r/OldHouseArchive

So i just finished the book and was totally confused about what I read. I gave the book 3.5/5 but reading reviews, my appreciate for the story increased dramatically! After looking up reviews, it turns out this is a multiverse where eldritch terrors exist in small corners of the world! I jus started reading The Caretaker and im 25% percent in, according to my kindle.

I wanted to contribute to the discussion and so these are my contributions to the discussion even though I am late to the party, specifically for We Use to Live Here:

1. Thomas is behind it all but he's a victim as much as the villain. He's possessed. And the entity takes direct control of him at its cruel whims. The Entity is probably "feeding" of the despair it's creating. The reason Thomas goes outside and screams and the reason he takes the (mints) medicine is because "It's happening again." The things that tormented Alison is now focusing on and tormenting Eve and now he has to go along for the ride because he keeps his memories and knows bad things will happen if he breaks the rites.

2. Going into the house always has the possibility of causing reality to shift ( going into the basement or attic can increase the probability that reality will shift dramatically), but Thomas ultimately has control to an extent. He can make any lie he says retroactively true ie : Charlie let us use your groceries and cook in your kitchen" when reality shifts, the lie become real. In an infinite multiverse, he shifts into a reality where his lies have always been the truth.

3. The lies also have to start small before they can be grand. Thomas just can't shift into a reality where he has always been overlord of the world. (Because the lies have to also be in relation to his victim) The more he is able to terrorize his victim the more he can make a more dramatic shifts such as making Eve his unwell sister and him being the current owner of the house. The lies have to build on each other. And the more panic and anxiety created from small fibs allows him to create more evil falsehoods.

4. This is also probably Thomas's reward for being host to the entity. He gets to shift into a reality where he has a home, family and more than likely, financial stability. In exchange, The Entity takes over every now and then as payment. (That would make The Entity more of a parasite than a true god.)

5. There are Easter eggs of characters that haven't been shown yet that exist in other books (not released or in the works) that show up. Such as the child in green boots. We mite assume this is young Alison or something but I felt like it was random but with a purpose such as, we'll, I wouldn't be surprised if we meet a little girl character with green boots and in part of the story, for some reason, she has to run off into the woods wearing her green boots and a car drives passed her without stopping (Eve) but ultimately, it's from a different story within the the same multiverse that hasn't been released yet.

So I just finished reading We Use to Live Here and The Caretaker and i just read all of the files https://www.oldhousearchive.net and wow, there is a lot to unpack

1. In The Caretaker, once the Visitor enters the house as Lucy, its form changes. But did anyone notice how similar it sounded to The Child in terms of description and powers? When the Visitor takes on the form of her father, it's almost able to compel Macy to open the door, but Macy is able to break the compulsion at the last second. The Visitor isn't The Child but it felt like it was the same "species" of entity:

"Stuck in a horrible trance, I ended the call and slipped away my phone. My legs kept moving without my brain's permission, kept bringing me closer and closer to the foyer. Macy, I thought, what are you doing? You're walking the wrong way. Don't befucking stupid, HIDE"

Comparing that to Madeline Harper:

I opened my mouth to scream for Mom and Dad, but... the Child started to shake her head. It was a strange movement, too quick, too quiet, it almost looked like... after a cartoon character gets hit with a hammer? I don't know if that makes sense, but... she just kept shaking like that, and...My mouth slammed shut.

Also, the way The Visitor was described: The Visitor's limbs had been unnaturally 0long, its skin wet in the pallid moonlight: a glistening sheen, like the underside of a freshly peeled scab.

Comparing that to Madeline's description:

"Then the Child shifted her weight, a small movement, but the way she moved made me think that maybe her legs reached all the way down to the yard. That maybe she had two pairs of knees."

2. In a previous post I said: Thomas is behind it all but he's a victim as much as the villain. He's possessed. And the entity takes direct control of him at its cruel whims. The Entity is probably "feeding" of the despair it's creating. The reason Thomas goes outside and screams and the reason he takes the (mints) medicine is because "It's happening again." The things that tormented Alison is now focusing on and tormenting Eve and now he has to go along for the ride because he keeps his memories and knows bad things will happen if he breaks the rites.Going into the house always has the possibility of causing reality to shift (going into the basement or attic can increase the probability that reality will shift dramatically), but Thomas ultimately has control to an extent. He can make any lie he says retroactively true ie: Charlie let us use your groceries and cook in your kitchen" when reality shifts, the lie become real. In an infinite multiverse, he shifts into a reality where his lies have always been the truth.

HOWEVER, what Thomas is actually doing is controlling/accessing the Repeating Cubic Grids (RCGs): For instance, if a red house is located in one cube, then, in an adjacent, orthogonal, above and/or below cube, that same house may be a slightly different shade of red, and so on. The more cubes down the line you travel, the more the red house changes. A veritable game of telephone, in which the house may no longer be red, or even be a house at all.

He's going into a specific cubes that align with his interests...?

3. There are multiple realities (cubes) and in some of these realities, the Sun Burns Red (realities in which eldritch terrors have destroyed humanity ie Red Sun Overworlds) and in others this doesn't or hasn't happened yet because some poor soul passed/failed The Rites. By this logic, this also means that although Macy failed in her reality where the sun turned red, there are also realities in which she succeeded and she also has a happy ending (as established in WUTLH.

4. This would also mean, once your reality becomes a Red Sun Overworld the only way to escape is by replacing one of your alternative selves into a reality in which the sun never turned red. A version of yourself is doomed no matter what because there can't be multiple copies of one person within a cube at a time. We know this because even original Charlie got displaced into a reality in which Eve was removed.

5. This is a bit of a reach but I feel like Visitor's are also just some type of demonic spirit at the servitude of a god like eldritch terrors, this would mean that Paige and Kai were Visitor's and working for the entity that was possessing Thomas.

And lastly, I keep coming across instances of people talking about the "Hive Mind" is this a theory or is there something I missed?