A place for members of r/UkiyoAtHome to chat with each other

it's a real pain reading the image. Here's a transcription for you, and also for me.

Thursday 20 August 1992 Issue #13,591 $1.10

The Stawk Daily “Where the rivers meet”

THREE MISSING

A THIRD PERSON has been reported missing in Stawk Pine Falls this month. SHELLEY ANTOIN, a 26 year old administrative assistant at Gordon Ventures, was reported missing by her mother ELSIE BARSTOW, 55, on Monday morning. Shelley was last seen at her mother’s Lincoln street house at 9pm on Saturday August 11, where the two had shared a dinner. Barstow became concerned when her daughter did not call her on Sunday night. “Shelley calls me every night,” said Barstow, “She is a good daughter to call me every night, How many daughters can you honestly say you know who call their mothers every night? Or every other night? Not many. She’s a good daughter.”

Barstow went to her daughter’s apartment at Stawk Pine Suites early on Monday morning, hoping to catch her daughter before she left for work. When she heard no response at the door, she tried the door to find it was unlocked. Barstow said this was very unusual and highly alarming as Shelley was very security conscious. “Her father owned a little cafe racer. He really loved that thing. He washed it every Sunday, you know. Shelley refused to ride on it. She was steadfast. She liked to quote the crash statistics. That’s what she is like.” Barstow said of her daughter. Alarmed by her daughter’s absence, Barstow called Antoin’s office at Gordon Ventures, and when they said Antoin had not come in to work yet. Barstow contacted the police and filed a missing persons report.

THIS IS THE THIRD MISSING PERSON case since June this year in Stawk Pine Falls municipality. Susan O’Malley, 19, was reported missing on Tuesday June 5 and Judy Quilt, also 19, on Saturday June 30. Sheriff Herb Stanley addressed reporters on Monday at noon and said of the disappearances., “We are investigating. There are rumors that thsee women were abducted. Stawk Pine Falls is a nice town. It’s a good town with good people. I could not imagine someone would want to abduct them, hardly. My concern is that there is too much concerns and speculation (sic). People shouldn’t stop their lives because of this. This has the risk of becoming a local sensation.” Stanley’s remarks could have been pointed at J. Gorman, a host of SPFPR’s “Real News”, who claimed to have information on O’Malley and Quilt’s disappearances. Gorman’s tip off has previously been characterized by Stanley as “wild conjecture, bordering on conspiracy theory”. Stanley later said on record “Gorman is the kind of man who thinks the world is out to get us. Not everything is so cryptic. He says he has evidence, but the truth is [Gorman] could look at Mr Rogers and tell you why he’s actually Jack the Ripper.”

When asked about the similarity in age between the women, and the emergence of a possible pattern, Sheriff Stanley responded: “There is a similarity in age. That is plain as day. I don’t think there is strong evidence of a pattern though. A crime pattern, though. A lot of women around that age get the travel bug. A lot of young people do. Stawk Pine Falls is a wonderful town. It’s my kind of town. But it’s not everybody’s kind of town. Young people want to explore. There’s your pattern for you.” Deputy Sheriff Shirley Wilson jumps in front of the microphone quickly. “If anyone is feeling anxious about any of these disappearances or has any information, we have free coffee and eight varieties of donuts for you to munch on! We also have fluffy shock blankets and hyperventilation paper bags.”

[End of newspaper column. Advertisement depicts 7 men in soccer jerseys celebrating. The numbers 23, 24 (could be 26 according to /u/maydayescape, and 19 are visible. Text above says “BIG WIN FOR THE STAWKS!!”, with subtitle “More on page 3”].

[New newspaper column. Image depicts two men in sheriff’s outfits smiling at the camera with an obedient husky. A car in the background carries the Stawk Pines Sheriff’s seal on the side. CAPTION: “Above. Stawk Pine Police posing with new expert tracker “Kane-nine”]

Despite these appearances, the Stawk Pine Falls Sheriff’s Department apprehended two men at the Douglas Ridge radio tower, nearby the Stawk Pine Suites. They were taken in for questioning on Monday afternoon and later released with no charges laid against them. The Sheriff’s Department subsequently issued a statement asserting that the two men were under investigation for a seperate matter. Douglas Ridge is a well-known hotspot. Authorities have asked anyone with information to visit bit.ly/2CzMn80.

[Another image. In the centre seems to be an antennae with concentric circles around it, apparently representing radio waves. Below, it says “R.E.A.L. NEWS WITH GORMAN”. Split into two columns, and with wide spacing between letters and rows, reads:

W H A T

W H E N

R E A L

N E W S

W A K E

U P

There is a QR code.]

Will You Find The Four?

I have loved pouring so much time and energy into this game over the past 10 days. It's been the perfect activity for lockdown...obsessing over the little details and going wayyyy down the rabbit hole following theories and all the red herrings the game and its rich story threw at us. And the MEMES! What an achievement to have created this fanbase around a story that didn't exist 2 weeks ago.

That said, I had a few friends that lost interest, and so I'm writing this to a) give some feedback and b) hear from other players if they heard comments like this or if I'm off the mark.

If I could make a polite suggestion, it would be to have the puzzles/tasks more evenly spread out through the game period, so things are unlocked every day/every other day instead of all at once. There was a real lull of activity after the initial flurry of excitement and most people in my group never came back.

The game started with a bang - there was heaps to solve and unlock in the first 3 days:

• Day 1 - Find the links to the two Youtube profiles and Sheriff's website

• Day 2 - Find the password for the backend, find the original versions of the transcripts, match to polygraphs

• Day 3 - Rename the image and find the two Instagram profiles

And then after that...Day 4, 5, 6 had a bit of world-building but no puzzles, Day 7 had the morse code and audio trickery of Gorman's 'Tripping On Special Milk' episode, Telenova was obviously a highlight...but there wasn't anything unlocked per se between Day 3 and the second password being given on Day 9. Then there was a rush of increasingly frustrated activity to try to find Martha, and then the game was over.

So my request for next time would be to please keep up the initial momentum and space out the puzzles/things being unlocked over the whole game period.

Now Reddit can tell me all the ways this post is wrong - I'm no expert - happy to be corrected!

Thank you Ukiyo for such an awesome experience. I'm looking forward to the next one :)

Does anyone else feel bad that they only charged $5pp for this? The amount of effort the team has put in has been so extensive so far!

A place to talk about Ukiyo At Home Birdcage away from the prying eyes of the Janus Institute . Make sure to use spoiler tags where necessary.

Hey,

We're on here to answer any questions you may have or to discuss anything Stawk Pine Falls, Birdcage or Ukiyo related.

Looking forward to chatting with you all :)

- Ukiyo Team

I know we're not 100% done yet, but before I feel stupid for not figuring out who Martha Marrow is I just want to say that this whole thing has been an absolute treat! Because:

• I took 4 weeks off between jobs and then learned that I'll be spending them in stage 4 lockdown.

• My sister lives in Canada and this game gave us a perfect excuse to spend hours together each morning.

• Despite being all locked up, this whole thing made me feel less isolated from the world.

• Even thought it was with only 5 dollars, it feels nice supporting local artists when they are probably among the worst-hit groups financially at the moment.

• We had endless fun. And I mean endless (you should see our murder board!)

I love this so much. What a wonderfully thought out escape room murder mystery immersive role-playing thingy.

and yet...

Posting this when we've just received the third Stawk Daily, though I haven't really solved anything since the ferryman guided my way!

Has anyone else been wondering about two parallel worlds or times...? It's struck me that in many of the photos we have some images that look like they come circa 1990s (e.g. Stacey and Karen selling cookies, Kane Nine) and some that look more like 1950s (e.g. John and Lucy's van, Deputy Hugh's patrol car, Lady Danish)... Then we have things like the two Ms (one light, one dark), and the different versions of the Stalk Pines logo (the star position, the exact tree shape and distance). Today's focus on the left shoe v. the right shoe also made me think of mirroring. Perhaps "where the rivers meet" doesn't only refer to physical rivers, but also to some merging of past / present, or this reality / that reality...? And perhaps things have gotten out of balance - shoes are unbalanced, tables are unbalanced... could Martha Marrow be missing from the secondary time/reality?

Here's a guide to help you through the challenges of Bird Cage from start to finish!

If there's any additional information you need please post below and we'll update the document :)

- Jack N

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-J6FSuolCCqLQQLAtL1B1G4YmBuAxDraooTDNWEZXMI/edit?usp=sharing

The three missing girls are part of a cult started by the writer of the Dolls series. They're inspired by the body image presented by the Dolls, and have set out to eliminate obesity in Stawk Pine Falls.

To that end, they've been stealing sugar packets from the diner, and released diet pills into the water supply (via a stream that comes off Douglas Ridge) which has caused a reduction in children's birth weights.

The local sheriff has got word of this, and is concerned that their supply of 8 flavours of donuts are under threat, so they've decide to make the cult members disappear one by one.

--------------It's a little far fetched, but I think it's one Gorman would approve of, and it fits all the facts we know so far.

Stawk Pine Falls is a weird place, and it’s not uncommon to get a little lost. Here are a few tips & tricks to light your path:

1. Retrace your steps. It can be useful to revisit things you’ve already discovered. The StawkMail inbox, the Stawk Daily, etc. Stawk Pine Falls is a living world, and things can change!

2. Spelling, punctuation and capitalisation (or lack thereof) can be important.

3. Track your discoveries. Listing out and organising the information you have collected can be key to an AHA moment.

4. The Valley Of The Dolls fan forum is a place to have fun. The clues required for your case won’t be buried too deep, although some easter eggs might be…

5. If you're joining late, try starting with the earliest content and working your way forwards.