#achsah

[sergeantsporks]

I love how Achsah's plan to send her parents a message from her through the ages revolved around multiple factors.

1.) She remembering the layout of her parents house and the surrounding area correctly. (It's not much the layout that's the potential problem as locating the correct place must've been. 350+ years is a long time! Surely the geography and plant community changed quite a bit in the intervening centuries.)

2.) Caleb deciding to dig a root cellar like he always talking about doing. (Didn't happen, but luckily Ghost decided to dig in the exact same spot where she buried the puzzle box anyway.)

3.) Burying the message deep enough for it to not be found right away, but not so deeply that it's unlikely to never be found. (Image Caleb and Evelyn coming across the message... while building the house! They'd never let Achsah out of their sight!)

Oh, yeah, it was a shot in the dark, for sure. She buried that thing with NO idea if it would actually reach them.

In terms of part one, the house IS close enough to an unchanging landmark (the third rib) that she could probably get pretty close. We'll say she used oracle magic to predict the changing landscape, or she had a photograph of her house that she took from the third rib to guide her, or even that there's actually a couple dozen boxes buried in the surrounding area with a copy of the letter and a bracelet, lol. They can go find the rest of the boxes and EVERYONE can get an Achsah bracelet.

They got really lucky with Ghost finding the box, for sure, but in terms of how deep she needed to bury it, root cellars have to be a certain depth to really work properly, so if she buried it with the thought that Caleb would find it when he dug a root cellar, she could just bury it at that depth, and she'd be set!

But overall? Yeah. It was a desperate last attempt. It's a little sad to think about her writing a letter that might never reach its recipient, with no way of finding out if it got that far, and just hoping that fate would be kind, and her parents would find it. But, hey, it worked!

[sergeantsporks]

Achsah should haunt the narrative more

[sergeantsporks]

*After a long, anxious -not to mention painful! - day, Caleb and Evelyn's much awaited child has finally - and safely! - entered the world. As the two new parents gaze down upon their daughter, thoughts of names enter their tired - but happy! - minds. Caleb speaks first.*

Caleb: (Dreamily) "Let's call her Has-descendents."

Evelyn: (Bemused) "Caleb, my love... I adore you, but no. We are not naming our daughter that."

Caleb: (Still dreamily) "But don't you see? It's the perfect name. She's our first child - The first descendant of our new family line."

Evelyn: (Blunt) "I appreciate the thought that you've put into it, but the answer is still no."

Caleb: (Disappointed) "Oh..."

*He thinks for a moment.*

Caleb: (Hopeful) "How does God’s-Mercy-Flows-Down, sound? We can call her "Mercy" for short."

Evelyn: (Unamused) "I'm going to have to nix that one also."

Caleb: (Pouty face) "Are you sure? There's nothing I can say to change your mind?"

Evelyn: (Firm) "I know that naming children after... virtues was commonplace in the community that you grew up in. But I think that our daughter deserves to have a name that's wholly her own."

Caleb: (Sighs) "Alright."

*Another moment passes.*

Evelyn: (Inquiring) "What about Achsah? I remember it being from that book you used to show me whenever I would visit you in your old realm."

Caleb: (Questioning) "Achsah... Achsah... I...

*Caleb gazes down at the sleeping baby, somehow now even more overwhelmed with love for her.*

Caleb: "Oh, Evelyn. I love it. It's perfect. Our little Achsah."

Evelyn: (Throughly pleased) "Glad that we have that settled."

Awwwwwwww

[sergeantsporks]

[Gilded Family] So, question.

Did the Clawthornes even exist prior to Achsah getting trapped in the past? Or did Caleb and Evelyn only start hearing of them after they lost her?

Okay, so, we don't really have enough information on the time travel in owl house to really answer this super well, but from what I can tell, the time travel in owl house seems to operate on a closed loop, meaning you can't really change things in the past and see an effect in the future. Everything is not exactly destined to happen because that would be against the themes of the show, but Phillip knew the light glyph and had the Collector's disc before Luz traveled back in time, you know? Because it "already happened." In fact, he goes through some lengths involving Flora in order to make sure Luz goes back in time and cause it all.

That being said, Gilded works on a sort of self-correcting loop. Caleb explained it in the first chapter, if you cause a disturbance in time, it'll quickly right itself. He can rescue a grimwalker because even if he rescues a grimwalker, Belos will still make a new grimwalker to replace them, so while there would be a little blip where Caleb jumped back in time and snatched that grimwalker (like Belos never finding bones and assuming grims disintegrate hours after dying), it doesn't overall affect anything.

Achsah: Similar to how Belos presumably had the disk in season 1 "before" Luz time traveled, the Clawthorne line existed "before" Achsah fell in the pool. Now, if she HADN'T fallen in the pool, then that'd be a whole different time stream and they wouldn't exist (just like how gilded itself is existing in an alternate universe where Caleb survived, there are hypothetically other universes in which much of gilded is the same, but there's no Clawthornes). But in THIS time stream/loop, she did, so they exist.

It's. Ya know. It's time travel. Don't think about it too hard. It's not supposed to make sense.

[sergeantsporks]

Achsah: "Okay, moment of truth time. If I've constructed this... permanent portal right, then it should-"

*She turns the key.*

Achsah: "-lead to a safe place?"

*Achsah goes through the door, she doesn't have a good time. Only a mere few decades have passed in Gravesfield since her father and evil uncle left it. The Connecticut Witch Trials are in full swing.*

*After all that she's seen, Achsah quickly re-enters The Demon Realm. Even slamming the door in her haste to get out of her father's world.*

Achsah: "That was anything but a safe place! Fuck portals in general and this one in particular!!!"

*She throws the portal door as hard as she can, it lands some distance away from her. Ultimately remaining unfound for centuries, getting partially buried by the elements in the process. Leaving it in the perfect position to be found by a particularly desperate descendant of hers.*

LOL.

Achsah: Dad was not kidding, Human Realm really can be sucks

[sergeantsporks]

In Gilded's version of canon, do you think that there's a chance that Achsah was the one who built the portal door? Maybe it was an attempt at getting back to her parents! (And newfound brother too!)

It would have to be, yeah! Evelyn and Caleb were still using temporary portals when they jumped to the future, so Achsah would be the one who built the door. I'm not sure if she thought it would help her get back to her parents, but she might have built it as a "safe place" that she and her parents (and Mole) could run to once she got back.

[sergeantsporks]

Is Caleb literate in the gilded au? I saw someone post somewhere that, when he was younger, he'd probably have had to work from a young age. Philip probably went to school while Caleb worked, so while Philip was obv literate (we saw it plenty of times in canon), Caleb probably wasn't. In the gilded au, if he wasn't initially literate, did Evelyn teach him? (That last part was so cute when I saw it and I immediately thought of this au) love your work as always !!! <3

Oh, I like that idea. That's a good theory. I'll raise you one better: Evelyn taught him and Achsah at the same time. He and his daughter learned together <3

[sergeantsporks]

Is Evelyn's bag one of those doctor bags?

I was thinking like a messenger bag, but a doctor bag would make more sense, since it would keep potion bottles from rolling around and breaking

Or, if you want to go an angstier route, it could be Achsah’s old camera bag, since that would perform a similar function.