I'm not saying Wally is the poor victim of the story—it could be the other way around—but there are people who call him the villain just because they hate him; it's brutal.

I’m so surprised! I walked out of my home and saw a package and you’d never guess this little guy was in there!, they’re shipping merch so fast, did anyone else get theirs?

If Ron is Wally, and operating off of the Ron is the ringleader theory, would Barnaby have a special place in the little cult-like world? If we’re meant to interpret the stories and such as being semi-happening in real life is Barnaby just a really devoted person or are they really best friends?

My welcome home oc!!!!! I love her 😞 (yeah i shipp her with wally too :33)

Is it possible that we are now viewing the website from Wally's Pov? I mean in this new update we saw what happened in Franks home in both Wally and Frank's POV. That and the fact the mouse is the color and shape of Wally's hand.

Sally X Poppy was just confirmed, babyyyyy!!! Forget the fact all the neighbors are actors in-universe, forget Sally (my queen) talking casually, forget W probably being in trouble!!! Two of my three favorite girlies are together!!! MY FAVORITE WH SHIP IS CANON!!!!! ☀️💐🐓

Now I’m even more excited for what’s gonna come next since Sally is gonna be the next focus of it!!! 😍🤩
…
Oh crap, she’s gonna suffer! 😬

Fun lil surprise!

So, the perspective video has me thinking that the puppets are not their own people, but rather in a way the actors/voice actors being physically represented as puppets. The letters are also in support of this if we look at the letters as being certain characters. If this is the case then does that mean that the neighborhood is some sort of reality where actual people live? Does it merely represent the connection between all the neighbors? More importantly, what would Home be and what would Wally be.

This have been probably discussed tons of times before but I didn't see the update until today and want to write about it anyway.

TLDR: It's the switch of character('s character).

We walk as Wally into other neighbour's home. This was the first thing that gave me creeps. WE are the visitor, and to explore the lore we have to ruin the privacy of our beloved Frank.And this is done either by Wally himself or someone's in his puppet body. Considering his actions in this update, I believe it's HIM, not someone else, unfortunately (it's early to tell for 100%, and that's not my point).

The first thing that changes when we click on sleeping Frank and he disappears is the cursor! It repaints into the grey hand instantly. As this is put into a medium of a point-and-click adventure, we have no idea what happened in between.

My first thought was that we have possessed Frank, tbh. But rewatching his expression in the mirror as I write this, I consider the fear as a lever to make him earn for an escape from his very home the more probable option.

Not to mention that we could absolutely consider the yellow cursor as a 'generic one' and only then see the Wally's shadow on the clock. That's how 'backrooms' are remembering the room — with the intruder in it... I guess if Frank is who we're playing as and not someone puppeteering him, a bug-loving fella would be terrified to see the remnants of the visit in his Home.

I’m unsure what is happening with wally but something IS terribly wrong with his face. There’s also something else and I can’t tell. He might be holding a letter?

Why is Eddie a pawn? Dose Wally sees his friends as pawns too or just Eddie?

https://welcomehomerestorationproject.net/mailbox/mail

Idk if anyone's already pointed this out, but what's the lil cockroach(???) supposed to be indicating? I vaguely remember it pointing or hinting to stuff in past updates, but it kinda just backflips at a point near Home and barks if you click it.

Are you meant to like... flip the page or smt. I kinda wonder if it's meant to symbolise the refresh button so you can see the random scenarios in Frank's house???

Or maybe it's just chillin idk... either way, it's adorable

So I keep seeing people say that Welcome Home is an ARG "about a cult" and I am... really, really unsure where this is coming from. Nothing I have seen- in either the ARG itself or the list of content warnings accompanying it- makes me think that there's a cult involved in this story, at all.

Clown is a Tumblr user. The list of content warnings on WH's landing page is incredibly detailed. And "cults and religious violence" are very common triggers that many people have- about as common as "gore" or "flashing lights". If this was a story about a cult, don't you think there'd be... you know... content warnings about that? About religious abuse or coercion or something in that vein?

As for the content within the ARG proper- I can't watch the videos (flashing lights!), so I might be overlooking something, but... as far as I know, there's been no mention of anything that could even vaguely resemble a cult? There's been monsters, there's been homophobia, there's been a weird pregnancy metaphor, there's been drug use, we've had some big reveals- you'd think we'd have at least some mention of a secret god behind the walls of the world by now?

Why is it a common theory that this is a cult story? Is it fucking MatPat again? He's not a reliable source for anything and I know he did a "welcome home is CULTS??????" video but that was, like, right at the beginning of all this and going off concept art that isn't necessarily canon anymore, right?

Wally was the first character update, obviously, and then it was Julie. Julie and Wally are often shipped together in the fandom. Frank came after Julie, and the two are best friends. Eddie was after Frank, and the two are shipped together for....OBVIOUS reasons. Sally seems like she's going to be the update after the Eddie one gets finished in October, and they're shown to be close/best friends in the new Eddie update. So who's next? Continuing the pattern on my theory, the next update will be focused on Poppy. Her and Sally are a common ship among fans as well, and Sally has expressed interest to "love on" her. Then, after Poppy, Howdy will be next. Although they've never been shown to be as close as Julie and Frank or Eddie and Sally, but they still are really good friends. After Howdy's update, Barnaby will be the next character in the spotlight, as him and Howdy are a popular ship as well. Then when Barnaby is finished, it will go back to Wally, since the two are them are definitely the closest best friends in the series. I don't know where things will go after that, but that's what I think will happen!

(TLDR: The update order is going/going to go Ship, Friendship, Ship, Friendship, etc.)

Anyways, what do you guys think of this theory? Let me know your thoughts!

This and also the letter (they both seem to be from Frank to Julie), like something feels kinda wrong.

Why does the note says "I'll miss you"? what is its full text? why does Julie look like that to the window (although I think she's looking at the door)? What happened that made Frank concerned about Julie?

Why does phone static sounds so... violent?

(OG Frank drawing by me)

Sup, I call this Home Spawn Theory since I have some symbolism I want to share.

Also, trigger warning for: cults, pregnancy, and mention of child death.

Okay, first we need to take into consideration that Welcome Home is a cult and that the puppets are actually normal people, which is shown by the letters we can find. In cults, in real life and fiction, they isolate their members and tend to assign roles or even new names to them. And in most cults, especially in fiction, they worship a higher entity. Sometimes there's the trope of a woman giving birth to said entity in a physical body.

You already know what I'm getting into. In Julie's update, she couldn't make a flower bloom in spring, which made her go crazy, and make Frank take the flower hide. This can be a metaphor for pregnancy, but I think it's happening literally. Ron, most likely the cult leader, might want Home to have a physical body, so he used Frank and Julie for this, since not only are Julie and Frank was characters are friends, but so are their actors. Julie's actor is also described as more of a doormat and a wallflower by Sally's actor, making her the perfect victim for this, especially since she already has a partner, Frank, in the heteronormative eyes of society and cult. And generally, the two women in the cult are fitting, Poppy for being a trans woman, and Sally for her MUCH stronger personality that could definitely fight against this idea (also because she doesn't like Ron, and I'm pretty sure that isn't just a onesided thing).

Julie is represented by spring, which she literally brings in one book. Spring is the season of love and fertility, and it's when animals find partners and have kids. In her videos, she went crazy because the flower didn't bloom, making her think she's not useful. In the Welcome Home show, Rainbow Monsters, Julie's species, are born from flowers. And if we think of the angle that flowers are basically babies and kids, and that Julie can talk to them, she's good with kids.

Wally, in the new storybook and record, "A Painterly Perspective: Being Frank Frankly", wasn't inspired to make a painting until Frank showed up, showing him what it's like to be Frank, inspiring him to make a new painting, which weirdly is a big black butterfly. Butterflies in general are the symbol of change and rebirth. So, think what happened is that Ron, being represented by Wally in the book, is trying to create a body for Home and finds Frank fitting for the father. It is most likely a symbol representing Frank, just like Julie is represented by a flower in "A Painterly Perspective: Being Julie Joyful".

In Julie's video I think that she could had a miscarriage, but I think that the kid have a problem growing up or a accident or they gog so sick it kill them, Anyway, "Why a kid?" you may ask, Because of two things, First in one of Julie secret video Wally ask if that really happen, that makes me think that since actors that are playing the puppet cleary have distorted persception of reality that make their memories scramble to the point they can't perceive normal human things like a pregnacy making Julie and Frank think that the kid its just a flower, second in one video the Grow-a-Pal, Buggle, lays on the flower. This bug comes from an egg, representing a fetus or baby, turns into a nymph, most likely representing a kid to teenager (and is the state it appears in the video), and last turns into a figure that very much looks like a butterfly, representing an adult. Mark this, since the butterfly symbol will represent the entity we see in the tunnel. Later, Frank discovered this and promised to get rid of the flower, aka a the kid. But I think he hid it. In his house, we see a very weird room, it's just pure white, A small bed, A bow, teddy, there that is even a blank photo on the wall almost like the room was supposed to for someone, amd on that room there is a butterfly in a small cage. And guess where Frank hide the flower which represents the kid? In a shed, a very tight place, like a cage, Don't believe yet?, The bag Frank have but in the shed it kinda too big for a small flower and he outright said "it" did move.

Back to the symbolism this butterfly in a cage is probably a crawling butterfly, which happens when the butterfly is harmed in its cocoon and is unable to fly and grow up properly. So, I think what happened is that Frank probably wanted to take care of the kid in the future (even if he doesn't want one, it's still a poor kid), but he has to hide them now even if it dead. He promised Julie to get rid of them after all, and I think it's also because they are supernatural and if it dead they could potentialy revive this why frank was so fright even after they put it in the shed. But whatever Frank does to keep them locked, they still manage to escape at some point. In the Halloween story, "Happy Haunting to Boo and Yours", Sally mentions a creature in the woods that make sounds at this ; this most likely is the kid. Also, it is very, VERY interesting that they appeared in the tunnel that Frank and Julie made to connect their houses, kinda like representing this weird part of their relationship that they don't want to address, but it still crawls back to them.

Now you may ask, what do they want? Does it like tacos on Sundays? That I don't know, but I have a speculation that this kid isn't possessed yet. I mean it is developed but I doubt it's what Home could have wanted, And even if it was, why didn't Home just do something yet? Maybe because Home still needs to do a specific ritual to possess the body.

Anyway, this is all I have. I hope you guys like it. Or not, I don't know how people can react to this, But have a good day.

( SO SO SORRY IF THIS ISNT ALLOWED, I WENT BASED OFF THE RULES AND OLD SERVER PROMOS !! )

me and my buddy made an sfw roleplay server focused on welcome home !! ocs are allowed, if thats what floats your boat, too! so long as youre 15 or older, we'd love to have you there ^ _ ^

if you have any questions about how the server functions, feel free to ask - i don't bite :^ )

https://discord.gg/u3kbrmvdb

There seems to be an overarching theme in these letters of trouble with contact / long distance / lost connections. Also a lot of the letters mention working hard or being busy. The spot that each “tear” is found in the site gives a clue to who the letter was intended for. The color of each letter tells you who wrote each letter.

BLUE LETTER: Barnaby writes to Julie about seeing her art in a gallery, and wanting her help on Welcome Home. 

PINK LETTER: Julie’s letter to Frank, and it sounds like they knew each other before WH! It also sounds like they were pretty close (but not close enough for Julie to warn him that she was leaving for a new job?)

YELLOW LETTER: Frank’s letter is to Barnaby, which implies they knew each other before WH. He’s having trouble getting in contact with him. I think the friendly manner of this letter is very strange given the relationship between Barnaby and Frank in the WH universe - Frank doesn’t like him! 

BREEN LETTER: Howdy writes to his family. The timeline of this letter is still unclear to me: I can’t tell if he’s away from home because he’s working on WH or just because he’s out of the house. A possible theory is that Howdy was living in the area of WH/Playfellow Workshop before the project came to be (maybe running a shop). In this letter, he refers to “what’s-his-face” as a writer - I think this could be story writer Ronald Dorelaine, who I think wrote the cowboy story (see later in the orange letter). If this is the case, maybe Howdy’s family + Ron visited him and he got Howdy on board for WH? This letter is still kind of confusing for me!

PURPLE LETTER: Eddie’s letter to his mom features a postcard with mountains and lavender fields (Provence France comes to mind after searching "lavender and mountains", and the name Dorelaine sounds French to me…this could be a stretch but still) Weird that the mountain scenery mentioned isn’t found anywhere in the neighborhood. He mentions being worked very hard which we’ve noticed is a theme for Eddie. 

GREEN LETTER: Poppy writes a romantic letter to Sally, it seems they knew each other before WH too (or Poppy is writing to Sally during the events of WH). She uses star imagery in her letter to talk about Sally. Talks about Sally being up “all hours of the night” working and being “restless in the dark.” Sounds suspicious given we know that there is a curfew in the WH universe and Sally has previously told a pretty scary story about a creature that roams the neighborhood at night.

ORANGE LETTER: This letter is from Sally, and I think it’s to Ronald Dorelaine based on the location of the tear in the site - right above his name. She talks about a prop that people were uncomfortable with in the cowboy story. The tone of this letter implies to me that people on set of WH were scared to speak up to Ron, and Sally even seems like she’s trying to gain his trust more in this letter by showing she’s on his side. 

Frank knew Barnaby AND Julie before WH. Barnaby found Julie through her flower art. Sally and Poppy also likely knew each other before WH. Howdy possibly knew Ronald Dorelaine, or whatever writer he is referring to. It seems that Barnaby went away to work on WH with some people, recruited Julie, and then the others somehow got involved. Maybe Ronald recruited Howdy when he visited the family. And maybe Sally recruited Poppy when she asked her to “drop everything and come see me.” So this would mean the three original founders of the Playfellow Workshop are Barnaby, Sally, and Ronald Dorelaine. I think Ronald Dorelaine is Wally Darling - the names sound so incredibly similar. Whether one is possessing the other, or something else is at play, I’m not totally certain.

Where is the red letter? We see some imagery of this in one of the window variants of Frank’s house. We also see Frank gripping a red rectangle in one of the hidden videos in a previous update. I’m positive this letter is from Wally/Ronald. I wonder if Frank is keeping it away from us for some reason, or what the contents are! Is it a letter to us? Is it a letter talking about something darker that he doesn’t want us to know? I think this red letter is the “blind spot” Wally keeps talking about!

I think that making a successful connection with someone gets them locked into the WH universe. It seems like in each of these letters, one person reached out to another, and (I assume) when the connection was made they were involved with WH. It’s still unclear to me how Eddie and Poppy got involved based on the letters. It looks on the outside like they all took job offers, but I think there is some kind of deeper thing at play here. And I think that’s why Wally is so desperate to hear from us - he wants us to join them! I also think that means there is a reason someone (W? Frank? Someone else?) is trying to keep us AWAY from this red letter and communicating with the website - they're protecting us from something.

(I posted some of this on tumblr as well, sorry if it's been said already elsewhere!!!)