR GOD DAMN TEA" *instant kill samurai technique*

I LOVE THEM

And its so cute how Black befriends Tepig?? It got into trouble cos its shonen heroness made it depressed about losing the fight, its always all "i have to be the best" even when its not relevant or when its causing trouble fpr its own life in the process. So Black can instabtly understand and relate to how it feels! And then Tepig ends up wandering into an angry Sewaddle's food source and stabding on a precarious branch, comfort-eating the last leaf it was saving for winter. Again, hyperfocus letting you get so carried away you mess up! Relateable! So Black swoops in to save it and now he's yelling in full hyperfocus mode ABOUT HOW TEPIG IS THE BEST AND THEY ARE KINDRED SOULS AND I WILL HELP YOU ACHIEVE YOUR DREAMS MY FRIEND!! and tepig cries because its personal dreams to be the best are sort of a self hatred thing where it starts these fights just cos its scared of being laughed at for being weak. And this is the first trainer who thought it was the best??? *sniff* And i like to think that even the artwork was kinda playing into it, cos it says that Black needs to have munna take away all of his dreams in order to focus, but the visual representation shows a mix of black and white tiles with the single solution tile in the middle of all the white ones. So its like in this situation his special interest actually helped him, once he was able to unfocus a little and realize the similarities with Tepig. If he'd conpletely stopped thinking about it he probably couldbt have solved the problem! So maybe his character development would involve learning to manage his focus more effectively instead of trying to magically remove all of it at once? I guess maybe that could be a metaphor for using heavy potentially-dangerous medicine on neurodiverse kids to get them to act "well behaved" but depressed, versus actually getting them the therapy, correct medication if necessary, and coping strategies to manage their condition and retain a full quality of life.

OR, AGAIN, MAYBE IM READING TOO MUCH PERSONAL EXPERIENCE INTO THIS

Oh also and i like that prof juniper is written as a bit of a longsuffering only-sane-person in this world of goofballs, who's not afraid to get sassy and sometimes strict when needs be. She kinda felt like she didnt have much personality in the games beyond being generically nice in all ways and having possibly the least dialogue of any professor. Same issue as elm but at least elm had one npc state he was messy and disorganized even if it wasnt a trait they really showed that much of. Anyway i'm glad to see a juniper that stands up for herself instead of just being all 'oh you kids tee hee' to everything 24/7. Its really like the barebones necessary for a professor character, they dont even actually bother to write a good kind character! Kindness doesnt have to be boring!! (Tho i also like this different sass version too!)

Anyway im lovin this so far so im gonna keep going! Favourite scene: "Knowing Black i bet he's either screaming off a clifftop about his dreams or curled up in the library hogging every book about Tepigs." *cut to him curled up in the library, also screaming*