I... each time I think I cannot adore him more: [link]

Shroud was worth the price of admission for the scene with Daniel and Jack in the, um, piloting room? ::memfault on actual name of room::

I really enjoyed the wishverse episode of SPN. But why are we assuming that the wish was constructed by Dean? I think it's just as easy to figure that the djinn's magic was working from two principles: what Dean secretly wished for, and a way to plausibly keep his victims hallucinating/dreaming for the duration of time they were fed on. That doesn't necessarily have to do with what Dean's own dream may actually have been--there were just as many things that surprised him, from Cameron being a nurse to his relationship with Sam being strained to having to work, at all. Those are things I don't think, even in idle fantasy, Dean would have fully thought out, and so extrapolating how he feels about things he didn't think up is a stretch, for me.

It seems to me that the djinn's magic is what constructs the alternate reality based on the information gleaned from its prey, and that they prey itself would have little involvement (consciously or unconsciously) in how the alternate reality actually turned out. There's a point where you just have to handwave, I think, because you can't really claim that Dean influenced how things were constructed because he couldn't have without cluing in far faster that everything was perfect.

Take John being dead, for example--setting aside the fact that Jeff probably couldn't be had for the ep (though all the photoshopped pictures of JDM and actress-Mary and the boys were cute, if colored wrong), it didn't occur to Dean that John would be dead. If this was his wishverse, and it were constructed by him, surely John would be alive. But in order to make it seem more real, thereby keeping its prey more docile in the fantasy, John was dead. Making the wish, as it were, doesn't make things perfect--it just makes it a different flavour of real.

Regarding Sammy, I'm surprised he went to Stanford at all. Part of what drove him to Palo Alto was its seeming far-ness from wherever his dad and brother hunted. (And probably the big scholarship.) But with two parents to support him through school, the relative stability of his household, and staying in one place long enough to potentially earn other scholarships, why didn't he go to, like, Northwestern or something? It's not unusual that people go far away to go to college, but he didn't have the incentive to do so as he did in the real reality. (Sigh. Only in shows like this do I have to use such clunky terms as "real reality.")

Either way, it's a moot point, because the fantasy was constructed around Dean's expectations for what a world with their mother would be like, and given his knowledge of how much being without Jess tore Sam up, it's a logical conclusion that Dean's wishverse would include Sam being with Jess. Of course the flip side to that is that Sam and Dean aren't close. But it still aligns closely with what Dean would believe, in order to remain in the fantasty.

To use a not-perfect example, in BtVS' Wishverse, Xander and Willow were best friends. Crazy vampire best friends, but still. Something expected, something not, to maintain the construct that what is being experienced is real. Or at least, how it should be.

It was nice to see Jess/Tyra, anyway. Her hair was very curly.

But why are we assuming that the wish was constructed by Dean? I think it's just as easy to figure that the djinn's magic was working from two principles: what Dean secretly wished for, and a way to plausibly keep his victims hallucinating/dreaming for the duration of time they were fed on. That doesn't necessarily have to do with what Dean's own dream may actually have been--there were just as many things that surprised him, from Cameron being a nurse to his relationship with Sam being strained to having to work, at all. Those are things I don't think, even in idle fantasy, Dean would have fully thought out, and so extrapolating how he feels about things he didn't think up is a stretch, for me.

For me, because it fits in with Dean's "supernatural acid" hypothesis, where the djinn's magic is a catalyst that sends him down the rabbit hole, but is not an active player (it wouldn't have to be, most of the time, and doesn't make sense that it would have to constantly be in there fine-tuning), and because so many of the blank areas that get filled in are filled in from things that make the most sense if they're being filled in by Dean's own subconscious.

So he's sitting there, eating the sandwich, and something hits the "huh, don't I have somewhere to be?" button, "Shouldn't you be at work?" (which can be seen as both filling in the normal and a warning). And there where's filled in with "at the garage", which, of course, makes sense if Dean's mind is sort of making it up as he goes along, because it falls into line with following in his father's footsteps.

There's a point where you just have to handwave, I think, because you can't really claim that Dean influenced how things were constructed because he couldn't have without cluing in far faster that everything was perfect.

I'm not sure I follow that. Given his speech at the end (the one frelled on the DL) about how all he can think about since Dad's death is how much the job has taken from them, and how much they've lost ("I know, but I wanted to stay. I I wanted to stay so bad. I mean ever since Dad…all I can, all I can think about is how much this job’s cost us. We’ve lost so much. And we’ve sacrificed so much."), it just makes the most sense to me, both in terms of what we see and how it ties in to the overall emotional arc of the character this season, that it's his construct.

t sits next to Plei I totally see it as Dean's subconscious determining what went into the universe, once the djinn did its magic whoozit. Also, I had a suspicion that the djinn wasn't all that smart... Like, it knows enough to do what it needs to do to keep its prey under control, but it isn't interested in the inner workings of their brains.

I'm back to the X-Files comparisons: "Field Trip", not "Je Souhaite".

I'm back to the X-Files comparisons: "Field Trip", not "Je Souhaite".

Oh, man. Can you imagine the boys dealing with the djinn from "Je Souhaite"? That's an ep (or a fic) I'd dearly love to see.

I was thinking of the Farscape episode "A Human Reaction" -- in which the outside controller is in charge of every little detail, trying to make it up from the contents of the protagonists's subconscious, and eventually that outside controller screws up and the protagonist catches on.

Not before exposing the dark underbelly of Crichton's psychology, as regards aliens on earth, anyway. Dude was probably deeply scarred by too many viewings of E.T.

If the genie were in control, even on a macro level, then it would have performed a short-circuit right after the graveside scene: put Carmen in danger, do something to distract Dean from his new/old hunt for the genie itself. (Also, if the genie were in control, it would have pre-empted the TV news just in time to avoid that reminder of the crashed airplane.) If Dean is in control, then it's just a question of how conscious he is of his own conflict as he unintentionally constructs reality around himself.

Notably, none of the stuff in the unreal universe is totally implausible; events develop logically from the assumptions. In an arbitrary/outside-created universe, there would be more "wait, that makes no sense" stuff, like when Crichton recognizes his grade-school teacher on a boardwalk in Australia. If it's all in one person's head, then there isn't that mad scramble for details that tends to undo the whole illusion. The brain just fills in the holes, like a puzzle of cognition.

If it's all in one person's head, then there isn't that mad scramble for details that tends to undo the whole illusion. The brain just fills in the holes, like a puzzle of cognition.

Yes, exactly.

You know, I kind of wish I were kidding when I say that I think I could fill a Tolstoy-length book picking things apart in this episode, but it's managed to turn my entire head into one huge Dean-centric tl;dr. More so than usual, I mean.

Having already done Chapter One: The Zeppelin Trilogy, or, A Tale of Two Crises, I'm dangerously close to starting Chapter Two: Brother, Mother, Sister, Lover, or, Aspects of the Deanon. (Y'know, like canon or fanon, and calling back to that whole Earshot episode of Buffy, with the aspect of the demon? Because one vague bad pun can be excused, but two show they're possibly habit forming, especially when the second one's a reach.)

I'm seriously in need of a hobby.

New Who: so who is this Saxon guy talking to Martha's Mum ? Are we supposed to know him?

I'm seriously in need of a hobby.

Capybara fic!

Err-- sorry- that was mostly for Cass.

Are we supposed to know him?

Only if you've been paying attention to casting spoilers.