#damn. i made myself weepy. carlos is the best

[robbiethompsonlongcon]

so does anybody else see carlos a bit as like deans... ideal self? or self insert? lil bit like deans mary sue (honorific)? like how dean would like to be, or how he wants to perceive himself? or at least the version of dean we perceive together as a fandom's ideal self? not literally, i don't think dean is creating the characters or making the story up diagetically as the New Chuck or anything, but in that way the OG show sometimes does metatextual parallels between two characters who otherwise have no control over the narrative.

carlos is.. beloved by all. disaster bisexual. gender!! so much gender!! genderweird, genderfastandloose, genderplayful. unbound by gender roles entirely. a wonderful tapestry of masculine, feminine, both and neither. truly knows who he is, and is comfortable with that identity. celebratory of it, even! hes got it, hes gonna flaunt it. tastefully slutty. constant quips. sassy as fuck. so charismatic it hurts. talented performer. incredible hunter. frequently pokes at his beloved, sibling-type lorenerd hunting partner about her books. selfless and loving as thee central personality trait, buried under a layer of protective bravado. but also very aware he is very pretty and very talented. competent!!! but knows his strengths, and plays to them. nurturing. free and wild and a little reckless, a little superficial but never in truly harmful ways. if carlos goes or stays, it's because he wants to, he decided for himself, not because anyone told him to. willing to express boundaries. getting therapy. not afraid of feelings. do no harm take no shit. and just. so, so, SO very cool. in every way. even the "nerdy" things about him are cool. he's flawed, imperfect, but that's kinda what makes him ideal. he's just so.. real.

plus, john actively loves him, and loves him for who he is. john leans on him for support, sometimes even takes his advice. and he never tells carlos who to be or how to act. john and carlos are friends, they're FAMILY. john never tries to make carlos more like himself, at least he hasn't so far. carlos can be as silly, as emotional, as nonconforming, as distractable as he wants and john, at worst, breezes past it. lets him be himself. oftentimes john just supports him. john RESPECTS him. sees him as a worthwhile and complete individual, a valuable member of the team. they're like brothers. and why wouldn't dean want to be like brothers with his dad? it's not weird for him, he's already something of a dad to his brother. the boundaries between brothers and fathers and sons are already blurred for dean, and have been since he was four years old. and his relationship with bobby is more fluid than fatherfigure and son, too. bobby is father figure, uncle, coworker, mentor/teacher, childhood friend, war buddy and co-conspirator. in fact, none of deans relationship roles are so clear cut. and for all his complicated feelings about john, and all his traumas.. at his core he really does want johns respect and affection. marys, too, to be fair. carlos has both.

and then there's the story line in 1x08. carlos was given a Mark that forces him to kill, took the Mark in order to stop a dangerous and malicious entity from wanton murder before knowing the full terms and ramifications. the whole team researched the Mark and tried to find ways to get rid of the curse. but when push came to shove, they failed. the entity behind the curse was a lot more powerful than they thought. so carlos's options were either: to do what the Mark and the entity wanted and choose a victim's life to take, satisfying the conditions of the Mark and hope the entity didnt move the goalposts. or to say, nah. the life i choose to take is my own. and for once, that was the right answer!! carlos saved the day and defeated the enemy not by fighting, not by the deaths loved ones or innocents, not by cutting losses or solving for x, but by refusing to play, by sacrificing himself. and just being willing to was enough, he didn't have to actually die. carlos won. by giving up. nobody died because of carlos' decision to take on the burden from jericho, nor his decision to turn it inward. when carlos called the shots, everybody lived.

every time dean tries that, it backfires spectacularly, and usually winds up getting just as many people hurt or killed as the callous and selfish option would have. dean wants to be good and selfless so badly that he often rushes straight to self sacrifice. hes like plan a) ask nicely whoops i forgot to be nice. well that failed OK PLAN B) martyrdom. it's like, every time dean is faced with the trolley problem, his first answer is to throw himself in front of the trolley. as though he thinks the trolley is going to be satisfied and just disappear. or at least this way he won't have to see what happens next.

in carlos' situation, that was the LAST resort, not one of the first. they really were in a kill-or-be-killed, 11th hour hailmary situation. they tried everything else. the trolley was upon them. and carlos chose to die, not out of a wanton desire to prove his worth/worthlessness or martyr himself, but because they DID try every other thing they could first. it was a last resort! carlos DID NOT WANT to die, he wanted to save everybody, including himself! he had thoroughly considered the possibility that he would have to die, but he put that on the furthest backburner. he didn't want to die, but when it came down to it, he said, i won't be manipulated and i wont play god. back me into a corner, twist my arm, i won't do it. fuck you, i won't be your plaything. deans whole thing is that he doesn't wanna be anybodys plaything! not chuck's, not azazel's, not even john's. and he always is. and giving up never works for him. he never gets to choose. hes trapped in the game against his will. he doesn't even want to win the game, he just wants to quit playing. but the rules are that if he doesn't play, that's still playing, and he loses. if he does play, he loses. its rigged. there's no winning and no forfeit for dean. but for carlos, there was both this time. quitting was winning. everybody lives. the ideal outcome, if your name is dean winchester.

carlos is everything dean wishes he could be, or wishes he could believe he was. brave, strong, confident, smart, funny, drop dead gorgeous, selfless, complicated, sensitive, intuitive, comfortable, endearing. and he wins the way dean always wished he could.