The Welcome Home Restoration Project

"Love is clear in the messages of Wally Darling and is as much of a hallmark to him as his charismatic smile, his cheery disposition, and his eagerness to understand the world around him. We too hope to spread this feeling of everlasting joy, caring, understanding, and acceptance to all in the hopes that you will join us in our thorough exploration. Together, we will make this house a home! "

- from the WHRP website's "About Us" page.

The Welcome Home Restoration Project is a team of anonymous individuals dedicated to restoring what little evidence there is of the existence of Welcome Home, as well as solving the mystery behind its initial disappearance. As they make more progress, however, their feelings towards Welcome Home - and the character Wally in particular - become more fervent and conflicted. Their website currently acts as the prologue for Welcome Home.

Profile

Background

Little is known about how the WHRP first came into contact with Welcome Home, save for the fact that most if not all of the information they have now can be traced back to documents they received in brightly colored envelopes, with no mentioned sender.

Personality

While there is currently no way to distinguish between individual members of the WHRP (save for W) all of their writings are characterized by a seemingly unwavering enthusiasm towards their goal, as well as a passion for all things Welcome Home, despite pages such as “About Us” revealing that none of the team’s members have ever actually seen the show. This enthusiasm takes on a darker edge in later updates, in which it becomes evident that the WHRP’s desire to restore what remains of Welcome Home is born less out of a simple passion for media archival and more from a desperation to prove that Welcome Home existed at all. The WHRP's findings seem to elicit a wide range of emotions from its members - excitement, curiosity, disgust, fear, anger - but none of these feelings are strong enough to keep them away from their work for long.

Plot

The majority of the prologue is driven by the WHRP’s actions. They are the ones who set up the website in which the prologue takes place, and every piece of information regarding Welcome Home and its legacy (or lack thereof) is documented by them. However, we only really begin to get a glimpse at the WHRP's feelings regarding their own work after the January 14th 2023 update, in which it is revealed that despite their dedication, none of the WHRP’s current members are able to remember Welcome Home. They are also either unable or unwilling to perceive Wally, despite his interference with their website becoming more obvious than ever before.

Some time between January 14th and February 25th, 2023, the WHRP is contacted by the Question Answerer, who offers to work with them to create an in-person exhibition to showcase the WHRP’s findings. This comes to fruition in the following update on July 27th, 2023. The WHRP is still unable/unwilling to perceive Wally, expressing dismay and frustration at seeing images in the guestbook that they don’t remember adding, as well as the amount of signatures that are trying to communicate with Wally. As a result, the decision is made to close the guestbook, with the given reason being that there are now too many signatures to post.

Further writings, both in the January 14th update and subsequent updates, suggest that the WHRP's dedication is driven at least in part by a supernatural compulsion that seems to cause the WHRP a great deal of pain. This is later elaborated on in the July 27th update through the “Staff Only” page, in which the WHRP’s feelings towards the materials they uncover are revealed to have progressed from an urge to continue at all costs to outright fear and disgust - something that is only revealed to the Question Answerer via invisible ink put under blacklight. Other messages from the WHRP also mention a black substance found on recovered materials that can cause symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, and fatigue if handled without gloves, although they are suspiciously quick to reassure the Question Answerer not to be alarmed if they or any of their staff begin to experience these symptoms.

In the October 13th 2023 update, the WHRP expresses thinly-veiled frustration with the apparent scarcity of their findings. They seem to suspect their source of holding out on them, but are unable to come up with a reason why. They also close out their announcement with "wave down below," as opposed to the usual "wave up high." On November 20th, 2023, while clearing away the Halloween decorations from the previous update, the WHRP leaves out a series of relatively simple instructions for Wally to follow. The URLs for the YXWVOE pages also have the word "delete" appended to each of them (ex. "/voywex" redirects to "/voywexdelete") although it is currently unknown if these are part of the WHRP's instructions.

On February 1st, 2024, the WHRP website disappears. A little over a month later, on March 9th, its second iteration is established, with nearly every oddity from the previous website removed. The WHRP explains their reasoning for doing so in the "About Us" and "News" pages, claiming these oddities to be "mocking, unpleasant, and disruptive in their presentation," and promising a higher level of security in order to prevent similar incidents in the future. The re-establishment of the WHRP Website also brings an array of Christmas-themed merchandise, with the discrepancy between the theme of these findings and the date of the site's relaunch being noted in the "News" section. The writer (possibly W) admits that they were under the impression that it was still December, and that whoever posted their notice announcing these findings "must not have been paying proper attention."

Relationships

Wally Darling

The WHRP appears to have a conflicted relationship with Wally, to say the least. Several secrets throughout the site suggest that their collective urge to continue uncovering what remains of Welcome Home is a compulsion that, if not outright caused by Wally, is fueled by him. Although it is initially implied that the WHRP are simply unaware of Wally's presence throughout their website, later updates suggest that they are deliberately refusing to acknowledge him. In a similar manner, Wally appears to either be unaware of the aforementioned compulsion, or has accepted it as a consequence of whatever he’s trying to accomplish. Either way, as seen in “Staff Only” and Wally’s Talking Telephone Toy Audio, he remains undeterred from urging them to continue their work.

Starting on November 20th, 2023, the WHRP appears to suddenly shift gears in their approach to Wally, leaving out a series of instructions in an apparent attmept to gauge his abilities - a sharp contrast to their earlier avoidant behavior towards him. Their reasons for doing so, however, are unclear as of the time of this writing.

The Question Answerer

The Question Answerer and the WHRP maintain a professional relationship for the most part, albeit one that becomes precarious the more that the Question Answerer becomes involved with the WHRP’s work. Although the idea of an in-person exhibition was originally the Question Answerer’s idea, they become more skeptical (and later, outright wary) of the WHRP the more they work together, something they only express in “Staff Only.” Likewise, the WHRP expresses the depths of their apprehension in their exchanges with the Question Answerer, albeit only in hidden text. Since coming into contact with the project, the Question Answerer has been experiencing similar symptoms to the WHRP - a ringing that will not stop, an urge to continue their work with Welcome Home above all else, and most notably, finding themself on the receiving end of at least one attempt at communication from Wally.

Trivia

Note: In order to ensure that this wiki has the most accurate information it can, this list does not cite any posts prior to January 2021.