Sawyer is neurodivergent and you can't change my mind

Last year for Autism Acceptance Day, my good friend @pikatrainer99 and I did a collab post about Goh and our headcanon of being him autistic. Here's a link to that post if you'd like to check it out:

Today, we'd like to talk about Sawyer from Pokemon XY, another character who we both headcanon as autistic, and who means the world to me.

Let's start with his special interest, Pokemon battles. In all of Sawyer's appearances, we can clearly see his desire to learn as much as he can about battling and to grow stronger. He greatly admires strong trainers like Steven Stone and Ash. I mean, just look at how excited he gets when he hears that Ash had won five badges!

And that's exactly what he does for the rest of the series. He spends so much time studying and training that he manages to catch up to Ash within a just season's worth of episodes! But we'll get to that later.

Before going into detail about his most obvious traits, let's go over some of the traits that we only see for brief moments, starting with his sensory sensitivities. In episode 73, we see him getting visibly overwhelmed when the crowd around him, Ash, and Clemont suddenly starts cheering. We also see him shielding his eyes from Spritzee's Dazzling Gleam attack during his battle with Valerie. Note that he's the only one to react this way to both situations. I don't know about you, but I have yet to meet a single autistic person without some kind of hypersensitivity to noise, bright light, smell, texture, etcetera.

We also see in the following episode that he sometimes unintentionally gets too close to people when he's excited, not noticing their discomfort. We see this after Ash wins his gym battle with Valerie, and Sawyer is so beyond amazed and eager to learn from him that he momentarily forgets how to act "socially appropriately". Ash and his friends are visibly uncomfortable, but of course, because they're all so kind and supportive, they don't judge him for this 🥺

We also see in the first episode of XYZ that he's an amazing artist. And I mean, AMAZING! He can literally draw Squishy the Zygarde Core exactly how it looks in its official artwork, despite only having seen it for the first time that day! While not every autistic person has to have a talent like this, it's definitely not uncommon. Growing up, Pika and I both used to draw a lot, and our drawing skills were one of the few things we took pride in because of how much praise we got for it.

Now let's talk about one of his most adorable traits, which is his habit of saying, "I've gained some EXP!" Clearly he's into video games and enjoys feeling like he's in one, because this is definitely not something you typically hear in real life. This kind of escapism is quite common in autistic people, Pika and I included. In a world that's not built for us, sometimes imagining ourselves in a fictional world that we love can be really comforting and even inspiring in some cases.

You've probably noticed that Sawyer is holding his notebook in all of the last three screenshots, which is also something I'd like to get into. Not only is his notebook a crucial part of his character, but it's also a security item. Pika and I both have security items of our own, namely our phones and our favourite Pokemon plushies, which helps bring us a lot of much-needed comfort. In episode 75, we see just how panicked Sawyer gets when he temporarily loses his notebook, which quickly leads to him becoming depressed.

We know that he values his notebook deeply because it contains all he's learned on his journey, as well as an autograph from Steven Stone. But if you look deeper, it becomes clear that it's even more to him than that. He holds his notebook close to his heart, both metaphorically and literally. He hugs it after receiving approval from Ash (which I'll also get to later) Heck, he even attached his Key Stone to it! He cherishes this notebook like it's his baby, and we find that so adorable and relatable!

Okay, now it's time to get into what's arguably the saddest part of his character: his constant need of approval from others. Pika and I, as well as countless other autistic people, are no strangers to self-doubt, especially in a world where we can't meet a lot of people's expectations. Sawyer likely grew up feeling this way too, which would explain why he's always seeking Ash's approval, since Ash is the one he looks up to the most. Throughout the series, Sawyer's constantly trying desperately to catch up to him. What's even more heartbreaking is that even after he beats Ash, he still needs reassurance from him that he's become strong 🥺

And to make matters worse, he's constantly masking his frustration whenever he fails to beat Ash. The autistic community is definitely no stranger to masking either.

It's not until the episode after his Kalos League battle with Ash when we finally see Sawyer breaking down. All those hours of training to catch up to Ash only led to him losing again in their most important battle yet. He was devastated, but he couldn't show that in front of Ash out of fear of being judged. Once he and Sceptile were alone, however, Sawyer was finally able to let out all the built-up frustration. And oh boy, was it emotional to watch...

But being the resilient trainer he is, Sawyer quickly dried off his tears and reaffirmed his desire to become stronger.

It takes a lot of strength to bounce back from something like this. I also went through a lot of inner turmoil around the time XYZ was airing. But seeing Sawyer bounce back like this inspired me to keep going, and make it through the rest of that year with Sawyer as my main source of comfort.

Needless to say, I see a lot of myself in Sawyer, and so does Pika. Not only is he relatable, but his story is also a great reminder that no matter how bad things feel in the moment, we can always make it out the other side. This is an important message for a lot of people, especially within the autistic community.

Even after all these years, I still find lots of comfort in Sawyer, and I know that'll last for many more years to come 💚