​Similar to others my age, I watched Avatar: The Last Airbender on Nickelodeon as a kid. While I did enjoy the show, it wasn’t necessarily one of my favorite things to watch, not like SpongeBob SquarePants. Yet once I revisited the series on Netflix years later, I saw it with a new perspective I didn’t have when I was twelve.
As a person with autism, I have come to greatly appreciate the cartoon world’s religion, politics, cultural differences, architecture, and philosophies in depths unheard of in entertainment for kids, or even for adults. I can now see how the show’s character with a disability parallels me and maybe others.
Most shows for grownup audiences wouldn’t be mature enough to create an empowering character with a disability while also showing their weaknesses. In Avatar, Toph Beifong is a blind twelve-year-old girl who claims to be the world’s most powerful earthbender. She uses her bending abilities to feel the earth through her bare feet, which compensates for her disability by giving her a mental map through seismic vibrations of where everything is around her. As the series progresses, her earthbending only gets stronger, and she even invents metalbending by detecting the earth particles inside metal components, something no other earthbender could ever do. Since she grew up with parents who only saw her as weak and helpless because of her disability, they sheltered her from the world. They never allowed her to leave their house, so to get any semblance of the life she always needed, she had to secretly escape her parents.
Because of her upbringing, Toph is fiercely determined to prove how capable she is. That means she refuses any help, and soon after joining the Avatar’s team, she intends to only look after herself without helping the others with various tasks like setting up camp. She believes that if she relies on anyone else or does anything to make herself look reliant on others, it makes her weak. It’s not until she has a talk over tea with the wise Uncle Iroh that she understands how needing one another is a basic human necessity. The rest of the series validates this point, as Toph is vulnerable in many locations because of her blindness. In the desert, the instability of the sand makes it difficult for her to form a mental map of her surroundings through her feet. She needs to cling to someone’s arm when at sea or riding on the Avatar’s flying bison, Appa--places she can’t feel the earth through her feet. In addition, because she’s blind, she can’t read, so people have to read things out loud to her.
As an autistic person, I often feel similar struggles when others think little of me. I believe I must prove that I'm not just a dumb kid with a developmental disorder and that I can do whatever others without autism can do. So, if somebody asks me if I need help with something, or if I know what a certain word or phrase means, I get offended, because they wouldn’t ask that same question to someone without autism. However, there are some things I simply do need help with, more than most others my age. For example, my parents had to help me with securing a place to live and finding a job. Factors like home size, cost, location and renovations overwhelm me, and never really cross my mind. Even when I’ve moved in, I don’t ever think about making any kind of changes. I’m a simplistic take-it-or-leave-it kind of guy.
I would certainly be lost if I didn’t have my parents guiding me through living on my own or getting a job. I’d probably be homeless by now. Likewise, plenty of others with mental or physical disabilities need extra help with certain tasks that those without disabilities don’t need help with. It sounds discouraging to know that at the age of thirty, some people will still be reliant on their parents. They may have to watch their peers and siblings enjoy far more freedom from mom and dad than they’ll ever get. Unfortunately, that’s just how things need to be at times. Some with disabilities are simply going to need this type of extra assistance their entire lives, just like Toph with her blindness. However, just like in Toph’s case, that dependency on others doesn’t make you weak, it just makes you human.
Toph is mentioned in my book, What Movies Can Teach Us About Disabilities, as an example of strong disability representation I was exposed to as a kid, one that I at the time had taken for granted. I have also recently written the book, What Movies Can Teach Us About Bullying. 

--by Trevor Pacelli, author of What Movies Can Teach Us About Disabilities
Autistic people have all sorts of special interests, some are temporary, and others are lifelong. Some even are drawn to a common special interest. Pokémon in particular has quite a bit of appeal to people with autism because the games are run by a simple set of predictable rules that have remained mostly static over many years. It’s a nice blanket of familiarity as someone with autism goes through a long life full of constant change. Every three years, a new generation of Pokémon is always expected to begin, meaning a new set of games debuts with around a hundred brand new Pokémon added to the series. Each game follows a rather similar pattern: you start your adventure after choosing between one of three starter Pokémon, one a grass type, one a fire type, and one a water type, to be your first companion. You explore the region. You battle eight gyms. You take down an evil team. A rival often intrudes your way. Once you win all the badges, you take on the Elite Four and the champion to beat the game.
While playing this game, the type matchups resemble a big complex system of rock-paper-scissors following a logic-based system: grass is strong against water, fire is strong against grass, water is strong against fire, and so on. Because many autistic people love numbers and statistics, and because the adorable Pokémon of this franchise are all so vibrantly colorful, researching the stats and type matchups of these lovable creatures offers a lot of comfort for ASD in a sensory-heavy world.
It all seems fine and dandy… until the latest games, Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet, introduced a new Pokémon that reminded the fanbase of a problem that has plagued the entire series since day one that has been particularly troublesome for the ASD community. This Pokémon is Finizen, a cute little blue dolphin whose evolution, Palafin, still looks the same besides a pink heart appearing on its chest. While this Pokémon’s stats start off rather mediocre, Palafin contains a special battle gimmick: When sent out into battle and then called back to the trainer’s party, the dolphin ‘mon changes into its “hero” form, with a Superman aesthetic and insane battle stats rivaling most legendary Pokémon, plus a scary attack stat of 160 (the series’ highest attack stat is 190). What makes these Pokémon even more adorable is that Finizen evolves into Palafin at level 38, a nod to the year 1938, when Superman had his first comic book appearance. Unlike most Pokémon who evolve naturally at a certain level, Finizen only evolves when it levels up to at least level 38 while battling in multiplayer, a feature unique to Scarlet and Violet where up to four friends can connect over Wi-Fi and explore the game together.
What could possibly be so bad about this though? Who wouldn’t want a pal like Palafin in Paldea, who evolves while playing with some pals? Well, there are lots of game players, especially those with developmental disabilities, who already struggle to make friends, meaning unless they own a Discord or get lucky enough to encounter a Palafin inside the "tera raid dens" throughout the game, they’ll never get to register Palafin into their Pokédex, and thus will never get to fulfill the series’ slogan of, “gotta catch ‘em all!” This can be true for lots of people who may be socially anxious, not have many friends, or may not have other friends who also play the games, but it’s more especially true for people with developmental disorders, including autism, who already struggle to make friends.
This problem isn’t unique to just Palafin, nor is it unique to Scarlet and Violet, way back at the start of the franchise, right from the Red and Blue days, some Pokémon were made to be only obtainable by hooking up link cables into the Gameboy and trading Pokémon amongst friends. The major releases always have two versions for this specific purpose; Oddish could be caught in Blue version but not Red, and Vulpix could be caught in Red version but not Blue. To add to that toilsome grind, some Pokémon, such as Machoke, Kadabra, and Graveler, could only evolve by trading. Bottom line, nobody could ever complete the Pokédex of any of these games without having friends to trade with. With the whole “gotta catch ‘em all” message that was pressed in the franchise’s early years, it seemed to punish players who didn’t have friends.
This is why the game Pokémon Legends: Arceus was revolutionary for the series… since the players at last no longer needed others to complete the Pokédex. Kadabra, Machoke, and Haunter now evolved simply by being given a new in-game object called a "link cable," and version-exclusive Pokémon were gone; all Pokémon in the Pokédex were available in the same game cartridge. Yet even without the need for this game, the past few generations have made trade-exclusive evolutions, such as Gengar, Machamp, and Dusknoir, available to find in the wild. Thus, it was easier for a player to battle with that one powerful Pokémon on his team as well as fill the dex up. But version-exclusive Pokémon didn’t go away in the major games that came in two versions, especially not in Scarlet and Violet. So in the span of a year, with the existence of Palafin, GameFreak took one step forward and two steps backward.
In future games, the online "trade" component of the games really should be exploited further to make completing the dex easier for people who may struggle to make friends for any number of reasons. I propose that it should be made possible for someone to make a request online for a specific Pokémon they want, and some other player online at some other time could fulfill that request by trading with that person that specific Pokémon they need.  As for Palafin, its evolution method just needs to change. It’s uncertain whether the "multiplayer" feature from Scarlet and Violet will be around in future mainline Pokémon games, so Finizen needs a simpler evolution method, such as by maxing out its happiness with its trainer. If it’s been done before with Feebas’ evolution into Milotic, or Eevee’s evolution into Leafeon, Glaceon, and Sylveon, then surely changing a Pokémon’s method of evolution can be done for Finizen as well.
There are other ways Pokémon isn’t disability-welcoming, starting with its treatment of shiny Pokémon. Each Pokémon has a "shiny" variant with a different color palette, averaging at a 0.01220703125% encounter rate, and many serious players regularly commit dozens of hours to obtain just one shiny of a particular Pokémon. Pokémon Legends: Arceus had a revolutionary new feature in its programming that made shiny hunting infinitely easier; not only do they now appear in the overworld as opposed to exclusively in battle, but a little chime sound effect also goes off with these little stars that glitter around the Pokémon, indicating right away that it’s a shiny.
However, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet left out the stars and sound effect; although the shinies still appeared in the overworld, shiny hunting was still much harder than in Legends: Arceus. Most Pokémon’s shinies can be noticed pretty easily, such as Lechonk’s shiny being bright pink instead of its usual black and brown, but others’ colorations are so minuscule that even one with great eyesight couldn’t tell them apart unless they were paying very close attention, like Paldean Tauros’ shiny being just two slightly different shades of black from its original. It may sound like no big deal, but what if a colorblind player wanted to shiny hunt? They wouldn’t be able to benefit from the sound effect to let them know a shiny was nearby. Or what if somebody had hearing problems? They wouldn’t be able to benefit from the little stars that appear.
On the note of these mainline console games feeling like steps backward from the game before it, many fans have for years complained that it’s time for the games to put in voice acting. They say it’s awkward to watch the lifeless character models move their lips silently while they’re forced to read the text on the screen to know what they’re saying, and with the series now on the Nintendo Switch, they are without excuse to still not have voice acting in their games. Although it’s understandable why the games still lack voices (it’s expensive, and would not fit with when the NPCs talk to the main character… who has a customized name). Although, the games could still benefit from voice actors, which would help blind and dyslexic game players.
One last way Pokémon isn’t entirely accessible for people with disabilities is in Pokémon Go. Wheelchair users have reportedly struggled to access numerous areas the mobile game made them go to, and the act of carrying a phone around while playing proved difficult for players with physical disorders such as motor impairment. Gladly, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the game’s developers to include more stops that also happened to be more accessible for people who maybe couldn’t leave their homes because of physical disabilities.
These types of issues about accessibility in Pokémon, and other video games in general, really need to be made more apparent, because there’s a valuable symbiotic relationship between people with disabilities and this long-lasting series. BBC even did a story on an anxiety-stricken autistic teenager who spent five years refusing to leave his house, and Pokémon Go finally persuaded him to step outside. Stories like this are why I’d like to see more community meetups for people who play the main Pokémon games, and not just for the trading card game or for Pokémon Go. I went to one this past year that was a part of PAX West 2022, and it was an awesome time for me to meet others with the same interest as me, others I could trade and battle with in person. But I want to see something more regular than that happen in my own community, something that can easily help more people like me form friendships over a common interest. I was one of those kids who didn’t naturally value friendships up until high school and only ever invited another kid over to my house to trade Pokémon with about three times, so having something like a regular Pokémon club would have helped me immensely in not only making friends but learning about the value of friendships.
--Trevor's Books | Trevor's Murro Region Pokemon Instagram Page