#infinite realms are faerie realms AU

[inkandarsenic]

My new favorite HC is that the Infinite Realms is Faerie. Danny died and is brought back by the magic of Faerie, making him more half Fae than he is half ghost. He’s been raised by the Fentons, though, who believe that Faerie is the Ghost Zone and that they’re ghost hunters, and so Danny, Sam and Tucker all just assume that he’s half ghost.

The Infinite Realms, however, are in fact infinite, and most of the ghosts Danny fights are in fact the spirits of humans who died in a place where the barrier between worlds was exceptionally thin, like ley line intersections or natural portals. They don’t realize that Danny isn’t actually half ghost because halfas are so rare. When Danny defeats Pariah Dark, he becomes King of the Infinite Realms (King of Faerie) after which his Fae qualities begin bleeding into his human half too. (Liminal Sam, Tucker and Jazz meaning they also start having Fae qualities? Team Phantom making everyone just slightly uncomfortable because they’re just a little too inhuman. Like uncanny valley vibes, they’re all just a bit off, but they’re just vibing completely oblivious to it. Ellie is like Puck from midsummer nights dream. Team Phantom eventually all becoming more Faerie than human through exposure and connection to Danny.)

If we go DPxDC on this, the liminal Batfam being just slightly off the way Sam Tucker and Jazz are, something people chalk up to them being bats, but Jason coming back more like Danny, a little more unsettling than the others.

The Speedforce being another corner of the Infinite Realms, and the Flash Family sometimes smile just a bit too wide, sometimes laugh just a bit too brightly, sometimes when people are around them as they run, they get the inexplicable urge to join in and never stop. (Flash Family being like the Wild Hunt or like the dancing until you die thing.)

The first time Team Phantom meets the Justice League + Constantine, everything in Constantine is screaming to stay as far away as possible from them, but the Flashes and Bats just completely disregard his warnings. The Kents and Diana also ignoring him because their nonhuman physiology means they don’t have that instinct to run. Damian thinks being around Team Phantom feels like being around the League.

[evilprincesskeri]

Was It Time Travel?

There’s a lot of Time Travel episodes in the Supernatural catalog.  The official list of Time Travel episodes that I could find is as follows:

4.03 In the Beginning

5.04 The End

5.13 The Song Remains the Same

6.17 My Heart Will Go On

6.18 Frontierland

8.12 As Time Goes By 

7.12 Time After Time

9.21 King of the Damned

11.14 The Vessel

12.13 Family Feud

Each one of those has an overt time-travel element to them, but, one of them stands out as being different than the others in a very specific way.  Do you see it?

The End is the one that stands out for me.  And I have a theory.

Listen to Willow, kids.  Because it’s definitely not Witches or Bunnies or some Dancing Demon.  *cue Tara’s half-hearted jazz hands*

Before I dig in here, let’s talk about the different categories of wacky shit the boys have been through.  

1) Alternate Universes

There are fewer of these episodes because because of the power it takes to accomplish/justify.  I include all the wacky reality bent episodes in this category so, obviously Mystery Spot and Changing Channels are there as well as The French Mistake, but this also includes hopping dimensions ala the The Bad Place & Wayward Sisters episodes as well as all the Apocalypse/War World episodes.  I do also include My Heart Will Go On in this list because while it’s a slight alteration to the main timeline, if we take quantum theory into account this is a timeline that exists somewhere in the ‘Verse.  It shares a spot with the War World of S13, in that, a small but important alteration to the timeline (John & Mary never had Dean & Sam / The Titanic Never Sank) means that there are far-reaching world altering consequences.

Basically the idea here is that all things are possible in an infinite Universe, and extrapolating that means that anything that can happen HAS happened somewhere.  That’s bad news in terms of the War World, but, it also does mean that somewhere there’s a world where Dean and Cas are happily married raising a passel of adorable intense children who can kick your ass, just because.

2) Planes of Existence

These are different from AUs or Dream Worlds.  The various planes of existence appear to be lined up to match the events of the various AUs, or, perhaps are reflections of events on those worlds, there really isn’t enough information about any of them to do much more than write a list of what I’ve identified so far.  This includes, but is not limited to:

Heaven

Hell

Purgatory

The Astral Plane

The Axis Mundi

Death’s Private Realm

The Empty

Faerie/The Fae Realm

4) Dream Worlds

The rules here are a little bit more squishy, which make sense because because dreams are a squishy kind of thing.  The rules that apply in your dream world aren’t necessarily the same as those in mine now apply that ad-infinitum to all the dream worlds that live in all our brains.  But there does seem to be a single guiding principle to the way the Dream Worlds all work - the Dreamer is ultimately in control. Now, I personally, put a lot of stuff into this category that might seem questionable.  

Obviously, What Is And What Should Never Be is there, a Dream World specially created by the Djinn to keep their food passive.  And while the backdrop is defined by the Djinn, they do not have an excess of control about the moment by moment events in the dream world.  As the ending shows us, ultimately, the Dreamer is in control - Dean ends the dream by “killing himself” inside it.

This seems to be the only hard and fast rule within the Dream World of the SPN'Verse - whatever the outside force it is that is affecting the backdrop the Dreamer ultimately has the power to end the dream.  We’re shown this again and again, in Dream a Little Dream and Pac-Man Fever - both of which resolve when the Dreamer takes control and turns the power of the dream in on itself or regains their own agency and uses that as the means to an exit.  It is for this reason that I have always put It's a Terrible Life into this category - a Dream World, rather than an Alternate Universe although I am willing to consider Terrible Life as an AU - it’s just much more likely that it’s an AU that Zachariah saw, and, recreated as a Dream World taster for Dean to incentivize a Yes.  He even says “Hey, look what we could give you only you say yes.” But, Dean sees it for the obvious lie that it is and as soon as he does - he is released from it.

So, that brings us to...

3) Time Travel

The vast majority of the Time Travel category are travel to the past from the current time.  There are notable exceptions to this though, specifically in As Time Goes By and King of the Damned.  Both feature a person from the past being transported via mortal-magical means to the current time.  In As Time Goes By this is John’s father, Henry uses mortal magic to open a portal in time... and he dies in the current timeline.  That is an act that serves to explain his absence from John’s life (and by extension, the boys lives) but does not alter history or the timeline.  John was, essentially, fated to grow up fatherless - whether his father was killed by Abaddon in 1958 or in 2013 is essentially meaningless.  Abbadon was going to kill Henry. The when/where is not noteworthy.

In King of the Damned we’re faced with a similar situation.  The difference is that Crowley makes an attempt to thwart his son’s death by keeping him in the present.  That leads to consequences in Family Feud - which the boys end up having to put right so that the timeline is maintained.  This is a lesson they’ve learned over the course of their Time Travel adventures as far back as The Song Remains The Same.  

I mentioned, above, My Heart Will Go On, because I do consider it an AU episode, but, one that is precipitated by off-screen Time Travel.  Balthazar saves the Titanic from sinking in order for there to be more souls in the present than there were in the timeline where the boat sank.  This ultimately causes more problems than it solves, so, events must be returned to the way they were meant to go. Ahem. Fixed. Point. In. Time.  (Thank you Doctor.)

The point being that when alterations to the past are made, the boys feel it in the present almost instantaneously.  The best example of this is Frontierland where Dean goes back in time to acquire Phoenix ash to kill Eve and fails to do so, but, also leaves behind the Colt.  They despair of having failed utterly. And, in truth, bringing Phoenix ash back from the past probably isn’t possible, because things want to stay in their timelines… but, almost immediately, there’s a knock at the door and they receive a delivery of Phoenix ash ala Back To the Future.  Putting the ash firmly in place in the timeline as being a thing that waited for it’s time.

Over and over again, the past is defined as the foundation of the present.  Changing the past in big ways isn’t possible, though changing little things about how big events go is.  So - for example - the boys kill the Phoenix and meet Samuel Colt. He decides to help them, based on what little they tell him about how important these things are.  But it’s his decision, it’s not forced on him. And that is the hard and fast rule of Time Travel in the SPN’Verse.

It is, therefore, my opinion that The End is a Dream World.

If the events of the past are the foundation of the present, then the present is the foundation on which the future is built.  

When The End happens Zachariah is nearing the end of his rope.  He’s been given a task by Michael; secure Dean’s Yes.  He is supposed to convince this stubborn human to let Michael wear him to prom.  And so far every tactic he’s used from asking to bullying has failed. Now he’s trying to force the issue.    

But, over the course of S4 it’s easy for anyone to see that Dean is often motivated by guilt.  It’s also easy to assume that Dean is under almost constant surveillance - and so, it’s not coincidental that when Sam tells Dean about being Lucifer’s vessel, Zachariah decides to take action as soon as possible to leverage the guilt and responsibility Dean feels for Sam.  

We’ve seen over the course of the seasons that Heaven doesn’t brook failure, and doesn’t give extra chances easily.  Zachariah is on a precipice. In fact, in his next appearance we see him sitting at a bar - having been “fired”. So, it seems doubtful that Heaven, or Michael, would grant Zachariah (who is basically on his Final Written Warning) the power to transport Dean to a possible future down a timeline where Michael lost the battle.  Especially considering the ego we’ve seen Michael exhibit in later seasons - both our Michael and AU Michael do not even see it as a possibility that he can lose to Lucifer.

But, again, Zachariah is at the end of his rope.  And Dreamwalking is a simple task for Angels. Up to S5 we’ve seen Uriel, Cas, Zachariah, and Anna all do it with ease.  Altering the backdrop of a dream is almost no work at all, there is much less energy expended to alter a dream scape than to transport Dean to an uncertain and likely unstable future.  One that is a single thread among many possible futures.

The idea that it’s a dream is further supported by the way all the characters behave in the Endverse.  Future!Dean goes out of his way to tell Dean to make different choices from the ones he made. He specifically he pushes *hard* on Dean to say Yes to Michael.  That has always seemed out of character to me, and, more so now that we’ve seen the circumstances under which Dean *does* say Yes. Dean says yes out of Love, not out of Fear (which is why none of Zachariah’s tactics ever worked to begin with).  

Literally, everyone and everything in the Endverse tells Dean he should say Yes.  Even Endverse!Cas is designed to show Dean how saying “No” punishes everyone and everything he loves.  That’s... a little too on the nose to be the way the world really works. But it is in line with how Dream Worlds have been shown to work.  And, it’s all far too close to the message that Gabriel is trying to give Sam and Dean in Changing Channels; Play Your Role.  

And then there’s Chuck.  

Just... worrying about toilet paper like a regular human.  Because Zachariah does not know he is actually God he just drops Chuck into the dream like “Hey, look, you kept the Prophet along for the ride hoping you’d get some kind of benefit out of it.”  Zachariah has shown disdain for Chuck in previous interactions so it’s likely he’d set Chuck up to be comedic and petty in the dream he’s constructing.

Zachariah tells him he must be there for three days, but, the days themselves are a blur of moments that blend together - much like they would in a dream.  Dean doesn’t sleep or wake during those three days, and, of course you can argue that is pretty normal for Dean - but he usually rests out of habit at night even if he doesn’t sleep and we don’t see that.  Events happen one after another, without giving him too much time to think about what’s happening or why... and yet he’s given plenty of time to sit with Cas. To talk to himself. Plenty of time to be convinced - but  not enough time to think clearly.

The whole episode has much more in common with What Is And What Should Never Be or It’s a Terrible Life than it does with any of the Time Travel episodes.  The Time Travel episodes are revelatory. Narratively the Time Travel episodes help the boys (and the audience) to understand the history of their lives, and how they fit into the story they’re in the middle of.  But the Dream World episodes are about exploring the boys internal desires and fears. So, tell me... which goal does The End accomplish?  It certainly doesn’t reveal anything about Dean that he or the audience didn’t already know... but it DOES show us Dean’s fears in stark relief.

He fears Sam being weak and saying yes to Lucifer - and all of what that’s going to mean.  He fears being unable to stop Lucifer if that does happen. He fears for the world in general, but, he fears the consequences his loved ones will suffer most.  

Dean wakes from the dream as soon as he has made up his mind to change this outcome.  Zachariah isn’t able to keep him there because it is a Dream and ultimately, Dean is in control.  And most importantly... Zachariah is surprised and ANGRY when Dean still says no.

Finally, there is that stupid photo that shows up in the journal in S12.   You know the one:

I could go on a week long rant about everything that’s wrong with this photo as an artifact from “the future” but here’s the thing - changes made to the past have an immediate impact on the present and so too should changes to the present have an immediate impact on the future.

We know what happened.  We know the boys broke the mold - changed the script, and, yet, that picture remains?  It isn’t proof. It’s a red herring. If it WERE truly an artifact of a bleak future it would have faded/changed as changes to the present were made the way the photo Marty carries with him in Back to The Future changes based on his actions in the past.  I mean just look at all the things about that picture that are wrong.  Front and center?  Bobby in a wheelchair.  As soon as he made his deal with Crowley that should have changed.  But it didn’t.  

Which means that the picture was nothing more than a bit tangible leverage created for Dean by Zachariah, in exactly the same way he furnished and stocked beer & burgers in the fancy waiting room.  Zachariah orchestrated the dream, set up the back drop with which Dean interacted. He saw Dean pick up the photo in the dream, saw him pocket it, and fabricated a copy to leave in his pocket while he slept - well within the powerset of an Angel of almost any power level.