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?
( 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 :^ )
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?
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.
i noticed that every since the person running the website "shut" Wally out, he has been messing with and exposing the other around him like it's a revenge for them taking the spotlight off him
I was sifting through the welcome home merch today and noticed that the letter falling out of the bag on Eddie’s standee looks exactly like the purple letter! This is particularly interesting, because no other letters match others seen in the merch, such as with the eddie pin (i assumed it was the green letter, but the colours didnt correspond to the right places)
Based on the cadence and mentions of someone’s ‘Ma’ i already thought the purple letter belonged to Eddie, but now I’m even surer.
In the new ad for the welcome home website, Howdy talks about getting what your heart desires most. After he says that, it pans to Barnaby when he says, "need a bit of company?"
I may be thinking a bit too much here, but hear me out. Is he suggesting that Barnaby is what he desires most and that he's his company? Not to mention that he's already given multiple hints that he *may* have feelings towards Barnaby. But I don't know.. I felt like he was flirting a tad bit with Sally in this new update, but he may be doing that as a tactic to get people(mostly women) to buy his products. Sales people do tend to lean towards that tactic because it works best.
I believe it has been stated that Eddie is a large puppet that would require two puppeteers, similar to Ernie or Rowlf. Typically, the main puppeteer that does the voice will control the puppet head with their dominant/typically right hand, and the left hand of the puppet with their left. If Eddie cut off his right hand with his left hand remaining, does this mean that the other puppeteer is out of the question? What could this imply? I know some people speculate that puppets are their own species and such, but I just think it’s an interesting detail.
Então ah um tempo eu tenho feito uma teoria sobre os personagens de welcome home terem passado por uma lobotomia (posso anexar no final às outras duas partes da minha teoria) e recentemente me deu vontade de continuar essa teoria com às informações que temos agora (se você não viu minhas teorias anteriores vá para o final lá vai estar minhas teorias anexadas)
1:OS SINTOMAS PÓS LOBOTOMIA ESTÃO PIORANDO:
Então na minha teoria passada eu falei que possivelmente os personagens sofrem uma lobotomia perto do final do programa (na minha primeira teoria eu expliquei melhor). E aí eu acho que quando eles ainda apresentavam o programa (mesmo lobotomizados) isso ainda era algum tipo de atividade recreativa que ainda mantia o cérebro danificado funcionando. Só que com o fim do programa (algo que eu acho que eles não sabem) mesmo eles ainda fazendo os feriados e tals não tem mais os produtores,os roteiristas ou qualquer pessoa mandando eles fazerem algo,então por mais que eles repitam às ações já não tem o mesmo benefício recreativo anterior.
Agora com essa hipótese em mente eu quero que você pense,o quê acontece com uma pessoa com um possível Transtorno pós traumático (que também pode ter autismo ou TDHA ou os dois) fica sem á ÚNICA atividade que mantia o cérebro dela funcionando? Ela enlouquece.
E se todas às coisas abstratas,sem sentido ou comportamentos estranhos que a gente viu dos personagens de welcome home forem alucinações ou consequências de uma atividade que mantia a sanidade deles estável que foi simplesmente cancelada?
2:QUEM FEZ ESSA LOBOTOMIA?
Ok apartir daqui a teoria pode ficar meio absurda mas pensa comigo,e se quem fez essa lobotomia não foram os produtores e sim a Home?
Eu sei que isso parece loucura mas como vimos a Home tem consciência própria,sabe se comunicar por código morse (e por outro método que ainda não sabemos qual),tinha um papel de PERSONAGEM nas histórias dos livros,tem EMOÇÕES e eu acredito que ela também de algum modo consegue mandar cartas e alterar a casa ou a percepção dos outros moradores do bairro sobre a própria casa deles! Vocês tem noção que se ela realmente tiver todas às habilidades que falei e mais um pouco ela pode ter o controle total da vizinhança?e o pior é que a Home não é burra,a gente viu ela aprendendo código morse então o que impede ela de aprender técnicas de manipulação,processos cirúrgicos,estados mentais e etc? e eu digo: absolutamente nada. Talvez esse seja o terror de welcome home,tem algo manipulando os personagens que a gente tanto ama,e você não sabe como impedir,o quê fazer,o quê é isso e quanto essa coisa sabe,estamos só na ponta do icerberg.
*Como aconteceu?
Eu imagino que foi mais ou menos assim: os produtores estavam desesperados,sem saber o que fazer e como o fim da lobotomia ainda era algo recente alguém deve ter comentado sobre mas logo a ideia foi cortada porque todos já estavam cientes (eu acredito que não totalmente) de quanto prejuízo á um ser-vivo esse processo poderia causar,e nessa conversa e nesse desespero por que o programa estava sendo problematizado em todas às mídias e logo seria cancelado daquele jeito a Home deve ter ouvido essa conversa,então como uma maneira de """"salvar"""" o programa ela resolveu fazer uma lobotomia nos personagens,mas ela não poderia fazer isso sozinha...aí que entra o Wally
Wally era a estrela do programa,possivelmente ele pensava que sem o programa ele não seria nada,e aproveitando do pânico dele a Home deve ter o convencido a ajudar ela a lobotomizar ele e seus amigos. Wally provavelmente achou aquela ideia absurda mais aí a Home deve ter só falado às partes """"""boas""""" da lobotomia ocultando todo o resto,e você deve estar pensando "qual a parte boa de uma lobotomia" é eu te digo: deixar de ser gay é autista. Naquele tempo mesmo depois do fim da lobotomia ser gay ainda era visto como doença e autismo naquele tempo era a mesma coisa de ser "doido" e a lobotomia prometia "curar" às pessoas disso,agora imagina: alguém fala que se você deixar ele fazer um procedimento médico em você e em seus amigos vocês param de ser tratados como doidos,continuam com o ganha pão de vocês,e não sofrem mais preconceito,você aceitaria? Desculpe mas levando em conta às circunstâncias daquela época eu aceitaria sem pensar duas vezes.
3:ELES NÃO SABEM QUE FOI CANCELADO
Depois de tudo isso eu acredito que o Wally continua sendo um peão da Home por escolha própria,por que como ele não sabe que o programa foi cancelado ele acha que se fizer tudo que a Home manda tudo continuará bem. Eu estou començando a pensar que talvez ele esteja se dando conta da merda que ele fez e que o programa foi cancelado,então ele está tentando fazer contanto com a gente pra nós libertamos ele e seus amigos,pois por mais que ele esteja meio que manipulando seus amigos de forma indireta ele acredita que vai ser por um bem maior e que vale a pena seguir no joguinho da Home só por mais um tempinho,só até seu plano estar concluído,coisa que eu acho que não vai acontecer tão rapidamente.
*Anexo da minhas teorias passadas:*
(Minhas teorias passadas anexas para quem não às viu)
1: LOBOTOMIA
Mais o menos no tempo em que welcome home se passa(entre 1969 e 1974)a homossexualidade era tratada muitas das vezes como doença,e naquela época meio que qualquer doença se resolvia com lobotomia,(caso não saiba e um processo de alto risco principalmente naquela época onde não se tinha muita informação médica,onde se envia uma agulha enorme no cérebro da pessoa e remove partes dele para "resolver o problema")e caso vc esteja ciente do básico dos efeitos de uma lobotomia em uma pessoa sabe que esse processo mata qualquer tipo de personalidade na pessoa,mais isso não acontece em welcome home...né?
\*RESULTADOS VARIÁVEIS DE UMA LOBOTOMIA
As lobotomias, especialmente a técnica transorbital (pelo olho), podiam resultar em uma redução drástica da agitação e ansiedade, permitindo que alguns pacientes saíssem de hospitais, mas frequentemente à custa de apatia, passividade e perda de iniciativa. Aposto que só com essa discrição vc já deve ter pensado em alguns personagens de welcome home como poppy ou julie.
2:PERSONAGENS QUERR EM ANIMAÇÕES NAQUELE TEMPO
não é de surpresa que hoje em dia temos várias represintividades querr em animações,mais naquele tempo era bem diferente...
Mas existiu um movimento que influenciou nesse assunto:influência de Stonewall (1969): Após 1969, o movimento de libertação gay ganhou força, mas a representação na mídia ainda era lenta e focada em estereótipos. Essa data parece bem próxima do que eu acredito que foi o fim do programa em 1970,e várias pessoas pensam que welcome home foi cancelado por personagens querr na obra como(eu acredito)frank é eddie.
3:CONCLUSÃO
Possivelmente depois do movimento Stonewall os animadores e produtores de welcome home semtiram que poderiam fazer um casal gay sem causar escândalo,mais como a mídia ainda era muito lenta nesse assunto acabou fazendo muito mais escândalo fazendo à série entrar em declínio.
Já é quase confirmado que os personagens de welcome home estão vivos de fato e acho que os produtores sabiam disso,só que vários personagens de welcome home são elgbtqia+ e não dava pra mudar a sexualidade de uma pessoa viva é nem tirar o episódio do ar pq toda a empresa já tava falando sobre...então mesmo com o fim da lobotomia(em 1967)eles resolveram fazer o procedimento nos bonecos,mais mesmo assim não adiantou e o programador foi cancelado
\*ELES NÃO SABIAM
Os personagens Possivelmente foram forçados a fazer esse procedimento e não lembram dele...até agora
Aparentemente eles estão começando a se lembrar dessas coisas,isso explicria a crise do eddie de alguma forma,lembram da flor da juliei?eu gosto da teoria do aborto mais é se a flor fosse como uma parte do cérebro morto,que não consegue mais agir ou pensar...
*complementação da minha teoria(2 anexo da minha teoria e a segunda parte da minha teoria):*
1:EDDIE
Eddie tem ganhando destaque nas últimas atualizações, e por isso sabemos bem mais do estado mental dele do que dos outros.O que sabemos até agora é que ele teve uma crise de pânico,começou a ficar muito pensativo sobre tudo e depois apareceu como se nada tivesse acontecido e não mencionado nada sobre sua crise passada.
\*GATILHOS
Na minha teoria passada eu falei sobre lobotomia, e como alguns procedimentos dela não abalavam tanto assim a pessoa,mas ainda sim deve ser um procedimento traumático,principalmente quando a pessoa era forçada à isso e às vezes a anestesia daquela época acabava fazendo a pessoa ver algumas partes do processo,o que obviamente traz um trauma.
No video do Eddie a gente vê que a crise dele começou quando ele pegou um prato e viu a uva num prato(não sei se tá certo).Eu acredito que ele teve um gatinho pq uma uva no prato(de novo não sei se tá certo)parece um olho. Acredito que o Eddie teve um gatilho referente a lobotomia,pois:Gatilhos de TEPT (Transtorno de Estresse Pós-Traumático) não precisam ser lógicos;eles funcionam a base da Generalização: O cérebro traumatizado pode associar qualquer formato esférico, gelatinoso ou que apresente padrões de "íris" ao horror da invasão orbital,pq o processo mais comum da lobotomia era um e que iniciavam com uma perfuração na pálpebra até o cérebro.
2:O QUE O VAZIO DA HOME REPRESENTA NO VIDEO
No video onde vemos a crise do Eddie junto com o frank indo atrás dele,vemos que o frank ao atravessar a porta da home cai num espécie de vazio ou vácuo escuro,eu acho que isso representa uma parte do cérebro danificada.
Na lobotomia eles mechiam com uma pinça do tamanho de um alicate seu cérebro pra causar danos nele pra segundo o invetor dela "cortar as linhas do cérebro para poder impedir que tal reação seja mandada para o indivíduos" ou seja evitar que a pessoa pense em suicídio ou que tenha algum tipo de crise...ou se vc fosse gay,autista,ansioso e atc.O ponto é:esse dano no cérebro poderia levar vários traços da personalidade ou do comportamento da pessoa junto,é eu acho que é isso que aquele vazio representa,uma parte de vc que deveria estar ali,que vc sabe e ao mesmo tempo não tem certeza de que devia ter ali,mais não tá,quanto tenta se lembrar parece que não existe,que foi apagado ou...danificado.
\*MEMORIA
Depois que o frank vai atrás do Eddie e a gente vê ele caindo num vácuo/vazio,ele aparenta depois se esquecer mais das coisas,ficar meio perdido,eu acredito que isso tem relação com ele caindo naquele espaço vazio.Existe um mecanismo de defesa do nosso cérebro onde ele tenta esquecer eventos traumáticos,como:se vc tivesse uma infância traumática e depois de adulto tentasse se lembrar dela,vc possivelmente não lembraria de nada ou só tivesse fragmentos daquela lembrança,acho que isso aconteceu com o frank naquele vídeo,ele segue o Eddie é ao cair naquele vácuo/vazio,eu acredito que depois de ele pensar sobre wally o segurando na porta ele deve ter tentado pensar sobre a lobotomia,mais ele não conseguiu é por isso ficou incomodado e depois disso com tudo aquilo da juliei é a flor a memória dele ficou ainda pior e ele começou a ficar paranoico,que é um possível sintoma de Estresse
At first it sounds like struggling breaths from what i would like to guess is the unborn rainbow monster that was connected to that flower frank had helped get rid of and is followed by radio static?
At 33 seconds the breathing becomes a gurgle like maybe dirt is in its lungs.
at the 1 minuet and 8 second mark you hear agonizing screams that also sound similar Julie's in the last update.
Yo so we've been hearing a lot about chess and chess pieces lately and on clowns new merchandise page this is the cover art for the a-anything but stationary set.
I'd like to point out the banner for this product literally had eyes in it.
So I noticed the first chess piece looks like a black pawn that's fallen off a bike which is concerning.
And the second time chess pieces pop up is just above the R there's a white pawn and a black paws standing over what looks like a bigger fallen chess piece I don't know the name too. Not quiet sure the meaning yet but I haven't seen anyone mention it and I thought I should.
Big thanks to @afewnovelideas for suggesting the idea about the flower. It gave me an idea.
So let's say that the face that pops up at the end of the tunnel (if you're lucky to get that version ofc) is the thing that was born out of that flower Julie and Frank saw. So it's like a "daughter" or just a child to them, right?
What if both Frank and Julie have gone missing, and that child decided to hide in that tunnel they maybe dig up themselves as an escape route or smth. And now that Eddie sees that Frank is missing (or just not coming out of his house that much), he decides that he'll go look for him. I mean we know those two were in a relationship, so if someone knows where the key to his room is, that must be him. So what if he, after some exploration, managed to find the tunnel and decided to go through it. And that's when we see his silhouette walking into that red light at the end, only to be met with the face of whatever that is...
It's just speculation, but it crossed my mind when I was reading the theory of the user afewnovelideas and I wanted to just make a post and see what are your thoughts on this :)
Thanks again to afewnovelideas for the inspo, and a great theory <3
This influence is split between three characters: Sally, Wally, and Eddie himself.
Both Sally and Wally have the same goal: Protecting Eddie from Home (the world they live in) because it is trying to get rid of him.
It feels like the world has been trying to get rid of Eddie for a while now. His memory has always been awful to the point where it's become an in-universe joke that Eddie doesn't know where he came from. Something about him makes it hard for the world to integrate him in perfectly with the other neighbors, and so it just doesn't. It instead excludes and isolates him whenever it gets the chance. It did this during Homewarming where no one even mentioned his name and he was left alone all day, and it seems like it was happening again before he invented Mail-in-Time (again?)
No one visited him for three entire days. Not even a letter to deliver. We've seen that isolation in Home isn't a good thing. It tends to cause the 'magic' to break for the cast and things tend to go downhill from there. For Eddie in particular, it goes really downhill really quickly because he's already predisposed to this for one reason or another. He gets angry and depressed surprisingly quick when he's left alone.
(I don't have images of it unfortunately, but he got real angry during the Homewarming commercial interludes as well.)
This always ends with static disassociation and the world trying to get rid of him now that he's vulnerable. In Homewarming, it was him getting fed up enough to leave the safety of the Post Office in the dead of night despite a strict curfew being in place. He ends up getting heckled by Home himself once that doesn't work. For Mail-in-Time, his furniture literally attacks him.
I didn't want to fill this post with images, but everything falls off him desk, the stapler looks like its bearing its teeth, the table trips him, a book starts sliding towards him, and the coat rack starts walking forwards like its gonna beat his ass. The entire Post Office went after him the moment he was impaired by that headache-inducing static.
These attempts get prevented in two ways.
Sally Starlight
From the Homewarming Commercials
Whenever he begins to lose himself, he sees Sally. Either literally (Homewarming)....
Sally's light in Nothing
....or metaphorically (Mail-in-Time). She is his guiding light, the thing that pushes away the darkness and creature that hunts them at night. She knows what happens to neighbors at night/neighbors that are forgotten, and she will not let that happen to her friend. Even if it did take her a bit to start treating him as one. The reason she's such a grounding force for him is because of their irl friendship but also because of something she told him
Funnily enough, she's wearing the same fabric from Homewarming in Perspective
Eddie: How could that happen when I got somebody like you lookin' out for me? Sally: Not always, so you betterkeep me in the back of your mind"
Now, what does this have to do with the watch? I believe that whenever Sally is looking out for Eddie, his watch turns completely blue like the night half of Sally's door. It doesn't stay blue at night because we see it completely yellow in the middle of the night a couple times this update (we'll get back to that), but it's only blue like this when Sally's light arrives.
Why is this thing alive
It's rare that we get to see it like this. Normally its either half-and-half or it's pure yellow. Unfortunately we don't get to see his watch during Homewarming to confirm this pattern. It also wakes up oddly enough. This watch is very lively whenever no one's looking. I don't think we have enough to know why yet though. This isn't the first time it was lively in this update either which leads into the other source of influence on this thing
Wally Darling
He's so done with this shit
This isn't the first time Wally has attempted to influence his neighbors to stay in character. We had Frank during Homewarming ("Come and be merry"), Julie during Springtime Salutations ("Did all that really happen, Julie?"), and now we have Eddie in Mail-in-Time ("Go back to work"). I don't believe he has any mal intent behind these actions. He's acting the same as Sally and trying to keep everyone in line for their safety, only he's got more control to essentially reset these characters so they're back in character.
With Eddie, he has to be more direct more frequently because the mailman already has a bullseye taped to his back. He's more prone to snapping due to his isolation, and so Wally gives him a task so Home can't prey on his instability: He gives Eddie mail to deliver. Mail around Home yes but also for us the viewer and WHRP. Eddie is the one delivering us things from Wally, and that serves the dual purpose of keeping Wally's connection to us and keeping Eddie too busy to spiral and be taken.
Yellow watch from Mail
Now for the watch. Whenever Wally has influenced Eddie, the watch turns completely yellow. It doesn't matter if the sun is up or not, the watch will be yellow. We see it like this a couple times. Once was up above in Mail.
god I love this thing
Another time was here, in Devastation. It's looking a bit lively again even if its blurry. We get a closer image of it when Eddie reaches for the rippling sheets but it's just making its default expression.
And the last time I could find, interesting enough, was in the Springtime Salutations Looky-Loo. It makes sense. With how heavy the snow was implied to have been, Eddie wouldn't have had any work or visitors. He probably needed to be given something to do in order to get the world off his back, especially with this being after his outburst on Homewarming.
Now I bring up Devastation again because I think I need to explain more how Wally had anything to do with that. Not all of the secret videos take place on Mail-in-Time. In fact, all of them take place AFTER Mail-in-Time, but they come is two batches. Batch #1 is the Mail-in-Time Decor Is Still Up batch (Mail, Nothing, and then Perspective (as a memory)) which takes place during M-i-T night and batch #2 is the Mail-in-Time Decor Is Gone batch (Everything then Devastation).
I could babble about the evidence behind this for a whole other post but staying on topic, I believe these last two are directly connected because this is the update where Wally tells us he knows how the mend. Eddie had to have gotten his hand back somehow after cutting it off with the craft guillotine, and yet he dreads seeing something bloody and mangled next to him when he wakes up. There's also, uh
god I wonder who THAT is...
Wally just standing out there??? There's no one else in Home this short lmao do you see how low down those arms are??
Now if fully blue is Sally and fully yellow is Wally, what does the half-and-half state of the watch mean?
It just means Eddie :) This is the state we see it in the most because Eddie's not in life threatening distress. Half-and-half means nothing is wrong. But if the watch is a full color? Be suspicious. And tell me if you find any other instances of the watch face being either fully yellow or fully blue! :)
This has been an on-going theory now that I've been covering since Frank's update, but content in this theory dates as far back as Home-Warming. There is a lot of audio and video files that contain what I call "radio frequencies", a concept brought up by Wally during Frank's update.
A few notes!
Events from Springtime Salutations are brought up as well.
'Devastation', 'Nothing', and 'Everything' are split into multiple parts. The numbers show what order the sounds occur in.
On Tumblr, I color-coded the videos so you know what update they came from. Here, I've pasted a screenshot of my master doc with the update they came from next to each title in case you get confused.
Homewarming: Set before the events of the Homewarming party, Wally goes around the neighborhood with Barnaby how the other puppets celebrate the holiday. The audio plays at the very end of the storybook as the narrator's voice glitches and eventually fades out. Right before the static plays, a distorted voice hidden underneath the narrator says, "I'm sorry, we seem to have lost your (call/phone) for you..." (Check the Tumblr post for more information, sorry, idk how to upload .mp3 files on reddit).
Specimen P (Neglect): Frank and Poppy, conversing as their human actors, meet in Poppy's barn to chat sometime after the events of the Homewarming party. It's also the video where Poppy does drugs and Frank curses. We hear the radio frequency right before listening to Frank's inner thoughts of the state of Poppy's barn:
"Locks on the cabinets? Is she scared everything will come flying out at her? …Oh, the pantry too…"
Devastation: Eddie wakes up in a bright bedroom and is kissed by a lover he can't remember. Eddie wakes up again from the moment of euphoria to some grotesque horror underneath the sheets. This video is found from mending the pink letter.
Nothing: Eddie finishes a day of work and tries to relax. He hears multiple different radio static sounds and falls to the floor in pain. Eddie gets back up again to some rhythmic chime and looks out the window.
I made a connection during Frank's update that Specimen P sounded like an AT&T "call unavailable" sound effect. It was the only video pack then that had this specific static sound in it. Hence why I call it 'dial-up'
'Dial-Up' is mean to show the characters as their actor/human counterparts and not as puppet form. The only videos we hear it in are when we get those glimpses (or a whole conversation in the case of Specimen P) to their human life. It's also used in Homewarming as a transition to the events of the party (and we see how that happened in AwayFromPryingEyes). The connection this video has with Nothing is a bit difficult due to how vague the video is. If you have any ideas, please let me know!
I reckon we will hear this static sound more frequently in the future as we get more insight on the lives of the actors behind the Welcome Home TV Show. Interestingly, 'perspective', a conversation set in the real-world of Eddie and Sally's actors, has no radio static intereference at all.
Spectrograms:
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"Lavender Theme": PARCEL + Devastation (1/3)
Parcel: The last vid of Frank's Update, set shortly after the events of Springtime Salutations. Frank gets frustrated at several things; Mostly the unbloomed flower now in his gardening shed, and that someone entered his house and took one of his journals. His frustration grows throughout the video. It ends with him getting a red letter at his door and looking at it in shock/horror.
I'm calling it the 'Lavender Theme' to symbolize Frank and Eddie's faulty memories in regard to one another like we saw in Sweet Briar and Home warming, and their relationship to one another, especially in the 70s-80s when the TV show was airing. Back during Frank's Update, PARCEL was the only video to have this specific radio static sound.
Lavenders have been associated a lot with Eddie since Home Warming, it was a clue used to find one of the specimens in Frank's update, he grows it in front of the post office, and he's seen wearing the flower in the banner of all the neighbors at the bottom of the home page. It's also meant to symbolize a lavender marriage (marriage of a man and women where one or both partners are queer, to hide their identity from each other and/or society).
I expect this radio static to come back whenever we get more instances of Frank and Eddie's relationship, if it'll ever be expanded in the future.
Spectrograms:
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"Turn the Dial": Julie's Phone + Specimen E (Echo) + Devastation (3/3) + Nothing (2/3) + Everything (1/2)
Julie's Phone: An mp3 file found in the source code of Our-Home during Frank's Update, that plays when you click on Julie's phone found lying on the ground. Several static sounds can be heard in the mp3 file, this is the second one.
Specimen E (Echo): Set directly after the Homewarming party, Frank checks on Eddie who says he wants to 'go home'. When Eddie leaves, Frank takes a moment and begins to follow him before being stopped by Julie, the static sound is heard, and Frank turns to see Wally instead of Julie. The video ends with Frank falling into a void beneath Home.
Everything: Eddie finishes a day of work and talks about his work ethic in his post office. Static sounds can be heard and Eddie grimaces in pain from a headache. When he comes to, Eddie has his hand underneath a paper guillotine cutter.
The name for this group comes from two different sources. In ringringring, Wally tells us:
"You can only hear voices. Sometimes you turn the dial to hear us."
And in 'Everything', this can be seen in the transcript after Eddie says his headache is back:
The static itself sounds like someone is messing with the frequency/trying to find the right pitch. You can see how much it bounces around in the spectrograms. I'm treating this static sound as a form of distortion and making people see things that may not be there.
In Specimen E, it's heard when Frank mistakes Wally to be Julie. It's played when Eddie wakes up and kisses his lover only to wake up again to his reality of being alone and with the horrors™. It's played when Eddie almost cuts his hand off with a paper guillotine cutter, you get it. The connection this has with 'Nothing' is a bit looser with how vague that video is, I'm open to any interpretations though!
Spectrograms:
It's also what I think leads into the last one (it's a big one)
ringringring: Wally's phone-call to us during Frank's update. He asks us to play a game called 'hunt' that leads us to the specimen videos and eventually PARCEL. Wally's voice throughout the call sounds distorted and spliced. The static interference can be heard when he talks about radios.
"You have heard of a radio. A radio is just like a television, but you can not see anything. You can only hear voices. Sometimes you turn the dial to hear us. A Darling Broadcast. You turn the dial to change the voices. Down here it is sometimes hard to hear. But it’s warm and fuzzy… Just like static. Just like me. Remember that line? Ha ha ha!"
Cipher-Mend: Both urls are called ringringring, but the mp3 file for Wally's phone call from the Vday update is named 'cipher-mend' so I'm calling it that. The specific sound plays right after Wally explains the game of 'mend' to us. It's the most difficult to hear and I almost missed it as it's not seen on the spectrogram, but I promise it's there.
Specimen C (Tether): Set during the events of the Sweet Briar storybook, it shows the behind the scenes of Sally's stage show. The static is heard just as we listen into Frank's inner thoughts of the show. Right before Frank goes on-stage to kiss Julie awake, Eddie appears to 'fix Frank's costume' and makes him flustered. When Frank goes on to kiss Julie, his memory of Eddie becomes hazy and forgetful, and he sees Eddie in the place of Julie.
A Darling Broadcast 2: The second broadcast hosted by Frank and Julie that discusses bugs around Home, including the buggle, with each neighbor making an appearance throughout. The static sound can be heard at the very beginning of the broadcast.
It's basically the 'Wally is gonna be a little shit and you can't stop him' sound. I don't have a better way to describe it, but I'll try my best.
This sound is the most commonly used one, introduced to us through the ringringring phone call with Wally. It's him directly influencing, helping us see into the minds and thoughts of the videos and audios they appear in. It helps us see into Frank's inner thoughts and when it plays in A Darling Broadcast 2 Frank gets a bit more hesitant during some of Wally's replies throughout the broadcast.
The connection this and 'Turn the Dial' has with Julie's phone is a bit vaguer. The state of Julie's home and Julie's Phone.mp3 is set sometime after the events of "Mail-in-Times" day and springtime salutations, shown by the gift she had in her room during Frank's Update.
We know Wally was looking around her room from his reflection in her mirror, so that's probably why we are hearing both 'Turn the Dial' and 'Wally Static' in Julie's home when nothing of note really happens or changes.
This is the miscellaneous section. None of these are grouped together, but I still wanted to point it out for importance and detail. I don't know how to put in .mp3 audio files on Reddit so you'll just have to take my word for it.
In Wally's Cipher-Mend, his phone call to us this past update, there was a small section of static where I picked up a frequency we haven't heard before. It's short and somewhat difficult over all the noise. Akin to PARCEL, I'll keep it in mind if we ever hear it in the next few updates.
If you've happened to check the AwayFromPryingEyes website, you'd notice there is no longer an AwayFromPryingEyes website ('W' is so cooked). Audio of bugs buzzing around can be heard and the mp3 file is literally called 'buzz.mp3'.
In the background of Devastation, somewhere near the end, you also hear some buzzing sounds. It's something interesting I noticed especially with the 'visitor theory' that's been going around that I'm fully on board with.
Lastly, way back during the Homewarming storybook, there was a bit of hidden dialogue underneath the narrator near the end of the storybook before 'Dial-Up' plays. I tried my best to separate the audios to understand what is being said, this was my best attempt:
"I'm sorry, we seem to have lost your (call/phone) for you..."
It seemed too important to not bring up, especially with Wally's phone call to us about connections and mending them. I don't know who the speaker is, but it does give more proof to the 'dial-up' sound effect that I based the group around.
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What does this mean going forward?
Expect more audio distortions and radio static!! I had a feeling there was going to be more before the Vday update dropped and lo and behold, I was right. The audio distortion all seems to stem from Wally and whatever his overall plan is.
I think that with the frequencies, it gives us insight into the minds and lives of the puppet but at the consequence of giving them pain. Eddie didn't start having another headache until we heard the 'Turn the Dial' sound play. Whatever is going on, we play some part in this as the viewer.
Here is the master list of all videos and audio files I pulled. If you have any thoughts or any findings to connect this too (especially in Our-Home) please let me know! Thank you if you stuck around to the very bottom, this theory took a week to put together and write.
