March 8, 2025 • 42 mins
The webmaster of Blue Moon Falls reflects on her deep love for the Generation 1 and 2 Pokémon games and how they sparked her connection to the franchise. She shares the journey from playing Pokémon LeafGreen and FireRed to exploring Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, where she first connected with Pokémon characters in a new way. In this emotional conversation, Blue Moon Falls also opens up about how Pokémon has helped her navigate challenges related to autism, POTS, and DID, offering a personal look at the healing power of the Pokemon franchise.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Blue Moon Falls (00:00):
My name is Ayano from Blue Moon Falls, and
this is my Pokémon story.
David Hernandez (00:42):
Welcome to, as the Pokeball turns, we will
interview people about theirexperience with Pokemon.
My name is David Hernandez.
I'm joined by Ayana from BlueMoon Falls, web host of the
website.
Ayana, welcome to As thePokeball Turns.
Blue Moon Falls (00:56):
Hi, thank you!
David Hernandez (00:57):
thank you for taking time out of your
schedule.
And I think a lot of people maynot know who you are, but you
actually have a very coolwebsite where you kind of dive
into like Gen 2 and you alsoshare the sprites.
Can you give like people insideof like, what's their website
about?
Blue Moon Falls (01:12):
Yeah, so, um, my website is Bloomin Falls.
I made it back in, oh god, whatyear was it?
It's been three years at thispoint.
Um, I think 2021 was when I madeit.
Yes, took me a second.
and it's meant to just be ageneral fan site for, the first
two generations of Pokémon.
it's very video game centric, sonot as much the TCG and anime.
(01:34):
and I just do whatever I wantrelated to those, uh, video
games on there.
Um, there's some articles andthere are also tools that you
can play with to, mess with yoursave files or, See other
statistics and values related tothe games
David Hernandez (01:48):
I have never seen such an homage to gen two
specifically, because I thinkyou uploaded some sprites from,
I think it was Pokemon stadium,Pokemon stadium two to where you
have the different colors, ifI'm not mistaken,
Blue Moon Falls (01:58):
Oh yeah, there is a tool on the site called the
Stadium Hue Previewer, and ithas all of the idle animations
of the 3D models used in theStadium 1 and 2 games on the N64
and can drive a slider to hueshift them, because the, um,
Stadium 1 and 2 games had a hueshifting feature where a
nicknamed Pokémon would be aslightly different color.
(02:20):
It's kind of the precursor toShinies, almost.
and the website lets youpreview, uh, the colors as they
would look on the N64.
David Hernandez (02:27):
what made you want to start that website?
clearly you must be passionateabout those generations to have
your own website and do all thatinformation.
Blue Moon Falls (02:34):
Yeah, so it's funny, people usually think that
I'm older than I am, like I musthave had experience with
Generations 1 and 2 when I was akid, but
David Hernandez (02:41):
Mhm.
Blue Moon Falls (02:42):
I got started with Generation 3, and I didn't
play Generation 2 until, thevery beginning of 2021, and I
was just really surprised by howmuch I enjoyed them.
I just really got into it forsome reason.
David Hernandez (02:55):
Mhm.
Blue Moon Falls (02:56):
had a lot of fun with my first playthrough
and everything, and then towardsthe end of 2021, I I remember I
was trying to train my Pokemonfor Pokemon Stadium 2, beating
the various battle cups in it,Generation 2 has a precursor to
a thing called EVs, they'rejust, it's a thing in the modern
Pokemon games, I was trying togain stat experience, which is
(03:21):
the EV precursor, and I couldn'tfind much documentation on it,
and then actually doing it was abig pain.
there was no way to like,automatically calculate it as I
was doing it.
And then I was like, it's kindof weird that games this old
don't have the best moderndocumentation sometimes on more
of this niche stuff.
(03:41):
And then I just spontaneouslydecided, what if I did it?
What if I fix this issue?
So then I made Bloomin Falls animpulse in an afternoon, and now
it's been going for three Mmhmm, mm
David Hernandez (03:54):
because sometimes we get so caught up in
the main series.
And, I'd look at it from PokemonColiseum and Pokemon XT.
Those are very niche games, butthere's not much data unless
you're very dedicated to it.
Going back to you playingPokemon city and Pokemon stadium
too.
I remember playing those games alot.
I remember frustrated as hellwith them as well.
Blue Moon Falls (04:13):
Yes.
David Hernandez (04:14):
And then
Blue Moon Falls (04:14):
difficult.
David Hernandez (04:15):
they are, they are immensely difficult.
And then just seeing how thedifferent colors of.
The Pokemon not realizing like,I guess they're tied to the
nicknames that people reallywouldn't know unless that
information is out there.
Blue Moon Falls (04:26):
Yeah, I think the nickname hue shift feature
has been relatively known about.
Like, if you were to look it up,you'd be able to find out.
they change color based on thenickname.
David Hernandez (04:37):
Right.
Blue Moon Falls (04:38):
but we didn't know the exact details, for a
while.
there's research done bysomebody, online into how
exactly the nickname featureworks.
It basically checks each letterand then it does some math on
the value that represents eachletter in the nickname and it
compares it with your trainername and ID and then it spits
(04:59):
out a final to hue shift Andthat's how it determines how far
the Pokémon should be shifted ineither direction of color.
But this was all contained in aGoogle document.
It super accessible and alsothere was no like automatic
thing to see the differentcolors live.
So I took the research, Iconsolidated it into an article
(05:19):
with more images and probablyeasier to read, and then I made
the hue shifter for it.
for ages we didn't know theexact details, and then the
exact details were all just in aGoogle document.
David Hernandez (05:31):
where everything is usually
Blue Moon Falls (05:32):
Yeah, much.
Actually,
David Hernandez (05:35):
you know, your first game was actually with the
gen three games, Pokemon, Ruby,Sapphire, and Emerald.
Talk to me about Josh.
Blue Moon Falls (05:41):
um, Pokemon Leaf Green was the first game
that I
David Hernandez (05:43):
Oh, really?
So you did Canto still.
Blue Moon Falls (05:45):
Yes.
David Hernandez (05:46):
tell me about your first experience diving
into Pokemon, like playingLeafgreen.
Blue Moon Falls (05:50):
So, I was, uh, four years old when I had a
babysitter, who was like ateenager at the time, and she,
Brought her Pokemon Leaf Greento our house, I guess, just
cause She got bored.
Me and my sister were prettywell behaved.
Um, so she would be playing leafgreen on the couch and I'd start
incessantly asking her questionswhat she was doing because I
(06:11):
thought it was reallyinteresting.
and then that year I begged mymom to get me leaf green and the
same exact, GBA SP that she hadfor my birthday on my fifth
birthday.
And then I got it.
I don't remember playing myfirst playthrough super well
because, uh, I was five.
but I did pick Squirtle as myfirst starter because, my
babysitter had Blastoise, so Iwas copying her.
(06:32):
that being said, I do considerBulbasaur to kind of be my first
starter because I used to replaythe game a lot and I would
always pick Bulbasaur.
That was kind of the firstchoice I made of my own and not
copying my babysitter.
Um, Yeah, that's about it.
I used to replay the game overand over because I didn't have
any of the other Pokemon gamesyet So whenever I wanted to play
Pokemon, I just restartedLeafgreen a million times
David Hernandez (06:52):
What did your babysitter think once you got
the game?
Like, would y'all play the gamestogether?
Like was there any kind ofconnection melt that way?
Blue Moon Falls (06:58):
Yeah, actually we didn't play the games
together as much as we Drewtogether.
Uh, she was an artist, hobbyist,and we would print out pictures
of various Pokemon and like drawthem while she was over together
So that was our main Pokemonthing going forward.
It was more of just drawing them
David Hernandez (07:14):
What Pokemon do you remember drawing at the
time?
Cause I think you said youdabble in artists, if I'm not
mistaken.
Blue Moon Falls (07:19):
Yes, I think we're gonna talk about me having
DID later, but you know, one ofmy alters is, uh, an artist, and
so I have art experience kind ofthrough her.
Uh, I don't do it very muchanymore, but she does, so,
David Hernandez (07:31):
Mm hmm.
Blue Moon Falls (07:32):
history is full of art and stuff, so we drew a
lot of Pokemon.
Mostly Pikachu.
Just really like Pikachu.
It's what it's made for, it'sthe mascot.
David Hernandez (07:43):
That's true.
That's true.
Hey, better than me and Ali candraw a voltorb and an electrode
because they're circles.
Ha ha ha.
Blue Moon Falls (07:48):
Yeah, makes sense.
David Hernandez (07:49):
You said, like, you have an altar.
Can you give, like, insight on,like, what is that, for those
who aren't familiar?
Blue Moon Falls (07:54):
Yeah, so I have dissociative identity disorder.
it's a disorder caused bychildhood trauma.
but it's characterized by havingthese things called alters.
people.
usually know them as likemultiple personalities in air
quotes.
We don't call it that anymore,they're called alters.
it's basically I have kind ofother people in my brain who
sometimes take over and do theirown thing and then I come back
(08:16):
and it's a little hard toexplain, but, I've been living
with it my entire life.
So, yeah.
David Hernandez (08:22):
At what point did you, I guess, discover that
you had this D.
I.
D.?
And, you know, how did it comeabout that, when it first
happened, or what early memoriesdo you have?
Blue Moon Falls (08:31):
Well, that's a little convoluted because DID is
a disorder that's very covert,usually,
David Hernandez (08:36):
Sure.
Blue Moon Falls (08:36):
who have it.
People with DID often don'trealize they have DID for a
pretty long time, usually intoadulthood.
Not always, people can realizeearlier, but a lot of people
don't realize until their 30sand 40s.
Obviously, I'm not in my 30s or40s, so I realized a bit earlier
than that.
I realized I had alters when Iwas 16.
Um, I wasn't diagnosed withanything yet.
I just realized there wassomething going on.
(08:58):
then through multiple yearsstruggle in the, uh, mental
health system for a long time,because DID is really hard to
get diagnosed, even if you haveit.
Just,
David Hernandez (09:06):
Yes.
Blue Moon Falls (09:07):
of people who are knowledgeable on it.
so, I finally got the rightdoctor in, like, 2019, and I got
diagnosed with it.
So, I've been diagnosed for, um,six years now?
Like, more like five and a half,because it was the latter half
of, 2019.
But yeah, so it's been, it'sbeen a while.
I've known more or less that Ihave it for nine years, and then
I've been diagnosed for six.
David Hernandez (09:26):
I think it's difficult for people who aren't
in the mental health sphere,because people will think like,
oh, maybe you're just like makebelieve and pretending making
your own, personality, but it'smore complex than that, because
it's like you have a differentpersonality.
to where it comes out with, youknow, controlling, you still
believe it.
And for me, it reminds me ofwhen I had clients who had
schizophrenia
Blue Moon Falls (09:46):
hmm.
David Hernandez (09:46):
they would not like down to the bone, believe
there's something coming out ofthat TV.
There's something that there'sshadows after them.
There's things under their skin,stuff like that to where they're
not lying.
They actually physically believeit.
And that's what it seems similarto me.
Like it's obviouslyschizophrenia and DID is
different, But that's theclosest comparison I can
(10:07):
remember from my own experience.
And I can understand that.
Yeah.
Some people just think you'rekind of BSing, but you really
aren't.
Unfortunately.
Blue Moon Falls (10:14):
Yeah, and the thing is DID also comes with a
of other symptoms.
It's not just the themselves.
so, more complex than peoplegive it credit for.
I think people just have thatmisunderstanding that it's kind
of just make believe playingpretend as other people just
because it, it kind of looksthat way on the outside if you
don't know what's going on, butit's not.
It's a known psychologicalphenomenon and it's a real thing
(10:37):
and, and there's also a lot moreto it than just the personality
changing aspect, so.
David Hernandez (10:42):
going back to the Pokemon side of things, you
had an alter where you aredrawing.
You're still engaged with thefranchise of playing Pokemon
Leaf Green.
Did you continue to stick withthe franchise throughout.
And what about the franchise?
Did you enjoy playing
Blue Moon Falls (10:55):
Yeah, we've been Pokémon fans entire life.
my mom getting me leaf green formy birthday was a life changing
event and my life was never thesame after that.
Pokémon has been in my life eversince.
It's mostly been the videogames, most of my life.
I did have a brief stint withthe TCG in 2019, 2018.
And then the pandemic hit, andIt became really hard to collect
(11:16):
cards because of all thescalping, and I haven't gone
back to it since.
So, time with the TCG was verybrief.
and then, I'm actually into theanime now, with the newest
season, but I was not into theanime before Gen 9, so, the
video games my entire life andI've bought them as they come
out and, play them when they'renew.
so I've seen every generationsince Gen 3.
David Hernandez (11:37):
Do you have a particular favorite, set of
games or generation that youenjoy playing more and more?
Blue Moon Falls (11:42):
Well, you may be surprised to find out it's
Gen 2.
Yeah, um, it's kind of funnybecause, again, I don't, I mean,
I had the Kanto experience frombut I, I just never really I
haven't had any feelings aboutGenerations 1 or 2, and all of
them are recent in the past twoyears.
But, it's definitely Gen 2.
(12:04):
And the more that I play it, themore I like it.
So I'm pretty set on it as myfavorite.
David Hernandez (12:08):
Was it about more recent compared to maybe
when you first started them thatyou think caught your interest
and made it one more of yourfavorites now?
Blue Moon Falls (12:15):
If I'm being honest, it's kind of a mix of
things.
Because, on one hand, I just doreally like the games.
the art style.
I like the feeling of playingthem.
I like the simplified battlestyle.
David Hernandez (12:25):
Mm hmm.
Mm
Blue Moon Falls (12:25):
less Without the natures and all the
complicated stuff, It's almostlike, uh, Rock, Paper, Scissors
with the type matchups andstuff.
I mean, there's, there's morestuff going on than just that,
but, I do like the simpleraspects of it, and just all the
features and all the side stuffaround it too.
I just find it all reallyfascinating by itself.
but when I played Gen 2, I wasalso going through a hard time
(12:46):
in my life.
David Hernandez (12:46):
hmm.
Blue Moon Falls (12:47):
think Gen 2 kind of helped me with that.
And that amplified my attachmentto it.
So, it's kind of a mix of boththings.
David Hernandez (12:55):
Sounds like Gen 2 is kind of your, I guess,
soothing point or your safespace to kind of go to when your
life was kind of falling apartand it kind of became a way for
you to kind of find yourselfwhen the, you know, the whole
world's crashing down.
Blue Moon Falls (13:07):
And it's funny, because then it led me to making
a website, which made me realizeeven more about myself, which is
that I actually want to do webdevelopment professionally at
some point.
Um,
David Hernandez (13:15):
Oh, wow.
Really?
Okay.
Blue Moon Falls (13:17):
yeah, I had no idea when I made the website
that it would become such a bigdeal for me, but, that's
actually why I'm back in collegenow.
I want to, do web development.
So
David Hernandez (13:25):
It's kind of interesting to see how Pokemon
can be a catalyst for so manypeople, because for you, it was
going back to Gen 2 that led youto me making the Blue Moon Falls
website, and now it leads toyour potential future career
aspirations.
That's kind of cool to see howPokemon is intertwined in your
life.
Blue Moon Falls (13:39):
Yeah, it's funny because I've met a lot of
people have gotten into codingof some sort through Pokemon,
which makes a lot of sensebecause they're video games,
but, it just seems to be acommon running thread with other
people as well.
David Hernandez (13:50):
Now, I know that we got to talk about your
favorite movie, and that's Spellof the Unknown, which came out
around the time of Johto.
Tell us about that.
Blue Moon Falls (13:58):
I'm going to be totally honest, I re watched the
movie this weekend just toprepare for this podcast.
and also just because I wantedto, I really liked the movie.
David Hernandez (14:06):
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Blue Moon Falls (14:07):
But um, I was like, oh I should re watch it
again.
Um, yes, Spelled and Unknown ismy favorite Pokemon movie,
pretty much by a landslide.
Uh, it makes me cry every singletime I watch it, and I'm 25
years old, so that's sayingsomething.
I just really like its depictionof Molly Hale, the little girl
character in it.
I know that the movie, I'mforgetting the name of the
(14:29):
person who wrote it, but theperson who wrote it.
wrote it for his actual daughterin real life.
this was the last Pokemon moviehe wrote before he passed away.
And I know that he struggledwith, like, drug addiction and a
bunch of stuff.
So, this movie was kind of alove letter to his daughter
before he passed away.
in the Japanese version, theMolly is named after his
daughter.
Has a different name.
I don't
David Hernandez (14:48):
Oh, wow.
I had no idea about this.
Yeah.
Blue Moon Falls (14:50):
it's crazy.
I think, a lot of the interviewsand, online posts related to
this have only been translatedin recent times.
I think by, um, Dr.
Lava, uh, if you know who he
David Hernandez (15:00):
Yes.
Yes.
Blue Moon Falls (15:03):
anyway, tangent aside, I think re watching it as
an adult, uh, made me realizejust, like, how much emotion
and, like, serious themes wereactually packed into this movie
that I did not notice as a kid.
Which makes sense, consideringwhere it came from, the basic
plot is that, um, there's a girlnamed Molly Hale and her dad is
like a researcher of theunknown, the Pokemon.
and he goes to some unknownruins to research and it never
(15:27):
really explains why the unknowndo this, but they, they
basically teleport him intoanother dimension, some sort of
torment nexus.
I don't know.
David Hernandez (15:36):
It's probably the troll.
That's just to be honest.
Blue Moon Falls (15:39):
Yeah, yeah, they're just trolling him.
And, you know, he disappears.
her mom, it says that shedisappeared in the dub.
I'm pretty sure in the originalJapanese, it's more explicit
that she's in the hospital forbeing like really ill or
something, but that's besidesthe point.
Both of her parents are gone.
and she's obviously very upsetabout this.
She's like five or something.
(15:59):
Both her parents are gone.
probably dead.
Who knows?
And The unknown, like, hear herbeing upset, and like, she's
like, messing with some unknownletters on the floor, and the
unknown gets summoned to her,and in this movie, the unknown
has the power to like, newrealities based on people's
thoughts and feelings, soessentially, trauma and her
(16:20):
grief about her parents getsprojected outside of her, and it
makes an imaginary Entei becauseher and her dad read a book
together about Entei and shealways thought he was cool like
Entei and, you know, brave likeEntei.
So this Entei appears, that theUnknown created and he, like,
takes the position of her fatherfor her.
and then a bunch of stuffhappens from there.
Ash and Co have to, basicallyget her to be like, hey, reality
(16:43):
is cool, actually.
Um, yes.
David Hernandez (16:46):
But I mean, That's difficult though,
because.
basically add more insight.
It's basically a book aboutmythical legendaries of the
Pokemon world at that time.
And that's what her and herfather would read like as kind
of a bedtime story.
And, you know, once her dadleaves, what does she have left?
She's in her by herself with amansion, you know, her mom, you
(17:09):
know, is of course sick.
Her dad is nowhere to be found.
That's difficult to kind of cometo wrestle with, especially at
such a young age.
Anyway, you were saying, sowhat, uh, with the movie, I
remember that you know, ofcourse the entity comes to life,
the unknown, I think they startbuilding like some kind of
crystal barrier around themansion.
Blue Moon Falls (17:27):
Yeah, the crystals kind of explode
outwards from the mansion, andthey encase it, and are like
destroying the landscape aroundand blocking other people out,
because she doesn't want anyoneto interfere with like her
perfect imaginary family, uh,Entei, and also Entei kidnaps
Ash's mom.
So they're encased in thiscrystalline castle, pretty much.
David Hernandez (17:48):
I guess, some of the stuff that you picked up
later on that you enjoy aboutthe movie that you didn't pick
up when you were younger?
Blue Moon Falls (17:53):
I just really relate to Molly.
the childhood trauma aspect isvery raw in the movie,
surprisingly.
I feel like the depiction ofMolly was just really on point.
like, for one, Ash's mom getskidnapped by her, um,
David Hernandez (18:06):
Oh yeah.
She thinks it's the mama.
Yeah.
I forgot about that.
Blue Moon Falls (18:09):
she projects motherhood onto Ash's mom and
like makes her into her mom.
And even when, Ash's mom comesto, like, she remembers where
she is and realizes that she'sbeen kidnapped.
she still empathizes with Molly.
She doesn't like freak out ather or get angry at her.
She recognizes that she is ahurting child who is missing her
mother and is able to show hercare.
(18:30):
Even when, um, Entei is fightingAsh, like, Delilah is like to,
like, at one point she hugs herand, is trying to tell her like,
we don't need to fight andstuff.
Like, there's a world out therewho loves you.
and the, the whole like messageof the movie is that.
Like, there are real people whowill love her, and she doesn't
need to be in this imaginaryuniverse to be safe and
(18:51):
comfortable.
And all the conflict stops, notbecause Ash, like, defeats
Entei, but just because shewants them to stop fighting, and
she wants to be with real peopleagain.
David Hernandez (18:59):
Mm hmm.
Blue Moon Falls (19:00):
and I just thought that was such a powerful
message for going through somuch.
Just people being willing to seehow she is hurting despite the
terrible things she's doing, andthen bring her to a better
place.
It's really touching for me.
It makes me cry every time Iwatch it.
David Hernandez (19:14):
I mean, like I said, it's a very tough topic to
talk about because again, youknow, she has, you know, that
trauma of not having bothparents and she has kind of come
to, it's basically anybody who'slost anybody or has been through
that kind of trauma in general,you know, it's what it's like to
kind of be in the darkness andfeel your world kind of crash it
behind you.
And then want to go back to whatit was and that's kind of what
Blue Moon Falls (19:36):
hmm.
David Hernandez (19:37):
was.
She wanted to go back to thetime when she was happy when she
both had a mom and a dad.
She didn't want to kind of faceit and I couldn't blame her.
Like I I said, they didn't holdback with that movie.
That's why it's one, it's a veryunderrated movie.
I remember we talked a littlebit about it.
I said, I felt that that movieis underrated compared to the
other two.
Cause I feel like the other twokind of overtake it.
But that one is just, I thinkhonestly, one of the better ones
that people should watch.
Yeah.
Blue Moon Falls (19:56):
Yeah, I agree with you.
Um, I think a lot of peopleprobably watched it when they
were younger and liked it justfine, but it didn't like stand
out or anything.
I mean, it has some cool fightscenes in it, but I think a lot
of it goes over your head untilyou re watch it as an adult.
and people just probably haven'tgiven it that chance.
I think that's why it'sunderrated.
That's my guess anyway.
David Hernandez (20:12):
Hey, it's probably true.
Hey, if y'all need to watchPokemon spell the unknown and
let me know if you do,
Blue Moon Falls (20:18):
Yeah.
Hey you! Yes, you with the ears!Don't go anywhere, just taking a
quick ad break.
We'll be right back.
Hey, trainers, come out toTrainer Con.
It's a dynamic Pokemonmarketplace and convention
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We have trading cards,collectibles, handmade artists
(20:40):
are gonna be there.
It'll be held March 23rd, 2025from 10 to 5:00 PM at Dallas
Event Center in Farmers Branchat 43 43 Sigma Road in Farmers
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A special thank you to MattMonkeybread, Gus Ulrich, and all
other patrons for your continuedsupport.
Now let's get back to theepisode.
David Hernandez (21:01):
of course you played Pokemon games, but you
also play Pokemon mysterydungeon, which is the spinoff of
the Pokemon main series games.
Tell us like, what's yourexperience with those games and
what do you love about thosecompared to the main series
games?
I
Blue Moon Falls (21:17):
in the Pokemon themselves.
my opinions have since changed.
I also love Pokemon trainersnow, but when I was a kid, I
thought the Pokemon were, youknow, the most interesting part
of the Pokemon franchise.
David Hernandez (21:27):
still have hope.
I like you.
Blue Moon Falls (21:30):
so I saw, um, commercials on TV for, um,
Explorers of Darkness and Timewere about to come out, and I
was seeing the commercials forthem.
I was like, oh my god, a worldwithout humans, and it's just
the Pokemon, that's awesome! SoI basically just asked it for it
for Christmas, that year just soI could play the Pokemon,
because I just, I thought thatwas inherently interesting.
I was not expecting the reallygood story they have.
(21:54):
it was the first video game toever make me cry.
and so I have a lot of nostalgiafor them, just for the fact that
I was so blown away by thesurprise, really nice story.
and I've played them in recenttimes.
not as much as main series,still really love them.
I'm still very nostalgic aboutthem.
So.
David Hernandez (22:09):
do you have any, uh, key moments that you
remember from playing thosegames?
Like any scenes that like, Iguess maybe touch you and then
you still kind of let live andfree in your head.
Blue Moon Falls (22:17):
This is the most straightforward answer that
everyone says about these games,but the ending, where you're, I
don't know if you're familiarwith the ending of History
Dungeon, but um, You basicallydie at the end.
You change the future, but youare from the future, in like,
the Explorers games.
when you change the future, youdisappear, and your partner
(22:37):
watches you disappear in frontof them, and then they go home
crying, and like, telling yourstory, and the credits roll, and
when you're a kid, like, You'rejust like, oh, I'm dead! Like,
the game's over! That's it! It'sreally, like, it's a tearjerker.
It has, like, this verybeautiful music playing.
And, oh my gosh, it's, like,really heavy.
and then after the credits roll,then it reveals that Dialga is,
(22:59):
like, thankful for you savingthe future.
And then he uses his time powersto bring you back.
but, at first you think you'regone forever.
And That will always stay in mybrain forever, because again,
first game to make me cry andthat's the first time I cried
over it,
David Hernandez (23:13):
Oh yeah.
And it's like, oh my gosh, I'mnot coming back.
There's not going to be asequel.
Blue Moon Falls (23:18):
Yeah, I thought, I thought I just
wouldn't be able to play thegame anymore, like it's over,
I'm gone, but no, you come backat the end,
David Hernandez (23:25):
Dude, could you imagine like if they did that in
the main series games?
That'd be wild.
Blue Moon Falls (23:28):
Yeah, that'd be crazy.
David Hernandez (23:30):
It's like I became Pokemon champion and then
all of a sudden just pass outand slowly pass away.
Blue Moon Falls (23:35):
Oh my god, your poor Pokemon get lost in some
save file purgatory forever.
David Hernandez (23:42):
Well, I mean, that's what always made me sad,
uh, especially with the Pokemonmovies, you know, Pokemon first
movie, of course, but then alsoI think the one that with, uh,
Pikachu was worried that Ash hadpassed away and he, you know,
the one time he spoke and itstill made me cry.
Blue Moon Falls (23:56):
You?
David Hernandez (23:57):
Yeah, I choose you.
That's what it was.
And it always made me cry to seelike how much Pikachu cared
about Ash and just seeing thoseemotions of, you know, what does
happen when a Pokemon, when wedo move on, you know, like in
the Pokemon world, it's yeah.
Blue Moon Falls (24:10):
I've watched I Choose You before only once, but
I remember that one sequencewhere Ash is like in real life
and everything is grayscale andlike Pokemon aren't real for a
little while, that was that wascrazy.
David Hernandez (24:21):
It was,
Blue Moon Falls (24:22):
mind more than anything else.
David Hernandez (24:24):
Because of your experience with Pokemon, you
gotta have a favorite Pokemon.
What is your favorite Pokemon?
Blue Moon Falls (24:28):
My favorite Pokémon is Quagsire.
there is no competition.
Quagsire is my number onefavorite Pokémon.
when I was first playing PokémonCrystal, I walked into the grass
on the first route that hasWooper and I saw Wooper and I
fell in love.
I just, that was it.
I, I loved Wooper from theinstant I saw it in Pokémon
Crystal for the first time.
and.
Then I was already getting intoshiny hunting at the very start
(24:50):
of my playthrough, um, which iskind of a long story that I
might be able to get into in asecond, but I shiny hunted a
wooper and then evolved it and Ihad a shiny quagsire on my team
named Jelly, and Jelly is likemy one and true partner forever,
I love her very much.
David Hernandez (25:05):
Aww.
what was the story behind theshiny hunting, since we're
already in it?
Blue Moon Falls (25:09):
Oh my god, yeah, so, Originally, one of my
alters was actually playingCrystal, and then I wanted to
play it instead, so we, weswitched off, um, and then it
became my playthroughafterwards.
but she had the misinformation,consider, we had never played
Gen 2 before, and we didn'treally talk to anyone who had
before now.
So, we didn't know that this wasmisinformation, but she thought
(25:33):
that The shiny odds for giftPokemon, like, stuff you get
from NPCs and stuff, like,including the starters, was
around 1 in 120.
this came from, like, aYouTuber, she's since corrected
the information, it was just anaccident.
but, We just took her at facevalue.
It's like, okay, sure, uh, thegift Pokemon in Crystal have an
odds of like 1 in 120 or so.
(25:55):
And so she was like, okay, whynot restart for a shiny starter?
Why not do the resets?
And then she actually got it in126 resets.
Which,
David Hernandez (26:03):
Oh my god.
Blue Moon Falls (26:04):
confirmed the, the misinformation to us.
and so when she gave theplaythrough to me, she let me
have the cartridge and then Istarted playing.
she hadn't even left the firsttown.
She basically just got thatshiny and then stopped.
so it's my playthrough now and Iwas like, hmm, well, since she
got a shiny so fast, why don't Ireset for the, the gift Eevee
from, from Bill?
(26:25):
And, you know, I go, I pass 120resets and I'm like, okay, I'm a
little unlucky.
No big deal.
And then I get to like, I think400 resets or so, and I'm like,
I don't think this is right.
I feel like I should have gottenit by now.
David Hernandez (26:40):
Oh my gosh.
Blue Moon Falls (26:41):
google the information, I find out the odds
are 1 in 8, 192.
I have a very late surprisedreaction about my Cyndaquil,
because I had no idea it wasthat lucky.
But then, I had already sunk allthe time into this Eevee.
I did 400 resets, and I'm like,I don't want to give up, so I
kept going, and I kept going,and I spent an entire month
shiny hunting that Eevee until Igot it at like one hun eight
(27:04):
thousand, hundred somethingresets,
David Hernandez (27:07):
Almost full odds, wow.
Yeah.
Blue Moon Falls (27:08):
yep, and I got really lucky.
I had such a rush of emotionfinally getting it after working
so hard for a month.
I was like, oh, I want to doshiny hunting more.
Um,
David Hernandez (27:18):
Oh god.
Blue Moon Falls (27:18):
obsessed with shiny hunting during the
playthrough and actually myfirst team ended up being six
entire shinies.
I'm kind of a Fulads purist now.
I don't mind what other peopledo, I just like Fulads a lot.
But I wasn't a Fulads puristyet.
So, um, I hunted Wooper there'slike an egg method in Gen 2.
It's not called Masuda Method,it's a different method, but,
David Hernandez (27:38):
Mm hmm.
Ha ha ha ha.
Blue Moon Falls (27:41):
odds, and I got the shiny grouper, and that is,
that's how I started shinyhunting, and now I'm a shiny
hunter because of thismisinformation that I thought
was true and then it wasn't, so.
David Hernandez (27:50):
do you prefer like the full odds because of
the challenge or like what makesthat your more preference to
kind of get shiny Pokemon?
Blue Moon Falls (27:58):
Yeah, it's kind of just about the journey for
me, I don't care as much aboutthe end result.
Of course I love having theshiny Pokemon, but shiny hunting
for long periods of time, itmakes me associate the end
result with, like, the people Ihung out with during that time,
and the other things I was doingwhile I was shiny hunting.
So they kind of become mini,like, time capsules, almost, and
(28:18):
I get to, like, hang out withpeople while I do it because
it's very, like, brain dead,like, floods hunting is very
just press the same buttonsthousands of times.
it's just kind of a social andmemory capsule type of thing,
which is why I like it so much.
David Hernandez (28:30):
It reminds me of my first experience with
Wooper because I loved Woopermyself.
And I always wanted to be anartist of some sorts growing up
because I was always jealous ofpeople who could draw well.
And I remembered like, look, Iwant to say I drew this.
So, I think it was actually thePokemon the movie.
They had the pre Pikachu, sceneor something like that where
Pikachu head butted a Quagsireat some point.
(28:52):
And
Blue Moon Falls (28:53):
I remember what you're talking
David Hernandez (28:54):
What I did is I paused the movie on my VCR and I
got myself a little notebookpaper and put it on top of the
screen and traced around it justand then that way, you know,
they can't see.
I just like traced it.
But now I was like and then Iwent to school.
I'm like, no, I drew it.
Where are you going to see thisimage from?
This is from the movie because Iwanted to be an artist so bad.
Blue Moon Falls (29:13):
That's actually really cute.
David Hernandez (29:14):
Oh, thank you.
Blue Moon Falls (29:16):
And actually, you're thinking about the start
of the third Pokemon movie?
Uh, Spell of the Unknown.
David Hernandez (29:20):
Yeah, I mean.
Blue Moon Falls (29:20):
that movie,
David Hernandez (29:21):
Yeah, because it was right before the, uh,
the, I think it was during thecredits actually, or the, uh,
introduction.
Blue Moon Falls (29:26):
Yeah, the opening credits, uh,
David Hernandez (29:27):
Yes.
Blue Moon Falls (29:28):
battles a random girl.
David Hernandez (29:29):
Yep.
Never see her again.
Blue Moon Falls (29:31):
Yep, that Quagsire.
They've actually retconnedQuagsire's design since Gen 2,
but the movie has the oldQuagsire design,
David Hernandez (29:38):
Well, I was going to actually ask you about
that since, you know, you havesuch a fondness for Wooper and
Cloudsire.
What are your thoughts onPaladin, Wooper, and of course,
Cloudsire?
Blue Moon Falls (29:45):
Oh, they're adorable.
I love them.
They're not like, they'll neverhold a candle to the original
Quagsire for me, but I do lovethem.
I think they're very cute.
David Hernandez (29:52):
Okay.
Did you actually use them foryour Scarlet Violet playthrough?
Blue Moon Falls (29:55):
Scarlet and Violet is the only Pokemon game
I have not played.
David Hernandez (29:58):
Really?
Okay.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
I didn't know that.
Blue Moon Falls (30:01):
well, one of my alters has
David Hernandez (30:02):
Mm
Blue Moon Falls (30:02):
it, so I know about it,
David Hernandez (30:04):
hmm.
Blue Moon Falls (30:05):
played it, if that makes sense.
David Hernandez (30:06):
It does, it does, yeah.
Blue Moon Falls (30:07):
yeah, but I haven't personally finished a
playthrough.
The open world stuff just isn'tfor me, so, um, I haven't played
it, and I'm into the anime rightnow, so I still, like Palde and
David Hernandez (30:17):
hmm.
Do you prefer, like, more of, Iguess, the restriction when it
came with the pixel gamescompared to now where
everything's open world and youcan kind of walk around?
Blue Moon Falls (30:25):
Yeah, I just like, the grid based RPG stuff,
I know that BDSP is verycontroversial, but I do like
BDSP on the Switch just becauseit's in the gameplay style that
I like.
David Hernandez (30:34):
What has kept you kind of coming back to play
Pokemon over and over?
Because, you know, you've been along time fan, you've gone
through most of the gamesoutside of the open world stuff,
What is it about the franchisethat you keep enjoying that
makes you want to stick with it?
Blue Moon Falls (30:47):
That's a really good question, because I could
answer in like 10 milliondifferent ways, it feels like,
David Hernandez (30:52):
Let's go.
We got 10 million minutes to go.
Blue Moon Falls (30:56):
Yeah, I guess so.
but like, there's, you know, mywebsite.
I really, I do genuinely enjoythe process of documentation.
There's just something aboutcompiling information that I
find very satisfying.
probably on account of me beingautistic.
That's very possible.
but I love doing that.
And then, I do genuinely justlove the world of Pokemon.
I think it's comforting, Thereis childhood bias.
(31:18):
I played it as a kid, andenjoyed it as a kid.
So, I enjoy it now, partiallyfor that reason.
but the Pokemon games are justso expansive.
There are so many details inthem.
it feels like I can researchthem or play them forever, and I
will never get to the end ofeverything that is in them.
And because of how you can teambuild different teams each time,
and there's so much variety, itfeels like playing them is never
(31:41):
quite the same thing over andover.
so I think it's just that.
I just, I like knowinginformation about Pokemon.
I like, being kind of anencyclopedia as much as
possible.
Um, I find it entertaining andit never ends.
And then there's, you know, newstuff coming out too.
So then I get to learn aboutthat too.
And it just, it never ends.
That, that's why.
David Hernandez (32:01):
I agree the same way because I always love,
when I know a random fact, anobscure Pokemon fact, and I get
to share it with people becauseit's like people know, of
course, some of the commonstuff, I love the deep dive of.
The history or the mythologicalside of Pokemon in Diamond and
Pearl, if you go to the Canalavelibrary I think or something
like that
Blue Moon Falls (32:19):
Yes.
David Hernandez (32:20):
to kind of read the little bookshelves and get
some of the tidbits that peopletend to probably overlook
because it's not part Of themain story.
I like breaking down andlearning about the Pokemon world
because there's So much morethat's even just within the
games that There's to uncoverand that's what I enjoy about
Pokemon too and I can kind ofunderstand like for you being
autistic it fits your need tokind of grasp the information be
(32:40):
able to kind of spew it outbecause you don't need to become
hyper focused and then also youget to organize stuff too.
Blue Moon Falls (32:45):
Mm hmm.
David Hernandez (32:46):
Yep.
Blue Moon Falls (32:47):
and then on top of that, Pokemon is a social
experience.
Most of my friends I've metthrough Pokemon and, It always
keeps me coming back to hang outwith people.
So that, that's a huge part ofit too.
there's just such a bigcommunity.
David Hernandez (32:58):
you've been very vocal about, disabilities,
you know, you have POTS, youhave autism.
And then of course, we talkedabout DID.
We How has the Pokemon communitybeen kind of, I guess, engaging,
willing to welcome you, when itcomes to your disability?
Blue Moon Falls (33:10):
Yeah, it's nice because, um, so much of the
community is online.
and so even when I'm sick athome or not feeling well, I'm
able to communicate with people.
I think the internet also just,there's a layer of separation.
People can't immediately judgeme for my disabilities if they
aren't as visible immediately.
but on the other hand.
I'm talking about how Pokemonappeals to me in an autistic
way.
Same thing for a lot of otherautistic people.
(33:32):
So I have met unfathomableamount of autistic people
specifically through Pokemon.
Especially once you get intothese more nerdy circles of like
technicalities and stuff.
David Hernandez (33:43):
Mm hmm.
Blue Moon Falls (33:43):
You meet a lot of other people.
So it's let me connect withpeople who are like minded to me
and that's been helpful.
And then, You know, so much ofit, again, is over the internet,
so that helps too.
that being said, it has broughtme out into the real world a
little more.
I was a bit of a shut in.
Uh, I'm working on that now.
I'm in a much better place in mylife than I was, but for a while
I didn't really leave my house awhole lot, for a variety of
(34:06):
reasons, health concerns, andalso just mental health issues
and whatnot.
Pokemon community has actuallygot me out more recently.
Last year, I went to a Pokemonconvention, like a local, small,
hosted convention for Pokemon.
I ran like a mystery gift booth,where you could come up and get
mystery gifts, event Pokemon forthe old games again.
David Hernandez (34:25):
Oh, wow.
Blue Moon Falls (34:26):
yeah, and then, um, like, went to, uh, a
regionals last year, just forfun.
Um, and I met up with someinternet friends, in a different
state, and that was fun too.
So.
It feels like I'm always findingnew ways to meet people and do
stuff when it comes to Pokemon.
So
David Hernandez (34:42):
You know, you said you were more of a shut in
and, you know, you're kind ofmore to yourself because of, you
know, part of the way you werealive, part of the mental
health, how difficult was it foryou to go and step outside of
your comfort zone to go to theregional to do this mystery
event?
Blue Moon Falls (34:55):
Well, at first it was harder last year was
better in that regard.
I had already kind of startedworking on that.
But it was, it was a process.
It took a while for me to getmore outside again.
I had dropped out of college in2019.
So actually not because of thepandemic, even though the
pandemic up timing really well,with that.
But, I dropped out of college in2019, and I was just going
(35:15):
through a lot of mental healthissues.
and also I hadn't been diagnosedwith POTS yet.
and I didn't know what was wrongwith me physically, but I knew
that something was wrong.
so I had to take a break to sortout all my health stuff.
And then that combining with thepandemic, where we had to be
inside for a while, kind ofexacerbated my already existing
issues with You know, beingafraid to leave the house and,
just struggling with socializingand all of that.
(35:36):
and then the pandemic ended andthen I kind of just kept not
leaving my house.
It kind of felt like I was stillsheltering, even when I wasn't
to.
but I knew that was an issue.
I knew that I wanted to get out.
I just was dealing with toomuch.
And then in 2023, I think Ireally started working on that.
I started getting out a littlebit more, you know, going to
(35:57):
dinner or, you know, juststepping outside for my doctor's
appointments and, small outings,nothing, nothing crazy.
And then, towards the end of2023, I was like, okay, I want
to do some bigger things.
I want to go to regionals inFebruary to meet like my
internet friends and, do someother stuff.
And that was a bigger jump.
Bye.
I had a little bit of experienceat that point, and, I think from
there, once I, you know,conquered going to another state
(36:19):
and, like, talking to people I'donly ever talked to on the
internet, it felt like I couldkind of do anything.
from there on out, I've been alittle bit more confident.
And, you know, now I'm goingback to classes, for the first
time since 2019, and I'm goingin person, and I'm handling it
pretty okay so far, so, Pokemonwas definitely a stepping stone
in that process, for sure.
but things were doing better nowthan they were.
David Hernandez (36:38):
It's kind of amazing, though, to see, like,
you know, you had this crisisgoing on for 2019 2020, of
course, makes it worse.
But thanks to Pokemon, it allowsyou to kind of relive your life
again and to get started and.
Blue Moon Falls (36:50):
feels like that.
David Hernandez (36:50):
Yeah, that's kind of, it's kind of cool.
Like Pokemon gave me arebirthing or in a way.
Blue Moon Falls (36:54):
and it's, again it's cool too because I
mentioned this earlier, but Italso made me realize what I want
to do as a living.
David Hernandez (37:00):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Blue Moon Falls (37:01):
kind of a rebirth of its own.
yeah, I had no idea when I madeBlue Moon Falls that I would,
you know, I love it so much.
the web design stuff was kind ofa means to an end at first.
I just, I wanted to provide theinformation in a way that was
accessible.
and I didn't realize that I wasreally into actually like coding
and doing the web stuff until Iwas, neck deep in some projects
(37:23):
for Bloomin Falls.
And I was like, wait, I actuallyreally enjoy this.
it's a hobby.
So.
David Hernandez (37:29):
Blue moon falls.
Of course, it's coming on threeyears.
You mentioned that way earlierwhen we started recording.
Blue Moon Falls (37:33):
Yeah, actually it just passed three years.
It
David Hernandez (37:35):
Oh,
Blue Moon Falls (37:36):
a second to
David Hernandez (37:36):
happy birthday to three years.
All right.
Blue moon falls hit three years.
Blue Moon Falls (37:40):
Yeah, I actually, I made it two days
after my birthday, like just myactual birthday.
So, uh, it's, I can kind of tieit with my birthday in my mind
because it's very close.
David Hernandez (37:49):
What has been the feedback since starting the
website?
Like what have people, what havepeople responded to when they
come across Blooming Falls?
That's awesome.
Well, Blooming Falls,
Blue Moon Falls (38:06):
successor to Geocities, which was, anyone
younger who is listening andprobably doesn't know what
Geocities is, um, it was an oldweb hosting thing, like you
could make your own websites onGeocities, and that was the main
way that people presentedthemselves online in like, you
know, 90s and early 2000s.
it's been defunct for a longtime, but NeoCities is kind of a
(38:27):
spiritual successor that like,takes the idea of Simple web
hosting, like the code on thereis pretty simple.
It's all static.
So there's no like back end towebsites.
You just kind of write the HTMLand the CSS and like the
JavaScript and that's it.
to be yourself to.
a creative place on theinternet.
and the reason I bring this upis because NeoCities has sort of
social media features.
(38:48):
there's a search bar.
You can actually search upwebsites on NeoCities.
and you can like add tags toyour website.
So like Blue Moon Falls has theso early on, before the website
was actually, you know, gettingattention from outside of
NeoCities, most people found itthrough the NeoCities website
browser.
And it was slow at first, Imean, there wasn't much on the
website so that makes sense,but, you know, I got some nice
(39:11):
messages occasionally.
and then I think, the first timeI ever got, More attention on
the website from outside ofNeoCities and outside this,
like, web niche, was when I didthe Crystal Sprite GIF archive.
it's literally just, a dump ofall the crystal sprites, like
the animated ones, but they havetransparent backgrounds.
for some reason, until I madethat webpage, there was No
(39:32):
source of the crystal GIFs, itseemed, with transparent
backgrounds that either hadwhite backgrounds or they were
APNGs, which are not GIFs and,are a lot more finicky to
display on things or save.
and I just wanted them as giftsso I did it myself and I posted
it on Twitter and like somepeople saw it and thought it was
useful probably just for addinggifts to like stream layouts and
that kind of thing.
(39:53):
I was already in the shinyhunting community so people who
need the shiny sprites on theirlayouts and stuff saw it.
and then it's been a steadystream since then.
Um, every time I upload a newbig project, I get like an
influx of people seeing thewebsite for the first time
because the thing gets spreadaround to different places.
and nowadays I have, I don't,NeoCity statistics aren't
(40:14):
reliable.
So I don't know how reliablethis number is, but, I get like
around 2, 000 unique visitsevery day, roughly, if we're
NeoCity statistics.
I have like a guest book on thewebsite where you can like leave
a comment, I'll just thewebsite, and it has 134
signatures, I just checked.
suffice to say I've gotten a lotof positive attention that I was
(40:35):
not expecting first made thewebsite.
I've never really had anythingother than positive attention in
particular, so,
David Hernandez (40:43):
I want to finish this interview with the
last question.
It's gonna be a fun one.
If somebody was going to battleyou.
What six Pokemon would youbring?
Blue Moon Falls (40:51):
Okay, I have this for you.
It would be Typhlosion,Pitmontop, Quagsire, Umbreon,
and Ampharos.
That was my first crystal teamand they're my partners.
David Hernandez (41:02):
All right.
I love it.
I love it.
Blue Moon Falls (41:04):
They're all shiny.
This is very important.
I've shiny hunted all of them.
David Hernandez (41:09):
well, blue moon falls.
Thank you for coming on.
As the pokeball turns before yougo, if people want to connect
with you, if they want to checkout your website, where can they
go?
By all means, please plug away.
Blue Moon Falls (41:17):
the main place I am on the internet is my
website, it's bluemoonfalls.
com.
no hyphens, no anything weird,it's just that.
And then, um, my personal socialmedias are PikaVs, which is
Pika, like Pokemon, and then Vs,like the end of Eevee, with an S
at the end, so it's A V E E S.
Um, yeah.
(41:38):
I'm on, like, Blue Sky thesedays.
Um, I don't really use Twitteranymore.
And, um, that's about it.
I'm kind of quiet on theinternet, so should just check
out my website.
Blumenfeld is, like, my mainthing.
Thank you for listening to Asthe Pokeball Turns.
Follow all my socials and joinour Discord community to stay
connected by clicking any of thelinks in the description of this
episode.
Tune in next time for moreepisodes featuring more people,
(42:01):
more stories, and more Pokemon.
Until next time.
My name is Ayano from Blue Moon Falls, and
this is my Pokémon story.
David Hernandez (00:42):
Welcome to, as the Pokeball turns, we will
interview people about theirexperience with Pokemon.
My name is David Hernandez.
I'm joined by Ayana from BlueMoon Falls, web host of the
website.
Ayana, welcome to As thePokeball Turns.
Blue Moon Falls (00:56):
Hi, thank you!
David Hernandez (00:57):
thank you for taking time out of your
schedule.
And I think a lot of people maynot know who you are, but you
actually have a very coolwebsite where you kind of dive
into like Gen 2 and you alsoshare the sprites.
Can you give like people insideof like, what's their website
about?
Blue Moon Falls (01:12):
Yeah, so, um, my website is Bloomin Falls.
I made it back in, oh god, whatyear was it?
It's been three years at thispoint.
Um, I think 2021 was when I madeit.
Yes, took me a second.
and it's meant to just be ageneral fan site for, the first
two generations of Pokémon.
it's very video game centric, sonot as much the TCG and anime.
(01:34):
and I just do whatever I wantrelated to those, uh, video
games on there.
Um, there's some articles andthere are also tools that you
can play with to, mess with yoursave files or, See other
statistics and values related tothe games
David Hernandez (01:48):
I have never seen such an homage to gen two
specifically, because I thinkyou uploaded some sprites from,
I think it was Pokemon stadium,Pokemon stadium two to where you
have the different colors, ifI'm not mistaken,
Blue Moon Falls (01:58):
Oh yeah, there is a tool on the site called the
Stadium Hue Previewer, and ithas all of the idle animations
of the 3D models used in theStadium 1 and 2 games on the N64
and can drive a slider to hueshift them, because the, um,
Stadium 1 and 2 games had a hueshifting feature where a
nicknamed Pokémon would be aslightly different color.
(02:20):
It's kind of the precursor toShinies, almost.
and the website lets youpreview, uh, the colors as they
would look on the N64.
David Hernandez (02:27):
what made you want to start that website?
clearly you must be passionateabout those generations to have
your own website and do all thatinformation.
Blue Moon Falls (02:34):
Yeah, so it's funny, people usually think that
I'm older than I am, like I musthave had experience with
Generations 1 and 2 when I was akid, but
David Hernandez (02:41):
Mhm.
Blue Moon Falls (02:42):
I got started with Generation 3, and I didn't
play Generation 2 until, thevery beginning of 2021, and I
was just really surprised by howmuch I enjoyed them.
I just really got into it forsome reason.
David Hernandez (02:55):
Mhm.
Blue Moon Falls (02:56):
had a lot of fun with my first playthrough
and everything, and then towardsthe end of 2021, I I remember I
was trying to train my Pokemonfor Pokemon Stadium 2, beating
the various battle cups in it,Generation 2 has a precursor to
a thing called EVs, they'rejust, it's a thing in the modern
Pokemon games, I was trying togain stat experience, which is
(03:21):
the EV precursor, and I couldn'tfind much documentation on it,
and then actually doing it was abig pain.
there was no way to like,automatically calculate it as I
was doing it.
And then I was like, it's kindof weird that games this old
don't have the best moderndocumentation sometimes on more
of this niche stuff.
(03:41):
And then I just spontaneouslydecided, what if I did it?
What if I fix this issue?
So then I made Bloomin Falls animpulse in an afternoon, and now
it's been going for three Mmhmm, mm
David Hernandez (03:54):
because sometimes we get so caught up in
the main series.
And, I'd look at it from PokemonColiseum and Pokemon XT.
Those are very niche games, butthere's not much data unless
you're very dedicated to it.
Going back to you playingPokemon city and Pokemon stadium
too.
I remember playing those games alot.
I remember frustrated as hellwith them as well.
Blue Moon Falls (04:13):
Yes.
David Hernandez (04:14):
And then
Blue Moon Falls (04:14):
difficult.
David Hernandez (04:15):
they are, they are immensely difficult.
And then just seeing how thedifferent colors of.
The Pokemon not realizing like,I guess they're tied to the
nicknames that people reallywouldn't know unless that
information is out there.
Blue Moon Falls (04:26):
Yeah, I think the nickname hue shift feature
has been relatively known about.
Like, if you were to look it up,you'd be able to find out.
they change color based on thenickname.
David Hernandez (04:37):
Right.
Blue Moon Falls (04:38):
but we didn't know the exact details, for a
while.
there's research done bysomebody, online into how
exactly the nickname featureworks.
It basically checks each letterand then it does some math on
the value that represents eachletter in the nickname and it
compares it with your trainername and ID and then it spits
(04:59):
out a final to hue shift Andthat's how it determines how far
the Pokémon should be shifted ineither direction of color.
But this was all contained in aGoogle document.
It super accessible and alsothere was no like automatic
thing to see the differentcolors live.
So I took the research, Iconsolidated it into an article
(05:19):
with more images and probablyeasier to read, and then I made
the hue shifter for it.
for ages we didn't know theexact details, and then the
exact details were all just in aGoogle document.
David Hernandez (05:31):
where everything is usually
Blue Moon Falls (05:32):
Yeah, much.
Actually,
David Hernandez (05:35):
you know, your first game was actually with the
gen three games, Pokemon, Ruby,Sapphire, and Emerald.
Talk to me about Josh.
Blue Moon Falls (05:41):
um, Pokemon Leaf Green was the first game
that I
David Hernandez (05:43):
Oh, really?
So you did Canto still.
Blue Moon Falls (05:45):
Yes.
David Hernandez (05:46):
tell me about your first experience diving
into Pokemon, like playingLeafgreen.
Blue Moon Falls (05:50):
So, I was, uh, four years old when I had a
babysitter, who was like ateenager at the time, and she,
Brought her Pokemon Leaf Greento our house, I guess, just
cause She got bored.
Me and my sister were prettywell behaved.
Um, so she would be playing leafgreen on the couch and I'd start
incessantly asking her questionswhat she was doing because I
(06:11):
thought it was reallyinteresting.
and then that year I begged mymom to get me leaf green and the
same exact, GBA SP that she hadfor my birthday on my fifth
birthday.
And then I got it.
I don't remember playing myfirst playthrough super well
because, uh, I was five.
but I did pick Squirtle as myfirst starter because, my
babysitter had Blastoise, so Iwas copying her.
(06:32):
that being said, I do considerBulbasaur to kind of be my first
starter because I used to replaythe game a lot and I would
always pick Bulbasaur.
That was kind of the firstchoice I made of my own and not
copying my babysitter.
Um, Yeah, that's about it.
I used to replay the game overand over because I didn't have
any of the other Pokemon gamesyet So whenever I wanted to play
Pokemon, I just restartedLeafgreen a million times
David Hernandez (06:52):
What did your babysitter think once you got
the game?
Like, would y'all play the gamestogether?
Like was there any kind ofconnection melt that way?
Blue Moon Falls (06:58):
Yeah, actually we didn't play the games
together as much as we Drewtogether.
Uh, she was an artist, hobbyist,and we would print out pictures
of various Pokemon and like drawthem while she was over together
So that was our main Pokemonthing going forward.
It was more of just drawing them
David Hernandez (07:14):
What Pokemon do you remember drawing at the
time?
Cause I think you said youdabble in artists, if I'm not
mistaken.
Blue Moon Falls (07:19):
Yes, I think we're gonna talk about me having
DID later, but you know, one ofmy alters is, uh, an artist, and
so I have art experience kind ofthrough her.
Uh, I don't do it very muchanymore, but she does, so,
David Hernandez (07:31):
Mm hmm.
Blue Moon Falls (07:32):
history is full of art and stuff, so we drew a
lot of Pokemon.
Mostly Pikachu.
Just really like Pikachu.
It's what it's made for, it'sthe mascot.
David Hernandez (07:43):
That's true.
That's true.
Hey, better than me and Ali candraw a voltorb and an electrode
because they're circles.
Ha ha ha.
Blue Moon Falls (07:48):
Yeah, makes sense.
David Hernandez (07:49):
You said, like, you have an altar.
Can you give, like, insight on,like, what is that, for those
who aren't familiar?
Blue Moon Falls (07:54):
Yeah, so I have dissociative identity disorder.
it's a disorder caused bychildhood trauma.
but it's characterized by havingthese things called alters.
people.
usually know them as likemultiple personalities in air
quotes.
We don't call it that anymore,they're called alters.
it's basically I have kind ofother people in my brain who
sometimes take over and do theirown thing and then I come back
(08:16):
and it's a little hard toexplain, but, I've been living
with it my entire life.
So, yeah.
David Hernandez (08:22):
At what point did you, I guess, discover that
you had this D.
I.
D.?
And, you know, how did it comeabout that, when it first
happened, or what early memoriesdo you have?
Blue Moon Falls (08:31):
Well, that's a little convoluted because DID is
a disorder that's very covert,usually,
David Hernandez (08:36):
Sure.
Blue Moon Falls (08:36):
who have it.
People with DID often don'trealize they have DID for a
pretty long time, usually intoadulthood.
Not always, people can realizeearlier, but a lot of people
don't realize until their 30sand 40s.
Obviously, I'm not in my 30s or40s, so I realized a bit earlier
than that.
I realized I had alters when Iwas 16.
Um, I wasn't diagnosed withanything yet.
I just realized there wassomething going on.
(08:58):
then through multiple yearsstruggle in the, uh, mental
health system for a long time,because DID is really hard to
get diagnosed, even if you haveit.
Just,
David Hernandez (09:06):
Yes.
Blue Moon Falls (09:07):
of people who are knowledgeable on it.
so, I finally got the rightdoctor in, like, 2019, and I got
diagnosed with it.
So, I've been diagnosed for, um,six years now?
Like, more like five and a half,because it was the latter half
of, 2019.
But yeah, so it's been, it'sbeen a while.
I've known more or less that Ihave it for nine years, and then
I've been diagnosed for six.
David Hernandez (09:26):
I think it's difficult for people who aren't
in the mental health sphere,because people will think like,
oh, maybe you're just like makebelieve and pretending making
your own, personality, but it'smore complex than that, because
it's like you have a differentpersonality.
to where it comes out with, youknow, controlling, you still
believe it.
And for me, it reminds me ofwhen I had clients who had
schizophrenia
Blue Moon Falls (09:46):
hmm.
David Hernandez (09:46):
they would not like down to the bone, believe
there's something coming out ofthat TV.
There's something that there'sshadows after them.
There's things under their skin,stuff like that to where they're
not lying.
They actually physically believeit.
And that's what it seems similarto me.
Like it's obviouslyschizophrenia and DID is
different, But that's theclosest comparison I can
(10:07):
remember from my own experience.
And I can understand that.
Yeah.
Some people just think you'rekind of BSing, but you really
aren't.
Unfortunately.
Blue Moon Falls (10:14):
Yeah, and the thing is DID also comes with a
of other symptoms.
It's not just the themselves.
so, more complex than peoplegive it credit for.
I think people just have thatmisunderstanding that it's kind
of just make believe playingpretend as other people just
because it, it kind of looksthat way on the outside if you
don't know what's going on, butit's not.
It's a known psychologicalphenomenon and it's a real thing
(10:37):
and, and there's also a lot moreto it than just the personality
changing aspect, so.
David Hernandez (10:42):
going back to the Pokemon side of things, you
had an alter where you aredrawing.
You're still engaged with thefranchise of playing Pokemon
Leaf Green.
Did you continue to stick withthe franchise throughout.
And what about the franchise?
Did you enjoy playing
Blue Moon Falls (10:55):
Yeah, we've been Pokémon fans entire life.
my mom getting me leaf green formy birthday was a life changing
event and my life was never thesame after that.
Pokémon has been in my life eversince.
It's mostly been the videogames, most of my life.
I did have a brief stint withthe TCG in 2019, 2018.
And then the pandemic hit, andIt became really hard to collect
(11:16):
cards because of all thescalping, and I haven't gone
back to it since.
So, time with the TCG was verybrief.
and then, I'm actually into theanime now, with the newest
season, but I was not into theanime before Gen 9, so, the
video games my entire life andI've bought them as they come
out and, play them when they'renew.
so I've seen every generationsince Gen 3.
David Hernandez (11:37):
Do you have a particular favorite, set of
games or generation that youenjoy playing more and more?
Blue Moon Falls (11:42):
Well, you may be surprised to find out it's
Gen 2.
Yeah, um, it's kind of funnybecause, again, I don't, I mean,
I had the Kanto experience frombut I, I just never really I
haven't had any feelings aboutGenerations 1 or 2, and all of
them are recent in the past twoyears.
But, it's definitely Gen 2.
(12:04):
And the more that I play it, themore I like it.
So I'm pretty set on it as myfavorite.
David Hernandez (12:08):
Was it about more recent compared to maybe
when you first started them thatyou think caught your interest
and made it one more of yourfavorites now?
Blue Moon Falls (12:15):
If I'm being honest, it's kind of a mix of
things.
Because, on one hand, I just doreally like the games.
the art style.
I like the feeling of playingthem.
I like the simplified battlestyle.
David Hernandez (12:25):
Mm hmm.
Mm
Blue Moon Falls (12:25):
less Without the natures and all the
complicated stuff, It's almostlike, uh, Rock, Paper, Scissors
with the type matchups andstuff.
I mean, there's, there's morestuff going on than just that,
but, I do like the simpleraspects of it, and just all the
features and all the side stuffaround it too.
I just find it all reallyfascinating by itself.
but when I played Gen 2, I wasalso going through a hard time
(12:46):
in my life.
David Hernandez (12:46):
hmm.
Blue Moon Falls (12:47):
think Gen 2 kind of helped me with that.
And that amplified my attachmentto it.
So, it's kind of a mix of boththings.
David Hernandez (12:55):
Sounds like Gen 2 is kind of your, I guess,
soothing point or your safespace to kind of go to when your
life was kind of falling apartand it kind of became a way for
you to kind of find yourselfwhen the, you know, the whole
world's crashing down.
Blue Moon Falls (13:07):
And it's funny, because then it led me to making
a website, which made me realizeeven more about myself, which is
that I actually want to do webdevelopment professionally at
some point.
Um,
David Hernandez (13:15):
Oh, wow.
Really?
Okay.
Blue Moon Falls (13:17):
yeah, I had no idea when I made the website
that it would become such a bigdeal for me, but, that's
actually why I'm back in collegenow.
I want to, do web development.
So
David Hernandez (13:25):
It's kind of interesting to see how Pokemon
can be a catalyst for so manypeople, because for you, it was
going back to Gen 2 that led youto me making the Blue Moon Falls
website, and now it leads toyour potential future career
aspirations.
That's kind of cool to see howPokemon is intertwined in your
life.
Blue Moon Falls (13:39):
Yeah, it's funny because I've met a lot of
people have gotten into codingof some sort through Pokemon,
which makes a lot of sensebecause they're video games,
but, it just seems to be acommon running thread with other
people as well.
David Hernandez (13:50):
Now, I know that we got to talk about your
favorite movie, and that's Spellof the Unknown, which came out
around the time of Johto.
Tell us about that.
Blue Moon Falls (13:58):
I'm going to be totally honest, I re watched the
movie this weekend just toprepare for this podcast.
and also just because I wantedto, I really liked the movie.
David Hernandez (14:06):
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Blue Moon Falls (14:07):
But um, I was like, oh I should re watch it
again.
Um, yes, Spelled and Unknown ismy favorite Pokemon movie,
pretty much by a landslide.
Uh, it makes me cry every singletime I watch it, and I'm 25
years old, so that's sayingsomething.
I just really like its depictionof Molly Hale, the little girl
character in it.
I know that the movie, I'mforgetting the name of the
(14:29):
person who wrote it, but theperson who wrote it.
wrote it for his actual daughterin real life.
this was the last Pokemon moviehe wrote before he passed away.
And I know that he struggledwith, like, drug addiction and a
bunch of stuff.
So, this movie was kind of alove letter to his daughter
before he passed away.
in the Japanese version, theMolly is named after his
daughter.
Has a different name.
I don't
David Hernandez (14:48):
Oh, wow.
I had no idea about this.
Yeah.
Blue Moon Falls (14:50):
it's crazy.
I think, a lot of the interviewsand, online posts related to
this have only been translatedin recent times.
I think by, um, Dr.
Lava, uh, if you know who he
David Hernandez (15:00):
Yes.
Yes.
Blue Moon Falls (15:03):
anyway, tangent aside, I think re watching it as
an adult, uh, made me realizejust, like, how much emotion
and, like, serious themes wereactually packed into this movie
that I did not notice as a kid.
Which makes sense, consideringwhere it came from, the basic
plot is that, um, there's a girlnamed Molly Hale and her dad is
like a researcher of theunknown, the Pokemon.
and he goes to some unknownruins to research and it never
(15:27):
really explains why the unknowndo this, but they, they
basically teleport him intoanother dimension, some sort of
torment nexus.
I don't know.
David Hernandez (15:36):
It's probably the troll.
That's just to be honest.
Blue Moon Falls (15:39):
Yeah, yeah, they're just trolling him.
And, you know, he disappears.
her mom, it says that shedisappeared in the dub.
I'm pretty sure in the originalJapanese, it's more explicit
that she's in the hospital forbeing like really ill or
something, but that's besidesthe point.
Both of her parents are gone.
and she's obviously very upsetabout this.
She's like five or something.
(15:59):
Both her parents are gone.
probably dead.
Who knows?
And The unknown, like, hear herbeing upset, and like, she's
like, messing with some unknownletters on the floor, and the
unknown gets summoned to her,and in this movie, the unknown
has the power to like, newrealities based on people's
thoughts and feelings, soessentially, trauma and her
(16:20):
grief about her parents getsprojected outside of her, and it
makes an imaginary Entei becauseher and her dad read a book
together about Entei and shealways thought he was cool like
Entei and, you know, brave likeEntei.
So this Entei appears, that theUnknown created and he, like,
takes the position of her fatherfor her.
and then a bunch of stuffhappens from there.
Ash and Co have to, basicallyget her to be like, hey, reality
(16:43):
is cool, actually.
Um, yes.
David Hernandez (16:46):
But I mean, That's difficult though,
because.
basically add more insight.
It's basically a book aboutmythical legendaries of the
Pokemon world at that time.
And that's what her and herfather would read like as kind
of a bedtime story.
And, you know, once her dadleaves, what does she have left?
She's in her by herself with amansion, you know, her mom, you
(17:09):
know, is of course sick.
Her dad is nowhere to be found.
That's difficult to kind of cometo wrestle with, especially at
such a young age.
Anyway, you were saying, sowhat, uh, with the movie, I
remember that you know, ofcourse the entity comes to life,
the unknown, I think they startbuilding like some kind of
crystal barrier around themansion.
Blue Moon Falls (17:27):
Yeah, the crystals kind of explode
outwards from the mansion, andthey encase it, and are like
destroying the landscape aroundand blocking other people out,
because she doesn't want anyoneto interfere with like her
perfect imaginary family, uh,Entei, and also Entei kidnaps
Ash's mom.
So they're encased in thiscrystalline castle, pretty much.
David Hernandez (17:48):
I guess, some of the stuff that you picked up
later on that you enjoy aboutthe movie that you didn't pick
up when you were younger?
Blue Moon Falls (17:53):
I just really relate to Molly.
the childhood trauma aspect isvery raw in the movie,
surprisingly.
I feel like the depiction ofMolly was just really on point.
like, for one, Ash's mom getskidnapped by her, um,
David Hernandez (18:06):
Oh yeah.
She thinks it's the mama.
Yeah.
I forgot about that.
Blue Moon Falls (18:09):
she projects motherhood onto Ash's mom and
like makes her into her mom.
And even when, Ash's mom comesto, like, she remembers where
she is and realizes that she'sbeen kidnapped.
she still empathizes with Molly.
She doesn't like freak out ather or get angry at her.
She recognizes that she is ahurting child who is missing her
mother and is able to show hercare.
(18:30):
Even when, um, Entei is fightingAsh, like, Delilah is like to,
like, at one point she hugs herand, is trying to tell her like,
we don't need to fight andstuff.
Like, there's a world out therewho loves you.
and the, the whole like messageof the movie is that.
Like, there are real people whowill love her, and she doesn't
need to be in this imaginaryuniverse to be safe and
(18:51):
comfortable.
And all the conflict stops, notbecause Ash, like, defeats
Entei, but just because shewants them to stop fighting, and
she wants to be with real peopleagain.
David Hernandez (18:59):
Mm hmm.
Blue Moon Falls (19:00):
and I just thought that was such a powerful
message for going through somuch.
Just people being willing to seehow she is hurting despite the
terrible things she's doing, andthen bring her to a better
place.
It's really touching for me.
It makes me cry every time Iwatch it.
David Hernandez (19:14):
I mean, like I said, it's a very tough topic to
talk about because again, youknow, she has, you know, that
trauma of not having bothparents and she has kind of come
to, it's basically anybody who'slost anybody or has been through
that kind of trauma in general,you know, it's what it's like to
kind of be in the darkness andfeel your world kind of crash it
behind you.
And then want to go back to whatit was and that's kind of what
Blue Moon Falls (19:36):
hmm.
David Hernandez (19:37):
was.
She wanted to go back to thetime when she was happy when she
both had a mom and a dad.
She didn't want to kind of faceit and I couldn't blame her.
Like I I said, they didn't holdback with that movie.
That's why it's one, it's a veryunderrated movie.
I remember we talked a littlebit about it.
I said, I felt that that movieis underrated compared to the
other two.
Cause I feel like the other twokind of overtake it.
But that one is just, I thinkhonestly, one of the better ones
that people should watch.
Yeah.
Blue Moon Falls (19:56):
Yeah, I agree with you.
Um, I think a lot of peopleprobably watched it when they
were younger and liked it justfine, but it didn't like stand
out or anything.
I mean, it has some cool fightscenes in it, but I think a lot
of it goes over your head untilyou re watch it as an adult.
and people just probably haven'tgiven it that chance.
I think that's why it'sunderrated.
That's my guess anyway.
David Hernandez (20:12):
Hey, it's probably true.
Hey, if y'all need to watchPokemon spell the unknown and
let me know if you do,
Blue Moon Falls (20:18):
Yeah.
Hey you! Yes, you with the ears!Don't go anywhere, just taking a
quick ad break.
We'll be right back.
Hey, trainers, come out toTrainer Con.
It's a dynamic Pokemonmarketplace and convention
offering fans a vibrant place tobuy, sell, and celebrate all
things Pokemon and collectible.
We have trading cards,collectibles, handmade artists
(20:40):
are gonna be there.
It'll be held March 23rd, 2025from 10 to 5:00 PM at Dallas
Event Center in Farmers Branchat 43 43 Sigma Road in Farmers
Branch, Texas.
A special thank you to MattMonkeybread, Gus Ulrich, and all
other patrons for your continuedsupport.
Now let's get back to theepisode.
David Hernandez (21:01):
of course you played Pokemon games, but you
also play Pokemon mysterydungeon, which is the spinoff of
the Pokemon main series games.
Tell us like, what's yourexperience with those games and
what do you love about thosecompared to the main series
games?
I
Blue Moon Falls (21:17):
in the Pokemon themselves.
my opinions have since changed.
I also love Pokemon trainersnow, but when I was a kid, I
thought the Pokemon were, youknow, the most interesting part
of the Pokemon franchise.
David Hernandez (21:27):
still have hope.
I like you.
Blue Moon Falls (21:30):
so I saw, um, commercials on TV for, um,
Explorers of Darkness and Timewere about to come out, and I
was seeing the commercials forthem.
I was like, oh my god, a worldwithout humans, and it's just
the Pokemon, that's awesome! SoI basically just asked it for it
for Christmas, that year just soI could play the Pokemon,
because I just, I thought thatwas inherently interesting.
I was not expecting the reallygood story they have.
(21:54):
it was the first video game toever make me cry.
and so I have a lot of nostalgiafor them, just for the fact that
I was so blown away by thesurprise, really nice story.
and I've played them in recenttimes.
not as much as main series,still really love them.
I'm still very nostalgic aboutthem.
So.
David Hernandez (22:09):
do you have any, uh, key moments that you
remember from playing thosegames?
Like any scenes that like, Iguess maybe touch you and then
you still kind of let live andfree in your head.
Blue Moon Falls (22:17):
This is the most straightforward answer that
everyone says about these games,but the ending, where you're, I
don't know if you're familiarwith the ending of History
Dungeon, but um, You basicallydie at the end.
You change the future, but youare from the future, in like,
the Explorers games.
when you change the future, youdisappear, and your partner
(22:37):
watches you disappear in frontof them, and then they go home
crying, and like, telling yourstory, and the credits roll, and
when you're a kid, like, You'rejust like, oh, I'm dead! Like,
the game's over! That's it! It'sreally, like, it's a tearjerker.
It has, like, this verybeautiful music playing.
And, oh my gosh, it's, like,really heavy.
and then after the credits roll,then it reveals that Dialga is,
(22:59):
like, thankful for you savingthe future.
And then he uses his time powersto bring you back.
but, at first you think you'regone forever.
And That will always stay in mybrain forever, because again,
first game to make me cry andthat's the first time I cried
over it,
David Hernandez (23:13):
Oh yeah.
And it's like, oh my gosh, I'mnot coming back.
There's not going to be asequel.
Blue Moon Falls (23:18):
Yeah, I thought, I thought I just
wouldn't be able to play thegame anymore, like it's over,
I'm gone, but no, you come backat the end,
David Hernandez (23:25):
Dude, could you imagine like if they did that in
the main series games?
That'd be wild.
Blue Moon Falls (23:28):
Yeah, that'd be crazy.
David Hernandez (23:30):
It's like I became Pokemon champion and then
all of a sudden just pass outand slowly pass away.
Blue Moon Falls (23:35):
Oh my god, your poor Pokemon get lost in some
save file purgatory forever.
David Hernandez (23:42):
Well, I mean, that's what always made me sad,
uh, especially with the Pokemonmovies, you know, Pokemon first
movie, of course, but then alsoI think the one that with, uh,
Pikachu was worried that Ash hadpassed away and he, you know,
the one time he spoke and itstill made me cry.
Blue Moon Falls (23:56):
You?
David Hernandez (23:57):
Yeah, I choose you.
That's what it was.
And it always made me cry to seelike how much Pikachu cared
about Ash and just seeing thoseemotions of, you know, what does
happen when a Pokemon, when wedo move on, you know, like in
the Pokemon world, it's yeah.
Blue Moon Falls (24:10):
I've watched I Choose You before only once, but
I remember that one sequencewhere Ash is like in real life
and everything is grayscale andlike Pokemon aren't real for a
little while, that was that wascrazy.
David Hernandez (24:21):
It was,
Blue Moon Falls (24:22):
mind more than anything else.
David Hernandez (24:24):
Because of your experience with Pokemon, you
gotta have a favorite Pokemon.
What is your favorite Pokemon?
Blue Moon Falls (24:28):
My favorite Pokémon is Quagsire.
there is no competition.
Quagsire is my number onefavorite Pokémon.
when I was first playing PokémonCrystal, I walked into the grass
on the first route that hasWooper and I saw Wooper and I
fell in love.
I just, that was it.
I, I loved Wooper from theinstant I saw it in Pokémon
Crystal for the first time.
and.
Then I was already getting intoshiny hunting at the very start
(24:50):
of my playthrough, um, which iskind of a long story that I
might be able to get into in asecond, but I shiny hunted a
wooper and then evolved it and Ihad a shiny quagsire on my team
named Jelly, and Jelly is likemy one and true partner forever,
I love her very much.
David Hernandez (25:05):
Aww.
what was the story behind theshiny hunting, since we're
already in it?
Blue Moon Falls (25:09):
Oh my god, yeah, so, Originally, one of my
alters was actually playingCrystal, and then I wanted to
play it instead, so we, weswitched off, um, and then it
became my playthroughafterwards.
but she had the misinformation,consider, we had never played
Gen 2 before, and we didn'treally talk to anyone who had
before now.
So, we didn't know that this wasmisinformation, but she thought
(25:33):
that The shiny odds for giftPokemon, like, stuff you get
from NPCs and stuff, like,including the starters, was
around 1 in 120.
this came from, like, aYouTuber, she's since corrected
the information, it was just anaccident.
but, We just took her at facevalue.
It's like, okay, sure, uh, thegift Pokemon in Crystal have an
odds of like 1 in 120 or so.
(25:55):
And so she was like, okay, whynot restart for a shiny starter?
Why not do the resets?
And then she actually got it in126 resets.
Which,
David Hernandez (26:03):
Oh my god.
Blue Moon Falls (26:04):
confirmed the, the misinformation to us.
and so when she gave theplaythrough to me, she let me
have the cartridge and then Istarted playing.
she hadn't even left the firsttown.
She basically just got thatshiny and then stopped.
so it's my playthrough now and Iwas like, hmm, well, since she
got a shiny so fast, why don't Ireset for the, the gift Eevee
from, from Bill?
(26:25):
And, you know, I go, I pass 120resets and I'm like, okay, I'm a
little unlucky.
No big deal.
And then I get to like, I think400 resets or so, and I'm like,
I don't think this is right.
I feel like I should have gottenit by now.
David Hernandez (26:40):
Oh my gosh.
Blue Moon Falls (26:41):
google the information, I find out the odds
are 1 in 8, 192.
I have a very late surprisedreaction about my Cyndaquil,
because I had no idea it wasthat lucky.
But then, I had already sunk allthe time into this Eevee.
I did 400 resets, and I'm like,I don't want to give up, so I
kept going, and I kept going,and I spent an entire month
shiny hunting that Eevee until Igot it at like one hun eight
(27:04):
thousand, hundred somethingresets,
David Hernandez (27:07):
Almost full odds, wow.
Yeah.
Blue Moon Falls (27:08):
yep, and I got really lucky.
I had such a rush of emotionfinally getting it after working
so hard for a month.
I was like, oh, I want to doshiny hunting more.
Um,
David Hernandez (27:18):
Oh god.
Blue Moon Falls (27:18):
obsessed with shiny hunting during the
playthrough and actually myfirst team ended up being six
entire shinies.
I'm kind of a Fulads purist now.
I don't mind what other peopledo, I just like Fulads a lot.
But I wasn't a Fulads puristyet.
So, um, I hunted Wooper there'slike an egg method in Gen 2.
It's not called Masuda Method,it's a different method, but,
David Hernandez (27:38):
Mm hmm.
Ha ha ha ha.
Blue Moon Falls (27:41):
odds, and I got the shiny grouper, and that is,
that's how I started shinyhunting, and now I'm a shiny
hunter because of thismisinformation that I thought
was true and then it wasn't, so.
David Hernandez (27:50):
do you prefer like the full odds because of
the challenge or like what makesthat your more preference to
kind of get shiny Pokemon?
Blue Moon Falls (27:58):
Yeah, it's kind of just about the journey for
me, I don't care as much aboutthe end result.
Of course I love having theshiny Pokemon, but shiny hunting
for long periods of time, itmakes me associate the end
result with, like, the people Ihung out with during that time,
and the other things I was doingwhile I was shiny hunting.
So they kind of become mini,like, time capsules, almost, and
(28:18):
I get to, like, hang out withpeople while I do it because
it's very, like, brain dead,like, floods hunting is very
just press the same buttonsthousands of times.
it's just kind of a social andmemory capsule type of thing,
which is why I like it so much.
David Hernandez (28:30):
It reminds me of my first experience with
Wooper because I loved Woopermyself.
And I always wanted to be anartist of some sorts growing up
because I was always jealous ofpeople who could draw well.
And I remembered like, look, Iwant to say I drew this.
So, I think it was actually thePokemon the movie.
They had the pre Pikachu, sceneor something like that where
Pikachu head butted a Quagsireat some point.
(28:52):
And
Blue Moon Falls (28:53):
I remember what you're talking
David Hernandez (28:54):
What I did is I paused the movie on my VCR and I
got myself a little notebookpaper and put it on top of the
screen and traced around it justand then that way, you know,
they can't see.
I just like traced it.
But now I was like and then Iwent to school.
I'm like, no, I drew it.
Where are you going to see thisimage from?
This is from the movie because Iwanted to be an artist so bad.
Blue Moon Falls (29:13):
That's actually really cute.
David Hernandez (29:14):
Oh, thank you.
Blue Moon Falls (29:16):
And actually, you're thinking about the start
of the third Pokemon movie?
Uh, Spell of the Unknown.
David Hernandez (29:20):
Yeah, I mean.
Blue Moon Falls (29:20):
that movie,
David Hernandez (29:21):
Yeah, because it was right before the, uh,
the, I think it was during thecredits actually, or the, uh,
introduction.
Blue Moon Falls (29:26):
Yeah, the opening credits, uh,
David Hernandez (29:27):
Yes.
Blue Moon Falls (29:28):
battles a random girl.
David Hernandez (29:29):
Yep.
Never see her again.
Blue Moon Falls (29:31):
Yep, that Quagsire.
They've actually retconnedQuagsire's design since Gen 2,
but the movie has the oldQuagsire design,
David Hernandez (29:38):
Well, I was going to actually ask you about
that since, you know, you havesuch a fondness for Wooper and
Cloudsire.
What are your thoughts onPaladin, Wooper, and of course,
Cloudsire?
Blue Moon Falls (29:45):
Oh, they're adorable.
I love them.
They're not like, they'll neverhold a candle to the original
Quagsire for me, but I do lovethem.
I think they're very cute.
David Hernandez (29:52):
Okay.
Did you actually use them foryour Scarlet Violet playthrough?
Blue Moon Falls (29:55):
Scarlet and Violet is the only Pokemon game
I have not played.
David Hernandez (29:58):
Really?
Okay.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
I didn't know that.
Blue Moon Falls (30:01):
well, one of my alters has
David Hernandez (30:02):
Mm
Blue Moon Falls (30:02):
it, so I know about it,
David Hernandez (30:04):
hmm.
Blue Moon Falls (30:05):
played it, if that makes sense.
David Hernandez (30:06):
It does, it does, yeah.
Blue Moon Falls (30:07):
yeah, but I haven't personally finished a
playthrough.
The open world stuff just isn'tfor me, so, um, I haven't played
it, and I'm into the anime rightnow, so I still, like Palde and
David Hernandez (30:17):
hmm.
Do you prefer, like, more of, Iguess, the restriction when it
came with the pixel gamescompared to now where
everything's open world and youcan kind of walk around?
Blue Moon Falls (30:25):
Yeah, I just like, the grid based RPG stuff,
I know that BDSP is verycontroversial, but I do like
BDSP on the Switch just becauseit's in the gameplay style that
I like.
David Hernandez (30:34):
What has kept you kind of coming back to play
Pokemon over and over?
Because, you know, you've been along time fan, you've gone
through most of the gamesoutside of the open world stuff,
What is it about the franchisethat you keep enjoying that
makes you want to stick with it?
Blue Moon Falls (30:47):
That's a really good question, because I could
answer in like 10 milliondifferent ways, it feels like,
David Hernandez (30:52):
Let's go.
We got 10 million minutes to go.
Blue Moon Falls (30:56):
Yeah, I guess so.
but like, there's, you know, mywebsite.
I really, I do genuinely enjoythe process of documentation.
There's just something aboutcompiling information that I
find very satisfying.
probably on account of me beingautistic.
That's very possible.
but I love doing that.
And then, I do genuinely justlove the world of Pokemon.
I think it's comforting, Thereis childhood bias.
(31:18):
I played it as a kid, andenjoyed it as a kid.
So, I enjoy it now, partiallyfor that reason.
but the Pokemon games are justso expansive.
There are so many details inthem.
it feels like I can researchthem or play them forever, and I
will never get to the end ofeverything that is in them.
And because of how you can teambuild different teams each time,
and there's so much variety, itfeels like playing them is never
(31:41):
quite the same thing over andover.
so I think it's just that.
I just, I like knowinginformation about Pokemon.
I like, being kind of anencyclopedia as much as
possible.
Um, I find it entertaining andit never ends.
And then there's, you know, newstuff coming out too.
So then I get to learn aboutthat too.
And it just, it never ends.
That, that's why.
David Hernandez (32:01):
I agree the same way because I always love,
when I know a random fact, anobscure Pokemon fact, and I get
to share it with people becauseit's like people know, of
course, some of the commonstuff, I love the deep dive of.
The history or the mythologicalside of Pokemon in Diamond and
Pearl, if you go to the Canalavelibrary I think or something
like that
Blue Moon Falls (32:19):
Yes.
David Hernandez (32:20):
to kind of read the little bookshelves and get
some of the tidbits that peopletend to probably overlook
because it's not part Of themain story.
I like breaking down andlearning about the Pokemon world
because there's So much morethat's even just within the
games that There's to uncoverand that's what I enjoy about
Pokemon too and I can kind ofunderstand like for you being
autistic it fits your need tokind of grasp the information be
(32:40):
able to kind of spew it outbecause you don't need to become
hyper focused and then also youget to organize stuff too.
Blue Moon Falls (32:45):
Mm hmm.
David Hernandez (32:46):
Yep.
Blue Moon Falls (32:47):
and then on top of that, Pokemon is a social
experience.
Most of my friends I've metthrough Pokemon and, It always
keeps me coming back to hang outwith people.
So that, that's a huge part ofit too.
there's just such a bigcommunity.
David Hernandez (32:58):
you've been very vocal about, disabilities,
you know, you have POTS, youhave autism.
And then of course, we talkedabout DID.
We How has the Pokemon communitybeen kind of, I guess, engaging,
willing to welcome you, when itcomes to your disability?
Blue Moon Falls (33:10):
Yeah, it's nice because, um, so much of the
community is online.
and so even when I'm sick athome or not feeling well, I'm
able to communicate with people.
I think the internet also just,there's a layer of separation.
People can't immediately judgeme for my disabilities if they
aren't as visible immediately.
but on the other hand.
I'm talking about how Pokemonappeals to me in an autistic
way.
Same thing for a lot of otherautistic people.
(33:32):
So I have met unfathomableamount of autistic people
specifically through Pokemon.
Especially once you get intothese more nerdy circles of like
technicalities and stuff.
David Hernandez (33:43):
Mm hmm.
Blue Moon Falls (33:43):
You meet a lot of other people.
So it's let me connect withpeople who are like minded to me
and that's been helpful.
And then, You know, so much ofit, again, is over the internet,
so that helps too.
that being said, it has broughtme out into the real world a
little more.
I was a bit of a shut in.
Uh, I'm working on that now.
I'm in a much better place in mylife than I was, but for a while
I didn't really leave my house awhole lot, for a variety of
(34:06):
reasons, health concerns, andalso just mental health issues
and whatnot.
Pokemon community has actuallygot me out more recently.
Last year, I went to a Pokemonconvention, like a local, small,
hosted convention for Pokemon.
I ran like a mystery gift booth,where you could come up and get
mystery gifts, event Pokemon forthe old games again.
David Hernandez (34:25):
Oh, wow.
Blue Moon Falls (34:26):
yeah, and then, um, like, went to, uh, a
regionals last year, just forfun.
Um, and I met up with someinternet friends, in a different
state, and that was fun too.
So.
It feels like I'm always findingnew ways to meet people and do
stuff when it comes to Pokemon.
So
David Hernandez (34:42):
You know, you said you were more of a shut in
and, you know, you're kind ofmore to yourself because of, you
know, part of the way you werealive, part of the mental
health, how difficult was it foryou to go and step outside of
your comfort zone to go to theregional to do this mystery
event?
Blue Moon Falls (34:55):
Well, at first it was harder last year was
better in that regard.
I had already kind of startedworking on that.
But it was, it was a process.
It took a while for me to getmore outside again.
I had dropped out of college in2019.
So actually not because of thepandemic, even though the
pandemic up timing really well,with that.
But, I dropped out of college in2019, and I was just going
(35:15):
through a lot of mental healthissues.
and also I hadn't been diagnosedwith POTS yet.
and I didn't know what was wrongwith me physically, but I knew
that something was wrong.
so I had to take a break to sortout all my health stuff.
And then that combining with thepandemic, where we had to be
inside for a while, kind ofexacerbated my already existing
issues with You know, beingafraid to leave the house and,
just struggling with socializingand all of that.
(35:36):
and then the pandemic ended andthen I kind of just kept not
leaving my house.
It kind of felt like I was stillsheltering, even when I wasn't
to.
but I knew that was an issue.
I knew that I wanted to get out.
I just was dealing with toomuch.
And then in 2023, I think Ireally started working on that.
I started getting out a littlebit more, you know, going to
(35:57):
dinner or, you know, juststepping outside for my doctor's
appointments and, small outings,nothing, nothing crazy.
And then, towards the end of2023, I was like, okay, I want
to do some bigger things.
I want to go to regionals inFebruary to meet like my
internet friends and, do someother stuff.
And that was a bigger jump.
Bye.
I had a little bit of experienceat that point, and, I think from
there, once I, you know,conquered going to another state
(36:19):
and, like, talking to people I'donly ever talked to on the
internet, it felt like I couldkind of do anything.
from there on out, I've been alittle bit more confident.
And, you know, now I'm goingback to classes, for the first
time since 2019, and I'm goingin person, and I'm handling it
pretty okay so far, so, Pokemonwas definitely a stepping stone
in that process, for sure.
but things were doing better nowthan they were.
David Hernandez (36:38):
It's kind of amazing, though, to see, like,
you know, you had this crisisgoing on for 2019 2020, of
course, makes it worse.
But thanks to Pokemon, it allowsyou to kind of relive your life
again and to get started and.
Blue Moon Falls (36:50):
feels like that.
David Hernandez (36:50):
Yeah, that's kind of, it's kind of cool.
Like Pokemon gave me arebirthing or in a way.
Blue Moon Falls (36:54):
and it's, again it's cool too because I
mentioned this earlier, but Italso made me realize what I want
to do as a living.
David Hernandez (37:00):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Blue Moon Falls (37:01):
kind of a rebirth of its own.
yeah, I had no idea when I madeBlue Moon Falls that I would,
you know, I love it so much.
the web design stuff was kind ofa means to an end at first.
I just, I wanted to provide theinformation in a way that was
accessible.
and I didn't realize that I wasreally into actually like coding
and doing the web stuff until Iwas, neck deep in some projects
(37:23):
for Bloomin Falls.
And I was like, wait, I actuallyreally enjoy this.
it's a hobby.
So.
David Hernandez (37:29):
Blue moon falls.
Of course, it's coming on threeyears.
You mentioned that way earlierwhen we started recording.
Blue Moon Falls (37:33):
Yeah, actually it just passed three years.
It
David Hernandez (37:35):
Oh,
Blue Moon Falls (37:36):
a second to
David Hernandez (37:36):
happy birthday to three years.
All right.
Blue moon falls hit three years.
Blue Moon Falls (37:40):
Yeah, I actually, I made it two days
after my birthday, like just myactual birthday.
So, uh, it's, I can kind of tieit with my birthday in my mind
because it's very close.
David Hernandez (37:49):
What has been the feedback since starting the
website?
Like what have people, what havepeople responded to when they
come across Blooming Falls?
That's awesome.
Well, Blooming Falls,
Blue Moon Falls (38:06):
successor to Geocities, which was, anyone
younger who is listening andprobably doesn't know what
Geocities is, um, it was an oldweb hosting thing, like you
could make your own websites onGeocities, and that was the main
way that people presentedthemselves online in like, you
know, 90s and early 2000s.
it's been defunct for a longtime, but NeoCities is kind of a
(38:27):
spiritual successor that like,takes the idea of Simple web
hosting, like the code on thereis pretty simple.
It's all static.
So there's no like back end towebsites.
You just kind of write the HTMLand the CSS and like the
JavaScript and that's it.
to be yourself to.
a creative place on theinternet.
and the reason I bring this upis because NeoCities has sort of
social media features.
(38:48):
there's a search bar.
You can actually search upwebsites on NeoCities.
and you can like add tags toyour website.
So like Blue Moon Falls has theso early on, before the website
was actually, you know, gettingattention from outside of
NeoCities, most people found itthrough the NeoCities website
browser.
And it was slow at first, Imean, there wasn't much on the
website so that makes sense,but, you know, I got some nice
(39:11):
messages occasionally.
and then I think, the first timeI ever got, More attention on
the website from outside ofNeoCities and outside this,
like, web niche, was when I didthe Crystal Sprite GIF archive.
it's literally just, a dump ofall the crystal sprites, like
the animated ones, but they havetransparent backgrounds.
for some reason, until I madethat webpage, there was No
(39:32):
source of the crystal GIFs, itseemed, with transparent
backgrounds that either hadwhite backgrounds or they were
APNGs, which are not GIFs and,are a lot more finicky to
display on things or save.
and I just wanted them as giftsso I did it myself and I posted
it on Twitter and like somepeople saw it and thought it was
useful probably just for addinggifts to like stream layouts and
that kind of thing.
(39:53):
I was already in the shinyhunting community so people who
need the shiny sprites on theirlayouts and stuff saw it.
and then it's been a steadystream since then.
Um, every time I upload a newbig project, I get like an
influx of people seeing thewebsite for the first time
because the thing gets spreadaround to different places.
and nowadays I have, I don't,NeoCity statistics aren't
(40:14):
reliable.
So I don't know how reliablethis number is, but, I get like
around 2, 000 unique visitsevery day, roughly, if we're
NeoCity statistics.
I have like a guest book on thewebsite where you can like leave
a comment, I'll just thewebsite, and it has 134
signatures, I just checked.
suffice to say I've gotten a lotof positive attention that I was
(40:35):
not expecting first made thewebsite.
I've never really had anythingother than positive attention in
particular, so,
David Hernandez (40:43):
I want to finish this interview with the
last question.
It's gonna be a fun one.
If somebody was going to battleyou.
What six Pokemon would youbring?
Blue Moon Falls (40:51):
Okay, I have this for you.
It would be Typhlosion,Pitmontop, Quagsire, Umbreon,
and Ampharos.
That was my first crystal teamand they're my partners.
David Hernandez (41:02):
All right.
I love it.
I love it.
Blue Moon Falls (41:04):
They're all shiny.
This is very important.
I've shiny hunted all of them.
David Hernandez (41:09):
well, blue moon falls.
Thank you for coming on.
As the pokeball turns before yougo, if people want to connect
with you, if they want to checkout your website, where can they
go?
By all means, please plug away.
Blue Moon Falls (41:17):
the main place I am on the internet is my
website, it's bluemoonfalls.
com.
no hyphens, no anything weird,it's just that.
And then, um, my personal socialmedias are PikaVs, which is
Pika, like Pokemon, and then Vs,like the end of Eevee, with an S
at the end, so it's A V E E S.
Um, yeah.
(41:38):
I'm on, like, Blue Sky thesedays.
Um, I don't really use Twitteranymore.
And, um, that's about it.
I'm kind of quiet on theinternet, so should just check
out my website.
Blumenfeld is, like, my mainthing.
Thank you for listening to Asthe Pokeball Turns.
Follow all my socials and joinour Discord community to stay
connected by clicking any of thelinks in the description of this
episode.
Tune in next time for moreepisodes featuring more people,
(42:01):
more stories, and more Pokemon.
Until next time.
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