Hank: Hello, and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

Felicia: Or, as I like to call it, Dear Felicia and Hank.

Hank: It is the weekly podcast where I, Hank Green, and usually John—I don't know if we can even say usually anymore because it has now been more not John than John—but anyway, this week, the amazing Felicia Day. Answer your questions, give you dubious advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. But first, Felicia. Do you have a poem for us?

Felicia: Yeah, I do, in fact, have a prepared statement. A couple of the sounds that I really like are the sounds of a switchblade and a motorbike. I'm a juvenile product of the working class whose best friend floats in the bottom of a class. Thank you.

Hank: Thank you for that lovely poem, written by Bernie Topin, the man who wrote almost all of the lyrics to Elton John songs. Tiny Dancers. This is the final. This is the final Elton John lyric of Dear Hank and John because John's hiatus will be ending next week, so he will be back, but this week, even better than John, we have Felicia.

How are? you doing?

Felicia: I'm really good. How are you?

Hank: I'm good. We just did VidCon, so I'm a little bit exhausted and confused and not entirely sure what my purpose is in life anymore, but other than that, just dandy.

Felicia: You have postpartum... 

Hank: Yeah, I got a little bit of post-Vidcon melancholia, which is normal.

Felicia: I have that when I go to Comic-Con, yes, and when I go to any television show that I have, because I think when you're in any intense circumstance where you're just literally living moment to moment, when you stop to reflect the emptiness of life, or the positivity of it, you get a little bit down.

Hank: And that's what we're all about here at Dear Hank and John, pausing to reflect the emptiness of life. Let's just do that for the next video. In fact, the rest of this episode is just going to be silence, but you are required as a listener to listen to these 40 minutes of silence during which nothing happens except that you reflect on the emptiness of life.

Felicia: But I think you should watch a timer as you watch that 40 minutes go by to really remind you of. how fleeting life is, because that would make it more depressing. 

Hank: In reality, thank you viewer for, listener I suppose, for sharing your time with us because we know that you have a limited number of moments on this earth and you have chosen to spend some of them with us. Boy, is this just the best humor podcast on iTunes.

Felicia: It is under the humor category and I think we're channeling it.

Hank: Yeah, we're pushing that hard. So what have you been up to, Felicia? You know, I've been really busy.

Felicia: I have my book coming out, so that's very intense, finishing a book, starting it, telling people about it. I admire your brother very much, having gone through this process one time. He is the eternal champion of ginsu-ing his life into pieces in order to accommodate all the needs of a book. Other than that, Geek & Sundry is going along.

Lots of writing and just. I feel even keeled. I feel like my life is planned out enough so that I don't have to be anxious about it.

I just have to live the moments. Yeah.

Hank: Yeah. Well, that's excellent news. I'm glad to hear that.

Felicia: Thank you.

Hank: I'm really excited about your book. It comes out, if I'm correct, August 11th.

Felicia: It is August 11th.

Hank: It's called You're Never Weird on the Internet. Almost, correct?

Felicia: Correct.

Hank: And that was a title that took D. H. H. H So here on Dear Hank and John, or as it may be, Dear Hank and Felicia, what we do is we answer people's questions that they have sent us to the email address, dearhankandjohnatgmail.com.

And we have a number of those to answer today, so I think that it might be time to just dive in and start doing that. Do you want to ask our first question, Felicia?

Felicia: Yeah, I can do that. Annie asks, Dear Hank and Felicia, I'm about to start my junior year of high school. And how do I overcome the overwhelming sinking feeling thinking about what's to come this year? I am terrified.

Everyone says it's so hard and very important. And what if I screw up my entire life in the single year? Good question.

Hank: Yeah. I will say that it is important. But I don't know that it's necessarily so hard. But it is also not so important that if you Have a. rough go one year of any year of your life, regardless of the year, regardless of what year in school you are.

Boy, can I guarantee you that that will not mess up your whole life.

Felicia: Yeah, I agree. I relate to this question a lot because I am definitely a perfectionist. I have a perfection syndrome, which a lot of my life DFTBA, The most valuable in my life have been the failures, not the amazing successes that I was able to brag to people about.

Hank: Yeah, I mean, there's this weird thing about screwing up, that it feels like the biggest thing in the world when it happens. But it tends to, from both the perspective of time, looking back on it as me, but also from the perspective of people around me, that those things are fairly insignificant. Like that's the real surprise. The surprise isn't so much to me that like looking back on my past failures that I don't necessarily consider them as big of a deal as I did at the time.

It's that even at the time the people around me didn't think that those things were so catastrophic as I did. And really what I was concerned about wasn't necessarily failing. It was being perceived as a failure.

And that, I think, is mostly a usually irrational fear because oftentimes when I see people fail, I almost never think less of them. unless they failed for a reason that It's not so much about the failure, it's that they have done something that I find like that according to my values is a little off or skeezy or something. So it's oftentimes when I see people fail, in fact, I find that increases my opinion of them and I try to think about that when I mess up or do something wrong and think about how do I turn this mess up into, you know, and not think about the way that people are thinking about me as a screw up. But think about the way that people are thinking about me as someone who's dealing with a situation that isn't ideal.

And so like, yeah, I often, you know, those are the moments where you learn the most about yourself and also the moments where other people learn a lot about you. And so I mean, all of this is to. say that that anxiety about failure is a little is misplaced because usually the people who who you think will be judging you are in fact right there with you and probably caught up in their own failure, their own anxieties and fears about the world and think that whatever's happened to you is, you know, you're handling it well and you're being quite proficient. This is my, yeah, all of my thoughts on this very Very brief question.

Felicia: I mean, I think a lot of it. you're right it is anxiety and is a very anxious person. I think it took a while and maybe just even in the last year or so where I can Comprehend that no matter if the worst thing in the world happens Nothing ends. your life will still go on. you will have different choices But they may be even better choices And the long-term. So you kind of have to think of your life as, I don't want to say it's a marathon versus a sprint, but that is a good analogy because it's true. It's like if you go to a restaurant you love and one time you have a bad. meal, but the aggregate of all the meals you've had at that place are pretty darn good.

I'm not going to say that place I'm never going back. There might be people who say I'm never going back, but they might be missing out on the aggregate of an awesome thing. That's fine if you don't have that person or opportunity in your life anymore.

I'm definitely not saying tank your junior year, but I am saying that life goes on and you will cope and you will have just as many options to you afterwards. They just will be different from the things that you're anxious about losing right now.

Hank: Yeah, and just more specifically, junior year probably isn't gonna be, I mean, if you work, if you're conscious about how you learn and about wanting to learn, then a lot of people have gotten through junior year alright, so it's something that I think you can do, Annie. I have faith.

Felicia: Right. And junior year I think is that you should be trying different things and be willing to fail knowing that you might like those things or not like them. Like this is a perfect time in. your life to figure out what you want to do a little bit more. And you have free rein to experiment.

And right now there are lower stakes. It's not easy, high school, but this is a time you should branch out and feel into. I would say embrace yourself and try two things that you might know that will go south but it will be worth trying.

Hank: Yeah, that's really interesting because we do put a ton of pressure on young people in high school and in college and sort of saying like this is that like you have to be serious about your future. But really, it is great to think of it as kind of a more low-stakes time of your life. And that's not what the establishment wants to tell children, because we don't want them to make those giant mistakes that really can mess up your life. Like, that might land you in prison, for example.

That might mess up your life pretty hard. But yeah, because you don't have people dependent on you, And you don't have to pay your own bills. In a way, you're not even dependent on yourself.

It's a time. when I think that certain risks should be encouraged rather than prohibited against at all costs. It's just an interesting way that we treat young people in our country because we are terrified and we don't trust them.

Felicia: Well, I think it's approaching other people's homework for you. And so that's why I always encourage people to jump head first into something and at least You'll be eliminating something or you're going forward in a satisfied way.

Hank: I feel really good about our answer to that question. What kind and thoughtful people we are, Felicia.

Felicia: I know. We are people who have made mistakes, who are trying to be wise. 

Hank: Praise has a question for us. She asks, Dear Hank and Felicia, what are some of your good best friend criteria?

Felicia: Oh, that's a good question.

Hank: So if you're going to have or be a best friend, what are we looking out for? That's interesting because a lot of times I've felt like in my life a best friend isn't necessarily something I've chosen, it's something that kind of happened to me, like a brother, you know, it's just the person that I ended up with somehow. That's less the. case now as an adult who has made some more conscious decisions, but as a young person I often felt like I kind of just This isn't entirely true, but in a lot of ways just sort of ended up with the people who were nearby.

Felicia: Well, that's why putting yourself in situations and social spheres is super important and not settling for one where you I think I think the core of it is being able to be yourself effort effortlessly and not have to pretend or hide anything you are because that person if in order to be quote-unquote best should know the barest you and still Want to like you. I think that's important for a boyfriend girlfriend or a platonic friends. You yeah, I mean, I think you shouldn't have any sense of shame about yourself With a best friend. Yeah.

Hank: Yeah, absolutely like that. There's something so wonderful about that moment where you realize where when you realize that people Like you despite the fact that you in my experience that I don't like me that much Because I'm all up inside of me and analyzing my own faults and then having someone be like. no I yeah all those all those things are really great like that Bridget Jones's diary moment and for all the people out there who aren't children and have seen that movie and Yeah, that's that's such a that's such a great way to think about it

Felicia: Yeah, I know that and and I think when you think about it like that you allow yourself not to have. I am of course a pathological please like me person. I don't know what it is about the way I was raised, but when I feel the most acutely rejected when it doesn't seem like I belong or I do something that messes up with someone or I show them an interest that doesn't fit with them and I feel in my mind that I get rejected. Bekkah Borucki In the best friend realm at all.

Yeah.

Hank: And so I think that as, as if, I think the right way to think about this is like, how do I be the best, best friend? And, and really that's about trying to coax out the real person from the person that you love. Uh, you know, this, this friend, uh, like coaxing, coaxing. them out and like letting them be exactly who they are. And And hopefully, really really liking that person.

If it turns out that you don't really really like that person, don't try to change them. Don't try to like mold them into the thing that you want your perfect best friend to be. It might just not be that you two should be together all the time.

It might be that there are other better people that have more similar perspectives and interests to you. But like that's that's the. That's the thing that I'm, you know, it's such a tremendous gift to someone to try and help them be more themselves and be more comfortable with themselves.

And that's a role that I'm very grateful to people in my life for having done for me. So if you can try and do that for other people, it is something that they will probably be tremendously grateful for and love you for.

Felicia: That's very interesting because as you're saying that, I'm thinking about acting. And of course, don't be an actor in a relationship in real life, but I trained in Meisner a lot, which is a lot about. not necessarily putting on a character, but being yourself authentically in the moment with a script about the other person. And I know the best acting I've ever done. was getting out of my own head and about my own performance and about what I'm going through and just focusing on what the other person was going through. And that really is what the Meisner technique is about, where you're putting all your focus on the other person and then you're reacting and allowing yourself to react naturally, caring about that other person.

And that's when you really forget you're acting and you're in the moment. And I think the best acting is you're creating a relationship with that other person, not acting that you have a relationship. So it's an interesting analogy you talk about because that is sort of the real life version of Meisner acting.

Hank: We got another question. This one is from Cypress. who asks Dear Hank and Felicia, I've been having trouble as of recent with a person who's been a bit... TLDR, how do I go about telling someone that frankly, I don't like them and don't want to be friends with them? them? again. That's tough.

I mean, yeah it is. And it's certainly something that I've dealt with, and usually by being like, oh yeah, give me a call, and then not answering when they call. You know, like it's the ghosting.

You gotta ghost them. But that doesn't always work, and also it's a little crappy thing to do.

Felicia: It's really hard, and I know I know that I've tried. I mean this is not the same as friendship but like in a business level it's always the most persistent people that you're like. I don't want to have lunch with you I don't want to have lunch with you I don't. okay fine because you won't go away. you know you tend to reward the people if you're busy with it who are most persistent and I frankly been honest with people and I've been like listen I just don't have time to do this or do this favor for you or whatever. I don't have time to give you what you want from me and The pushback I've gotten has been just so bad, and I'm a very non-confrontational person, so I don't know.

Ghosting is my backup plan, I guess, in life and business and personal, because I just don't know how else you deal with it and not leave a tainted sort of taste in your mouth with another person's feelings who just won't get the hint.

Hank: Yeah, I mean, there's a certain amount of you have to be careful and make sure that this person isn't Basically trying to manipulate you and being disrespectful of you. If you think you are being clear that you don't want to chill with them anymore and they aren't taking the hint, it may be that they are trying to willfully manipulate you. and that is you know in business that's a kind of thing that you sort of have to deal with. in personal life that shouldn't be a thing that you have to deal with. yeah and uh. and in that circumstance then uh you know you might you might want to look out for a sort of a pattern of manipulation in this person to make sure that that they're just trying to be friends again and they they're you know have good motives rather than they're trying to control you. uh because when people are trying to control you. that is very much a situation where you want to be like look I'm just cutting this off. It's not going to happen.

Felicia: Yeah. Also, it's it's it sounds like it's driven by their ego, whether they I mean, what is it that they want from you? Are you really? was it was it a very special friendship? Like I.

I guess this is a question of like. what level of intimacy of friendship was there and what was the motivation for falling out? and was it a situation where you've grown past that person and that circumstance for being close to them? or something you know bad happened and you want to separate yourself and they're just desperately trying to cover their own ego but redeeming themselves regardless of what your feelings are and needing space to get over it like it sounds like when somebody is like that either they Have a true problem in reading other people's reactions in which you might actually just have to be honest and say, I can't hang out, I need time, or I'm just really busy. Or they're just driven by their own ego and you shouldn't feel. bad about just kind of not responding because hopefully eventually they'll move on.

Hank: Right. If it feels like they're trying to control you, then you should have no qualms about controlling your own destiny and and basically just ignoring them. and if it goes beyond that if they keep bugging you then that's like a legitimate circumstance. where you need to be you need to be straight up and be like and basically say look this isn't a relationship that I'm interested in having. I've got lots of stuff going on and you're not part of it and it's just gonna have to be that way. it's very. that is extremely hard. I've had to do it a couple times. it's extremely unpleasant. there's nobody.

I don't know that anybody's good at it except for maybe people who are just just have zero anxiety and inside of them. but but where those moments where you say look this is how it's going to be and that's a little bit like you know a breakup where you're saying this like no we can't be friends we have to break up we're friend we're friend breaking up and and I don't need. to explain why because I'm living my life and you can live yours but whether or not I'm a part of your life is my decision just like whether or not you know like like you can't have. you can't you know like your desires do not affect my desires and so I don't need to tell you why this is over. it just is and you have to accept that. And a lot of times, with particularly manipulative people, if you give them a reason, then they're just gonna be like, oh, well, we can fix that. But it might not be about there being a reason, it might just be about you not wanting to chill with them anymore, and that's fine.

Like, you not liking their values, you not liking them, you sensing something off about them that you don't want to have in your life. And that's fine, and you should totally go with your instincts. 

Felicia: I feel like just listening to your strengths. A. What you're talking about is making me anxious, just thinking about a scenario where I would have to do that.

Hank: I know, totally, right? Yeah.

Felicia: I mean, I've never broken up. with a friend like that. I've never had a business thing that I could ever say to somebody's face, I just don't want to do this anymore. And I think that's part of my being homeschooled. I did not deal with confrontation or rejection as much as I should have as a kid.

I love the fact that you're encouraging that and everyone to be strong enough to stand up for yourself really and control the relationship strings that are attached to you in life because if not, you know, it weighs you down. And I think especially in modern times where we can't get away from our friends from college or high school or elementary school because we are tied to them in an online fabric that is easy to cut off. 

Hank: And it gives me anxiety too to talk about it and not even having to do it. Yay!

Felicia: Yay! Strength!

Hank: But I mean there are definitely like business relationships. I have where I would love to say that but in business it's different because it's not a like because everybody sort of shares business like everybody shares an industry and and we all have to you know.

Felicia: live together inside of our industry Hank Green, DFTBA, business is personal and personal is business frequently. And as someone who's gone through a lot of iterations of what I do and having personal relationships move on and business relationships move on in various good and bad ways. It is very difficult and you know if something goes wrong everyone's the hero of their own tale and you're not going to be the hero in everyone's tale and so the only thing you can do is what your gut is telling you is the right thing for you and that includes your moral fabric in that you're not really messing somebody over or really hurting their feelings. so it's complicated. but uh yeah it's even more complicated when business and personal mix. Keiress Dear Felicia and Hank, I was wandering through a nearby forest and was thinking about Groot.

Groot can only say one thing but can express emotion when he says it. My question to you is would you rather only say one thing but express emotion as you want when you say it, like Groot, or say whatever you want but be unable to express any emotion? Oh boy.

Hank: Well the question is can I say like I am very mad right now or like can I express can I can. I can say whatever I want so I can. I can express emotion in that way. just I wouldn't be able to like. it would be difficult to believe for me to be like I am so mad Right now, I've never been this angry in my life, and this is the most angry I've ever been, and no one could believe you. And it would be very difficult to say to someone like, I love you, but without any emotion ever being shown in your relationship with that person.

And they would just have to believe you. No one would know for sure whether you were scared or not. You'd have to be like, I'm very scared.

Felicia: Yeah, I mean that would be very Spock-like. And that you can't, I mean, because she says, or he, you would be unable to express any emotion, which means your face, which is a vehicle to unspoken emotion, would not be able to express it at all. So you're completely expressionist in your face and body, I mean, if. you're unable to express, does that mean you can't hug someone? So that would be a very bad.

World, I think. Would you rather only say one thing but express emotion as you want when you say it? Maybe I'm being a lawyer.

I've watched Too Much Good Wife lately. I'm parsing this question. 

Hank: You really should have phrased this question more carefully because the way we read it, either way could be either way. 

Felicia: It's full of loopholes. It's Swiss cheese. It's a Swiss cheese question, so I would say the Groot. Scroot. being able to say emotion and then be able to hug people, because I like hugs.

Hank: That's good, that's good. Though we are both employed as professional speakers of words, but what good would it be if we could only speak words without emotion? That you'd get no more acting jobs for Felicia.

Felicia: Yeah, true, true. No acting, although writing. You could be, well, unable to express any emotion. Let's just theoretically say that you couldn't speak emotion.

But you could write emotions. So then actually that limitation might make you the best composer or writer in the world because you have to channel everything into. your expression, your art. So actually, I don't know, now I'm on the fence again. 

Hank: Turns out this is a really complicated question. I was just thinking earlier today, I was having a conversation with some friends about how superheroes, and we're talking about, I'm talking about superheroes right now that have special abilities, how they, how they choose to make the world a better place is often, seems very, it's big and it's explosive and it's about like, you know, attacking and defeating evil, but it isn't really the way that good gets done in the world. And maybe there's something like, if we're talking about Superman, maybe there's something in the sort of morality of Superman that prevents this, but he has the ability to do so much good in just sort of like infrastructure creation and like he could just, you know, he... up balls of stuff with his heat vision and then use that to power power plants without the production of fossil fuel without the burning of fossil fuels and and solve global warming sort of in one stroke. but I bet there's some like weird mythological thing with Superman that says like according to. the laws of Krypton. he can't do that.

Felicia: I mean I particularly. I'm not a big superhero fan. I because I find I mean, this is probably going to be controversial, but, you know, yes, they can do great deeds, but they are not emotionally mature to me as an aggregate.

Hank: They don't seem to be. No.

Felicia: They would be a terrible date.

Hank: It's almost as if they all act like teenage boys. Oh, wow. It's true.

Felicia: Absolutely. And they don't know how to express themselves. So they just say, I'm going to move a building. I don't know.

And that's why I'm not. I mean, well, in your Just an accursed regrets, would you say that any superhero has the emotional acumen to solve a problem with words and emotion versus just big actions? I wouldn't say that anybody particularly springs to mind in my mind. 

Hank: I think that there's probably some X-Men.

Felicia: X-Men. I was about to say, yeah, Rogue. I mean, some of the more psychological.

Hank: Yeah, Kitty Pryde, maybe.

Felicia: Yeah, you're right.

Hank: Yeah. But, you know, that's... That's a that's a big and I think I think I think a lot of superhero Mythologies have come. a long way in the last like ten years or even even five years in terms of like a more of a fuller view of the of the universe and of human interaction just because a lot of comic readers have grown up a bit.

Felicia: Yeah, but it's almost like the evil ones have more psychological motivation like I can't imagine. yeah America or Superman would be Adriana Khare. Well, yeah,

Hank: I mean, it seems as if, you know, villains, writers need to create more motivation for villains, and so they sort of create their, the sort of internal mythology of the villain, like the villain's internal mythology more fully than they create the hero's, because the hero, the motivation is more explicit, it's more obvious to the reader.

Felicia: It's, yeah, but it's externally motivated.

Hank: And because of that, It's interesting, I often hear people saying like, I kind of identify with villains more than with heroes, because like... I, you know, like, I get that. I get where they're coming from and like, ugh, like the world is so messed up and why not just, why not just destroy all of it? Which, you know, it's really, it's always. great when you see a hero dealing with that.

When you see, you know, Watchmen is a really good example of a comic that has just a ton of, uh, a ton of like really deeply flawed heroes who, uh, who, uh, despite the fact that the world might be coming to an end are basically just like, I could fix this problem, but boy am I sad and I don't want to.

Felicia: That's maybe why I love Watchmen.

Hank: Yeah, Watchmen is pretty great. That was a complete non-sequitur that had nothing to do with any of the questions that we were asked. So we're going to ask another one. This one is from Lauren, who asks, Dear Hank and Felicia, I recently read that the Curiosity Mars rover is programmed to sing Happy Birthday to itself once a year.

I'm feeling too lazy to research this. Could you confirm whether or not this is true? And also, Do you think that you would sing Happy Birthday to yourself if you lived all alone by yourself on another planet?

I can, in fact, confirm that the Curiosity rover does sing Happy Birthday to itself once a year on the anniversary. of its landing on Mars, which is just adorable.

Felicia: That's really adorable. I want to hear it. What kind of cute little voice is it? Or is it just like a chiptone thing?

Hank: Yeah, it's a chiptone thing. Yeah, exactly.

Felicia: Oh my gosh. That's adorable.

Hank: I'm pretty sure. I mean, that's what I imagine. I don't know. Maybe it's just a recording of a child singing Happy Birthday, which would be way creepier.

Felicia: Really creepy if you're an alien.

Hank: I just think that was such a great, like, afterthought kind of thing. It's like, well, I mean, why is there even a speaker on it? I'm sure there's a reason that it has a speaker. There's probably a really great scientific reason that the Curiosity Rover needs to have speakers.

Don't know what that would be, but I'm sure there is one. And so once you have it, you can be like, hey, you know, it'd be great, you know, like, let people talk more about curiosity, like, give us another opportunity to have a press release go out. Let's have it sing Happy Birthday to itself.

Felicia: It would be great if you were able to submit your own, you. know, voice. Remember in the old days, they had that computer voice that you could program in and you would just make it say things if you type them into the browser? I mean, That was amazing. So if you had people bid for charity in order to be able to say, I'm going to have the curiosity to speak on, you know.

Hank: I love it. I love it. Yeah. I just like send a message to Curiosity Rover and have it be like, butt fart, fart, butt, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, butt, fart, butt.

And that would be, that'd be so good. I would totally, how much money would I pay to have Curiosity Rover just say the word fart 3 times on the surface of Mars.

Felicia: I would pitch in for that if we can make that happen. I'm a donor. 

Hank: What's your number, though? What's your highest number? I would pay $1,000 for that.

Felicia: I was thinking $1,000. I was thinking somewhere between $500 and $1,000. I mean, that's an upper limit. But if we went in $500 each, $1,000?

Hank: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, my first thought was like, it was $500, but then I was. like, would I pay more than that? Yes, I'd pay $700. Would I pay $800?

Yes. And then I got to $1,000. Then I was like, yes.

And then $1,100, I was like, oh, yeah. So I feel like around $1,000, I would pay to have the Mars River just say fart a few times. And apparently, Felicia wants the same thing.

So we can just, it's $500 each.

Felicia: We really should poke some strings and make this happen. I think we know enough people collectively that we could definitely.

Hank: Yeah, if anybody listening to the podcast right now has the ability to get curiosity to say words for us, we've got a thousand dollars for you.

Felicia: To charity. To charity. I think you should go to like a, you know.

Hank: Oh, okay. It should go. Yeah, right, right. Not for you, one person.

Felicia: We don't want to encourage, like, you know, under the table trading.

Hank: Well, honestly, I don't care what it goes to. I'll get anything. If it's for charity, I would pay even more. But $1,000, I'd pay just, you know, Jeff from NASA to do that for us.

Felicia: You're going to get him fired. Now it's. going to be some kind of extortion ring at JPL. 

Hank: All right, the second component to this question was, do you think you'd sing Happy Birthday to yourself if you lived all alone on another planet?

Felicia: Yes, because I saw Cast Away and Tom Hanks got crazy hair from loneliness. And I think that benchmarks are important in life. And if I were to just say, to hell with it, I would probably be a dirty, very uncut lady at the end and just kind of die sadly without any sort of highlights to my eyeliner.

Hank: Yeah. I think it'd be hard to keep track of the days if nobody else was around, but I guess if I had a smartphone, you know, it would do it for me. Because one assumes that if you're on another planet, you've got like, you've got stuff keeping you alive that has like the date and time on it. So yeah, I don't know that I would sing Happy Birthday to myself, but I would definitely celebrate my birthday if I was mentally together enough to do that.

If I was in my current state I would, but probably by the time my. birthday rolls around next May, if like suddenly I was by myself on another planet, just the solitude probably would have gotten to my head by that point and I wouldn't be in this state to be able to do much of anything. I don't know though, maybe I'd keep really busy on Mars, maybe I'd be super into Mars and just like look at rocks all day. That's...

Eventually, I probably would get tired of the rocks, but not for a while.

Felicia: I mean, I would carve in the rocks, because, I mean, I guess if—I always get angry at people who carve in trees when I'm hiking. I'm like, who are you? I don't care about your love, but if I was on Mars, I would be vandalizing some rocks to say, like, I was here, and nobody would care who came after me, but I would feel satisfied to leave my imprint there.

Hank: Oh yeah. Yeah, I'd probably, you know, you'd just build like giant canons of Mars rocks so people in the future would come along and be like, what on earth? And he'd be like, look, there was this hypothetical in a podcast and somehow. it came true. And I got here, I can't explain all of that.

I just, or just like write like a, basically a novel with rocks, just like setting out pebbles to be like, here's here to explain the entire thing. Here's a 5,000 word essay written in pebbles. 

Felicia: That would be Our next question, Sarah asks, Dear Felicia and Hank, If you could be transported into the world of a video game, which game world would you most like to explore and why? Oh, I love this question. This is hard because...

Hank: Yeah, I put this question in because I thought that you would enjoy it, but I completely forgot to come up with an answer for myself. So you're going to have to go first.

Felicia: Well, I mean, I actually forgot to come up with the answer, even though when I read it in the email, I was like, oh, this is very exciting. I mean, it's going to be hard because most places in video game worlds don't have toilets ever. So you go in and you're like, there's no toilet here. How do they go to number one or number two?

I think... I would be. torn between a fantasy world and a science fiction world. Every video game has disaster happening all the time.

For instance, Mass Effect. If I were in Mass Effect and people were trying to blow up my planet, that would be an unpleasant experience, although I would have to be a very rich, lucrative person in there. so I would have my own ship. I would have a very diverse peer group of different species.

I would be able to travel around all the time. But if I were to be sort of an alien just on a ship, I don't know. That seems appealing, but not 100%.

So I probably would want to live in a fantasy world like Skyrim or even World of Warcraft. 

Hank: The main concern is, do you guys have soft fluffy downy toilet paper? 

Felicia: I mean, if you take out the chaos that is inherently in video games in that there's always confrontation and war and explosions, if you take that out and just say, okay, you're just living in the world like a regular person, it would be a tie between Mass Effect and probably World of Warcraft.

Hank: I was just thinking about, do. you remember the game Space Quest?

Felicia: Oh, I love that, where you play the janitor.

Hank: Yeah, yeah, so like Space Quest 6, I think was the last Space Quest and it was the sort of most involved one. Oh my gosh. The good thing about Space Quest is like, it's really like, this is just a bunch of dopes in space, being dopey, funny jokes, bright colors. you know like pixel animation and there's just not a lot like. the worst thing that's gonna happen is you're gonna get kicked out of space school like it's. uh oh my god now that I'm saying this I really want to. let's play this game. it's so like yeah that I'm into that. but the other thing is that like most media properties have video games. so like my immediate thought is like Take me to the Star Trek universe. I will live there.

And there's plenty of Star Trek video games. So like, yes, transport me to Star Trek land and I will live in the next generation. I will be an ensign on the starship.

Enterprise, and I'll be perfectly happy. They have toilets there, and everybody seems to be. happy and fulfilled, and adventures happen, but very few people die in the next generation. Though I probably would want to make sure I was a recurring character, because I guess a fair number of people do die. 

Felicia: You would not want to be a red unitard, you want to be a blue or a yellow.

Hank: Yes, exactly. So that's my cheaty answer. Which is that there are indeed Star Trek games, and that's where I've always wanted to live my whole life.

Felicia: That's funny, I wanted to marry Riker from a very young age, so...

Hank: I wanted to be Wesley Crusher.

Felicia: Really?

Hank: Oh yeah, he was my fave. I did my hair like Wesley, I... Yeah, I... He was so smart!

He knew everything, and everybody respected him like an adult. He was a perfect character for me. I understand why other people were not a big fan. of Wesley, but it was...

Felicia: Oh, I know. I liked him. I liked him and I wanted to be... His mom was so pretty because I loved her red hair.

I was just kind of in love with Riker in a way that there was no one else existing for me. And when I met Jonathan Frakes at a party, I was kind of intimidated. I was like, oh, God.

Hi. Can I get the Doritos? I mean, I really was just...

It was not...

Hank: That's beautiful. That's beautiful. I love it very much. Alright, we're gonna move on to the news.

This is gonna be the news from both Mars, the fourth rock from the sun, and AFC Wimbledon, the fourth tier English soccer team. So Felicia, do you have any obscure British football news for us?

Felicia: I do indeed. I was given this piece of news and just recently learned that football is soccer. So, uh, let me, let me... Neil Ardley, Wimbledon's magnificent and talented manager, got a bit upset during a friendly game between AFC Wimbledon and the Spanish Granada FC due to some overzealous refereeing.

Ardley was quoted saying, the refs started to book players for nothing at all and the lads from both sides lost their heads a bit. He blew the whistle for the slightest touch and it was difficult to get any rhythm in the game. In all, it was a shame, and I don't know how often both an English team and. a Spanish team have been upset with a referee.

That is the most sports that's ever coming out of my mouth.

Hank: Well, I'm proud to have been responsible for all those sports that just came out of your mouth.

Felicia: Many, many sports. I've been to Granada, and it is a beautiful city, so I did feel like it at least touched a little bit of home in my heart.

Hank: I really don't know. I wrote that. I just... You know, I went to Google News and I searched for AFC Wimbledon and that was a thing, and 90% of that was just a quote from Neil Ardley, which was exactly how the article was written in whatever publication it was written in.

It was basically just, this is the thing that a guy said, and I really, like, I still don't understand what they're talking about, so I apologize if I messed that up in any way, but for some reason he was upset at a referee, And now you know that thing about AFC Wimbledon. On to Mars News! Yay!

There was a lot to choose from this week in Mars News. I'm going to give you a story. that Podcast listeners might actually be able to get involved with themselves. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been taking a lot of pretty fantastic pictures of Mars.

So many that mission scientists are calling on volunteers to help them identify and classify fascinating and peculiar formations near the southern pole of Mars, marking them for future research. These features are left behind during the southern summer. On Mars, when dry ice sublimes off of the surface, leaving weird spider-like formations and channels and holes.

You can learn more about this project, including how to participate at the Planet 4 Terrains website, which is at terrains.planet4.org. And that's P-L-A-N-E-T-F-O-U-R dot org. And that is our episode of Dear Hank and John without John but guest hosted by Felicia Day, the creator of many wonderful things including the entire Geek and Sundry YouTube network and author of You're Never Weird on the Internet Almost, out August 11th and available for pre-order now.

Felicia: Yay.

Hank: Yay.

Felicia: Thank you for having me. Oh. I, uh, I am delighted. I am always an admirer of you and to hang out Oh, that's very sweet.

Hank: It is a huge treat for me as well, and it's going. to be also a huge treat for our editor, Nicholas Jenkins, who's a big Felicia Day fan. Thanks, Nick! So thanks, Nick. Our theme music is by Gunnarolla.

Nick, of course, Nicholas Jenkins is our editor. If you have any questions for us, you can send them to hankandjohnatgmail.com, and as we say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.