What Is Wally?

Hello there.

Random thing I found scrolling through Clown’s tumblr. Though it is an older art that I found near the early stages of Clown’s project still thought I’d share.

I just think more people should see this!

- shit happens - what if au - welcome home -

Let's be careful before labeling Wally or Home as "The Villain" of Welcome Home

Or anyone for that matter imo

Listen, I can completely understand why people would go to that conclusion. "So Below" and the eerie vibe that Wally gives off in his obsession don't exactly give either a flattering light (I know there are also the art pieces on Clown's personal blog, but I'm not counting anything that hasn't been officially released yet)

But whenever someone labels a character who is acting weird as "the villain," it puts a bad taste in my mouth. At the end of the day, characters in fiction are real people with motivations, so labeling one as "evil" or "the villain" can sometimes erase that complexity. And after the most recent update, we know that Wally has A Lot of very, very complicated feelings about the situation.

Before I get into that though, I wanna point out something that Clown himself has said describes the brand of horror that "Welcome Home" gives off to themselves personally. Click here for the link to the post.

Before I get into that though, I wanna point out something that Clown himself has said describes the brand of horror that "Welcome Home" gives off to themselves personally. Click here for the link to the post.

"My home doesn't feel like home anymore."

That line sticks to me pretty hard. There's a pervasive feeling of unfamiliarity, unreality, that exists in the core of the story itself.

I think we see, firsthand, Wally experiencing this in the latest updates. In all of the hidden Bug/Answer secret videos, we see a familiar pattern. We get some sort of scene of two other characters talking, a scene in whatever universe they call home, until at the very end one of the characters addresses Wally (who was apparently there the whole time) and the video glitches out.

A key part that not a lot of people seem to realize though is that these videos are from Wally's perspective. See the above picture with Wally's hands. In every scene, Wally is present and was supposedly taking part in an activity (in the above one, helping Poppy with knitting), before the video started playing.

Whenever I saw these videos I had that same feeling that something felt. Different. The interactions felt like scenes you would see in the animated/cartoony aesthetic we'd see from the various art pieces, it doesn't feel like it's "on set/TV" to me. They're moreso just intimate glimpses into their lives. But they're shot in the real world, and that feels. Wrong.

This is very likely the same feeling that Wally's having in that moment. "My home doesn't FEEL like home." It's like he's disassociating, having a brief episode of that unreality feeling. Those bouts of strangeness don't go away until, like clockwork, someone says his name and the video ends, snapping him out of it.

Do other people in the neighborhood also feel the same way? Maybe, but we don't know. What we do know is that Wally, whether or not he tries to explain this to others, feels isolated by this sensation. "My neighbors are only neighborly until they know I'm different in a way they can see."

The only other person he likely shares this feeling with? I'd take a guess that it's Home. Nearly every time Home has been featured, Wally has been there, close. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the only physical puppets/props we’ve seen of the cast are Wally and Home.

According to this post by @eldritchravens, Home is the only other person who talks directly to Us, the viewers. That's probably why they're so close, because they're the only ones who can truly confide in each other about this.

"So does that mean Home is manipulating Wally?"

Again, I really don't think that's the case. I don't wanna call people villains quite yet. Besides, we see (or well, hear) Home and Barnaby have a conversation together, and from how Barnaby reacts it's fairly casual.

This shared feeling is likely why Wally is so obsessed with us, including the Restoration Employee. They seem to be sharing a similar sensation to Wally's bouts of unreality, in the fact that it seems they're the ONLY one who doesn't remember Welcome Home being a thing. They seem to be one of the few things that Wally (and maybe even Home) consider to be "Real." Hence their obsession with "seeing" us.

"Isn't this Wally or Home manipulating the Employee though?"

Maybe, I don't know. We don't really know much of what's going on right now, we're only getting glimpses. For all we know this could be a side-effect of Wally/Home trying to reach out. For the time being though, I want to keep my own expectations in check. I'm choosing not to label Wally, Home, The Restoration Team or anyone as a "villain" until something definitive comes up.

It is very, very likely that Wally is going to be doing something more dangerous later down the line (or maybe even is doing so now). But if he's doing anything, I get the feeling it's more out of desperation. He wants something to quell this feeling inside of him, this pervasive sense of unreality, and to connect with something he feels is "real." And, for better or for worse, that thing is us.

This whole thing isn't to bash on people for speculation or theorycrafting, I personally think speculation is very healthy! But it's still important to remember what the core of this story is going to be. We're only seeing the very start of the story right now, and we don't know what'll happen down the line. It's useful to keep that core idea at the center of our speculation so we can have reasonable expectations going forward.

As for me? This doesn't feel like a story with villains. I don't think he'll pull a Monika from DDLC and start gaining a kill count, but if something does happen to the rest of the cast, my money is that it'll happen completely by accident, and he'll regret it. Hard.

If you haven't checked out the Halloween update for Welcome Home do it before reading this. I have too many thoughts on the update not to share, but I also know not everyone may have seen it yet.

I will probably make separate posts for some of the different things seen with this new update, but for this one, I more want to cover some interesting information we gain on Sally. It's already been shown that Sally Starlet, the dramatic thespian she is, likes to call her friends more elaborate names. Julie becomes Juliette, Wally becomes Walliford and in the update, we see Howdy become Howardson and Frank become Franklin. But because of these names, I noticed something else, Sally calls Eddie mailman. So I look a little further and go back to the other interactions recorded between Sally and Eddie and in every one of them she only ever calls Eddie mailman. There's not even a hidden video interaction between the two either, which I found odd. Especially when I look at the actual way the two interact. Eddie is a supportive guy and as we've seen is big on crafts so it's no surprise that he would be knowledgeable about the theatre and similar arts. Yet for some reason, Sally seems more likely to brush Eddie off. Don't get me wrong, she is plenty polite. In the audio of her, Poppy, and Eddie talking about Jack and the Beanstalk Eddie is pretty knowledgeable about the story and Sally does get her usual excitement for one of her performances but still, the way Sally acts towards Eddie seems off. Especially in the new audio for the Halloween book. When Eddie is one of the only people to get Sally's costume straight away or even when he tries to explain he's outfit that he put good effort into, Sally seems to brush him off. Already we've seen that Eddie's background is a little vague on who he is and his past before the neighborhood, but now looking at this kind of relationship in an otherwise close-knit neighborhood has me especially curious.

Okay so much was learned in the new update. So once again if you haven't seen it just ignore this for now if you don't want spoilers.

This is probably the biggest info we gain in this update and it's found in the audio of the new Halloween book. With everyone trying to tell scary stories and most failing, Sally steps up to show them a truly scary story. And scary indeed. Why is it the neighbors stay inside every night? It's because of visitors from far away come and eat any neighbors still outside. Or at least that's how Sally puts it. But still, I can't put into words how many ideas this new info gives us. Especially in how aware Sally is about the whole thing, not only its existence and how it's the reason there are so few neighbors but also in that she has heard it, listened for it so clearly. What's more, it's searching for something. At the part where the audio starts to skip and repeat on the word searching, there seems to be an underlining sound. As for what it actually says I'm not sure, but it vaguely sounds like Wally. Of course, this may be incorrect, but if it's not? Then a whole new curiosity appears. Because at first, I think of these visitors from afar who take those out at night to be the people who work on the set but the fact they are supposedly eating things up doesn't seem right. If you've seen my other post you'd know that I have a theory that at some point something a little more eldritch was brought to Welcome Home and that it connects to Wally's presence on the website despite the lack of his original puppet. I bring this up because if it is Wally the supposed "visitor" is searching for then perhaps this is before the "corruption" I suppose. The black goo. Of course, this is all just speculation, but it seriously gives some new thoughts. Especially in that maybe this awakening wasn't an accident but an unexpected turn of events if its aim was Wally.

Drawings and the video clips.

Foremost, I want to point out that in all the audio clips that appear when you click on Wally’s drawings there is text underneath them that transcribes what’s being said. The same for the videos, for anyone that had trouble listening. The main thing I wanted to talk about though is the videos. In every single one, Wally is also present, even if he never talks, and in every single one when the other neighbors go to address him the audio glitches out on Wally’s name. Heck in the labels on those videos two letters are at the end to represent which neighbors are in the clip, but Wally’s is never attached because he is just always there. Silent and listening, doing his own thing. Often overlooked in the conversation until the end of the clip when the others acknowledge him and the audio glitches on his name. I’m not sure why though. This isn’t the first of the audio’s to be glitched or scratched, but it’s always at his name. Also all the clips seem to be from the same day in a way. The last of the 14 clips is a discussion between Barnaby and Home where Barnaby talks about his day and reference back to some of the other clips. This one also sticks out to me because of how it ends. When Barnaby turns to acknowledge Wally like all the others do at the end, he talks about how Wally stopped painting and seems concerned like something happened. Not only is the ending bring more questions, but that also means that if all these were connected Wally was always present whenever anyone talked. My current theory is because this is potentially when Wally gain sentience, like the last episode of Welcome Home. Wally as the main character is always present in the scene, but whenever he is acknowledged his name glitches out. And at the end of the day or in this case the last clip, something is bothering Wally. It’s also interesting to note that the video we see is likely from Wally’s eyes.

Potential answer?

Regarding this update, if it wasn't for the Halloween-induced site glitch

Seeing as how everyone is variously reversing Sally's picture

Is it possible that clown is trying to make the point that Wally and the restoration team may have had a communicating with each other?

After all, the only people who can do things like move, write, and reverse are the people who edit the site, the Welcome Home Restoration Project team.🤔

Confused

Apparently Welcome Home had an update of some kind, but I have no idea what it's doing. It's nothing very informative as far as I can tell but that might just be because I don't understand. Scattered across the site are requests but they are things that seem to be about changing components of the site and I don't know how to do that. Has anybody else figured it out?

Is Wally truly a puppet?

And no I don’t mean in the sense that he was a person before hand. (Please note this info is from memory as the site is down)

First off, the Restoration Team of Welcome Home talks about how they are finding pictures and old paraphernalia from the show. They talk about old scripts and show parts of books, but at no point do they talk about having the actual puppets. Yet Wally is seen as present.

Both in his drawings in the guest book as well as some other messages, it is shown that Wally is active and aware of the site.

Going back to the Restoration Team, hidden in the Q&A section there are hidden messages about needing to get it out and that it hurts both alluding to something in the Team leader’s head.

In order to supposedly get whatever is hurting the Team leader out of his head he started the website and the restoration project. And what if he did? What if it was Wally in his head that he had to get out and in doing so put him into the website? Maybe not fully or maybe letting Wally interact at least keeps him quiet, but most of the signs of Wally being around seem more like they come from inside the website than anything. Especially if they do not have his puppet, it makes me wonder what Wally is.

I know that Clown has made a few post talking about Welcome Home more relating to gaining a concise and awareness, so I know that the thought is mainly a puppet gaining sentience, but is he just a puppet? 

Most of this is just speculation and such but I still think it should be consider that Wally may not be confined to his puppet body.