#(clair voice) he may be a brat but hes MY nephew and MY nephew gets to be a brat if he wants to. screw yall

[gehtsis]

im a dad lance truther with all of my heart but honestly i think there isnt enough talking about silver and his wackass aunt aka The Best Dragon Trainer In The World(TM) Clair

so HERE ME OUT HERE: okay so the fight against silver in victory road already confirms that he had to go with clair's whole nonsense in the dragon's den. he already knows shes a sore loser and Oh Brother Is He Gonna Tell That To Her Alot. of course this was during the little inner battle that silver was going through when lance first told him "uhhh hey kiddo! stop being mean to your pokemon! ):" so his answers to the elder were mixed. by a lot.

clair was more or less expecting him to fail the trial because "haha lol serves you right for beating me you redheaded brat" but the elder forced her hand to give him the badge because leauge rules. and from there on out this weird psedou-rivalry between a 19 year old gym leader and a 12 year old where clair constantly tries to find a way to get on silver's nerves and silver just views her as this cyan-haired annoyance that really wants to piss him off formed between them

fast forward to post mt. moon fight in the postgame. lance offers silver a place to live in while he undergoes training in the dragons den (aka super secret sneaky adoption because lance looked a bit into silver's history and he thinks the kid needs a hug and therapy) and as a result silver has to see clair a LOT, which is midly annoying for him and INFURIATING for her. clair goes headfirst into complaining to lance with things like "this kid smells can you kick him out" and lance just outright tells her just WHY he's there in the first place. once the realization sets in, clair just goes "oh fuck hes just like me" and that says everything. from the constant grind to becoming the "best/strongest" to the very details of being unable to accept losses. their issues may stem from different sources and beliefs, but its still the same. clair tries to proves to everyone that shes the strongest so that she can finally get out of lance's shadow; because as long as Mr Bigshot Cousin is regarded as the "strongest dragon tamer" in his current champion status, clair is practically stuck. grounded to base one where people rarely look at her at the same amount of respect they do with lance despite everything she built herself from the ground up to. blackthorn gym leader? pff, literally who? and silver aint all that different, in a way.

a kid left on his own by his own father, who, despite claiming to be the strongest, got so pissy after a few losses that he skipped region entirely, not even thinking about what he left behind, besides his own kid and the beliefs that he oh so graciously followed after. pokemon are tools; not friends. strength means everything. there is no place for weakness in this world, its do or die. and silver, despite having scorned his father for all of that hoopla, followed those ideologies like your average run of the mill grunt. if he wasnt strong enough to bring his dumb stupid dad back, how the hell is he gonna survive out there?

things eventually die down between the two; with clair trying to Not throw hands with silver for once n' trying to get on his nerves and silver actually seeing her as a person who deserves as much as respect as lance (or, hell, any strong and skilled trainer) and not picking a fight with her. after lance more or less officially adopts silver as his weird feral sneasel of a son, clair finally embraces him as her small, cool and stubborn nephew

tl;dr clair and silver throw hands before having a "woah just like me fr" moment and deciding to settle their differences like two proper people and not emotionally stunted teens