Board Thread:Show-Related Questions and Answers/@comment-26569765-20171118234222/@comment-1295345-20171119192009

The way I see it, it's like the kelvin timeline in star trek. When the Romulan ship went back in time, from that moment on when it arrived it created an alternate timeline, an alternate reality that split off from the main reality at the moment of change, so before there was no kelvin reality, only after at the moment the Romulans appeared in the past, and if those from the kelvin reality were able to travel to the other parallel universes and end up changing things, then the moment of divergence made by time travel not only created an alternate reality but altered the past of other realities as well. Also I think it only made one wishrealm (the enchanted forest) rather than a wish wonderland and wish neverland as well.

As for the confusion around princess emma, I think that when the wish was cast it essentially sent Emma to a reality that altered her own personal history, so in a sense she was always princess emma.