i'm sorry i keep getting stuck on the fact that people legitimately think that sam and dean did not share a heaven in 5x16.
let's review some items established during the episode (mostly via ash and cas):
during this episode (and most of the show) heaven is someone reliving their greatest hits aka memories.
souls in heaven were not moving beyond their own heaven except for ash himself, and he was able to because he found a "practical use for string theory."
ash comes and finds the brothers in their heaven while they are being hunted by zachariah, and uses a sigil to open a door back to his own heaven. he also eventually collects pamela from her's and then sends them off on a path to the garden through another sigiled door.
everyone has their own personal heaven*, except for "special cases," who share. *this is beared out by depictions of heaven in future episodes.
taking a moment to suppose that sam and dean were in separate heavens, and applying what we learned from ash, there seems to be no way for dean to have wandered out of his heaven and into sam's. dean doesn't have the knowledge or power to do this. all he did was follow the road in his heaven (as cas instructed him to), and it eventually lead him to sam. cas didn't say, do this and then this and then you will find sam's heaven. he said, just follow the road. plus, once they find the road, both of them move onto each memory. they don’t have to find each other again.
ergo, sam and dean both died and went to a shared place - winchesterland, as ash put it. he had the opportunity to call it by separate names - samland and deanland, like he did ashland, but he phrased it in a collective kind of way. plus there's this:
Sam: And you said this was your Heaven?
Ash: Yup, my own personal.
Sam: And when the angels jumped us, we were--
Ash: In your Heaven.
sam uses a collective we, as the brothers so often do. when ash replies, it seems he is also talking about the two of them, in one heaven. sam follows it up by saying, ok so there are two heavens, one for him and dean, one for ash, again indicating they were a unit.
now we talk about the reason for sharing; we learn about the billions of heavens, and ash's travels and his figuring out that for the most part, people have their "own private idaho." it can be assumed however that ash has run into at least one pair of soulmates while exploring, to have figured out how it all works.
this is because during his explanations, he mentions that a few people share heavens. when pressed by dean, ash specifies that an example of special cases are soulmates.
as an aside: we have two pieces of information on this scene , one being the aired episode, the other being the script.
in the episode, ash tells the brothers about soulmates, pauses, looks at sam and moves on. sam and dean blink a little as if startled but otherwise do not speak or look at each other.
in the script, ash tells them casually about soulmates, then breaks eye contact with the brothers, (ash politely looks away) while they react. the beat in the script specifies that dean and sam have an awkward moment as they glance at each other and take in this information. why? because they know they were sharing, their souls were together on the same stretch of road, and so they take a moment to consider the next logical step:
a + b = c
a. sam and dean were sharing a heaven
b. special cases aka soulmates share heaven
c. sam and dean are at least a special case, which is to say, probably soulmates.
the script (available on the spn wiki for this episode) is not 100% accurate in terms of the dialogue, since some things changed during filming, but it does show the beats and writer’s original plan. based on things that have been said by the writers and producers regarding this ep, it seems the slight adjustments in the final product were to allow the soulmates reveal to be more subtle. but the script makes it pretty clear that the intent was for sam and dean to be considered a special case/soulmates
all in all, ash seems like he's had this conversation or a similar version of it with the brothers before. he references their many deaths only to be reminded they do not remember them. he seems to know he will find sam and dean together if they are both dead. he treats this casually, this is not gross or weird information, it is just a fact of death for the brothers.
so having addressed the shared heaven argument. the last piece of the puzzle that people seem to glom onto is the idea that sam and dean can't be soulmates, because of sam's memories. his memories were:
when he was 11 and went to a real thanksgiving at someone else's house (likely a girl he had a crush on, or who had a crush on him).
the time he ran away in flagstaff and kept bones the dog for 2 weeks.
the night he left for stanford.
dean's memories were:
he and sam celebrating 4th of july in 1996
dean comforting his mother after she fought with john on the phone. this is sometime in 1983 (may or later) as mary references both boys when she is arguing with john. dean would be 4, sam some number of months.
of these 5 memories, only dean's first memory is a good one. everything else is kind of average for both of them. one could argue that all of dean's memories of mary are precious bc he has so few, but to be honest he absolutely would have had better ones, maybe even when sam was born or his 4th birthday, which they likely celebrated. why would mary being upset and needing a hug be one of dean's greatest hits? another memory of young sam would have been happier also (getting the samulet for example). this was chosen for a reason. dig at sam maybe?
sam should have had better memories too. when sam says, "I can’t control this stuff!" in regards to what memories he relives, this is a clue. someone else is controlling what comes up.
so, dean was shown a good memory, proving that this is what's going on (they are reliving happy memories). sam is given a decent memory at first to support this, though it does not include dean (purposefully). it is probably one of his better ones without him. the without dean part is important. and then he is shown 2 other memories that are happy if you squint but more importantly, guaranteed to hurt dean because they feature dean's biggest fear - sam leaving the family and more importantly, dean.
also, rather than continuing to alternate memories, once dean is upset, they immediately go to another memory of sam’s, this one guaranteed to push all his buttons that he has left to push.
finally, when zachariah captures them, we are shown that he is controlling the memory version of mary, in a pretty gross fashion, but only after she says all kinds of hurtful things to really fuck with dean.
but! this means zachariah very likely has the ability to control sam and dean's ENTIRE heaven and has been dictating everything other than their sojourn over to ash’s heaven. if sam and dean were not so emotionally fucked up because they'd been killed and then shown those memories and then forced to face guilt in the form of old friends, they might have figured that out. but they don't really get a chance to work through it. it's almost worse that joshua saves them, because given more time with zachariah, he probably would have gloated and one or both of them would have gotten there.
instead they get told a load of crap about god not wanting anything to do with humans or the apocalypse and to back off. and then joshua's like ok byeeee you will get to remember this yay! so of course when they get back to their bodies dean is pissed and broken and believes that sam does not hold him in the same regard he holds sam. and sam, still feeling so guilty over everything with lilith and ruby and the apocalypse, doesn't have a good argument to combat deans assumption. how can he argue with heaven, especially because those probably were not bad memories for him, they just weren't his best memories either. zachariah mind gamed him as well.
this entire episode is about him fucking with the winchesters on his turf (he flat out tells us this). he played them both off each other as he’s been doing since last season (see the voicemail, and dean being stuck in the green room).
so in the end zachariah got what he wanted even though he didn't get to torture their souls first. he successfully shoved yet one more wedge between the brothers and broke dean a bit more in the process. all towards his goal of getting the winchesters to accept their fate as vessels.
and if you think that this part of the post and my interpretation is far fetched, i would like to reference a 2016 tumblr post, where a fan described a convo they had during their photo op with jared. he was asked a question about this episode, and he went on to say that zachariah manipulated sam's memories in heaven, to exclude dean.
obviously this is not definitive, but i trust and believe jared and jensen more than anyone when it comes to the show and their characters. it also fits the rest of the data.
in conclusion: sam and dean do share a heaven and are a special case. according to ash, one way to describe them would be soulmates.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Happy 44th Birthday, Jared!! Thank you for being our Moose and our wonderful Sam Winchester. You bring so much light and kindness wherever you go and to whoever you interact with! Thank you for standing up for mental health; it's truly a blessing to have that in my life. Hope today is lovely!!
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Robby and Al-Hashimi are two sides of the same coin: being ill
Robby's abilities as a healthcare worker are compromised by his mental health condition
Al-Hashimi's abilities as a healthcare worker are compromised by her physical health condition
Yes, Robby is a hypocrite for telling Al-Hashimi she can't work like this while he himself continues to work (finale of season 2)
But the healthcare industry in America as a whole embodies this same hypocrisy. Mental health is not taken as seriously as physical health, still, even by the healthcare system itself (X, X)
I just. I guess I need The Pitt fandom to know this. The show is not telling us that Robby is a singular character who is a misogynistic villian that thinks none of the rules apply to him. I mean, if you really want to take that from the show I can't stop you. I think the show is telling us is that Robby is a victim of the American healthcare system
This show's thesis and raison d'être is literally to hold a mirror up to the American healthcare industry. The show is not condoning Robby's behavior. Robby, and virtually every other character, are ground down by their jobs to the point of being soul-crushed and burnt out. The pressure is unsustainable
The American for-profit healthcare system is evil and all of the show's characters, even and especially Robby, are victims of it
Story time: I started a book about 23 hours ago and just finished it. Also in that time I slept for 10 hours, spent time with family, was at work, etc. Anyway, I enjoyed the book (Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda). But it felt like it flew by, so after I finished I looked up the word count because what are pages? Pages are meaningless. I only function in word counts anymore.
The estimate I found was 58,580. My immediate reaction was “oh, that’s why. That’s nothing!” But what a shitty response. Because no. That’s not nothing. That’s a whole. Damn. Book. An entire novel! And Fic authors regularly bust out 30k, 50k, 100k, 150k words. AND THEY DO IT FOR FREE. WHILE WORKING AND LIVING THEIR LIVES.
So anyway, thank your favorite fic author today because they deserve it. Because they’re amazing. They’re the MVPs.
This is awesome. With that said, huge appreciation also to fic writers who write shorter fics - 10k, 5k, 1k, 500 words. Because yeah, huge long fics get a lot of love, and a lot of labour goes into them, but the same is true for tiny fics as well. Not everyone is banging out huge great novels, but little ficlets are fantastic and still bring readers a ton of joy.
So if you’re feeling a bit downcast because you can’t write that 50 chapter epic or your latest WIP is “only” 2k and it still took you ages - that’s amazing. Seriously. Not everyone is naturally wordy or prolific. And you can say a ton with just a few hundred or thousand words.
Props to short fic creators - you guys are awesome.
For those writers who discredit themselves because they feel they aren’t writing the novels that others might, you’re still writing a novella, my dears. You’re still putting time, effort, and passion into something. Well done.
(honestly shout out to all fuckin fic writers. You didn’t have to give us shit and still y'all out here living ya best life and doin something you love. Bravo.)
The most amazing, disturbing, heartrending, worldview-shaking story I have ever read (There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury): three pages long. It can be read in fifteen minutes.
I can’t find a word count online. But DuckDuckGo tells me that in English, you get an average of 500 words per page.
So it’s about 1500 words, give or take. I cry every fucking time I read it, and I have read it many times.
Novels and novellas and fanfics of that length are great. But if you’re the shorter type—
—know that part of my heart stands forever on an empty hill in a fictitious city in California in the year 2026, crying for a fictitious child who never caught a ball, and it has been crying on that hill for over twenty years.
Another other notably famous short story is The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe, which is 2165 words and was, put simply, an exploration of guilt.
If you’re a fanfic writer, how many fics do you have that are longer than that? If you’re a reader, how many 2K fics can you read in a day? In a week? How many, for either case, are simple yet eloquent character studies? Examinations or ruminations on a particular facet of a character or story?
The only difference between fanfic and traditionally published works is the number of steps and people involved between the initial writing and ultimate sharing of the work.
I got married last month! My dog is laying on me snoring. I’ve learned to have healthy friendships and relationships. I’ve learned that I’m not alone and that even when things are hard, I’m going to be okay.
This showed up in my notes again. And here we are. 2026.
I’ve been married a little over two years. I just got home from friendships that feel like home and family. My husband and I have our own place. I have a full ass book ready to be published.
I don’t know. I’m still in a good place and I can’t believe how far I’ve come from my original post.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
When things get hard, Jack’s therapist has a habit of reminding him that going back to basics is smart, thoughtful, and kind. Jack’s rarely in the mood to hear it, but he gets it—gets that he has to do the ordinary shit, like drink enough water, if he wants to do the more complicated stuff, like figure out his fucking life. But it’s beyond irritating to have to care about putting actual meals in his face rather than inhaling a bag of Doritos before he crashes into bed at night. Annoying, if he’s honest.
There’s a chance the annoyance is displaced, he grants, but fuck it, he’s feeling his feelings.
Thing is, when Jack looks at Robby, when he sees him trying to find calm and quiet inside himself, enough to get through a shift now his sabbatical’s done, he wants to pass on the advice. Drink some fucking water, man. Go take a leak. Eat more than a protein bar. Does Robby even know what sleep is? The man has his own therapist now, one who’s stuck with it despite Robby’s no-doubt pugilistic attitude, and Jack’s pretty sure the ‘back to basics’ stuff is the kind of thing all therapists cover as a matter of rote. Still, Robby doesn’t seem to be doing any of it. It makes Jack want to climb the walls.
So he does something about it. Makes a point of buying Robby a really great water bottle, with all the mod cons water bottles offer these days, and sticks a label on it that says “use me, you dipshit.” (A similar bottle shows up two days later with a label that says “physician, heal thyself.” Fucking smartass.) Jack starts making himself a meal before he comes on shift, just so that he can put the leftovers in a plastic box and hand it to Robby before he leaves for the night. Robby starts showing up with breakfast in a to-go bag, shoving it in Jack’s hands and holding up a finger when Jack tries to protest.
Jack hates that he doesn’t say anything when Robby holds up that finger, but he’s learned it’s futile to argue, and he was done with being “tsk!”d when he was about nine.
Jack leaves sandwiches in the staff-room fridge, and Robby starts leaving salads, and Jack starts feeling better about the way Robby looks—better fed, more rested, like he’s not about to collapse, dehydrated; like he’s taking care of himself. He enjoys the salads, too, a meal he would never, ever make for himself because of all the faff involved, the ingredients, the fucking choices when it comes to dressing. He’s happy to let Robby do the thinking.
Shifts being what they are, there’s a stretch of three days where they’re both out of the ED, and Jack texts Robby on day two, asks if he wants to go to a game, and they eat more hotdogs than anyone should, and beer is not technically the way to take care of the resulting thirst, but whatever. Robby hoots when there’s a double play and Jack looks over at him, at the way he seems more whole, reaches out to pat his knee out of deep-felt satisfaction, and then just leaves his hand there for reasons that he doesn’t care to delve into too deeply.
Robby looks back at him. “You okay?”
Jack gives him a nod. “I think I am.”
The smile Robby gives him is some kind of pleased-as-punch and maybe even a little smug. He covers Jack’s hand with his own, and then they’re just sitting there, holding hands, watching three shitty pitches in a row, and Jack bumps his shoulder against Robby’s, and Robby bumps his shoulder back.
Jack is standing on the roof. Like he often does after an emotionally draining night shift. With Veterans Day and everything... it was all just a little too much. Too many veterans coming in with self-inflicted gunshot wounds because sometimes living doesn't seem as easy as the alternative.
Anyway. Jack stands there. Looking out over Pittsburgh. Thinking. Measuring the distance.
Then he hears a voice behind him.
"Told you it'd be rude to jump on my shift."
Jack closes his eyes, a tired half-smile on his lips. "You're technically not on shift yet."
Robby stops a few feet behind him leaning against the rooftop barrier. "You're still a smartass."
Jack turns around and looks him up and down. "And you're still alive."
Robby smiles. "Well... if you can call that living."
They stare each other for a moment, then both start laughing and hugging each other.
"you're in charge of planning next year's." dean says, decidedly.
sam opens his eyes. it's not as dramatic as his eyes snapping open or sitting up straight in bed. he's just not awake, and then he is. the bed is cold.
he rolls over. it's 1321. sam sighs out of his nose. he had hoped he'd sleep through it. sam's been sleeping a lot lately. a lot, a lot.
he'd gotten up to get miracle breakfast this morning and take her out in her walk, but he'd crawled back into bed soon after. sam moves his legs gently, but he doesn't feel her. she must've given up on him, found something else to do.
sam sits up, and no, never mind. miracle sits in the doorway to his room, laying down with her chin on her paws. she perks up when she sees sam's awake, tail thumping gently on the door frame.
sam sighs. suicide watch by a dog.
"you're in charge of planning next year's." dean says, decidedly.
sam closes his eyes, and rubs a hand over his face.
july 4, 2026. dean winchester is dead.
sam throws his legs over the side of the bed and sits there for a long time, letting feeling flow back into his feet. his head spins, and he knows he should eat or drink something.
it's his and dean's anniversary. their 30th anniversary. sam looked it up, it's the pearl anniversary. sam had gotten dean a new pearl handle for his favorite blade, a sharp silver serrated blade ideal for cutting rope.
dean is--was--a bloodhound for gifts. he could find them anywhere, so sam had hid it up on the roof in a box wrapped in a tarp, tucked underneath one of the satellite supports.
he should get it down, probably. dean won't be here to receive it.
he probably would've liked it.
tonight, when they drove out to their field, sam would've ordered dean's favorite diner meal to go. he would've made piña coladas, because dean secretly loves them almost as much as he loves that stupid fucking song, and poured them in one of their thermoses, and dean would've lit up all stupid happy and wiggled on the blanket they'd strewn on the grass. sam would've unveiled the food and fireworks and dean would've grinned. sam would've been nervous to give him the knife, because dean might like his current handle just fine, but he probably would like it. maybe he'd pull sam in for a kiss, and call him a girl. maybe he'd have something for sam, too. they would've stayed out there all night, chasing coconut at the back of each other's mouths, grumbling and laughing and stupid and happy.
and maybe they would've gotten up in the morning with their joints aching and painful. they would've grumbled all the way back home and tumbled into dean's bed and fallen asleep dangled together and grass-stained for another few hours. maybe they would've driven home and dean would've pulled up the piña colada song and sang it at the top of his lungs and waggled his brows at the "making love at midnight" line and sam would've sung along.
he would've.
but now, it's july 4, 2026, and dean winchester is dead.
there will be no fireworks. there will be no laughter, or dinner, or kissing each other stupid.
sam stands up, and miracle follows him all the way to the kitchen. sam pours himself a bowl of cereal, and eats it. he doesn't taste most of it. he takes miracle out again, and lets her sniff around.
at dusk, sam climbs to the top of the bunker. he brings a blanket. he spreads it out, and goes to get the pearl handle. it seems much harder to climb to get it, but it might be because sam's lost a lot of muscle mass since september. he probably has. he hasn't been eating much, or moving much, or doing much of anything.
he goes down to get miracle and dean's knife, and spends an hour or two re-handling it. miracle--excited at all this new real-estate to sniff, does laps around the building until she gets tired.
the trees around the bunker are so tall that sam hears the fireworks before he sees them. distantly, they boom on the horizon.
sam throws an arm around miracle, who has frozen in place, and scruffs her fur gently. she leans into him, and sam watches as the horizon explodes in riots of color. sam puts the knife next to him, where dean would've sat.
"happy anniversary." he says, and his voice cracks from disuse. miracle sniffs at his shirt, and licks at his throat. sam snorts, rubbing her face between his hands.
they sit up there for a long time, as fireworks explode distantly.
for the first time in a long, long time, sam smiles.
okay okay okay I have to speak my mind and you are so good with your analysis on fandom:
I genuinely think that a lot of the loudest, meanest, most nonsensical takes (specifically about Robby, but in general) come from people who have A) never worked a job/never worked a job in either customer service or people-facing that also requires them to work with others and B) can't conceptualize that one character may be another's antagonist (like Langdon for Santos) but not the whole show's antagonist-or even the show not having an individual as the antagonist for the show at all, and instead a concept (such as the "antagonist" of the pitt being the administration, poverty, hospital policies, etc).
For A, I think the biggest example is how people reacted to the scene with Robby and McKay in S2, where she left (taking a medical student with her) and took supplies with her. She essentially abandoned her on-the-clock shift to take care of someone she usually sees on a volunteer position, and in doing so, she left a patient and family she'd made a connection with, missed them dying, and someone else had to do her job for her. She even missed out on supporting Javadi through this, and Javadi might have had support through it through Robby-but it was her and McKay that were treating Roxie. And Robby is right to call her out for it-because literally any other boss would have likely fired her on the spot, or she would have had some sort of write-up for it. Yes, McKay did a good thing by helping the woman out and it was a teaching lesson for Ogilvie, but it isn't without it's consequences.
For B, I see this all the time in other media. (I think it's also due in part to the literacy crisis and people being spoon-fed media of all kinds). It's like object permanence: when people can't see the antagonist or the enemy of a media, they project it onto someone. Shows like The Pitt or even Abbot Elementary (as a comedy example) do have individuals that take point for the antagonist of the season or the episode, but the major roadblock will always be the current administration, poverty itself, lack of access to medicine/education, being unsupported by admin and boards and school groups but told they're heroes and given pastries as a "thank you" rather than support.
ALL OF THIS. i honestly don't have much to add I think all of this is great. the "antagonist" in the pitt is and always will be the American healthcare system. and like yeah. at the end of the day robby is still the boss and he has to do boss things. I get mckay is a fan fave (she's one of my favorites too) but he was not wrong to get onto her here lmao. anyways yes all of this
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
