24!
24.) Which professor is your favorite?
This is a bit of a tough one, and it depends on if we’re talking about the games or the anime!
If we’re talking about the games, then it’s a tie between Professor Juniper and Professor Burnet.
As far as Professor Juniper goes, I’m still salty that she was somewhat overshadowed by her father, who played a decently sized role in the plot and who often showed up to explain things that Juniper herself couldn’t. Call it what you will, but none of the other professors prior to her (or after her) had that happen, and they all just so happened to be male. So I was (am) a bit salty about that, but aside from that I really love Professor Juniper a whole lot. Aside from being our first female professor in the main series games, because of the way I’ve developed and extrapolated upon Unova’s plotline and characters, I’ve always seen her as sort of . . . perhaps not surrogate mother, exactly, since they all have parents already, but almost as like a surrogate aunt to the Nuvema Trio (+Blair to a lesser extent). She was their teacher, their mentor, and because Lea was in the class scolding was something she very often had to do, but she always did it with love. Juniper is encouraging and nurturing, while at the same time able to put her foot down and be stern when necessary (though not beyond reason). I love Professor Juniper, and I also love all the times we get to see her out at various places, exploring and learning. I thought that was really great!
But that said, I love Professor Burnet a lot too, and I’m super salty that she wasn’t the main professor in Gen VII, and that she didn’t have a larger role in the plot, given that her field of study is actually plot relevant and Kukui’s isn’t. Yeah, yeah, Z-Moves this, Z-Moves that---that’s easily a side professor’s field, whereas Burnet’s study into parallel dimensions is directly relevant to the Ultra Space / Beast plot. Aside from the fact that she has the coolest field of study ever, I really love Burnet as a character. She’s clearly career focused, she knows exactly what she’s doing and has a massive lab (bigger than Kukui’s!) to back it up, but she’s also very plainly warm and caring all the same. She’s the mother that Lillie (and Gladion!) never had, but deserved. Like Juniper, she was shafted, though she was at least allowed to have a career outside of male relatives / love interests, unlike poor Juniper who had to inherit hers from her dad. Still love her, though.
That said, those are the games. As far as the anime is concerned, Sycamore is my favorite. I LOVE ANIME!SYCAMORE. Aside from moments of comedy (e.g. blatantly lampshading that his lab always gets destroyed when Ash & Co. are around, being super forward with Meyer to the point where you have to wonder how his blatant come-on got past the censors, et cetera), he is Best Dad™ by far, and is exactly the father that Alan has always needed (and deserved). He’s understanding, nurturing, compassionate, and encourages Alan (and the other kids) to find their own way and learn at their own pace. He knows how to have fun with them, he can definitely do that (and I think that part of why he’s such a great father for Alan is that they share a lot of ideas about what fun is), but he’s also fantastic for more serious moments as well. While I’m still salty that he never got to save his son on screen (or hug him, for that matter, why does the PokéAni keep denying me these simple things), they did still have good moments as well, and I’m thankful for what we got, even if I wanted more (and I don’t feel a hug is asking for very much, I’m just saying).
So yeah! As far as the games go, it’s a tie between Juniper and Burnet. In the anime, meanwhile, it’s Sycamore!