Curate, connect, and discover
First hour -> Last hour The Pitt (2025 - )
Trinity Santos nosiest bitch on the block. Sussed out that Langdon was stealing drugs and that Whittaker was homeless in less than 15 hours. And she’s a lesbian? Too powerful
the unfortunate thing about the second season being 10 months into the future is that we'll never see a bit where javadi gets to private investigator levels of nosy about why santos and whitaker are Like That and concludes they are dating. and when she tells them this, they both look at her like she's killed their childhood pets.
my update on how absurdly detailed the betting board is goes as robby voted disgruntled ex emt (obvious). langdon voted meth head (obvious). santos voted chop shop (illegally broken down and sold for parts reminiscent of her SA). langdon crash out. santos tried catching him out. robby caught him. all of them voting out. santos/robby wanting him out. robby/langdon dealing with it outside the hospital. whatever.
i read a post somewhere that said something along the lines of “dr santos wants people to believe she doesn’t care but in reality she cares too much” and you can really see that when she invites whitaker over at her apartment. she lives alone in an apartment with a spare room. maybe it was a temporary situation, maybe she simply can afford it. it doesn’t really matter. she lives alone and it could stay that way if she just turned a blind eye. she could leave whitaker, pretend she didn’t see. people could argue that basically everyone in the pitt is kind enough to extend a landing hand and i believe that to be 100% true, but what matters is that dr santos did it. the one who everyone thought was heartless just for being arrogant. trinity santos saw this guy and said “fuck it. you’re coming with me. i’m not gonna stop making fun of you but if you don’t come with me now i’ll use my krav maga skills to bring you home myself.”
trinity santos the woman who had a close friend kill herself because of an abusive older man. trinity santos the woman who could’ve been that friend because mental illness has a hungry grip that spares no one. dr robby could be that person and dr santos doesn’t know. every single character could be that person and we wouldn’t even know because we, much just like dr santos, were allowed no more than a peek in these people’s lives. we only have a vague idea what they look like on the outside, what demons they’re fighting against. any day now, that person could be whitaker. could be any patient dr santos can’t save.
dr santos’ arrogance isn’t a lie, but it’s not a complete truth either; there are so many layers etched under her façade and it think whitaker is a great way to show that. they can be so beneficial to each other in terms of character exploration and development.
whitaker eating ube baked goods w santos. that's it.
Absolutely obsessed with your santos and Whitaker headcanons please keep them coming! I’ve gone through all the fics on ao3 already lol
thank you! it's nearing the end of the school year for me, so unfortunately i'm too busy to make much fanfiction/art for them even though i dabble in both.
here's more headcanons, because i can't stop thinking about them:
santos has a major sweet tooth. once or twice a week, she buys herself an iced mocha and a slice of strawberry cake from this cafe that's en route to the hospital.
whitaker's bible has a small lamb embroidered onto the front. it's one of the two belongings he still has from nebraska. the other is a sweatshirt from the university he did his undergrad at.
she has to keep an eye on whitaker at all times when they visit the local asian market because he's too busy staring in awe to notice what's going on around him.
whitaker is very obsessed with banana sauce. he puts it on everything once he's tried it.
santos gave him buldak ramen without telling him how spicy it was once. it was funny for about a minute until she realized that this white boy really can't handle spicy food. he tries eating the whole thing because wasting food makes him feel guilty. santos stops him after 3-4 bites because this looks like actual, physical torture for the guy. she still makes fun of him after, of course. while handing him the whole milk jug.
santos gets way too into his stories about animal slaughter. one time he had to leave in the middle of talking about how he dissected a rat when he was first curious about studying medicine and the first thing she did when she saw him again was demand to hear the rest.
santos texting her landlord
i feel like whitaker just… doesn’t yell. like he can obviously yell when he’s scared or it’s like necessary but he just doesn’t really raise his voice. if he’s frustrated he just grits his teeth, sighs through his nose, and carries on.
santos — because she is the way she is (and i love her for it) — keeps trying to get him to break. it unnerves her how he just doesn’t seem to get mad at her. oh he definitely gets annoyed and exhausted, but he doesn’t raise his voice. when she won’t stop kicking him in the ass when he’s fixing the clogged sink drain he just… lets her do it. if she’s being lazy and wants some ice cream from the freezer but doesn’t want to get up she only has to whine for a few minutes before he groans and gets it for her.
she’s trying to see his boundaries. to see how far she can push until he proves that he’s just like every other man she’s met and the fact that he won’t fold irks the shit out of her. idk i don’t think they’d ever really talk about it, but whitaker is a smart cookie and would probably figure out what she’s trying to do a few months in. he’d probably casually drop that his older brothers yelled at him all the time and then his poor mom would yell herself hoarse trying to get them to quit and oh here comes his dad yelling for everyone to shut the hell up. so he’s just always been quiet. quiet little dennis who once walked on a broken ankle for a few days because he didn’t wanna bother anyone.
and santos learns to live with that. to live comfortably with a guy who won’t scream at her or hurt her even when he gets mad at her. she learns to relax. to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop.
we do not talk enough about Whitaker snapping back "day's only half over" when Santos says "at least I haven't killed anyone"
he may be an innocent, wet kitten farm boy half the time but this boy has SASS and ATTITUDE from being tortured by three older siblings as a kid and I love to see it. I cannot wait to see the Whitaker/Santos relationship develop into them being ride-or-dies who insult and bitch at each other all day long
(potential) ways people find out santos and whitaker are close/living together:
whitaker calling santos "trin" in front of their coworkers, santos not batting an eye and answering to it, and both of them pausing suddenly when they realize what happened.
santos putting an arm around whitaker's shoulders and ruffling his hair at random intervals throughout the day.
one of them instinctively stepping in front of the other when a fight breaks out in the hospital.
accidentally falling asleep while leaning on each other in the break room after a long shift.
santos handing whitaker a shopping list while passing him in the hallway.
one getting injured/passing out and immediately asking for the other when they wake up, still half-asleep.
^ alternate scenario: getting put on meds and saying something disgustingly sentimental. if it's whitaker, santos would get a bit emotional in the moment but will definitely make fun of him when he's sober. if it's santos, she'll be stuck wondering why whitaker looks so pleased with himself until someone tells her what happened.
discussing what they're going to eat for dinner while everyone is clocking out.
santos' drunkenly revealing to (equally drunk) whitaker those parts of her past. and for a moment, she just studies him. expecting him to get a little sad, maybe. unintentionally pitying. tell her he's sorry that happened. but he's just sitting there, staring at the wall. and when he opens his mouth, it's this pure, raw anger that she wasn't even sure he was capable of. it's low and shaky and she can't find herself a voice to interrupt him because what the fuck was even happening right now? the morning after, he's making breakfast and two prairie oysters before santos even wakes. they don't mention it again.
THE PITT + live reaction
still can’t believe santos and whitaker are roommates, like it’s a thing that’s actually going to happen and there will definitely be a scene where they call each other trinity and dennis. it feels like something a writer on ao3 would come up with but its actually a bunch of writers maximizing their joint tv vet realness.
thinking about santaker and sharing things again. i have more thoughts.
santos and whitaker are around the same height. so, theoretically, their clothes decently fit each other.
i have a feeling they won't tell anyone they're roommates straight up. this leads to interesting scenarios.
javadi about to point out santos is wearing whitaker's hoodie and she just starts threatening her like she does to whitaker when she was mad about the chest-tube thing.
whitaker getting a bodily fluid on him again because it's his personal curse now and straight up wearing definitely santos' shirt when he clocks out.
sharing whitaker's airpods while they fight over the music.
sharing food!
frank "santos is trouble" langdon fresh out of rehab wondering why whitaker has gotten so close with her and then he's sitting there in shock as she willingly gives him half a kitkat bar (she's only doing this because he hasn't eaten anything all day).
king pointing out that she saw them leave in the same car yesterday and everyone's like what. when did that happen.
and:
tags from @doughnuts-5ever
trinity santos + dennis whitaker: roommates || post-canon headcanons
whitaker wakes up around an hour before santos does. it's an old habit from when he used to work on the farm. he makes breakfast for the both of them, usually.
after a month of living together, santos started stealing whitaker's hoodies. they're around the same size and she tells him that it's part of his rent. javadi is the first one to notice.
santos practices martial arts after a long shift. when she's back home, she can hear whitaker reciting scripture in his room.
they watch a movie together once a week. sometimes it's horror, which santos is pleasantly surprised to know does not affect whitaker—despite his "really needs a xanax and a weighted blanket" aura.
all of santos' sincere compliments are in filipino. she knows he doesn't understand shit.
since all of whitaker's friends/family are in nebraska, santos is his emergency contact.
idk if anyone has corn plated this but i love santos getting handed the coffee & immediately handing it to whitaker so much. such an unimportant detail to the script but sooo key to their early characterization. they’re so cute 2 me
throwing this into the ring like a beyblade
"It's almost like a sibling thing with Santos. It's been really fascinating to watch people's reactions to Santos, and she can rub a lot of people up the wrong way. But I think with Whitaker, I think he almost sees through her quite a lot. He grew up with five brothers, he's a sibling, so I think he really just sees someone who is coping in their own way by deflecting with jokes and jabs. So I don't think it actually bothers him that much, and I think Santos sort of knows that as well. I'm an easy target, but she knows she's not really gonna affect me." — Gerran Howell (x)
ISA BRIONES & GERRAN HOWELL as TRINITY SANTOS & DENNIS WHITAKER in THE PITT: Season One
their vibe (to me)
THE PITT 1.15 “9:00 P.M.”
I love how The Pitt's use of the small time scale shows how quickly trauma (or just collaboration in any high pressure environment) can create bonds. Specifically I'm talking about Whittaker and Santos. I'm rewatching from the beginning after watching the finale, and in s1e1 when Whittaker complains about money problems, Santos just smirks and is like "sell a kidney." By the end of the season, she offers for him to move in with her.
This is like a season's worth of relationship development and character development for Santos especially. But like. Over the time span of one day. Less than 24 hours. That is just insane to think about. And yet. It makes sense. Because they endured insane trauma together and even before that, they were comrades in arms facing a constant onslaught of patients and expectations. It is just such good writing and something I've never seen before. I'm sure this has been said a million times but like. A full season of character development. One day. Both make sense. Wow.
watched the pitt. god, they fucking got me. they got me with a platonic pairing. this always happens. dennis and trinity i love you.