This has been a year of change for me—changes in career, health, personal life, and more to come. There's been some good in this, but most has been out of my control, and most has not been great. I'm living in a lot of limbo right now, and I expect that will remain true for awhile. Increasingly, this is taking a financial toll.
To that end, I've gone ahead and created a Ko-Fi account 🫠
The last year has stretched me thin and I haven't written or created much recently, but if you've enjoyed fic I've written in the past and/or any contributions I've brought to fandoms we've shared over the years, and you're inclined and in a position to comfortably spare a few dollars, I'd be tremendously appreciative.
To be very clear, I'm safe and supported in ways that SO many people are not, so this is the gentlest possible ask with no expectations!
I may come up with a more structured approach to this, but I'll also throw out there to folks in the meantime that if you're interested in requesting a fic from me from a fandom we've shared and/or that I've written for in the past, shoot me a message and we can discuss! I'm not going to promise anything right now given capacity but am absolutely open.
In 2026, the chicest thing a gay actor can do is never explicitly come out as gay but also make it abundantly clear that he is. Coming out is too modern. Staying closeted is too old fashioned. But this method merges contemporary freedom with Old Hollywood glamour and allure, and it weeds out the dumbest people who truly don’t get it. I call it the Pascal Method.
You clearly don't go here or to queer history and signaling, or both, enough to have this conversation and I'm not going to explain it to you. You could have asked questions, you could have done even a modicum of research. You didn't and you made yourself look ignorant. Goodbye.
#I'm fucking crying#this is an instant classic#this is the next meme#i can't believe I'm here to see a baby copypasta nary two hours old#I can't#lol#i laughed way too hard#iconic
first of all, so sorry you're going through what seems like something pretty intense and difficult!
per your request, a distraction in the form of a question!
not quite Hacks but another Jean Smart character so adjacent, if you had been in the writers room, what would you have wanted to see happen with Martha Logan? not even like pragmatically within the confines of canon, just, fuck it, your dream story arc for Martha Logan?
Thank you so much 💕 and omg THANK YOU SO MUCH for this ask, this is so unexpected but I love it so much that it broke three pages in Google Docs lol, please enjoy!
To start, let's take her primary s5 arc and generally stick with it (I'm sure there were problematic elements I'd have tweaked—Evelyn would've come back at the end, for one, safe and sound), and completely ignore s6. And honestly, the immediate aftermath wouldn't be great television, so let's skip over the next couple of years, during which Martha would voluntarily, consensually, and safely remain off-grid while participating in and receiving top-notch mental healthcare with the support of a close network of trusted loved ones (including, of course, Aaron Pierce). And maybe it's just because of Hacks, but I think it makes sense to imagine her doing this in Europe! Somewhere very private with easy ability to avoid endless exposure to US politics.
I'd love to pick back up with her at some point post-s5 coming back to the US more permanently. This would be a super different genre of show, but I'd be obsessed with like a 6-8 episode miniseries following her rebuilding her life in the US while also flashing back to her earlier life (it's a dream arc, casting isn't an issue!). Jean and Greg Itzin had a pretty elaborate backstory involving them having lost a son not long before s5, and we know she was really close to David Palmer—I'd love to see her as a younger woman with tremendous political savvy, much like Sherry. (sidenote: her relationships with David and especially Sherry would be really, really interesting to dig into, so let's do that too!) But back to Charles—how did he and Martha get together? There was love there, I think, but was there a part of Martha that recognized that attaching herself to a pliable young politician was her best chance at attaining meaningful political influence? I'd love to see more of those earlier days and what I feel like must have been a complicated dance around running a household, motherhood, her own career aspirations, and the careful manipulation that allowed Charles to be politically successful while letting him think he was responsible for his own success.
More! So much more!
Seeing her in those early years would also be an opportunity to see more of a mental health baseline—did she struggle with depression, anxiety, etc.? Or signs of something more serious (psychotic episodes, paranoia, etc.) as alluded to in season five? Either way, how did that play out pre-breakdown/the death of their son (lumping those together here) compared to the version we meet in s5? We only get one day with Martha, and it's a day that starts out horribly and over 24 hours subjects her to intense grief, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, threats of and actual physical violence, and the unspeakable knowledge of her husband's involvement. She's also pretty heavily medicated for a lot of that time. I don't actually think I have a preference as to what story I find more interesting for her—someone who developed significant mental health symptoms after trauma vs. someone who's always navigated them, and if/how the circumstances of her later life (including/especially her institutionalization, forced treatment, and the ongoing threat of being sent away again) impacted that manifestation. They're all fascinating explorations, so in this dream world where this story can be told well, I'm open to any version of it.
And then the present-day Martha, I think, would be looking at what's next for her. I would like to see her wrestling with the decision to not expose Charles publicly, and Aaron would be a big part of that. I think of Aaron in this little series as serving a role very similar to what he did in s5—a close, steady presence, a moral baseline for Martha. I think their relationship would have built slowly while she was recovering with no real romantic progression for a couple of years, maybe with a shared understanding that it’s something they’d explore when their worlds stabilized a little. That would be part of what this story would explore, but in a quiet and undramatic way. I feel like they’d have one major conflict that would see Aaron getting truly angry/sad/upset/whatever at some point, and that would ignite a turning point for Martha in some fashion towards the end of this story.
I think the main story here would be her trying to figure out what’s next, personally and politically. Assuming we’ve got a great team of writers, I’d love to see her explore a political career. I don’t know what would be involved in making that a feasible option for a person with her history, but watching her dip her toes back into Washington waters and navigate her public perception and personal/emotional reaction to being back in those spaces.
Luckily, at this point, those spaces would include Cherry Jones Allison Taylor! I have no idea what the timelines here are, but if they’re imaginary, let’s set this arc during Taylor’s historic campaign to be the first woman President. Martha would have an unofficial role with the campaign that would drudge up a lot for her—could this have been her if she’d bet on herself instead of attaching herself to Charles, or made any other number of different choices along the way? What possibilities are open to her now? Does she even want to get back into politics, after everything?
She’d connect with a lot of our other horribly-underutilized and/or done-badly women: Karen Hayes is in the political arena at this point and both she and Martha are in desperate need of just a friend, especially a friend who understands what it means to survive a day in the life of Jack Bauer. Audrey Heller has been tortured to the point of catatonia and/or psychosis iirc and is under her father’s care in some fashion, which would be fascinating to contrast with post-s5 Martha reckoning with how her own mental health was weaponized and used against her “for her own good”. Hell, let’s throw Lynne Kresge in there, too, and force Mike Novick to reckon with his s2 villain-era. And Evelyn would be working for her again/still in a major role (maybe as someone Martha recognizes acumen in and begins to quietly mentor)?
Through all of this, Martha’s mental health would be a very present story point. We’d see her ups, her downs, what tools and resources she has available to her and if/how she utilizes them, etc. I would want at least one major mental health setback, both because it feels like a pretty natural occurrence for a woman with her history in this situation and because this is a dream show where all of this is handled with nuance and care and can present a character who has to manage her mental health on a daily basis, not always super effectively, and not have that dictate her entire life. (It would also contrast s5 where this was all “managed” for her without her consent, leaving her traumatized and unwell.)
Charles would make exactly one appearance. He’ll have spent most of the season trying to get in touch with her/spin his own redemption arc/whatever, and while Martha would generally be much more even-keeled in this arc than she was on the day s5 took place, Charles would be an emotional landmine for her. I don’t think she’d see him in person. She’d take a phone call at some point towards the end of the season, though, probably contrasted against flashbacks to both the beginning of their relationship and what it devolved into in the aftermath of their son’s death/her institutionalization. It would have similar vibes towards her final scene of s5—victorious, done with him, etc.—but sad, too. Like, I think she’d probably be crying on her end but her voice wouldn’t give any hint of it as she leaves him with whatever words she’s decided she wants to haunt him the rest of his life. But there’s grief, still, for all of it.
After, she'd go to her son’s grave, and then David Palmer’s. Then she'd make her way towards the White House (escorted by Aaron Pierce) to start her day—the President is waiting for her, and wants her advice.
I'm sitting with headphones on in the thick of extended family, funeral preparations, and the national news on as background noise for some reason, and I'm pretending to work but don't want to actually work, so please, friends, send me questions/musings! Hacks (or any fandom, current or former), fic, misc...wide open.
I think "Ava saved Deborah from suicide" and "the show treats Deborah's choice as the amoral one she needed saved from" are both shallow reads on the ending.
Deborah had perfectly good reasons for choosing Exit--or assisted dying--and it is AVA who is dismissive of Deborah's choice, because of course she is! I know a lot of times Ava is more of a voice of reason than Deborah but in this case, she actually is wrong--and the writers treat her as being wrong while humanizing her pain.
Ava does not want to let Deborah make this choice because the choice would hurt her--a lot.
As someone who is supportive of assisted dying and immediately knew what Deborah was referencing as soon as she mentioned Zurich--because I am familiar with the assisted dying program Switzerland offers--I was both really upset and also understanding of Deborah's thought-process.
I even know people who have made her same choice.
And the narrative actually repeatedly uses Ava's own language against her--comedically and seriously--to tell her she is wrong. "her body her choice" "listen to women"
Ultimately, Deborah has been entirely motivated for 5 seasons to make choices based off of her legacy. That is her entire arc this whole time. The impact of her legacy--how she will be remembered. She has softened, certainly, but even at an interpersonal level, the thought of Ava or those close to her seeing her frail and sick is terrifying.
It's not that Deborah wants to die, and I don't even believe her excuse about not wanting to fight and not wanting to be in pain--little miss botox ice bath eating disorder has been all too wiling to suffer for most things in her life, why would cancer be different? But it is the fear that she would lose and the fear that she would wither away before then, and that's what image of her would be burned into Ava's memory that is a deeply horrifying prospect.
Ava once cussed Deborah out for being motivated by fear, and fear is what drove her choice to seek out assisted dying, not that she was actually through with fighting.
It's actually extremely important that after a few failed attempts, Ava agrees to honor Deborah's wish. And the narrative doesn't reward her by saying that she was right all along, it says that Deborah is willing to risk what she is afraid of for just a bit more time with Ava.
That's it.
Not that assisted dying is giving up, not that she "found the will to live again", not that Ava was right to try to rob Deborah of her own choice due to HER fear, but that the thing Deborah is the most afraid of is actually outweighed by the promise of just a bit more time, one more joke, one more laugh with the person she loves.
That's WAY more profound that what either of the two oddly popular takes are from above.
The entire series is Deborah fighting against vulnerability and masking fear, and the ultimate move finally is Deborah relinquishing control for just even one more hour with Ava.
She has given up some big things FOR Ava, and now she is choosing to be vulnerable beyond her own control to stay with Ava.
And the show doesn't just frame it as sacrifice--once Deborah realizes this too is another thing she can endure with comedy, it becomes a bit less scary.
I LOVE that ending so much!
It is so much more hopeful than how many people are choosing to read it. It says that she is right to go out on her terms, but she decides to fight for even just a few extra bright moments, and knows that she is not doing any of this on her own!
Put in the tags the completely finished (whether cancelled or wrapped up on its own terms) TV series that has YOUR perfect ending, however you define that
Please don’t include huge spoilers for the specifics of the endings, and it would also make me happy if people don’t use this to talk about the shows whose endings they hated
