As The Pokeball Turns

TRAINER'S EYE #59 - "Harvey Pekar Meets The Cinccino" ft. xlilpoundcake

• David Hernandez • Season 1 • Episode 61

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xlilpoundcake, a Pokémon GO Trainer from Cleveland and self-proclaimed "Wayfarer Neckbeard," opens up about the profound impact Pokémon GO has had on her life. From finding love through in-game encounters to adopting two cats that have become part of her adventure, her story is one of connection and joy. Discover how she explored Cleveland’s cultural gems through Wayfarer and built meaningful friendships in the Pokémon community.

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Opening Song: "Forget You" by Alex_MakeMusic from Pixabay

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David Hernandez:

My name is David Hernandez, and you're listening to As the Pokeball Turns. Welcome to as the Pokeball Turns, where the stories are real and people still play this game. Every city has its own identity. It can range from food, iconic architecture and scenery, or even famous people. When it comes to the city of Cleveland, it is known as the Forest City due to 18 Nature Preserves, which were dubbed Emerald's Necklace because they encompassed the city of Cleveland. You also have famous people from Cleveland, such as Steve Harvey, Halle Berry, Drew Carey, and LeBron James. The city of Cleveland has a lot of history behind it that predates the Civil War, and my guest is here to share how the history and art located in Cleveland drew her to Wayfair. Furthermore, she shares how she met her significant other and adopted two cats because of Pokemon Go. From Cleveland, Ohio, here is her origin story into the world of Pokemon Go. This is xlilpoundcake. today I'm joined by a self proclaimed"Wayfarer Neckbeard", Little Poundcake. Welcome to the show.

xlilpoundcake:

Hello! Thank you for having me!.

David Hernandez:

Without a doubt, and I appreciate you coming on because I always like to highlight guests who have interesting stories, and I know we met through Twitter. And you shared a lot about how Pokemon Go has changed your life. I'm not going to give anything away, but I'm excited to dive into it with you.

xlilpoundcake:

Great. I'm excited to talk about it. the nice thing about this is I get to talk about something that I do every single day and I'm extremely passionate about and don't really get a chance to talk about like in the rest of my life.

David Hernandez:

Right. Welcome to my podcast. That's why I started this podcast for this very reason.

xlilpoundcake:

you're like, that's the whole point.

David Hernandez:

Yes. Yes. Now, one question I want to ask first is where does the nickname Wayfarer neckbeard come from?

xlilpoundcake:

So that is, apparently it's a thing in the community, which I wasn't totally aware of, basically a few years ago, a few people in my community and I were making fun of me for being so into Wayfarer and I referred to myself as a neckbeard because it just felt right. And apparently that's a thing.

David Hernandez:

So, because you're so dedicated to Wayfarer, you decided just to call yourself neckbeard because of that reason. Is it like that meme, right?

xlilpoundcake:

Oh, yeah, absolutely. and even in my local group chat, my name is Dr. Poundcake, Wayfarerer Neckbeard.

David Hernandez:

Ooh, okay. what is it about Wayfarer that you enjoy doing? what is it that, immediately drew you in to be so committed to it?

xlilpoundcake:

Honestly, I was not that committed at first. I found it really off putting and really intimidating. but then once I started nominating things and figuring out how the system worked And why my first few things were getting rejected. Then my researcher brain kicked in and I think a lot of people who do Wayfarer will say this, but I literally started seeing the world differently like when you're playing Pogo, you're looking at your phone all the time and Wayfarer requires you to actually look up and look for things in the world that you pass by every day and maybe don't notice, and they're, they're eligible. as I started noticing more things and doing more and more research, which is part of, Who I am. I'm an academic. I used to do a lot of archival research, so I just slid into doing that again, but this time with public art and local history and trying to find out basically everything I could about where I lived. it really made me fall in love with Cleveland in a different way. I'm really grateful to Wayfarer for that.

David Hernandez:

In what ways has Wayfarer enhanced your experience with Pokemon Go?

xlilpoundcake:

We have completely transformed the game board here. So I'm also very lucky. I live, in a part of Cleveland that's around the cultural sort of center of Cleveland. We have two art museums here, the Western Reserve Historical Society, the Natural History Museum, and it's all in one area on a university campus where I got my PhD. And so... We're spoiled here, that being said, there were a lot of empty cells and now there really aren't so, honestly, we've, my boyfriend and I went to go fest in New York this year and we went to New York a few years ago too, and even with the increased pokestops for GoFest, we still maintain that University Circle Ohio in Cleveland is better than New York City for playing Pokemon Go. So, next time anyone is in Cleveland, come on down. Hit us up on Campfire.

David Hernandez:

so Cleveland's kind of, a secret known spot,

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah.

David Hernandez:

compared to, that's crazy. New York City's so huge and you, you saying that Cleveland's even better than New York City is just mind boggling for

xlilpoundcake:

Right? The east side of Cleveland.

David Hernandez:

The east side, specifically, the east side of

xlilpoundcake:

The West side is a cultural wasteland, and if anyone is listening from the West side of Cleveland, I stand by that.

David Hernandez:

Well, if I lost on my, Cleveland, any Clevelanders I lost on the west side, I already lost. But, anyway. what is it like to play Pokemon Go in Cleveland? Like, where do people go for like, say, uh, community day? Or say, for raids?

xlilpoundcake:

I know in my community, we're the university circle Pokemon group, and so it's actually a really interesting community because it's on a university campus, so it's by nature sort of transient. You know, like, summer, everybody clears out every fall, we have new players, people leave, and, after a few years and they're just kind of gone then, but we tend to meet up on the Case Western Reserve University quad. And for community days, we have a grind loop that is now a route in Pokemon Go that basically just goes through all the best cluster spawns on campus, which, my boyfriend meticulously mapped out. it's a three mile loop. And so we just do that and there's also a cemetery down the road. It's an extremely famous cemetery where like Elliot Ness is buried, Grover Cleveland's tomb is there, former president, Harvey Pekar is buried there. Very cool stuff in there, and that's a place where people like to play as well.

David Hernandez:

Does your boyfriend also dabble in the Wayfarer? Like, do y'all do things

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah, I make him. Like, come on! You gotta get those upgrades!

David Hernandez:

Oh, so y'all review together as well?

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah. Oh, he hates it. He hates it.

David Hernandez:

Oh, he hates reviewing.

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah. I wanted to bring his first ever nomination to the Wayspotters podcast when I was on there because he said I could, I love reading. I love words. it's my life. And my boyfriend is an engineer and he Self proclaimed, he says he's illiterate, he's not, but his first Pokemon Go nomination would give you the impression that that might be true.

David Hernandez:

Was it like a lot of, typos, a lot of misspellings kind of thing?

xlilpoundcake:

no punctuation, just

David Hernandez:

Oh, run on sentences. I see.

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah, uh, no punctuation, no clear purpose. he was trying to nominate, he used to live above an art studio, which to me, I was like, Oh my God, you live above this art studio? He was like, I've never been there.

David Hernandez:

Oh, wow.

xlilpoundcake:

he was trying to get a homestop, as everyone was back then when you could first nominate and he basically just submitted the art studio and he was like, there's some cool art in here. It had got rejected as a duplicate, and that's how we found out what a duplicate was, and that that basically there are things in, well now I know it's the light ship map, that are not in Pokemon Go, even if they're in other games. So his, he would have had a house stop if he was playing a different game.

David Hernandez:

Wow. Dang. Just the luck of the draw.

xlilpoundcake:

Yep.

David Hernandez:

did y'all meet through Pokemon Go?

xlilpoundcake:

We absolutely did. yeah. It's so weird. we were in the same group and we kind of knew of each other for a few years. I thought of him as that guy who got a little too intense about the Halloween event every year. We were both students at the time and I was in grad school and so I was very sad just like my head down. I was like, Pokemon go is my weird dissertation hobby. everyone has one. Mine was much cooler than everyone else's. So at the time, like we knew of each other, but we didn't know each other really. So he really. He's a catch grinder and he still is and he mostly played by himself. he would just like speed walk everywhere he went and would try to get as many catches as he possibly could every single day. I was a Raider. So one of the things I love the most about Pokemon Go is I'm an extremely social person and when raiding came out, I was like, this is amazing. and so I was at the time I led the raid train every week in our group. that was my thing. Every Wednesday night, we would literally run from one gym to the next and the next and the next. And we were always trying to beat our records on raid days, when they had the three hour raid days. I have these really aggressively planned lists that are like, if it's in bold, that means you have to run to the next gym. If it's indented, that means you can use a remote pass. If it's underlined, that means get in the car, we're going.

David Hernandez:

That's pretty, that's pretty detailed.

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah, we got 56 raids on Entei raid day. So that was before remote passes came out. We had rented a giant van and someone made a banner for the site. So like we were... This was a really close knit group. I used to say just me and 800 of my friends, because our group chat had like 800 people in it. Not that many are active, but, it was a really close knit community. After every community day, we would go to this place called the Jolly Scholar on campus, and we would all trade until we trade caps and have dinner together. we had weekly trading parties at each other's houses, and Ben, my boyfriend, did none of that. He was never there.

David Hernandez:

He's very introverted, it sounds like.

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah. and then I moved away for about six months to go teach in Pennsylvania at the University of Pennsylvania. And then I hated that and decided I needed to come back to Cleveland.

David Hernandez:

Ha

xlilpoundcake:

and I did. And that's when I met him for the first time. Like, apparently when I left, he was like, there was no rail train. It was really weird. And he just kind of started hanging around. then a few months later, the pandemic happened and we ended up just walking together every day and we would just grind for like an hour or two every day after work. And then like six months later, we were like, is this a thing? I think this might be a thing.

David Hernandez:

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

xlilpoundcake:

and it's changed my entire life.

David Hernandez:

It's like, are we a couple? And it's like, I think we're a couple. I'm not too sure, kind of thing.

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah. I think we might be, I don't know, like,

David Hernandez:

ha. You mentioned how you led the raid group, so what was it about the raiding aspect for Pokemon Go that kind of engaged you when it first launched,

xlilpoundcake:

it was definitely the social aspect. Like I think I am Niantic's dream user. I want to be outside. I want to be meeting new people and I love that the people I was meeting were really funny. There were so many different kinds of people, especially where we are, like I said, we're spoiled like we would have people who work at the art museum, doctors from the hospital. That's also right there. students, faculty, random people from the community who live right outside the university. And it was just this great mix of people that ultimately always led to a lot of drama,

David Hernandez:

ha

xlilpoundcake:

but it was just, it was really cool. And I was meeting great people. We were having a really fun time and Raiding offers this intensity, well, at the time it did remote Raiding, honestly, unpopular opinion. I think remote Raiding kind of killed Raiding. I'm alone in that and I understand that, but, Especially like running the raid train and trying to hit goals. Hey, we did this last time. Now let's beat it. How can we beat it? it was always optimizing and always very intense and having a great time with people that I genuinely liked. So it was great. and then you might get a shiny. Okay, that's cool.

David Hernandez:

ha. It sounds like you approached raiding as a challenge, to how many raids could we do? You said three hour, the three hour raid window, which we had a long time ago. Mm hmm. It sounds like you approached it to where, how many raids could we do, maybe say, in a raid hour? How many raids could we do within three? what's the most we could do within that time frame?

xlilpoundcake:

Absolutely. I'm a really goal oriented person and so that was just a fun, no pressure sort of goal, that's very different than if I don't get this degree or like,

David Hernandez:

If I don't get this degree, I'm not going to have a job and be working. I'm not going to go further. That

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah.

David Hernandez:

go really bad.

xlilpoundcake:

We're like, I'm going to get this degree in the humanities, so I might not have a job, but I'm kidding.

David Hernandez:

I might get disowned by my family and end up on the streets somewhere.

xlilpoundcake:

I joke, but if you're, if you're getting a humanities degree, keep doing it. I'm actually well paid.

David Hernandez:

Well, my last question in regards to the raids. First off, were these raid trains, were they always on foot or were they by car or was it a mix of both?

xlilpoundcake:

It was a mix!

David Hernandez:

What was the highest you hit on foot and what was the highest you hit on the car? That you remember?

xlilpoundcake:

The highest we hit on foot is 28.?

David Hernandez:

Oh wow!

xlilpoundcake:

And, but that also tells you something about our play area that we have like 36 gyms or something ridiculous. so that was 28. We could get to on foot and we would run between most of them, but not all of them. I'm not super athletic, but if it's like Reshi raid day, I'm basically an Olympian, like, I think one of my favorite things someone ever said about me, in the RAID group is I worked on campus, so I would like, I used to really like to wear heels before the pandemic. It was really fun. And now I look in my closet and just laugh. Like, where am I going to wear that? But I used to basically be running across campus in high heels and a dress and just be like, go, go, go. And someone was like, this is so confusing to see. It's just, it's such a confusing thing to see you running by with all these like people following behind you.

David Hernandez:

How'd you not sprain an ankle trying to run with high heels? I can't imagine. I mean, first off, women wearing high heels blows my mind as a guy, but then just imagine you trying to run speed raid while it's just even another step.

xlilpoundcake:

Honestly, it was only a few years ago. And I think back to it and I'm like, was I okay? Like I would never do that now.

David Hernandez:

What about the ones in a car?

xlilpoundcake:

One's in a car. Every time we would switch to cars, we would always like park around a similar spot and we would have a plan, here's what we're going to switch to a car. we would try to have people set up, like knowing exactly whose car they were getting into. So no one would get left behind. But the thing that I never liked about it is someone always got left behind or there was always someone who like. Just join the raid train, and then we'd be like, where's your car? and that always made me feel bad. I didn't want to leave anyone out. And that made me feel like we were leaving people out, which is why renting the van helped. We could, uh, pick up new people who wanted to join, but basically, we would all get in the cars. And then at one point we had walkie talkies because, I mean, it's not like it was the nineties. We all had cell phones. I don't know what we were doing, but I think we just thought walkie talkies seemed really fun.

David Hernandez:

It reminds me of a scene from Twister, you know, they're all trying to chase a tornado and y'all just chasing raids instead.

xlilpoundcake:

Right? and in retrospect, what a terrible waste of money. We would be like, as soon as you're in and, raiding, then you go and you go to the next raid and if it's not shiny or perfect, you run so you can jump in and start the next life.

David Hernandez:

So, y'all would do Tap and Go?

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then once we learned how to wafu raid, it was terrible for the whole community.

David Hernandez:

At least y'all had fun, right?

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah.

David Hernandez:

So, was Pokemon Go your first experience with Pokemon? Or did you used to play the main series games?

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah. I used to be a huge Pokemon Stadium fan and a huge Pokemon Snap fan. I know especially with Pokemon Snap, people are like, really? Yeah, really? It was really fun for me. I did play the main series games, but, not all of them, but they never grabbed me in the same way. I've really been into Scarlet and Violet, which is confusing to me and everyone I know, because most people don't really like Scarlet and Violet, but I love it.

David Hernandez:

So, did you originally play the first couple games and you just dropped Pokemon for a bit all the way until Pokemon Go? Is that kind of how it worked?

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah, kind of. when Pokemon Go came out, I was just like, oh my god, wait, What's happening? I have to get this immediately.

David Hernandez:

So, what was it about Pokemon Snap that you enjoyed the most? Because you mentioned those two games were the ones that stick out. Both that and Pokemon Stadium. What was it about Pokemon Snap specifically that you loved?

xlilpoundcake:

I think what I loved about Pokemon Snap is it felt like I was not even at the zoo. There was an element of like, how do I describe this? Not that, like, it could be real, but it was more realistic like, oh, is that what a Bulbasaur would actually do if it was outside? not just sitting there saying its own name over and over like in the anime. oh, look, maybe Doduo would do that when it's eating. it was a way to see things that were very familiar to me in a new way, if that makes sense.

David Hernandez:

It sounds like, because I remember that same feeling. It felt like you were kind of being able to observe Pokemon without needing to interact with them except for the time you had to like, say, use an apple or use a Pester Ball or the Poke Flute. You got to see them and how they would do. It answered the question to what do Pokemon do before the trainer interacts with them, basically.

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah, exactly. And you didn't have to fight them, which I personally love because I hate fighting. even with Pokemon, I'm just like, Oh, I don't know. I don't really want to catch them. It feels kind of bad, which is ridiculous. And I know that.

David Hernandez:

Well, actually they asked that question it was back in Gen 5 they had that questions like are Pokemon meant to battle You know the whole animal fighting ha ha kind

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah. Right.

David Hernandez:

brought that into their own story, which is very I'm trying to think of the word right now. I Don't know. It was just a very good. That's why I love that series I know you haven't played it But that's what it reminded me of because it asked that question to where are we really battling? Are we forcing the kind of our own thing? So

xlilpoundcake:

Well, my favorite Pokemon, I believe, is from Gen 5, even though I never played Gen 5.

David Hernandez:

What's your favorite Pokemon?

xlilpoundcake:

Minccino.

David Hernandez:

Minccino.

xlilpoundcake:

And Cinccino. I have a Cinccino army in my Pokemon account.

David Hernandez:

You have an army.

xlilpoundcake:

An army of Cinccino. 98 percent plus and above. I have 20 of them. I don't like fighting in gyms, but I do like leaving my Cinccino in gyms all over town, because it's ridiculous. So I have an army of Cinccino, just for gyms.

David Hernandez:

What did you think of the new Pokemon Snap game?

xlilpoundcake:

I didn't like it and I was shocked.

David Hernandez:

Really? What was so different about it?

xlilpoundcake:

Well, I think there was a lot more story going on. I got really distracted by the subtext going on in the story. I was like, are these people dating? Like, what's going on here? but yeah, it just didn't hold my attention in the same way. And I think part of the problem is, is that, like I do have that nostalgia for it. And so I was expecting it to like, be a certain way and make me feel a certain way. And when it didn't, I was just kind of like, well, Legends of Arceus is

David Hernandez:

but you said you enjoyed Scarlet and Violet. That was your kind of game?

xlilpoundcake:

yeah. I love Legends of Arceus. I've loved Scarlet and Violet. Well, Violet specifically.

David Hernandez:

if you had to pick between the two, which one became your favorite?

xlilpoundcake:

Oh wow. Probably Legends of Arceus.

David Hernandez:

Legend of Arceus. It

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah, it was really cool. I might play it tonight.

David Hernandez:

was that good? You

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah, now that we're talking about it, I might do some shiny hunting.

David Hernandez:

Well, if you're gonna do a playthrough of Legend of Arceus, say you're getting a brand new game, what six Pokemon would you use?

xlilpoundcake:

Oh. Rowlet. I do love my Decidueye. I would definitely use my Decidueye because that was great. Lux Ray. I always use Lux Ray. I just think it's a really great Pokemon, really useful. I love Gastrodon. I always used my Gastrodon. Gallade, but that was for shiny hunting. I love Goodra, I got a lot of use out of that.

David Hernandez:

One more?

xlilpoundcake:

I refuse to say Garchomp even though it's true. I won't say it. That's not it. Zoroark, obviously, is really good,

David Hernandez:

yes, that's a good design.

xlilpoundcake:

but if I was trying to be annoying, I would throw a Sneaseler in there, because that's really creepy.

David Hernandez:

I don't like its design for that reason. It looks too weird for me.

xlilpoundcake:

When they released it, I literally gasped, I was like, why? But obviously like, well, yeah, I guess it's perfect.

David Hernandez:

Oh my god. Anyway. So, Pokemon Go comes out in 2016. Were you playing day one?

xlilpoundcake:

No, I was a day two player. I didn't even know it happened. and then a few of my friends were like just randomly talking about it and I was like, I'm sorry, excuse me, what are you talking about? And then I downloaded it immediately, did not know how to spin PokéStops, just used all of my balls up, and then immediately, like, posted a picture of a Paras on all of my social media, and I was like, how do I get more balls?

David Hernandez:

Ha ha ha ha!

xlilpoundcake:

How do I do this? And, like, people were trying to, talk me through how to spin a PokéStop, on Facebook, which is hilarious now, because now I'm, like, The other person in my community was like, here's how you do this. Here's what this is. But then didn't even know how to spin a Pokéstop. I mostly used it kind of like glorified GPS. I was very much the average Singaporean grandma for the first year of Pokémon Go like, I would just go to the park in the morning to walk. For about an hour, I would walk around the park and catch Pokemon. And it gave me a lot more confidence that I had to go to places that I hadn't been before, because I could see like the map and know that there was a trail there or where it was going. it gave me confidence to like, Oh, if I walk down there, I know how to get back because now I have this map. Honestly, I was really super casual. I would go days without opening the game and then, one of my friends from high school came to visit me in Cleveland, and he was, like, trying to explain, like... it was around the time they reworked the gyms. and he was like, Oh, here's how the new gym system works. And I was still like, Oh, I don't like fighting. I don't care about this. I just want to catch cute Pokemon. I used to say, I don't catch Weedle because I have self respect, which really came back to bite me later, when I met my partner. Cause I forgot to tell you, we met, we really started talking to each other by racing each other to a hundred million.

David Hernandez:

Wow,

xlilpoundcake:

yeah. we were both like 30 million away. It was very hard to do that at the time and so we took two months out of the summer and it was extremely intense. I'll get back to that. To answer your question, I did fizzle out for a while, but then once Raiding came out, my entire life changed.

David Hernandez:

So, the Pokestop thing, I actually had the same issue when I first started playing.

xlilpoundcake:

Really?

David Hernandez:

Because it wasn't intuitive to swipe the phone. I was just tapping it. I don't know what you did, but I just tried tapping it. And I was like, why is it not working? Cause I was like, I guess I was pressing the A button basically in Pokemon's terms. I was so confused. And then eventually I was like, Oh my gosh, it's so difficult. And then I don't know how I did, but eventually I figured out you just swipe. And I'm like, Oh, that makes way more sense.

xlilpoundcake:

I still apparently spin them incorrectly, using scare quotes here. My boyfriend claims I spin incorrectly because I'm supposed to spin side to side and I go down to up.

David Hernandez:

Oh, that's interesting. So you just swipe.

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah, I just swipe up.

David Hernandez:

Oh,

xlilpoundcake:

He's like, that's wrong. And I'm like, well, I got resources, didn't I?

David Hernandez:

I got what I needed.

xlilpoundcake:

Right?

David Hernandez:

So tell me about the race to 100 million. I'm curious. Like I want to

xlilpoundcake:

It's so romantic. So romantic. so actually this would tell you everything you needed to know about me and Ben, whose trainer name is Ju Puisha.

David Hernandez:

real quick before we continue. So just to give some context, y'all had already met, but y'all weren't dating at the time. Okay. So y'all were just still kind of in the early stages. We'll say friends kind of ish.

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah. hanging out, raiding together, walking together. And then we realized that we were pretty close in XP and Ben was like, Oh yeah. Do do you want to race to a hundred million? He was always trying to race people and like people in our local group would be like, do whatever you got to do, Ben, but like, you can pretend I'm racing you if you want, I guess.

David Hernandez:

They would just entertain it, but they really

xlilpoundcake:

yeah. And they would just straight up tell him like, I'm not going to do that. But if you want to think that we're racing, so you're motivated, you go ahead and do that, buddy. And he said to me, Hey, do you want to race? And I was like, absolutely. And he didn't know me that well. So he found out that when I'm competing, I'll hit a point where Now we're like, Oh, my brain broke. It was, I think the first week and he asked what I was at and I posted it and he's like, How did you do that? And I was like, Oh, I just did 300 evolves. And he was like, what? So we started catch grinding separately and together. I was I was waking up at four o'clock in the morning to go do early morning raids, the town over, because that's what time they would raid. And so I would wake up at four, go do all these raids so I could get like a bunch of XP before he even got up.

David Hernandez:

Wow. crazy.

xlilpoundcake:

was extremely intense. We would, and it was the pandemic, so like, some friends from our Pokemon group, we would all get on zoom and play jackbox games or something. And we would all just be hanging out and Ben and I would both be sitting there with our phones doing evolves, just staring at each other and showing each other our phones. And it was so hilarious. And he was just like, I don't know, like no one had ever actually tried to beat me in something before. And I'm still mad I missed it by three hours. We like we hit it with like three hours of each other and then we ended up racing to 50, Well racing with each other to level 50 as well So, I think we were number two and three in Ohio to hit 50 And once again, he beat me by a few hours and I'm still mad about it.

David Hernandez:

he inches you out basically every time,

xlilpoundcake:

Every time it's not fair.

David Hernandez:

Do y'all still do those kind of competitions now or is it kind of more laid

xlilpoundcake:

Oh, no, absolutely. Now I would cry. You're like, why are you being so mean to me? No, every once in a while, like if something seems like it would be fun, we'll do something like that. But honestly, we help each other more now. our relationship has changed so much. We're like, now we don't have to like have a reason to like see each other. We don't have to like. come up with something extremely elaborate to

David Hernandez:

It's not forced, it's more desire from both sides.

xlilpoundcake:

yeah. And we're just sort of like, Oh, it'd be fun if we would go grind here or let's go try to catch this much this weekend or we do a lot of community day catch goals, which is really fun. it depends on who cares more about the community day because the other one then drives, if we do a cemetery loop, so our dog can sleep in the car.

David Hernandez:

Now I was gonna say, they're actually the second couple that I've met that have that similar story. My friends here in the area, they met the same way, but they did it with gold Gyms. they were competing for gold Gyms trying to one up each other exactly and they eventually were doing Gyms together and similar to y'all story to where They just started meeting and then just happened to be together. It's just naturally happened with Pokemon Go

xlilpoundcake:

Oh, I wonder how many children exist in the world because Pokemon Go came out.

David Hernandez:

If you got a child because of Pokemon Go, hit my line up. I want to interview you

xlilpoundcake:

I have two

David Hernandez:

rush that episode that'd be hilarious

xlilpoundcake:

right?

David Hernandez:

Spare me the details, but I'll include you in the episode. You've been listening to As the Pokeball Turns. We're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back.

xlilpoundcake:

I did get my cats through Pokemon Go.

David Hernandez:

How'd you get your cats? I'm curious about that.

xlilpoundcake:

so weirdly This guy that used to be in our local group, his mom had a cat that had kittens. She'd found this mother cat who was pregnant and took her in and she had all these kittens. And he was like, we have to find homes for these kittens. And we were like, let's start a cat chat in our GroupMe and so we had cat chat. we just asked our general chat, you know, like who wants to be added to cat chat? And it turned out it was basically everyone because cats are fantastic. so we started this chat to get all these cats homes. And then there were two little black and white ones that I kept like seeing their pictures. I'd had two cats that had passed away pretty close to each other. they were my babies and so I was like, no more cats, no more cats. but then just these two little ones were left and I was like, I need these cats in my life immediately. And so I ended up adopting Benny and Sasha and they are so delightful and so sweet. And if I didn't play Pokemon Go, I wouldn't have gotten them.

David Hernandez:

Now is this a segment of the university group as well?

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah. And, Oh God, there are so many chats. There's cat chat, general chat, Raids chat, trades chat, quest chat. A lot of chats. So many secret chats. There used to be a lot of secret chats. I don't think there are anymore. I'm just not in them.

David Hernandez:

Oh, not in them yet. So, going back to Wayfarer, you talked about how you added nominations to a lot of the empty cells within Cleveland and you talked about how you really liked the history, the public art and all that stuff. What are some nominations that, stick out to your mind that you submitted?

xlilpoundcake:

right away there's a statue called Play Days by an artist named Harriet Frischmuth. and it's in the Western Reserve Historical Society. I love this one because I'd gone to the historical society one day and it's out in the courtyard. the historical society's in this old mansion, that they actually brought in to serve as part of the museum and it's one of the old mansions from Cleveland's Millionaire's Row that was like in the early 20th century. And there's a courtyard in it outside with a fountain and there's this little statue sitting there. And I asked someone who worked there, cause there was no plaque or anything. I was like, Oh, what's that statue? And he was like, honestly, we don't know it's just here. And I said, I bet I could find out. And it took me a good three weeks of just doing research, but I finally found out who made it, when she made it, who she was, she was a student of Rodin's, which is really interesting to me because we have a thinker here at the Cleveland Museum of Art, right out in front. And so it felt really cool to be able to take this information to the historical society and say like, I found out who made your statue. now it's in Pokemon Go, so that's definitely one of them. another one is probably... Harvey Picard Park. just a little urban Plaza named for this extremely famous Cleveland comic book, writer who was the most cranky old man, he hated everything. And he would hate that Cleveland loves him so much, but, he was very talented, he wrote comic books that were different. They weren't superheroes. It was a comic book about him. And so it's just a comic about cranky Harvey Picard, who like he's never winning, he's always sort of downtrodden and his relationships aren't going well and his job isn't going well. Everything's gritty and dirty. And I think it really speaks to the ethos of Cleveland. We're a gritty city. there's definitely an attitude here. It's a rust belt city and it's kind of infused with that, but we're also really funny. So like, I think Harvey Picard just speaks to that. Cleveland is extremely proud of everybody from Cleveland like, it does not matter what you do, if you are from Cleveland or the metro area, Cleveland loves you. And so it was really cool to see that and do the research to find all that out and then to be able to like, put it in the game. I love the idea of Wayfarer's, this is not Niantic's vision, maybe it is, I don't know. But like, I love the idea of Wayfarer being a way to literally augment your understanding of the world around you. Not just to interact with it, but also to say like, Oh, I'm literally looking at this arch, I've walked by it a hundred times. Here's where it came from, here's who built it, here's what it's supposed to be for like, that's so cool to me. It's like being on A tour all the time.

David Hernandez:

Last question regards to Wayfarer. say for example somebody who's playing Pokemon Go wants to get involved with Wayfarer. What would you suggest to them?

xlilpoundcake:

number one, I would suggest seek out the forums or try to get in the discord. there's a Wayfarer discord. It's extremely helpful. This is one thing that really irritates me is that, most people can submit PokéStops, but they don't even know that Wayfarer exists. There's no reason for them to. I mean, like when you go to submit a PokéStop, it literally says submit PokéStop. It does not say submit point of interest or waypoint. and so my advice to someone who wants to start doing that is find someone in your community who already does it. If there is no one in your community who does it, try to hit us up on Twitter, we'll send you a link to the discord. there is a very high bar for entry to Wayfarer that like, it's intimidating. and if you want to start in Wayfarer and you feel intimidated and overwhelmed, that's perfectly normal and if you didn't feel that way, I would have some questions. It's terrifying. and there's so much to learn. I remember when I first started, I had to find an Ingress player, which was insane because who plays Ingress? How do you even find them? Here we had one Ingress player who was submitting things on campus and he was like a ghost. People would be like, Oh, if you want to, you know, if something's in the wrong place and you want to get it moved, you have to find Jeremy. And I'd be like, who's Jeremy? And it'd be like, Oh, I'll hook you up with them and group me. And then like, Like be DMing a random person and be like, can you come to campus at five at this day? And he'd be like, yeah, sure. And then would he show up? I don't know. How is he moving things? How's he doing this? What even is Ingress? it's not like that anymore. So, um, but like he introduced me to like the IITC map and I was like, I'm a smart person who loves learning and I hate this. This is way too much.

David Hernandez:

Wow, that's for you.

xlilpoundcake:

yeah, I was like, this is way too much. And,

David Hernandez:

Well, let me ask you this real quick. since you hated it so much, what kept you trying to learn the system?

xlilpoundcake:

I found it difficult and for me it's a challenge. I guess it's just how I am. If I don't understand something, like I will make the time to understand it, unless we're talking about math, in which case, like I'm busy, I have stuff to do.

David Hernandez:

Don't go to you for taxes.

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah. Oh, absolutely not. But yeah, I, I found it really challenging, but there was incentive to do it like there were things on our game board that were in the wrong places. I knew that I could get more PokéStops on the board. I wanted to make more gyms for our area. I know a lot of people say Oh, Pokemon Go players just want more Pokestops. Well, yeah like, that's literally the point. Like, no one's like, Oh, I heard about this thing called Wayfarer and I would like to submit a waypoint to the, to the light ship. no one says that. and so I really just wanted to learn so that I could do these things for my community, because honestly, we used to run out of pokeballs a lot. there are way more spawn points on campus than there were pokestops and so you would do a grind loop, which is three mile loop, and you would completely run out of balls. I remember I bought pokeballs once on a community day, and I was like, I'm never doing this again, right? Yeah, I was like, I don't want to do this, but I want to catch and so now I don't think anyone's run out of balls in years, but so I really wanted to learn so that we could do that. And I wanted to be able to answer other people's questions too. We all wanted to do this in some form, and people had their own reasons for wanting to do it. but yeah, it was just, it was extremely intimidating and so I get why people get really intimidated by it, especially now with what's been going on where people are afraid they're going to get banned, like, I totally get that, I mean, you're not going to, you're not going to get banned, but I get that fear because there's a lot of mystery around Wayfarer. Niantic doesn't really confirm anything like they still haven't confirmed if they use the cell system. There's just so many unknowns, the whole thing is shrouded in mystery in a lot of ways, and I get why people are scared or wouldn't necessarily want to take the time to learn, but if you do want to take the time, hit me up on Twitter.

David Hernandez:

The last thing I want to talk about for this interview is you mentioned earlier how both you and I think your boyfriend both went to New York Go Fest. Was that your first live event you attended?

xlilpoundcake:

No, we both went to GoFest in Chicago, before the pandemic, not together,

David Hernandez:

What was it like to attend? what was your expectations?

xlilpoundcake:

honestly, I think I just expected to have fun. And I did. I had a great time. Like an entire group of us went from Cleveland and we just had a blast. we spent the whole time just grinding while we were there. I ruined shoes trying to get a Shiny Sandshrew, which I did not get. Which was so distressing. And it's because we were like running through the mud, through one of the biomes where Shiny Abra was accidentally released. we saw that someone got it, and didn't know it had been turned off, so everyone just kept circling this same area that was super muddy, and I just completely destroyed my shoes. What the? They were plaid. They were so cute.

David Hernandez:

What about for New York City?

xlilpoundcake:

So that ended up being our three year anniversary. So it was a really cool trip. We were like, so it's the first GO Fest for us since we, since the pandemic, which we were both really excited about it's our anniversary. So my expectations were every single shiny that's coming out. If I don't get them, I'm going to weep for days. Yeah. Right? Like, light a candle. I just, I wanted a ton of shinies. I wanted to hatch so many eggs. I had saved up like 50 super incubators. I was like, we're doing this.

David Hernandez:

stocked up,

xlilpoundcake:

Yeah, we're doing this. I had all these star pieces. I expected to eat incredibly good food the entire time, which did not really disappoint. I'm a planner, so I had everything meticulously planned out, like to the hour. We had like this Google calendar that it's just a mess of colors and I don't know, Ben humored me by being like, yeah, we're absolutely going to do all of that. We did not, we did not do everything,

David Hernandez:

But you got pretty close, or just?

xlilpoundcake:

we got pretty close. But we didn't get to spend as much time as museums as I usually do when I go to New York, but that's okay. I used to go to New York by myself all the time in the winter just to like go on vacation and see museums and be quiet. So if I want to go to museums, I can do that on my own time.

David Hernandez:

Well actually, I just thought of a question. Do you think that maybe the city of Cleveland could host a GoFest?

xlilpoundcake:

I honestly do. this is my#HearUsNiantic. I'm like,

David Hernandez:

There you go. Go off.

xlilpoundcake:

Right? I'm like, Cleveland is an exceptional city and I, I don't think people realize just how great it is here until they come and then they're like, wait a minute, this is amazing. we have literal world class museums. we have the rock and roll hall of fame. That's here. We have so many great places to play. It's cheap to stay here. We have amazing food like we're a food city. Um. Oh yeah. I mean, if nothing else, we're all chubby. That's not for no reason. We've got great food here. but yeah, I think Cleveland would be amazing for GoFest,

David Hernandez:

What park do you think could host it?

xlilpoundcake:

I think, honestly, I can't see it being hosted anywhere except Wade Park or the cultural gardens, which is like the extension of that. Basically Wade Park and Wade Ovals, surround the Cleveland Museum of Art and they go around the Natural History Museum, the Western Reserve Historical Society. there's a big lagoon out in front of the art museum and a fine arts garden and it's just like a giant loop that basically goes all the way through the city, all the way through University Circle. And then there's an extension of Roosevelt Park that goes all the way down Martin Luther King Drive to the lake. That is the Cleveland Cultural Gardens, which there are like 45 different gardens representing like all the different immigrant communities in Cleveland. there's an Irish Cultural Garden. an Ethiopian cultural garden, Sumerian, like, it's honestly really impressive. the first time I came here when I was interviewing for grad school, I got off I 90 in the cultural gardens and I was driving through and I was like, I'm sorry, where am I? This is beautiful. What's going on here? I'd never really thought about Cleveland in that way, but it's a really culturally rich, diverse city with great food, great people, and it's safe. I think it'd be a GoFest.

David Hernandez:

There you go, Niantic. Get it set up 2023. Or 2024, Cleveland Go Fest.

xlilpoundcake:

Safari zone, Cleveland.

David Hernandez:

There you go, one of the two. Thank you for coming on the show. That is a podcast, that is an interview. If people want to connect with you to learn about Wayfarer, to maybe get in touch with you, where can they go find you?

xlilpoundcake:

They can definitely find me on Twitter. I'm@poundcake_x. and I'm always on the discord and I am always in the Wayfarer forums.

David Hernandez:

Cool beans. And I'll make sure to include links to everything she said in the description of today's episode. Thank you for listening to As the Pokeball Turns. If you want to support the show, consider becoming a patron by either clicking the link in the description or going to patreon. com slash as the pokeball turns. Now here's a sneak peek for the next episode of As the Pokeball Turns.

People on this episode

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David Hernandez

Host
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Dux

Co-host
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Layla

Co-host