#and i'm the sister iris age now!!!!! which of course i planned for. i have nails for the occasion <3

[relicsongmel]

I'm 25 today

[thisbuildinghasfeelings]

What do you think about Carlos' sisters and the dynamic between them all? When I headcanon-ed sisters for Carlos I originally made him the youngest but that was mostly because I wanted him being a tio and I'm not really sold on the idea. It could be either way or I can see him be in the middle even. The only thing I am now pretty sold on is that either way there must be a significant age difference between them, otherwise they would have meddled in Carlos' life instead of allowing him to feel so lonely and isolated that he chose to marry a woman, but if they were still tweens/young teens or already in college or something it would make more sense.

In favour of them being older we have the comparison thing of his parents being interested in their boyfriends while never asking him about his (though I don't remember if it was ever mentioned there being something to compare, and that thing in any case could easily be filled by older cousins); and the pressure he felt over marrying, especially if at least one of them was married. That though raises the question of how had Carlos not known how his mum would act when there was wedding planning involved.

In favour of them being younger we have the mention of their quinceanera as the reference for the wedding cake he and TK wanted, and not anything else, which seems odd otherwise.

As for him feeling pressured to be prefect I don't think it would make a difference what order he was born in, since he's the only son which warrant a certain set of expectations. Also I think he's just wired that way, to a point at least, searching constantly for people's approval.

I've always thought Carlos either had older sisters or was an only child. Because of this, I have a hard time picturing him now with younger sisters. I agree that the pressure put on Carlos/the pressure he puts on himself isn't necessarily affected by whether his sisters are younger or older. Like you said, he's the only son and he's also just wired that way. Unless we find out differently, I think I have to imagine them as older sisters because that's how I've always thought about it.

We know so little about the Reyes sisters and the likelihood that we will ever find out much of substance about them is not high. That means the possibilities are almost endless when it comes to why they apparently didn't get more involved in Carlos' life. Of course, there's the possibility that they're terrible sisters, but I'm not even going to consider that without having evidence that this is the case. Maybe they aren't close with Carlos. This isn't really my head canon, but maybe they're much older and so aren't very in tune with what's going on in his life.

One potential scenario could be that Carlos didn't come out to his sisters, or at least not until much later. Carlos came out to his parents when he was 17. His older sisters would probably be in their 20s and likely would have moved away from home, or at least would be living somewhere else for college. Carlos got a complete non-reaction from his parents and felt deeply that he had disappointed them. I could see Carlos then not wanting to come out to his sisters, perhaps fearing a similar or worse reaction. And if Andrea and Gabriel weren't talking to Carlos about it, I could see them not talking to their daughters about it either. In that case, it's possible that Carlos could have married Iris without his sisters knowing that he's gay.

Or another possible scenario could be that Carlos did come out to his sisters but did not confide in them about how deeply he was hurting, or about his intention to marry Iris. We already know that good communication is not a strong Reyes family trait. We also know that Carlos is someone who wants to appear strong and in control and is not particularly likely to talk about his feelings, especially negative feelings. In fact, he was probably even worse with communication when he was younger. Maturity and opening up through his relationship with TK have likely helped him get a tiny bit better in that area. When Carlos decided to marry Iris, I could see him just going ahead and doing it and informing his family after the fact. At that point, his sisters may have just done their best to support him by accepting his decision. After all, they were raised by Gabriel and Andrea, who tried to support Carlos by simply pretending nothing had changed and never mentioning it again. You'd hope that his sisters might have been able to do better than that, but maybe they made the same mistakes as their parents.

There's also the possibility that Carlos came out to his sisters and they were loving and supportive, but it wasn't enough for Carlos because he still felt disappointment from his parents. I have a hard time believing that loving and supportive sisters would condone Carlos' marriage to Iris before the fact, so even in this scenario, I think I have to assume he didn't tell them about it until he was already married. Then, at that point, what could they do? Carlos soon realized that the marriage wasn't a good idea. Perhaps part of that came from discussions with his sisters.

I think it's most likely that we will never get any storyline involving Carlos' sisters. A throwaway line here and there is probably the best we'll ever get. However, I do hope we'll see them at the wedding and/or get at least a couple more tidbits of information about them. Their names at the very least! I feel like (unless the wedding happens in some kind of spontaneous scenario because of some kind of disaster/emergency) Carlos' sisters have to be at the wedding. Otherwise, why even have Carlos mention their existence?

I have a strong feeling that the show is never going to give us details of exactly what happened when Carlos married Iris or what the Reyes family dynamics surrounding this were like. Because of that, we can probably come up with whatever scenario feels most plausible to us and it will likely never be contradicted by canon. Personally, I'm not quite sure where I'm landing on this yet. I need more time to think about it.