𝙀𝘿𝙐𝘾𝘼𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉 (Long post, see below the cut.)
Hilbert grew up well off enough to have the resources to pursue his interests and individual education. He isn’t book-smart like Cheren, but he is a savant.
He got thrown out of several schools mainly for getting in conflict with other students: between getting bullied due to being somewhat smaller, starting fights, and being a general nuisance.
While in school, he was an average A/B student. However this could vary dramatically depending on whether he simply liked the teacher or not. Being extremely stubborn and bull-headed in his young age, if he detested a teacher he simply wouldn’t put effort into their class.
Hilbert spent most of his life dealing with computers in one way or another. Technology like Pokédex, Computers, Televisions, Xtransceivers — The machines themselves, he can only guess how they work. But the software, that’s a different story. You open up his Pokédex and you’ll see shortcuts and new shortcuts and .bat files written just to save himself time. On his Xtransceiver, you might open it up and see it’s UI completely changed with new hotkeys and inputs on top of the default.
Reading through lines of code and script is cathartic to Hilbert. Seeing how things work when they’re written out in something like PYTHON, Java, PHP, Go, C# — All of those simply make sense to him. The way that it’s written and how everything connects just clicks for him. If he can figure out what something’s made with, it’s only a matter of time he can figure out how it works.
A lot of how he kept tabs on Team Plasma was by going into their systems while in their base, and just figuring out what programs and software they were using, copying that data onto a VM, and experimenting on it. He was able to get into their system because he understands how that shit works, he’s good at it, and he had the resources to actually do something with that knowhow.
Similarly, a lot of software that requires a more technical mindset just kind of comes naturally if he’s exposed to it for long enough. For that reason, he’s a good video editor and sound engineer. Learning video editing and sound design took a while, but he dedicated himself to it for a pretty long time and consistently practiced every chance he got. He would bounce that content off people better at it than him, get feedback, and make improvements until he was confident enough to produce his own content. Mainly in the form of a channel where he posts letsplays, D&D related content, reviews, and gameplay highlights.
Things like games, anything with mechanics and that has some level of engagement, he’s good at. Not to say he’ll be particularly skilled when he starts, but he gets good and quickly. In a fighting game, he’ll learn move sets and animation to predict and counter people. In strategy games he learns to predict economy, resource availability, and other important determinants to play smarter. In shooter games he learns distance, positioning, weapon benefits and shortcomings, map awareness.
Red and Yellow chemistry just comes naturally to him. There’s no real excuse for this one. He’s just very good at math, it makes sense to him and he enjoyed the classes. A lot of that suck and he just kept persuing that interest after it ended.
Hilbert is an extremely aggressive attacker. He’ll start the battle hard and fast and end it just as quickly. Either dying fast, or killing fast and hardly any middle ground. Put a wall infront of a truck and it’ll either crumple against it or plow right through. He knows his matchups, he knows his team, and he knows himself. That makes him dangerous.
