I've been logging into "Adopt Me!" for over 2 years. I'll one day get my 1,000th day streak, a milestone I doubt anyone reached, but after what I went through, I don't think I'd play "Adopt Me!" anytime soon.
On the day where I should've gotten by 1,000th day streak, I knew something was off as the game loaded. Instead of having the familiar and cheery intro screen, I was already in the game (it just popped up). The usual iconic music was replaced by a stinging silence. I once prided as a very rich player, but I now had no bucks and only one Flare-age Neon dog named Alex, and a Luminous-age Neon cat named Lilly.
It had been a long time ago since I played "Adopt Me!" for the first time, but I couldn't bring up anytime where I had a Neon dog which I named Alex, nor a Neon cat named Lilly.
I didn't even think that was possible, because I never recalled creating a new account, and even if I did, only either a dog OR a cat would hatch from the Starter Egg, and it definitely wouldn't have a Neon cat/dog of ANY age.
I began getting worried. Had I been hacked? Had I loaded into the wrong server (I realized I had been playing alone)? Or was some other technical issue? But if it was a technical issue, how could I just get two Neon pets for free?
I looked further into my pets, and found something that was DEFINITELY not right. Why did the pets have healthbars, along with a stamina, energy, hunger, and thirst bar? Was this a survival game? "Adopt Me!" hadn't ever been a survival game- it was always an RP and pet-raising game!
Not even my avatar was the same. It was reduced to the standard Roblox Noob, when I really had a lot of Robux. Had I logged into a doppelganger account?
I looked into my 'Toys' section, and all I had were a Flashlight and Toy Sword. Had someone hacked this into a survival game? If so, what kind?
But I wasn't gonna sit around to find out. I called the Roblox support number, but the voicemail was just dead silence even as I turned up to full volume, almost as if it was off-duty.
When I looked back in my game screen, I found a note on the ground, I picked it up by pressing E, and it read:
"I know you. I know you're wondering why this game seems so out of place, and you tried to call Roblox support. A virus has just started spreading in the Nursery and much of Adoption Island has been destroyed by its hosts. The infection doesn't spread by air, but if they touch you, well, you know. Wait... someone's-" I immediately put the note down and ran my avatar back home, not thinking of looking back. But then a dialogue box opened.
LILLY: Wait! I can't keep up!
I wanted to slow down, but I was afraid of what was behind me. I realized my avatar was almost out of stamina, so I cut behind a tree to recharge. I realized Lilly's healthbar was completely red, and I dreaded to think on what would happen if either pets' or my HP reached 0. I tried carrying them both, but that left me defenseless. As I listened closely, I didn't hear anything, so it might be safe again. But I couldn't relax as a message popped up that said, "DON'T MAKE A NOISE!" with an audio recording waveform that had a bar limit. I held my breath and remained as quiet as possible, not as quiet as the game's ambience.
After quietly breathing in and out of what felt like forever, the warning message finally faded. I picked up the two pets, and snuck quietly back into my home. When I got home, though, I realized there had been a crate in there.
"Do I open the crate?" I asked myself. "What if it's infected?" I drew my Toy Sword and pressed 'E' to open it. What I found inside washed most of my worries away. Inside there was a Flame Sword, with the typical blade replaced by a 2D fire icon. I didn't know what this new weapon would do, but I wasn't gonna keep my blunt Toy Sword around.
Suddenly, a speech bubble popped up on what seemed to be behind me. "ANNA: You've upgraded your weapon." I dragged my camera around, and there was Anna, the young girl typically from the Nursery with blonde hair and a pink onesie with a rabbit tail.
"What's going on?" I typed in the chat.
I didn't expect her to respond, as she's just an NPC. But merely 3 seconds later, she replied, "I... I don't know." She responded. "But I think the source is in the Nursery."
Another chat bubble popped up from behind.
"ALEX: But what if we die, even if we destroyed the beacon?"
"We have no choice," I typed back. "It's either us, or them. But maybe, if we just work together, we could make it out alive."
As we stepped out with my volume as high as possible to sense any infected, suddenly, as we were about to enter the Nursery, the ground below us suddenly gave away, and it was dark, too dark, so dark I worried that if I were to turn on my flashlight, I would get jump scared.
I equipped my flashlight and covered my eyes and slowly pressed the left mouse button, preparing for the worst. But nothing happened. The cave was lit up slightly, and after a few tense seconds, no monster came.
But another thing made me flinch- the torches around suddenly burst alight, nearly making me spill water all over my keyboard. I could vividly hear my avatar's footsteps as I inconsistently tapped the 'W' key to try not to make too much noise.
After tapping the 'W' key on what felt like forever, we came across a very questionable door. As I selected the Flame Sword, I realized it had a series of abilities. I used 'One Slash,' which had the least required energy, but it easily sliced the hinges off and the door fell.
But we were met with a horrible sight. I expected the source to be some like reactor core, but I nearly puked over my computer screen. It was a number of masses of unknown fluid tied together by what appear to be veins. But one mass in the center seemed to be distinctive from the rest, almost as if it had an eye in it.
But I realized that all too late as the central mass began to crack, as if it were an egg. As I drew my Flame Sword open, a huge tentacle burst open from the center mass. I nearly froze. As I panned my camera back facing the door, the door was shut. I tried pressing 'E' opening the door and running, but a dialogue box popped up.
"ANNA: We can't leave yet! Otherwise, the virus would spread out of control!"
I reluctantly panned my camera back to the single tentacle, and shakily pressed the '1' key, equipping my Flame Sword again. But I noticed all too late that that single imposing tentacle was a mere decoy as 8 other tentacles popped open from the other masses.
I quickly popped open my Flame Sword move lists, and I scrolled left to right at what felt like the speed of light, desperately trying to find a good attack. I figured that "Fire Cage" would trap the thing and slow it down as I try to find a new attack.
As I thought, the tentacles were immobile and couldn't move. As I scrolled left to right amid the Flame Sword's attacks, one of them caught my eye, "Infernadius Executionis." It sounded rather powerful, but just as I hovered my mouse over the button, I quickly saw a message:
"DO NOT USE UNLESS LAST RESORT. THIS WILL UNPOWER YOUR SWORD."
But I figured I wouldn't need it as the cage seemed to be burning the thing itself. Without hesitating, I began clicking my left mouse button as fast as I could. I began thinking my finger would create a trance because of how fast I was clicking, then, as the multiple slashes piled up, I was faced with a "time-it-perfect" press circle and ring. I pressed almost perfectly, and the slashes blew the being into nothing.
There was no time to celebrate, though. Almost immediately, a hole appeared in place of the being. The place around began crumbling and a wall of very toxic materials of what seemed to contain the virus began tracing the hind wall. I pressed 'E' as fast as I could to try to push open the heavy door. But it didn't work and I clicked the left mouse button. That triggered a slice which bust the door down into two molten pieces.
As we ran out of the main chamber, we saw more infected monsters that began charging at us immediately followed by a jump scare. But I was so focused on killing the monsters I merely blinked.
I swiped my camera down and slashed, jumping into the air with an incendiary jump. Then, an idea immediately sparked into my mind. I scrolled my camera backwards and looking down about 45 degrees. As I swiped the sword repeatedly about 2 times per second, the monsters began falling like bowling pins.
But all that stopped when I hit a wall on the other side. At this point my Flame Sword was completely drained of energy and was basically a Toy Sword now. But my avatar automatically dropped it and I really couldn't fight off all of them with a mere Toy Sword.
I swiped my camera around in all directions, trying to look for some way to get out. I even spammed the left mouse button to try and see if I could escape. But it all stopped as I heard repeated gunshots behind me and I quickly swiped my camera.
It was Anna, and she seemed to now be around in her teens, with an assault rifle in her hands. Before I could type anything in chat, she spoke up in a voice bubble, "ANNA: Don't worry. I've been in Arsenal before."
Another voice bubble popped up.
"ALEX: But we still have to get out. I can smell the virus from here. If we don't get out, we'll all get infected."
My camera view began developing a red, blurry, vignette. I feared what would happen if my camera became completely opaque. I thought I heard the ceiling crack as I slashed it, so I panned up as hard as I could, and began clicking faster than I ever had.
I thought my mouse was gonna shatter, but all that faded away as the ceiling opened and the camera refreshed. Back out of the ground, the ground patched back up, almost as if nothing was there.
The sky had been clear again, and one last message appeared.
"Congratulations! You've saved Adoption Island from certain extinction, thanks to your party's hard work and determination."
This would be an experience I would never forget or unsee. As I finish this post, I want to remind you that after what I've been through, I'll likely never see "Adopt Me!" the same way ever again.
After all, who knows if the virus is really dead? Is it still buried underground? All I can hope is that another disaster doesn't happen which triggers the virus to be released again, and I REALLY hope this cruel hacker doesn't spread the virus to other games.

I've been logging in to "Adopt Me!" for over 2 years. I'll one day get my 1,000th day streak, a milestone I doubt anyone reached, but after what I went through, I don't think I'd play "Adopt Me!" anytime soon.
On the day where I should've gotten by 1,000th day streak, I knew something was off as the game loaded. Instead of having the familiar and cheery intro screen, I was already in the game (it just popped up). The usual iconic music was replaced by a stinging silence. I once prided as a very rich player, but I now had no bucks and only one Reborn-age Neon dog named Alex, and a Sunshine-age Neon cat named Lilly.
It had been a long time ago since I played "Adopt Me!" for the first time, but I couldn't bring up anytime where I had a Neon dog which I named Alex, nor a Neon cat named Lilly.
I didn't even think that was possible, because I never recalled creating a new account, and even if I did, only either a dog OR a cat would hatch from the Starter Egg, and it definitely wouldn't have a Neon cat/dog of ANY age.
I began getting worried. Had I been hacked? Had I loaded into the wrong server (I realized I had been playing alone)? Or was some other technical issue? But if it was a technical issue, how could I just get two Neon pets for free?
I looked further into my pets, and found something that was DEFINITELY not right. Why did the pets have healthbars, along with a stamina, energy, hunger, and thirst bar? Was this a survival game? "Adopt Me!" hadn't ever been a survival game- it was always an RP and pet-raising game!
Not even my avatar was the same. It was reduced to the standard Roblox Noob, when I really had a lot of Robux. Had I logged into a doppelganger account?
I looked into my 'Toys' section, and all I had were a Flashlight and Toy Sword. Had someone hacked this into a survival game? If so, what kind?
But I wasn't gonna sit around to find out. I called the Roblox support number, but the voicemail was just dead silence even as I turned up to full volume, almost as if it was off-duty.
When I looked back in my game screen, I found a note on the ground, I picked it up by pressing E, and it read:
"I know you. I know you're wondering why this game seems so out of place, and you tried to call Roblox support. A virus has just started spreading in the Nursery and much of Adoption Island has been destroyed by its hosts. The infection doesn't spread by air, but if they touch you, well, you know. Wait... someone's-" I immediately put the note down and ran my avatar back home, not thinking of looking back. But then a dialogue box opened.
LILLY: Wait! I can't keep up!
I wanted to slow down, but I was afraid of what was behind me. I realized my avatar was almost out of stamina, so I cut behind a tree to recharge. I realized Lilly's healthbar was completely red, and I dreaded to think on what would happen if either pets' or my HP reached 0. I tried carrying them both, but that left me defenseless. As I listened closely, I didn't hear anything, so it might be safe again. But I couldn't relax as a message popped up that said, "DON'T MAKE A NOISE!" with an audio recording waveform that had a bar limit. I held my breath and remained as quiet as possible, not as quiet as the game's ambience.
After quietly breathing in and out of what felt like forever, the warning message finally faded. I picked up the two pets, and snuck quietly back into my home. When I got home, though, I realized there had been a crate in there.
"Do I open the crate?" I asked myself. "What if it's infected?" I drew my Toy Sword and pressed 'E' to open it. What I found inside washed most of my worries away. Inside there was a Flame Sword, with the typical blade replaced by a 2D fire icon. I didn't know what this new weapon would do, but I wasn't gonna keep my blunt Toy Sword around.
Suddenly, a speech bubble popped up on what seemed to be behind me. "ANNA: You've upgraded your weapon." I dragged my camera around, and there was Anna, the young girl typically from the Nursery with blonde hair and a pink onesie with a rabbit tail.
"What's going on?" I typed in the chat.
I didn't expect her to respond, as she's just an NPC. But merely 3 seconds later, she replied, "I... I don't know." She responded. "But I think the source is in the Nursery."
Another chat bubble popped up from behind.
"ALEX: But what if we die, even if we destroyed the beacon?"
"We have no choice," I typed back. "It's either us, or them. But maybe, if we just work together, we could make it out alive."
As we stepped out with my volume as high as possible to sense any infected, suddenly, as we were about to enter the Nursery, the ground below us suddenly gave away, and it was dark, too dark, so dark I worried that if I were to turn on my flashlight, I would get jump scared.
I equipped my flashlight and covered my eyes and slowly pressed the left mouse button, preparing for the worst. But nothing happened. The cave was lit up slightly, and after a few tense seconds, no monster came.
But another thing made me flinch- the torches around suddenly burst alight, nearly making me spill water all over my keyboard. I could vividly hear my avatar's footsteps as I inconsistently tapped the 'W' key to try not to make too much noise.
After tapping the 'W' key on what felt like forever, we came across a very questionable door. As I selected the Flame Sword, I realized it had a series of abilities. I used 'One Slash,' which had the least required energy, but it easily sliced the hinges off and the door fell.
But we were met with a horrible sight. I expected the source to be some like reactor core, but I nearly puked over my computer screen. It was a number of masses of unknown fluid tied together by what appear to be veins. But one mass in the center seemed to be distinctive from the rest, almost as if it had an eye in it.
But I realized that all too late as the central mass began to crack, as if it were an egg. As I drew my Flame Sword open, a huge tentacle burst open from the center mass. I nearly froze. As I panned my camera back facing the door, the door was shut. I tried pressing 'E' opening the door and running, but a dialogue box popped up.
"ANNA: We can't leave yet! Otherwise, the virus would spread out of control!"
I reluctantly panned my camera back to the single tentacle, and shakily pressed the '1' key, equipping my Flame Sword again. But I noticed all too late that that single imposing tentacle was a mere decoy as 8 other tentacles popped open from the other masses.
I quickly popped open my Flame Sword move lists, and I scrolled left to right at what felt like the speed of light, desperately trying to find a good attack. I figured that "Fire Cage" would trap the thing and slow it down as I try to find a new attack.
As I thought, the tentacles were immobile and couldn't move. As I scrolled left to right amid the Flame Sword's attacks, one of them caught my eye, "Infernadius Executionis." It sounded rather powerful, but just as I hovered my mouse over the button, I quickly saw a message:
"DO NOT USE UNLESS LAST RESORT. THIS WILL UNPOWER YOUR SWORD."
But I figured I wouldn't need it as the cage seemed to be burning the thing itself. Without hesitating, I began clicking my left mouse button as fast as I could. I began thinking my finger would create a trance because of how fast I was clicking, then, as the multiple slashes piled up, I was faced with a "time-it-perfect" press circle and ring. I pressed almost perfectly, and the slashes blew the being into nothing.
There was no time to celebrate, though. Almost immediately, a hole appeared in place of the being. The place around began crumbling and a wall of very toxic materials of what seemed to contain the virus began tracing the hind wall. I pressed 'E' as fast as I could to try to push open the heavy door. But it didn't work and I clicked the left mouse button. That triggered a slice which bust the door down into two molten pieces.
As we ran out of the main chamber, we saw more infected monsters that began charging at us immediately followed by a jump scare. But I was so focused on killing the monsters I merely blinked.
I swiped my camera down and slashed, jumping into the air with an incendiary jump. Then, an idea immediately sparked into my mind. I scrolled my camera backwards and looking down about 45 degrees. As I swiped the sword repeatedly about 2 times per second, the monsters began falling like bowling pins.
But all that stopped when I hit a wall on the other side. At this point my Flame Sword was completely drained of energy and was basically a Toy Sword now. But my avatar automatically dropped it and I really couldn't fight off all of them with a mere Toy Sword.
I swiped my camera around in all directions, trying to look for some way to get out. I even spammed the left mouse button to try and see if I could escape. But it all stopped as I heard repeated gunshots behind me and I quickly swiped my camera.
It was Anna, and she seemed to now be around in her teens, with an assault rifle in her hands. Before I could type anything in chat, she spoke up in a voice bubble, "ANNA: Don't worry. I've been in Arsenal before."
Another voice bubble popped up.
"ALEX: But we still have to get out. I can smell the virus from here. If we don't get out, we'll all get infected."
My camera view began developing a red, blurry, vignette. I feared what would happen if my camera became completely opaque. I thought I heard the ceiling crack as I slashed it, so I panned up as hard as I could, and began clicking faster than I ever had.
I thought my mouse was gonna shatter, but all that faded away as the ceiling opened and the camera refreshed. Back out of the ground, the ground patched back up, almost as if nothing was there.
The sky had been clear again, and one last message appeared.
"Congratulations! You've saved Adoption Island from certain extinction, thanks to your party's hard work and determination."
This would be an experience I would never forget or unsee. As I finish this post, I want to remind you that after what I've been through, I'll likely never see "Adopt Me!" the same way ever again.
After all, who knows if the virus is really dead? Is it still buried underground? All I can hope is that another disaster doesn't happen which triggers the virus to be released again, and I REALLY hope this cruel hacker doesn't spread the virus to other games.

TL:DR - my auto dealership was hacked, hackers used my recent service records to call me and trick me into giving them my personal information, I may be royal f*cked here.
I never thought I would be this stupid but the perfect storm of distractions got me. It was late afternoon on Friday, my kids just came home, and I was finalizing the final piece to this work project before the weekend.
My cellphone rings and it's a number across the country from where I am. Normally I just let them go to voicemail but for some reason I don't know, I pick it up. Someone on the other end of the line introduces themselves and asks for me by name which I reply. They claim to be a survey company from my auto dealership following up on my recent service appointment. This is true, I did have my car serviced the previous week. They ask me how my service went and listed a couple details about my service visit which helped to legitimize their identity. Then they started to say something about my warranty and my car's milage which I didn't quite hear completely due to my kids having some fight about a charger cable in the living room. Then they say they're transferring me to a warranty claims adjuster. This should have been my first clue this was a scam call because my car is brand new and still well within the manufacturer warranty.
The next lady explains something about my car's warranty and needing to verify some information. She asks for my car's milage (the first lady knew this so flag #1), make and model (flag #2 ), and the reason for my recent visit (flag #3 all these details lady #1 already had). She said she wanted to verify my warranty coverage but needed to collect some details. She ask to verify my address which (thankfully) the car is not registered to my house, so they didn't get my home address. Then verify my birthday and then finally my SSN. The second I rattled of my SSN I mentally went "shit, you idiot!!" then the lady say's "one moment..." then makes up some excuse that was too quick for me to hear and hangs up.
In a panic, I call my dealership to (hopefully) validate it was a legitimate call, it wasn't. They said they call customers themselves and don't farm out surveys to 3rd parties. Then I do a reverse lookup on the phone number that called me, it's a cellphone registered to one of those 'burner phone' companies. Shit, shit, and triple shit!
At the very least, I do have credit freezes on all three credit bureaus and have since the whole lifelock scandal from a decade ago. Also, I use an authenticator app and not text message verification so sim-swapping won't really do much for them. I do worry they might try to transfer money from my bank using my details but I don't use a national bank but a local one so I'm not too sure they can find my bank info. I don't know what else I should be doing but I am cautiously freaking out.
Any advice you could give?

I was in a "partnership", through deception. It led to filling out applications for a home, 2 signed leases, joined bank accounts, trips, suicide attempts (theirs)...
A month after finding out I had no consent to be with my partner (after building and being so close/together for 3+ years), I disclosed the truth to (I told on us) everyone on their side. Shockingly, my ex's spouse asked me to give my ex-partner a home 3 times via text, the spouse demanded a divorce from my ex-partner via text (and posted it), engaged in over 20 hours of FaceTime calls to me with both of them...after I disclosed the relationship.
We ended our togetherness-understandably. Sometimes you just have to stay married, I understand that, especially with kids. Moments before, my ex-partners spouse asked who my best friend is, I told them my ex-partner (that is how we started as friends), the spouse (this is the last Facetime interaction for all three of us which lasted 5.5 hours)told me that their best friend was a person of the opposite gender as well and how they will never ever give up their best friend.....the spouse then asked my ex-partner, who said while looking at me with their spouse standing right beside them: "my partner. I love (me)them, will always love them and will never give them up." My ex-partner's spouse disconnected the call immediately.
Issue ONE:
My ex-partner's spouse has since September 2022 stalked me, posted about me, distributed slanderous/defamation fliers all over a 5 mile radius (work and home) blaming my ex for the fliers;
My ex-partner's spouse, their friends and family, have doxed me, messaged/harassed me, run me off the road.
My ex-partner's spouse posted my address and phone number social media sites (my address is protected by State Executive Law as a result of domestic violence),
My ex-partner's spouse also tried to get me to hit their vehicle, I did not but that meant I was hit by a truck.
The ex-partner's spouse/family and friends call and drive by new places of employment of mine lying and hindering my ability to make money.
The ex-partner's spouse has hacked my ex partners emergency cell phone on my cell account, as well. Apple Store verified. And so much more.....
My ex-partner's spouse, their friends and family, have doxed me, messaged/harassed me, run me off the road.
According to the Sheriff's because my ex-partner's spouse and I were not in a relationship; they cannot help me, BUT, the Sheriff's did share that it is not illegal for my ex-partner and/or spouse to annoy the police in order for police harass me. However, it appears, my ex's spouse can make any allegation via phone call or email and claim I am harassing them and they need an order of protection from me.
Issue TWO:
My ex broke the lease and stopped paying their half of the bills(over the threshold of $20,000 to date and growing). My ex shared during our first case that there are financial obligations between us and told their lawyer that time to resolve those issues would be made. That was April 2023. The date is later and the money is at a higher amount from fees/penalties/eviction.
Between that and their spouse costing me my jobs and hindering any future ones, thus far; I am/have been homeless and living in my car. I am being dragged into court time and time again to just be postponed and postponed.....I have no money, I have put over 20,000 miles on my car in six months to stay warm, to move from place to place to avoid being charged with loitering and to keep moving so the ex's spouse does not have her spies find me.
What can I do, I need my ex sued for the money owed but no money for a lawyer because of them; I need my ex's spouse arrested immediately (she is getting worse and this has been 18+ months)...
The ex-partner's spouse tried to take me to small claims but it got thrown out (again, I did not have a relationship with the spouse, therefore I did not have anything of the spouses)
The first case my ex tried with, I asked for and received a dismissal. The spouse did interfere with that case by emailing the judge to try to make it about themselves (it is about the cheating spouse), which got a stern talking to my ex-partners lawyer. When that failed, my ex-partner tried to change his request and that, too, was denied therefore the judge approved my motion to dismiss. The ex-partner's spouse did not like that... lied, provided proof of one telephone call from the first case timeframe (2022), a typed email without proof supporting the allegation in the email and then a phone call making allegations (no proof) and the ex-partners spouse was able to get a T O R, currently, with not even being ever in the same room with me or having a relationship with me or providing proof...It will be dismissed but during this time The ex-partner's spouse as of March 2024, was a passenger in their best friends (opposite gender)...the friend was driving, using their truck as a deadly weapon, head on to my car that I was driving with my daughter and grandson!!!!!
I need my ex's spouse to stop having access to hindering my rights to work; I have a right to provide for myself and to have a home; I have a right to sue my ex-partner who breached verbal/written/oral contracts.
I have texts/voicemails/emails/screen shots and photos of everything. Please advise!

I (24f) thought my fiance (26m) had blocked and ghosted me. My phone calls kept going straight to voicemail and when I called on another phone, someone picked up, didn't say much, and hung up when I said who I was. His dating profile also unmatched me and popped up in my feed showing as active (he claims this someone hacked him). I didn't go to his house to confront him because I assumed he had his reasons and him dumping me in such a way spoke volumes. My address is on his phone but he didn't have it or my number memorized. I threw myself into a rebound relationship shortly after but never slept with the person. After I month, my fiance got in touch with me and claimed someone stole his phone and was impersonating him. Even though I was uncertain of his story, I decided it wouldn't be fair to him to leave him especially considering he was a victim of a crime. I ended things with the new guy immediately. I don't feel like I necessarily cheated given the circumstances. I thought he moved on and I was trying to do the same during that time. I'm unsure if I should tell him about this or not given the situation. I don't want to keep secrets tbh but I'm unsure how he'll handle this.
TL;DR! I thought my fiance blocked and ghosted me so I rebounded but it turns out his phone was stolen and he couldn't reach me for a month.
Edit: So in conclusion, I'm nieve, too trusting, and will likely be hurt again. You all don't need to tell me I'm probably making a bad decision, I kind of knew that already. If I get hurt, that's on me though. If he's being genuine, great. Either way, I intended to approach things cautiously and leave if I find further reason to believe he was lying. Still not sure if I should tell him about the person I was seeing during this time though.

It's finally here. After about 2 months of work, hundreds of hours play testing, at least 100 manual saves, 4 days worth of re-recording corrupted footage, asking countless questions on both Cyberpunk2077 subs, and a bunch of comments from people asking me if I'm ok, I am now ready to proudly showcase the Complete List of Failable Gigs and Side Jobs for Cyberpunk 2077

A Call To Action (PROVE ME WRONG!)

If anyone can prove to me that there is an error in these tables by uploading footage of their unmodified game in version 2.12 or later failing a gig or side job I do not have marked with a "yes" or "No, used to", I will test it out myself, and if I confirm it works, I will reward you $20. A "Job Failed: [name of job]" red popup must appear. I'm gonna limit this to 3 errors (as in 3 jobs I say you can't fail that you actually can). First 3 2 get the reward. One Prize Claimed for Second Conflict

Note: a fail screen when you enter the elevator or call Reed to trigger the end game does not count. Must be before triggering end game.
Note2: jobs with their "Yes's Bolded were recently updated since this post was made by commenters/additional testing. So far I’ve been wrong about 5 gigs/side jobs.

All Failable Base-Game Gigs

Gig Title	Tier	Fixer	Failable?	How?
Dancing on a Minefield	1	Dakota Smith	Yes	Blow up car
Flying Drugs	1	Dakota Smith	No
Big Pete's Got Big Problems	2	Dakota Smith	No, special mention	Cannot knock him out. Only option is to kill him or scare him away. Both will result in passing the gig
No Fixers	2	Dakota Smith	No, Special mention	If you drive her in the opposite direction for long enough, she’ll get out and the mission will PASS, but fixer calls and says you did a bad job.
Trevor's Last Ride	2	Dakota Smith	Yes	Pick up the body but then leave it and run away.
MIA	3	Dakota Smith	No, Special mention	If you drive him in the opposite direction for long enough, he’ll get out and the mission will PASS, but fixer calls and says you did a bad job.
Sparring Partner	3	Dakota Smith	No
Goodbye, Night City	4	Dakota Smith	No
Radar Love	4	Dakota Smith	Yes	Blow up the car. If you get into it, it will become invincible.
A Lack of Empathy	1	Dino Dinovic	No
An Inconvenient Killer	2	Dino Dinovic	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Serial Suicide	2	Dino Dinovic	No
Guinea Pigs	3	Dino Dinovic	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
The Frolics of Councilwoman Cole	3	Dino Dinovic	No
Two Wrongs Makes Us Right	1	Mr. Hands	Yes	Blow up car
Error 404	1	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	No
Race to the Top	1	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	No
Serious Side Effects	1	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	No
Breaking News	2	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	Yes	Blow up car
Family Matters	2	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	No
Hacking the Hacker	2	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	No
Cuckoo's Nest	3	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	No, Special mention	Running away immediately after getting client to follow you will not fail the mission, but fixer will be pissed.
Severance Package	3	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	No
Desperate Measures	4	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	Yes	Run away instead of getting into truck. Also, please note that this gig will NOT appear if you have not completed “Ezekiel Saw the Wheel”
For My Son	4	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Going-away Party	4	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	Yes	After getting in the car, get out and run away.
Hippocratic Oath	1	Regina Jones	No
Many Ways to Skin a Cat	1	Regina Jones	Yes	Blow up car
Monster Hunt	1	Regina Jones	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Playing for Keeps	1	Regina Jones	No
Rite of Passage	1	Regina Jones	No
Dirty Biz	2	Regina Jones	No
Troublesome Neighbors	2	Regina Jones	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Welcome to America, Comrade	2	Regina Jones	Yes	Blow up car
Backs Against the Wall	3	Regina Jones	No
Catch a Tyger's Toe	3	Regina Jones	No
Flight of the Cheetah	3	Regina Jones	No, Special mention	Running away immediately after getting client to follow you will not fail the mission, but fixer will be pissed.
Shark in the water	3	Regina Jones	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Woman of La Mancha	3	Regina Jones	Yes	Confront then run
Last Login	4	Regina Jones	No, Special mention	Also has Sandra Dorset’s data bank for the mission Full Disclosure
Small Man, Big Evil	4	Regina Jones	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Bloodsport	5	Regina Jones	No
Freedom of the Press	5	Regina Jones	Yes	Kill Max or let him kill himself
Lousy Kleppers	5	Regina Jones	No
Scrolls before Swine	5	Regina Jones	No, Special mention	You can kill the client instead of dropping off the scroll but it still marks as a pass.
Concrete Cage Trap	6	Regina Jones	No, Special mention	Running away immediately after getting client to follow you will not fail the mission, but fixer will be pissed.
Fixer, Merc, Soldier, Spy	6	Regina Jones	No
Occupational Hazard	6	Regina Jones	No, Special mention	Running away immediately after freeing the client will not fail the mission, but Regina will be pissed.
The Heisenberg Principle	6	Regina Jones	No
Family Heirloom		Rogue	No
Hot Merchandise		Rogue	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Nasty Hangover		Rogue	No
The Union Strikes Back		Rogue	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Fifth Column	1	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	No
Jeopardy	1	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	No
Life's Work	1	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	Yes	Blow up car
On a Tight Leash	1	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Bring Me the Head of Gustavo Orta	2	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Old Friends	2	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	Yes	Knock em out and then run away. Fail screen took several in-game days to appear for some reason, which is why my previous list said it was not failable.
Psychofan	2	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	No
Eye for an Eye	3	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	No	Knocking her out and leaving her doesn’t fail the mission. Confronting her then running away doesn’t fail it. This woman simply wants to die.
Sr. Ladrillo's Private Collection	3	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	No
The Lord Giveth and Taketh Away	3	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	Yes	Blow up car.
Going Up or Down?	4	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	No
Tyger and Vulture	1	Wakako Okada	No
We Have Your Wife	1	Wakako Okada	No
Greed Never Pays	2	Wakako Okada	No
Olive Branch	2	Wakako Okada	Yes	Blow up car or kill guy in trunk
Until Death Do Us Part	2	Wakako Okada	No
Getting Warmer...	3	Wakako Okada	Yes	Disconnect netrunner without injecting coolant. Also possibly by running away.
Wakako's Favorite	3	Wakako Okada	No
A Shrine Defiled	4	Wakako Okada	No

See Full Video Here

Note: list is sorted alphabetically by fixer name, then by tier (which gigs are released to you in which order), then by alphabetical name of gig, I think.

Note 2: failing gigs does not affect your ability to get more gigs, nor does it lock you out of the final award. None of the final award gigs are failable.

All Failable Main Missions:

1. (Don't) Fear the Reaper: Die

All Failable Base Game Side Jobs

Assigned By	Order	Side Job Name	Failable?	How?
Aldecaldos	1	I'll Fly Away	Yes	After completing “With a Little Help from my Friends”, begin “I’ll Fly Away”. Once you the Side Job starts, leave the camp or the canyon and skip time 24 hours. Panam will call for “Queen of the Highway”. This will fail “I’ll Fly Away”.
Aldecaldos	2	Gun Music	Yes	Agro the Scavs then run away.
Aldecaldos	3	Fortunate Son	No, used to?	Apparently you CANNOT fail it by running away or waiting too long. I suspect this was once failable before v2.12.
Brendan	1	Coin Operated Boy	No
Brendan	2	Spray Paint	No
Brendan	3	I Can See Clearly Now	No
Claire Russell	1	The Beast in Me	Yes	Run away instead of talking to Claire and starting the race
Claire Russell	2	The Beast in Me: City Center	Yes	Run away instead of talking to Claire and starting the race
Claire Russell	3	The Beast in Me: Badlands	Yes	Run away instead of talking to Claire and starting the race
Claire Russell	4	The Beast in Me: Santo Domingo	Yes	Run away instead of talking to Claire and starting the race
Claire Russell	5	The Beast in Me: The Big Race	Yes	Run away instead of talking to Claire and starting the race
Claire Russell	6	The Distance	No, used to?	Running away does not fail the job. I think it used to?
Coach Fred	1	Beat on the Brat	No
Coach Fred	2	Beat on the Brat - Kabuki	No, used to?	Got locked into ring after starting fight.
Coach Fred	3	Beat on the Brat - Arroyo	No, used to?	Cannot run away after fight starts. Losing the fight does not fail the side job.
Coach Fred	4	Beat on the Brat - The Glen	No, used to?	Cannot run away after fight starts. Losing the fight does not fail the side job.
Coach Fred	5	Beat on the Brat - Pacifica	No, used to?	Cannot run away after fight starts. Losing the fight does not fail the side job. Also, Ozob has no different dialogue if you failed “send in the clowns”.
Coach Fred	6	Beat on the Brat - Rancho Coronado	No, used to?	Cannot run away after fight starts. Losing the fight does not fail the side job.
Delamain	1	Human Nature	No
Delamain	2	Tune Up	YES	Shoot someone inside the Delemain office from outside
Delamain	3	Epistrophy	Yes	By failing any of the sub-missions
Delamain	3.1	Epistrophy: Northside	Yes	Blow up the car or fail another Epistrophe mission after this one gets on your list.
Delamain	3.2	Epistrophy: North Oak	Yes	Blow up the car, or fail another Epistrophe mission after this one gets on your list.
Delamain	3.3	Epistrophy: Coastview	Yes	Run away after the goons spawn, or fail another Epistrophe mission after this one gets on your list.
Delamain	3.4	Epistrophy: Rancho Coronado	Yes	Blow up the car, or fail another Epistrophe mission after this one gets on your list.
Delamain	3.5	Epistrophy: Badlands	Yes	Blow up the car, or fail another Epistrophe mission after this one gets on your list.
Delamain	3.6	Epistrophy: The Glen	Yes	Blow up the car, or fail another Epistrophe mission after this one gets on your list.
Delamain	3.7	Epistrophy: Wellsprings	Yes	fail another Epistrophe mission after this one gets on your list. Cannot blow up car.
Delamain	4	Don't Lose Your Mind	No
Jefferson Peralez	1	I Fought the Law	No
Jefferson Peralez	2	Dream On	No, used to!	You used to be able to fail the mission by losing the van but as of at least 1.63, you cannot fail it. But after I passed it despite losing the truck, I never got the call from Mrs. Peralez
Johnny Silverhand	0	The Ballad of Buck Ravers	No
Johnny Silverhand	1	Chippin' In	Yes	Run away
Johnny Silverhand	1.5	A Cool Metal Fire	No
Johnny Silverhand	2	Blistering Love	Yes	Run away. Failing this side job will not lock you out of Holdin’ On
Johnny Silverhand	3	Holdin' On	No
Johnny Silverhand	4	Second Conflict	YES	When prompted to follow Patricia or Dum Dum, turn around, go back down the elevator, and leave the building
Johnny Silverhand	5	A Like Supreme	No
Joshua Stephenson	1	Sinnerman	Yes	Lose the truck
Joshua Stephenson	2	There Is A Light That Never Goes Out	Yes	Run away
Joshua Stephenson	3	They Won't Go When I Go	No	Running away passes the job
Judy Álvarez	1	Both Sides, Now	No
Judy Álvarez	2	Ex-Factor	No	Refusing to help when she initially calls will eliminate the side job from the list. No fail screen, not marked as completed. Just disappears. You cannot enter the elevator until Judy comes to it.
Judy Álvarez	3	Talkin' 'bout a Revolution	No	Refusing to help while in Judy’s appartment will result in completing the job. Running away instead of fighting the guy will put your game in a bizarre state where your fists are out but you can’t draw your gun. Not advisable.
Judy Álvarez	4	Pisces	No	Running away instead of entering hte elevator will reset everyone back to their starting points
Judy Álvarez	5	Pyramid Song	Yes	Run away instead of connecting to terminal
Kerry Eurodyne	1	Rebel! Rebel!	Yes	Run away after being driven to the scene.
Kerry Eurodyne	2	I Don't Wanna Hear It	Yes	Run away instead of looking for how to enter venue
Kerry Eurodyne	3	Off the Leash	No
Kerry Eurodyne	4	Boat Drinks	Yes	Jump off the boat instead of destroying it.
Lifepaths	1	These Boots Are Made for Walkin' (Nomad)	No
Lifepaths	1	Small Man, Big Mouth (Streetkid)	No
Lifepaths	1	War Pigs (Corpo)	No
Misc.	0	Career Opportunities	No
Misc.	0	The Highwayman	No
Misc.	0	Bullets	No
Misc.	0	Fool on the Hill	No
Misc.	0	Full Disclosure	No
Misc.	0	Heroes	No
Misc.	0	I Really Want to Stay at Your House	No
Misc.	0	Killing In The Name	No
Misc.	0	Over the Edge	No
Misc.	0	Space Oddity	No	If you run away instead of fight, the goons just stay there indefinitely.
Misc.	0	The Gift	No
Misc.	0	The Gig	No
Misc.	0	Ezekiel Saw the Wheel	No, used to?	If you run away instead of fight, the goons just stay there with their guns drawn indefinitely. Which is bizarre. I suspect it may have been failable at one point but I am not certain
Misc.	0	Sweet Dreams	No, used to?	Demanding a refund removes the side job, but no fail screen.
Misc.	0	Venus in Furs	Yes	Run away after entering motel room but before talking to Meredith.
Misc.	0	Violence	Yes	Pick up body. Place it down outside of motel room. Then leave motel.
Misc.	0	A Day In The Life	Yes	Refuse to help, or let Darrell get killed by the thugs
Misc.	0	Big in Japan	Yes	Kill the guy
Misc.	0	Burning Desire/Night Moves	Yes	Drive around and eventually the guy explodes.
Misc.	0	Every Breath You Take	Yes	Getting too close, shooting your gun to alarm everyone, leaving instead of looking for stalker, or refusing to engage stalker and she ends up killing Blue Moon.
Misc.	0	Happy Together	Yes	Don’t go back to check on the sad cop. Or after telling the cops its an turtle, immediately run away. Or be mean to the sad cop so he doesn’t let you in or tell you about the iguana. Easiest mission to fail.
Misc.	0	Love Rollercoaster	Yes	Run away instead of scanning and helping
Misc.	0	Only Pain	Yes	Kill the cops and run away. Don’t wake the corpo
Misc.	0	Raymond Chandler Evening	Yes	Refuse to defend the corpo. Refuse to help Pepe twice. Get too close to the wife. Shoot your gun to make her run away.
Misc.	0	Sacrum Profanum/Losing My Religion	Yes	RUN AWAY or KILL MONK
Misc.	0	Send in the Clowns	Yes	Run away after picking up Ozob
Misc.	0	Stadium Love	Yes	Shoot up 6th Street goons before starting the mission
Misc.	0	The Prophet's Song	Yes	Run away after waiting
Nix	1	Spellbound	No, used to?	Agroing R3n0 and running away still doesn’t fail it. Maybe used to be failable?
Nix	2	KOLD MIRAGE	No	You’re locked into the room as soon as you put the deck down and can’t leave without saving him
Panam Palmer	1	Riders on the Storm	Yes	RUN AWAY When your outside of, or enroute to, the camp to save Saul. Leave for 24 hours
Panam Palmer	2	With a Little Help from My Friends	Yes	Run away from train station. Let some time pass.
Panam Palmer	3	Queen of the Highway	No	You cannot run away, the game will flip you around and send you back to where you came. Using a fast travel point will not fail it either, nor sleeping or time skipping.
Regina Jones	0	Psycho Killer	No	Running away mid-fight resets the cyberpsycho back to its spawn point.
Regina Jones	0	Machine Gun	Yes, Sort of	Fails during “The Killing Moon” when you turn in your weapons, but comes back when you get your weapons back. Does not fail during “Firestarter” or “Sweet Dreams” in 2.12. Before 2.12, if you fail to give Skippy back to Regina before starting a mission where all of your guns get taken, like “Automatic Love” or “Sweet Dreams” or “A Lack of Empathy”, then the mission supposedly fails. Sweet Dreams didn’t fail for me in v1.3, i kept the gun after waking up.
River Ward	1	The Hunt	Yes	Bail at pretty much any point during the quest, including refusing to stay overnight. If you bail as soon as you get to the farm, River will die. Best ending.
River Ward	2	Following the River	No	Running away and skipping time somehow doesn’t fail the quest, unlike Judy’s or Kerry’s final quests. Weird.
Robert Wilson	1	The Gun	No
Robert Wilson	2	Shoot To Thrill	No
Vehicles	0	Dressed to Kill	No
Vehicles	0	I'm in Love with My Car	No
Vehicles	0	Murk Man Returns Again Once More Forever	No	Car is invincible.
Vehicles	0	Sex On Wheels	No
Vehicles	0	Shape of a Pony	No
Viktor Vektor	1	Upgrade U	No
Viktor Vektor	2	Paid in Full	No
Zen Master	1	Imagine	No
Zen Master	2	Stairway To Heaven	No
Zen Master	3	Poem Of The Atoms	No
Zen Master	4	Meetings Along The Edge	No

Note: list is sorted alphabetically by who assigns you the job, then by the order it's assigned.
Note 2: as mentioned in this post, failing love interest missions results in some bizarre end game holo voicemails. Including Saul calling you despite being canonically dead, Panam being surprisingly chill with you despite hating your guts for abandoning her, and Judy saying you haven't talked in a while despite leaving Night City and blocking you.

All Failable DLC Gigs

None can be failed.

All Failable DLC Main Jobs and Side Jobs

Note: Contains Spoilers!

Assigned By	Order	Side Job Name	Failable?	How?
DLC Main Mission	1	Dog Eat Dog	Yes	Run away
DLC Main Mission	2	Hole in the Sky	Yes	Run away
DLC Main Mission	3	Spider and the Fly	No	I ran around with Meyers for like 20 minutes, getting caught, running as fast as I can, an nothing happens. You get yelled at but you can't fail it.
DLC Main Mission	4	Lucretia My Reflection	Yes	Refuse offer to continue from Reed & Meyers
DLC Main Mission	5	The Damned	No
DLC Main Mission	6	Get It Together	No
DLC Main Mission	7	You Know My Name	No
DLC Main Mission	8	Birds With Broken Wings	No
DLC Main Mission	9	I’ve Seen That Face Before	No
DLC Main Mission	10	Firestarter	No
DLC Main Mission	11-A	Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos	Yes	Run away instead of fighting MaxTech
DLC Main Mission	11-B	The Killing Moon	No
DLC Main Mission	12-A	Somewhat Damaged	Yes	Run away instead of following after Songbird
DLC Main Mission	13-A	Leave in Silence	No
DLC Main Mission	14-A	Four Score and seven	No
DLC Main Mission	12-B	Through Pain to Heaven	No
DLC Main Mission	12-C	Unfinished Sympathy	No
DLC Main Mission	13-C	From Her to Eternity	No
DLC Main Mission	15	Who wants to live forever	No
DLC Main Mission	16	Things done changed	No
Misc. (DLC)		Moving Heat	No
Misc. (DLC)		Balls to the Wall	Yes	Refuse to start mission, agro/shoot them. Or Fails when you kill Hansen in Firestarter. No fail screen if you side with Songbird, unfortunately.
Misc. (DLC)		Addicted To Chaos	No
Misc. (DLC)		Corpo of the Month	No
Misc. (DLC)		1R-0NC-LAD (unmarked)	No
Misc. (DLC)		Money For Nothing	No
Misc. (DLC)		New Person, Same Old Mistakes	No
Misc. (DLC)		No Easy Way Out	No
Misc. (DLC)		One Way or Another	No	Passes as soon as you open the shipping container. Wiki is wrong, you don’t have to kill the attackers
Misc. (DLC)		The Show Must Go On	No
Misc. (DLC)		This Corrosion	No
Misc. (DLC)	10.5	Tomorrow Never Knows	No
Misc. (DLC)		Voodoo Treasure	No
Mr. Hands (DLC)		Run This Town	YES!	Refuse to help twice while visiting with Mr. Hands.
Mr. Hands (DLC)		Dazed and Confused	Yes	Tell Lina the truth
Mr. Hands (DLC)		Dirty Second Hands	No
Mr. Hands (DLC)		Go Your Own Way	No
Mr. Hands (DLC)		Shot by Both Sides	Yes	Shoot Bree when she first reveals herself. Or run away instead of investigating the old lab with her.
Muamar "El Capitan" Reyes (DLC)	1	Push It to the Limit	Yes	Blow up car after getting into it. INFINITELY FAILABLE unless you pass it once
Muamar "El Capitan" Reyes (DLC)	2	Just Another Story	Yes	Blow up car after getting into it. INFINITELY FAILABLE FOREVER!
Muamar "El Capitan" Reyes (DLC)	3	Baby Let Me Take You	Yes	Drive truck into water

Special Thanks:

• The mission tree has been a godsend
  
• Table formatting brought to you by ExcelToReddit
  
• The fine folks on /cyberpunkgame and /lowsodiumcyberpunk
  

Thanks for reading.

It's finally here. After about 2 months of work, hundreds of hours play testing, at least 100 manual saves, 4 days worth of re-recording corrupted footage, asking countless questions on both Cyberpunk2077 subs, and a bunch of comments from people asking me if I'm ok, I am now ready to proudly showcase the Complete List of Failable Gigs and Side Jobs for Cyberpunk 2077

A Call To Action (PROVE ME WRONG!)

If anyone can prove to me that there is an error in these tables by uploading footage of their unmodified game in version 2.12 or later failing a gig or side job I do not have marked with a "yes" or "No, used to", I will test it out myself, and if I confirm it works, I will reward you $20. A "Job Failed: [name of job]" red popup must appear. I'm gonna limit this to 3 errors (as in 3 jobs I say you can't fail that you actually can). First 3 2 get the reward. One Prize Claimed for Second Conflict

Note: a fail screen when you enter the elevator or call Reed to trigger the end game does not count. Must be before triggering end game.
Note2: jobs with their "Yes's Bolded were recently updated since this post was made by commenters/additional testing. So far I’ve been wrong about 5 gigs/side jobs.

All Failable Base-Game Gigs

Gig Title	Tier	Fixer	Failable?	How?
Dancing on a Minefield	1	Dakota Smith	Yes	Blow up car
Flying Drugs	1	Dakota Smith	No
Big Pete's Got Big Problems	2	Dakota Smith	No, special mention	Cannot knock him out. Only option is to kill him or scare him away. Both will result in passing the gig
No Fixers	2	Dakota Smith	No, Special mention	If you drive her in the opposite direction for long enough, she’ll get out and the mission will PASS, but fixer calls and says you did a bad job.
Trevor's Last Ride	2	Dakota Smith	Yes	Pick up the body but then leave it and run away.
MIA	3	Dakota Smith	No, Special mention	If you drive him in the opposite direction for long enough, he’ll get out and the mission will PASS, but fixer calls and says you did a bad job.
Sparring Partner	3	Dakota Smith	No
Goodbye, Night City	4	Dakota Smith	No
Radar Love	4	Dakota Smith	Yes	Blow up the car. If you get into it, it will become invincible.
A Lack of Empathy	1	Dino Dinovic	No
An Inconvenient Killer	2	Dino Dinovic	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Serial Suicide	2	Dino Dinovic	No
Guinea Pigs	3	Dino Dinovic	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
The Frolics of Councilwoman Cole	3	Dino Dinovic	No
Two Wrongs Makes Us Right	1	Mr. Hands	Yes	Blow up car
Error 404	1	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	No
Race to the Top	1	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	No
Serious Side Effects	1	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	No
Breaking News	2	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	Yes	Blow up car
Family Matters	2	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	No
Hacking the Hacker	2	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	No
Cuckoo's Nest	3	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	No, Special mention	Running away immediately after getting client to follow you will not fail the mission, but fixer will be pissed.
Severance Package	3	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	No
Desperate Measures	4	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	Yes	Run away instead of getting into truck. Also, please note that this gig will NOT appear if you have not completed “Ezekiel Saw the Wheel”
For My Son	4	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Going-away Party	4	Muamar “El Capitan” Reyes	Yes	After getting in the car, get out and run away.
Hippocratic Oath	1	Regina Jones	No
Many Ways to Skin a Cat	1	Regina Jones	Yes	Blow up car
Monster Hunt	1	Regina Jones	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Playing for Keeps	1	Regina Jones	No
Rite of Passage	1	Regina Jones	No
Dirty Biz	2	Regina Jones	No
Troublesome Neighbors	2	Regina Jones	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Welcome to America, Comrade	2	Regina Jones	Yes	Blow up car
Backs Against the Wall	3	Regina Jones	No
Catch a Tyger's Toe	3	Regina Jones	No
Flight of the Cheetah	3	Regina Jones	No, Special mention	Running away immediately after getting client to follow you will not fail the mission, but fixer will be pissed.
Shark in the water	3	Regina Jones	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Woman of La Mancha	3	Regina Jones	Yes	Confront then run
Last Login	4	Regina Jones	No, Special mention	Also has Sandra Dorset’s data bank for the mission Full Disclosure
Small Man, Big Evil	4	Regina Jones	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Bloodsport	5	Regina Jones	No
Freedom of the Press	5	Regina Jones	Yes	Kill Max or let him kill himself
Lousy Kleppers	5	Regina Jones	No
Scrolls before Swine	5	Regina Jones	No, Special mention	You can kill the client instead of dropping off the scroll but it still marks as a pass.
Concrete Cage Trap	6	Regina Jones	No, Special mention	Running away immediately after getting client to follow you will not fail the mission, but fixer will be pissed.
Fixer, Merc, Soldier, Spy	6	Regina Jones	No
Occupational Hazard	6	Regina Jones	No, Special mention	Running away immediately after freeing the client will not fail the mission, but Regina will be pissed.
The Heisenberg Principle	6	Regina Jones	No
Family Heirloom		Rogue	No
Hot Merchandise		Rogue	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Nasty Hangover		Rogue	No
The Union Strikes Back		Rogue	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Fifth Column	1	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	No
Jeopardy	1	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	No
Life's Work	1	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	Yes	Blow up car
On a Tight Leash	1	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Bring Me the Head of Gustavo Orta	2	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	Yes	Knock em out and then run away
Old Friends	2	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	Yes	Knock em out and then run away. Fail screen took several in-game days to appear for some reason, which is why my previous list said it was not failable.
Psychofan	2	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	No
Eye for an Eye	3	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	No	Knocking her out and leaving her doesn’t fail the mission. Confronting her then running away doesn’t fail it. This woman simply wants to die.
Sr. Ladrillo's Private Collection	3	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	No
The Lord Giveth and Taketh Away	3	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	Yes	Blow up car.
Going Up or Down?	4	Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra	No
Tyger and Vulture	1	Wakako Okada	No
We Have Your Wife	1	Wakako Okada	No
Greed Never Pays	2	Wakako Okada	No
Olive Branch	2	Wakako Okada	Yes	Blow up car or kill guy in trunk
Until Death Do Us Part	2	Wakako Okada	No
Getting Warmer...	3	Wakako Okada	Yes	Disconnect netrunner without injecting coolant. Also possibly by running away.
Wakako's Favorite	3	Wakako Okada	No
A Shrine Defiled	4	Wakako Okada	No

See Full Video Here

Note: list is sorted alphabetically by fixer name, then by tier (which gigs are released to you in which order), then by alphabetical name of gig, I think.

Note 2: failing gigs does not affect your ability to get more gigs, nor does it lock you out of the final award. None of the final award gigs are failable.

All Failable Main Missions:

1. (Don't) Fear the Reaper: Die

All Failable Base Game Side Jobs

Assigned By	Order	Side Job Name	Failable?	How?
Aldecaldos	1	I'll Fly Away	Yes	After completing “With a Little Help from my Friends”, begin “I’ll Fly Away”. Once you the Side Job starts, leave the camp or the canyon and skip time 24 hours. Panam will call for “Queen of the Highway”. This will fail “I’ll Fly Away”.
Aldecaldos	2	Gun Music	Yes	Agro the Scavs then run away.
Aldecaldos	3	Fortunate Son	No, used to?	Apparently you CANNOT fail it by running away or waiting too long. I suspect this was once failable before v2.12.
Brendan	1	Coin Operated Boy	No
Brendan	2	Spray Paint	No
Brendan	3	I Can See Clearly Now	No
Claire Russell	1	The Beast in Me	Yes	Run away instead of talking to Claire and starting the race
Claire Russell	2	The Beast in Me: City Center	Yes	Run away instead of talking to Claire and starting the race
Claire Russell	3	The Beast in Me: Badlands	Yes	Run away instead of talking to Claire and starting the race
Claire Russell	4	The Beast in Me: Santo Domingo	Yes	Run away instead of talking to Claire and starting the race
Claire Russell	5	The Beast in Me: The Big Race	Yes	Run away instead of talking to Claire and starting the race
Claire Russell	6	The Distance	No, used to?	Running away does not fail the job. I think it used to?
Coach Fred	1	Beat on the Brat	No
Coach Fred	2	Beat on the Brat - Kabuki	No, used to?	Got locked into ring after starting fight.
Coach Fred	3	Beat on the Brat - Arroyo	No, used to?	Cannot run away after fight starts. Losing the fight does not fail the side job.
Coach Fred	4	Beat on the Brat - The Glen	No, used to?	Cannot run away after fight starts. Losing the fight does not fail the side job.
Coach Fred	5	Beat on the Brat - Pacifica	No, used to?	Cannot run away after fight starts. Losing the fight does not fail the side job. Also, Ozob has no different dialogue if you failed “send in the clowns”.
Coach Fred	6	Beat on the Brat - Rancho Coronado	No, used to?	Cannot run away after fight starts. Losing the fight does not fail the side job.
Delamain	1	Human Nature	No
Delamain	2	Tune Up	YES	Shoot someone inside the Delemain office from outside
Delamain	3	Epistrophy	Yes	By failing any of the sub-missions
Delamain	3.1	Epistrophy: Northside	Yes	Blow up the car or fail another Epistrophe mission after this one gets on your list.
Delamain	3.2	Epistrophy: North Oak	Yes	Blow up the car, or fail another Epistrophe mission after this one gets on your list.
Delamain	3.3	Epistrophy: Coastview	Yes	Run away after the goons spawn, or fail another Epistrophe mission after this one gets on your list.
Delamain	3.4	Epistrophy: Rancho Coronado	Yes	Blow up the car, or fail another Epistrophe mission after this one gets on your list.
Delamain	3.5	Epistrophy: Badlands	Yes	Blow up the car, or fail another Epistrophe mission after this one gets on your list.
Delamain	3.6	Epistrophy: The Glen	Yes	Blow up the car, or fail another Epistrophe mission after this one gets on your list.
Delamain	3.7	Epistrophy: Wellsprings	Yes	fail another Epistrophe mission after this one gets on your list. Cannot blow up car.
Delamain	4	Don't Lose Your Mind	No
Jefferson Peralez	1	I Fought the Law	No
Jefferson Peralez	2	Dream On	No, used to!	You used to be able to fail the mission by losing the van but as of at least 1.63, you cannot fail it. But after I passed it despite losing the truck, I never got the call from Mrs. Peralez
Johnny Silverhand	0	The Ballad of Buck Ravers	No
Johnny Silverhand	1	Chippin' In	Yes	Run away
Johnny Silverhand	1.5	A Cool Metal Fire	No
Johnny Silverhand	2	Blistering Love	Yes	Run away. Failing this side job will not lock you out of Holdin’ On
Johnny Silverhand	3	Holdin' On	No
Johnny Silverhand	4	Second Conflict	YES	When prompted to follow Patricia or Dum Dum, turn around, go back down the elevator, and leave the building
Johnny Silverhand	5	A Like Supreme	No
Joshua Stephenson	1	Sinnerman	Yes	Lose the truck
Joshua Stephenson	2	There Is A Light That Never Goes Out	Yes	Run away
Joshua Stephenson	3	They Won't Go When I Go	No	Running away passes the job
Judy Álvarez	1	Both Sides, Now	No
Judy Álvarez	2	Ex-Factor	No	Refusing to help when she initially calls will eliminate the side job from the list. No fail screen, not marked as completed. Just disappears. You cannot enter the elevator until Judy comes to it.
Judy Álvarez	3	Talkin' 'bout a Revolution	No	Refusing to help while in Judy’s appartment will result in completing the job. Running away instead of fighting the guy will put your game in a bizarre state where your fists are out but you can’t draw your gun. Not advisable.
Judy Álvarez	4	Pisces	No	Running away instead of entering hte elevator will reset everyone back to their starting points
Judy Álvarez	5	Pyramid Song	Yes	Run away instead of connecting to terminal
Kerry Eurodyne	1	Rebel! Rebel!	Yes	Run away after being driven to the scene.
Kerry Eurodyne	2	I Don't Wanna Hear It	Yes	Run away instead of looking for how to enter venue
Kerry Eurodyne	3	Off the Leash	No
Kerry Eurodyne	4	Boat Drinks	Yes	Jump off the boat instead of destroying it.
Lifepaths	1	These Boots Are Made for Walkin' (Nomad)	No
Lifepaths	1	Small Man, Big Mouth (Streetkid)	No
Lifepaths	1	War Pigs (Corpo)	No
Misc.	0	Career Opportunities	No
Misc.	0	The Highwayman	No
Misc.	0	Bullets	No
Misc.	0	Fool on the Hill	No
Misc.	0	Full Disclosure	No
Misc.	0	Heroes	No
Misc.	0	I Really Want to Stay at Your House	No
Misc.	0	Killing In The Name	No
Misc.	0	Over the Edge	No
Misc.	0	Space Oddity	No	If you run away instead of fight, the goons just stay there indefinitely.
Misc.	0	The Gift	No
Misc.	0	The Gig	No
Misc.	0	Ezekiel Saw the Wheel	No, used to?	If you run away instead of fight, the goons just stay there with their guns drawn indefinitely. Which is bizarre. I suspect it may have been failable at one point but I am not certain
Misc.	0	Sweet Dreams	No, used to?	Demanding a refund removes the side job, but no fail screen.
Misc.	0	Venus in Furs	Yes	Run away after entering motel room but before talking to Meredith.
Misc.	0	Violence	Yes	Pick up body. Place it down outside of motel room. Then leave motel.
Misc.	0	A Day In The Life	Yes	Refuse to help, or let Darrell get killed by the thugs
Misc.	0	Big in Japan	Yes	Kill the guy
Misc.	0	Burning Desire/Night Moves	Yes	Drive around and eventually the guy explodes.
Misc.	0	Every Breath You Take	Yes	Getting too close, shooting your gun to alarm everyone, leaving instead of looking for stalker, or refusing to engage stalker and she ends up killing Blue Moon.
Misc.	0	Happy Together	Yes	Don’t go back to check on the sad cop. Or after telling the cops its an turtle, immediately run away. Or be mean to the sad cop so he doesn’t let you in or tell you about the iguana. Easiest mission to fail.
Misc.	0	Love Rollercoaster	Yes	Run away instead of scanning and helping
Misc.	0	Only Pain	Yes	Kill the cops and run away. Don’t wake the corpo
Misc.	0	Raymond Chandler Evening	Yes	Refuse to defend the corpo. Refuse to help Pepe twice. Get too close to the wife. Shoot your gun to make her run away.
Misc.	0	Sacrum Profanum/Losing My Religion	Yes	RUN AWAY or KILL MONK
Misc.	0	Send in the Clowns	Yes	Run away after picking up Ozob
Misc.	0	Stadium Love	Yes	Shoot up 6th Street goons before starting the mission
Misc.	0	The Prophet's Song	Yes	Run away after waiting
Nix	1	Spellbound	No, used to?	Agroing R3n0 and running away still doesn’t fail it. Maybe used to be failable?
Nix	2	KOLD MIRAGE	No	You’re locked into the room as soon as you put the deck down and can’t leave without saving him
Panam Palmer	1	Riders on the Storm	Yes	RUN AWAY When your outside of, or enroute to, the camp to save Saul. Leave for 24 hours
Panam Palmer	2	With a Little Help from My Friends	Yes	Run away from train station. Let some time pass.
Panam Palmer	3	Queen of the Highway	No	You cannot run away, the game will flip you around and send you back to where you came. Using a fast travel point will not fail it either, nor sleeping or time skipping.
Regina Jones	0	Psycho Killer	No	Running away mid-fight resets the cyberpsycho back to its spawn point.
Regina Jones	0	Machine Gun	Yes, Sort of	Fails during “The Killing Moon” when you turn in your weapons, but comes back when you get your weapons back. Does not fail during “Firestarter” or “Sweet Dreams” in 2.12. Before 2.12, if you fail to give Skippy back to Regina before starting a mission where all of your guns get taken, like “Automatic Love” or “Sweet Dreams” or “A Lack of Empathy”, then the mission supposedly fails. Sweet Dreams didn’t fail for me in v1.3, i kept the gun after waking up.
River Ward	1	The Hunt	Yes	Bail at pretty much any point during the quest, including refusing to stay overnight. If you bail as soon as you get to the farm, River will die. Best ending.
River Ward	2	Following the River	No	Running away and skipping time somehow doesn’t fail the quest, unlike Judy’s or Kerry’s final quests. Weird.
Robert Wilson	1	The Gun	No
Robert Wilson	2	Shoot To Thrill	No
Vehicles	0	Dressed to Kill	No
Vehicles	0	I'm in Love with My Car	No
Vehicles	0	Murk Man Returns Again Once More Forever	No	Car is invincible.
Vehicles	0	Sex On Wheels	No
Vehicles	0	Shape of a Pony	No
Viktor Vektor	1	Upgrade U	No
Viktor Vektor	2	Paid in Full	No
Zen Master	1	Imagine	No
Zen Master	2	Stairway To Heaven	No
Zen Master	3	Poem Of The Atoms	No
Zen Master	4	Meetings Along The Edge	No

Note: list is sorted alphabetically by who assigns you the job, then by the order it's assigned.
Note 2: as mentioned in this post, failing love interest missions results in some bizarre end game holo voicemails. Including Saul calling you despite being canonically dead, Panam being surprisingly chill with you despite hating your guts for abandoning her, and Judy saying you haven't talked in a while despite leaving Night City and blocking you.

All Failable DLC Gigs

None can be failed.

All Failable DLC Main Jobs and Side Jobs

Note: Contains Spoilers!

Assigned By	Order	Side Job Name	Failable?	How?
DLC Main Mission	1	Dog Eat Dog	Yes	Run away
DLC Main Mission	2	Hole in the Sky	Yes	Run away
DLC Main Mission	3	Spider and the Fly	No	I ran around with Meyers for like 20 minutes, getting caught, running as fast as I can, an nothing happens. You get yelled at but you can't fail it.
DLC Main Mission	4	Lucretia My Reflection	Yes	Refuse offer to continue from Reed & Meyers
DLC Main Mission	5	The Damned	No
DLC Main Mission	6	Get It Together	No
DLC Main Mission	7	You Know My Name	No
DLC Main Mission	8	Birds With Broken Wings	No
DLC Main Mission	9	I’ve Seen That Face Before	No
DLC Main Mission	10	Firestarter	No
DLC Main Mission	11-A	Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos	Yes	Run away instead of fighting MaxTech
DLC Main Mission	11-B	The Killing Moon	No
DLC Main Mission	12-A	Somewhat Damaged	Yes	Run away instead of following after Songbird
DLC Main Mission	13-A	Leave in Silence	No
DLC Main Mission	14-A	Four Score and seven	No
DLC Main Mission	12-B	Through Pain to Heaven	No
DLC Main Mission	12-C	Unfinished Sympathy	No
DLC Main Mission	13-C	From Her to Eternity	No
DLC Main Mission	15	Who wants to live forever	No
DLC Main Mission	16	Things done changed	No
Misc. (DLC)		Moving Heat	No
Misc. (DLC)		Balls to the Wall	Yes	Refuse to start mission, agro/shoot them. Or Fails when you kill Hansen in Firestarter. No fail screen if you side with Songbird, unfortunately.
Misc. (DLC)		Addicted To Chaos	No
Misc. (DLC)		Corpo of the Month	No
Misc. (DLC)		1R-0NC-LAD (unmarked)	No
Misc. (DLC)		Money For Nothing	No
Misc. (DLC)		New Person, Same Old Mistakes	No
Misc. (DLC)		No Easy Way Out	No
Misc. (DLC)		One Way or Another	No	Passes as soon as you open the shipping container. Wiki is wrong, you don’t have to kill the attackers
Misc. (DLC)		The Show Must Go On	No
Misc. (DLC)		This Corrosion	No
Misc. (DLC)	10.5	Tomorrow Never Knows	No
Misc. (DLC)		Voodoo Treasure	No
Mr. Hands (DLC)		Run This Town	YES!	Refuse to help twice while visiting with Mr. Hands.
Mr. Hands (DLC)		Dazed and Confused	Yes	Tell Lina the truth
Mr. Hands (DLC)		Dirty Second Hands	No
Mr. Hands (DLC)		Go Your Own Way	No
Mr. Hands (DLC)		Shot by Both Sides	Yes	Shoot Bree when she first reveals herself. Or run away instead of investigating the old lab with her.
Muamar "El Capitan" Reyes (DLC)	1	Push It to the Limit	Yes	Blow up car after getting into it. INFINITELY FAILABLE unless you pass it once
Muamar "El Capitan" Reyes (DLC)	2	Just Another Story	Yes	Blow up car after getting into it. INFINITELY FAILABLE FOREVER!
Muamar "El Capitan" Reyes (DLC)	3	Baby Let Me Take You	Yes	Drive truck into water

Special Thanks:

• The mission tree has been a godsend
  
• Table formatting brought to you by ExcelToReddit
  
• The fine folks on /cyberpunkgame and /lowsodiumcyberpunk
  

Thanks for reading.

You know what i hate? Not finding a single comprehensive guide on how to do something when you google it, not even a decent reddit link, but only 50 different youtube videos or speedrun guides.
Fine, I`ll do it myself!
This is by the way only a guide that tells you where to find shit, not how to finish the level efficiently. you gotta figure that out yourself. I also dont know where to find hackers and cutters in every level when you dont start with one, but will tell you the ones i know of.
​
The Basement
Crew cards: 1=Bottom level, on the left to the stairwell entrance on a desk in a storage room. 2=Top level, in the room opposite of the generator
System data: after reaching top level turn right two times and you see a computer at the end of the corridor.
Stairwell lockdown: bottom of the stairwell, left of the door is the lever. Pull the lever, Kronk!
​
Severance
Server records: opposite of the break room exit is another door. Access the computer in the far left corner of the room.
Camera system: after exiting the cinema towards mission opjective, you see a green screen behind a window. In that room opposite of the screen is a lever.
Window shutters: opposite of the exit elevator are massive windows with 2 interactables on either side. If you have a hacker go to the left side, if you have a cutter go to the right side.
​
Scorched Earth
Civilian: on the left side of the map from your starting point is a backroom with a civilian punching on glass and a lever that saves him.
Lingards research: 1=next to the civilian room is another room with a safe. The file is inside the safe. 2=inside the exploding room (Lab B) on a desk by a window. 3=inside the same room as the hackable computer is a desk with the file on it.
Exit Lab B: From starting point, if you go around the central lab on its right, you can enter a room labeld Lab B that will explode once you are inside. On the other side of the lab is a corridor with a hackable door.
​
Loose Ends
Nostromo data: The key card is inside a safe between the lockdown doors. The objective is behind a door in the other half of the same room.
Lockdown: When you follow the mission marker it will lead you to a T section room with a MK2 Joe. On each side of the Pillar are doors with levers.
Communications: After entering the level you see a killed worker behind the desk and behind him a room behind a window. Inside that room is a terminal with Taylors voicemails.
​
Reoperation
Medical supplies: 1=Inside the patient room on the right side of your starting point. 2=Inside the patient room opposite of the first mission objektive. 3=Inside the patient room near Box 2. 4=To the left of the reception area inside the childrens room.
Lockdown: Behind a blue door that leads to a reception area with the exit area behind it. access the reception terminal.
Hack MRT: If you dont have the hacker you find it in the toilet room opposite of the reception area with the lockdown terminal. The MRT room is at the end of a corridor to the right of the starting point.
​
Crawl space
Engineer report: To the right of the drop down point out of the vents, inside a nest room.
Med kits: 1=after dropping down its right in´front of you. 2=in the far right corner of the first storage room. 3=inside the storage with the steam coming out.
Vent gas: In the gas room are 2 levers in niches on both sides of the room that will vent the gas.
​
Overun
Crew cards: 1=In the sleeping area on the right side of the map next to a corpse. 2=At one end of the burning corridor next to a corpse. 3=Opposite of the key card door next to a corpse.
report: After entering on the right side of the map inside a sleeping area.
secure: Grab the key card from a table inside the room with the exit elevator. use the keycard to get into the reception in the same room.
​
Damage Control
Prison tags: 1=In the room to the left of the starting point, on a desk in the back. 2=Its inside one of the bathroom stalls near the reception. 3=Inside cell 1 in the area behind the active camera.
Secure armory: to the left of the starting point, through the room, into the corridor on the far right, turn left twice, in the back. A hacker is inside the armory on a crater if needed.
Visitor data: Collect a keycard from the interogation room behind the cell area room. The Objective is inside the reception of the marshal office.
​
The Package
Cameras: On the reception to the synthstorage with a corpse.
Taylors message: In a backroom in the area to the right infront of the synth storage
Set off Alarm: in the same room as the generator.
​
Blast Seat
Update waits: Inside the room with a burning serveterminal.
Set off Alarm: inside the storage room next to a burning door.
collect report: Inside the break room with strobe light and blood leading to it.

HEY! It’s me—the author. Just coming in to say I know jackshit about the touchy subjects I wrote here. Feedback and criticism highly encouraged!
——— ———
All is quiet and cold on Starship Station 149.
It’s not exactly a popular station—with being located in an offworld space, far from the main systems, and with its small size, it’s rare to see it get more than a dozen people in a week.
A human, coming home from work, steps onto the platform, as they listlessly wait for a starship to come and enter the station. Next to her, is a raggedy Florian, wearing nothing but dirty clothes, with their leaves dry and discolored from years of unhealthy life-choices.
Then, the crinkling of coins. The Florian had opened their wallet—a physical wallet. Non digitized money is rare these days, but in the offworlds, the people still run on coins and bills.
“...Fuck. This is bullshit. How am I supposed to buy groceries like this…We’re gonna starve at this rate…” The Florian quietly mutters to himself, the human next to him turning her head and glancing over for just a moment.
“But…Yeah. The deceased compensation act hasn’t expired yet.”
Fiddling with their pockets, the Florian pulls out their old, beat up communicator, and sends one, harrowing voicemail.
“Hey, honey. Might not come home tonight, I ran into a bit of trouble…Keep your siblings safe and happy for me, okay? Love you.”
And with that, just as the next ship has begun to arrive, he starts to step towards the port…And then starts to run.
Most stations will have a safety forcefield equipped to deal with this type of situation, but the Safer Stations Act has not yet reached the most fringe of stations. I suppose you would already know what that means—on Station 149.
“At least…They won’t go hungry.”
Just as he was about to throw himself off, a strong pull could be felt from their back, as they were forced back, and stopped from almost promptly turning himself into a fine green paste. It was her. The human.
“What are you doing?! That was dangerous! Look...I don’t know you—I don’t know what your life is like. But, come on now. You can’t just off yourself like that—Your disappearance is gonna make a bigger mark on your kids than st—”
“AND?! You just said it yourself! You don’t know what’s going on in my life! You don’t know anything! Mind your own business! If I don’t do this, everyone I love is going to die! Because of ME! Because of YOU.”
The Florian was screaming at her now, gripping tightly on her clothes, as their leaves began to curl and their face contorts. His eyes make no tears—and yet he cries.
“Because of me...She’s dead...Because of me, we live in a shithole, eating garbage everyday.”
She doesn’t know what to make of this. She’s just some laborer, for god's sake. Her eyes look away in discomfort, but also unease in knowing she is not the right person for this.
“...Let’s get you a drink first.”
———Sometime after...———
A Florian and a Human sit at a Station-Side convenience store, drinking water and eating cheap food.
“Feeling better now?”
“...Yeah. I just…I don’t know why I did that. I don’t know why it would be a good idea to try and get some money at the cost of ruining my kids’ life. Sorry...For doing that. And for screaming at you.”
“It’s alright. I get the feeling. Don’t have kids, but I still eat garbage everyday too.”
She sighs, her breath condensing from the cold, as the Florian continues to have their meal. As they finally finished up, the Florian stood up. He was still shaken. Lost. But a new conviction seems to have been sparked in him.
“I...I should go now. I don’t want to bother you too much. Thanks for stopping me.”
As the Florian turns, to go and leave, she stops him and puts her hand on her shoulder, as she retrieves something from her pockets.
“Before you go, here. It’s not much...But I think it’ll help.”
She places some money in his hands. By Florian standards—it was pocket change. But by his, it was treasure.
“I had some antique, physical money lying around just in case my GalCred account got hacked. I think you should have this—I won’t be using it anyways.”
“I...You...Why would you give me this? I can’t take this, I—”
“Relax! I’m fine with you spending it. I’m more happy to see it being used by someone in need than kept around.”
“...Thank you...Thank you! You’re a rare soul. I’ve never met someone who’s willing to do something like this for someone like me...”
The Florian weeps again—but this time, not of sadness, but of happiness and gratitude, as he carefully places it within his wallet, as the two exchange a sudden hug.
“I’m gonna repay you someday. I swear on it!”
“Woah! You don’t have to, but...If you really wanna do it!”
“No...You deserve it. You really, really do.”
The two would then soon exchange goodbyes, as they both stepped on the platform again, and left for their separate destinations. Perhaps they will meet again—perhaps not.
All is quiet, and cold, on Station 149—But for a moment…
The cold air seemed a little warmer.

[Chapter 1] ; [Previous Chapter] ; [Discord + Wiki] ; [Patreon]
​
A/N: Hey everybody, just in case you missed it, a couple of announcements! During the last week, there was the Third Anniversary of the story that contains a couple of short worldbuilding stories, as well as the possibility for you to directly ask questions that will be answered in character in the comments below.
Additionally, after more than year of absence, the travels of Orbit Elf finally continue in Aj4ad's Spinoff story. It's a lot of fun writing for it and the people who looked into it so far also seem to enjoy it quite a bit, so if the idea of more stories in this universe tickles your fancy at all, I'd be happy if you checked it out!
And, third of all, after a 24 Chapter run, the crossover Christmas special of the crossover between Aj4ad and We need a Deathworlder! finally wrapped up. I know Christmas has been over for a while now, but if you are in the mood for a slightly more bizarre and out there adventure, I would certainly recommend joining Chak and Shida as they save a holiday that neither of them have any context for.
Now, these were quite a few announcements, I know, so I will leave you with the story now. I hope you enjoy!
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
​
​
Chapter 159 – Never too far
“There you are!” a voice that would've probably been melodic if it hadn't been so entirely outraged called out before James had even spotted its owner, since his tired and overwrought eyes were focused firmly onto the ground directly in front of his feet as he marched along the thinly carpeted corridors. Now glancing up a bit at the outcry, he spotted the vaguely familiar face of the Coluyvoree governor H. Cierrophai, who had 'greeted' him when he first stepped onto the planet. Although, despite the fact that coluyvoree faces weren't exactly the most expressive given the fact that they were mostly covered by an ivory plate, James could still tell, just by the heavily constricted pale dots in the middle of the governor's blue eyes, that he was enormously unhappy with his deathworlder 'guest' right now. “What in the blazes do you think you are doing?! Where were you?!”
James' jaw clenched and relaxed as he fought against both his tiredness and the still heavily weighing mixture of emotions in his gut while his rational mind tried to somehow muster a reasonable reaction to the sudden confrontation. However, his temper was already stretched incredibly thin. He didn't even see himself entirely in the right here. Yet somehow, his usual urge to step up and stand for his actions was suddenly and entirely absent at that moment, making it incredibly difficult to not just snap at the tree-person who addressed him so indignantly. Where had he been? Well, he was right here. Right in this damn building, trapped like a rat in a cage because he dared to protect his own life and that of his family; and just waiting for the next catastrophe to strike as the timer ticked down until his people arrived and hopefully saved what was left to save of his sister. That's where he was.
His jaw quivered heavily as he used his last gradually fading bit of self-control to not say exactly that right to the governor's face, and thus make the situation even worse than it already was.
It would've been a losing battle from his side, had aide not come in the form of a deep voice taking over the task of answering for him.
“I asked him to walk with me,” Afuéhner informed Cierrophai in a firm and direct voice, that was however still far more diplomatic than anything James would've been able to muster at that moment. “He was in full view of your guards when he followed my invitation and none of them deemed it necessary to stop him. He has not left my sight for a moment and never made even any remote attempts to do anything but accompany me in a calm an measured manner. I would appreciate it if you didn't try to treat him like some sort of criminal for simply stretching his legs in full view of the people supposed to watch him.”
”This doesn't make us friends,” James thought to himself in annoyance, not quite managing to even pretend that he could muster any thankfulness for the old man's assistance.
However, for the first time, it seemed like someone other than James wasn't going to immediately bow to the living legend's authority, as Cierrophai released a highly irritated rattling sound while he built himself up to his full height. His split feet stepped into a wide stance, and many of his whip-like arms lifted to make himself appear larger in a wing-like spread.
“Stretch his legs?” he asked in outrage, presenting his ivory armor in its full glory as he pushed his chest out while the dots in his eyes constricted even further, rendering them almost invisible by the end. “Stretch his legs?! Do you think me a fool, Afuéhner?”
In his wild stare, the governor's gaze then pivoted away from the Acting-Councilman and instead moved to glare directly down at James, a shadow spreading over the white mask around his eyes as he tilted his face downwards to keep it locked on the much smaller man.
Still, James wasn't exactly in the business of being impressed right now. And the measly resistance his good upbringing had desperately put up against his temper earlier had long been beaten, discarded, and forgotten at this point.
“Yeah, yeah, I broke your damn chains,” he venomously replied to the governor under his breath, refusing to raise his voice since that would just dignify the coluyvoree's outburst further. Still, he did underline his sentence by lifting his left arm, from which the broken remains of his former shackles still loosely hung, now gently swaying and jingling with the movement. “Don't make such a theater out of it. I'm still here, am I not? And it's not like I can open any of the doors around here without help anyway.”
The governor scoffed at James' words.
“Not without help? Pah,” he said and shook his large head, waving two of his thin arms in a dismissive gesture while most other ones crossed in front of his chest to harden his posture even more than it was already. “We know that's not much of an issue for you, is it? But you think we're idiots, don't you?” “Hey, you said it, not me,” James replied under his breath with a roll of his eyes, but then snapped up very slightly when the coluyvoree heavily stomped his foot on the ground in reaction to his words. “Don't try to pretend like this isn't a big deal for you!” Cierrophai confronted him directly, clearly just as unimpressed by James' demeanor as was the case the other way around. “You think you're untouchable, don't you? Do you think this is a game?”
Now that one struck a nerve, causing James' fists to clench tight along with his jaws.
“A game?” he brought out, quiet at first, however soon breaking his resolution of not raising his voice as it all came pouring out of him, at once releasing all the pent up aggression that he had just barely managed to suppress earlier, leaving the coluyvoree lucky that his intentions were far less murder-y towards them than they were towards the felines. “A game!? Do I think this is a game? No, I do not think this is a fucking game! I was shot at! My friends were shot at! My sister is currently dying just a few rooms away from here and I can do neither jack nor shit to help her. I would've been burned alive had I not known just the right, incredibly powerful person to help me out in a situation that would've done most others in. Meanwhile, I have to somehow try to appease all you nitwits just so I have a sliver of a hope that you actually give two shits about keeping us safe while you're keeping us locked right on a fucking silver platter, while there are people out there just waiting and planning something to get at us that I can't figure out because I have not slept, eaten, or even so much as laid down for I don't even know how many days! So no! If you have to know, I do not think this is a fucking game!”
As he talked, he had gestured wildly with both arms to emphasize each word, lifting them up and swaying them around so recklessly that, at one point, he even hit himself against the side of his head with the heavy chain still dangling off of his left arm. However, he was in such a rush of adrenaline that he barely acknowledged the pretty heavy hit and just kept on trucking without even taking a breath, even as his head stung and throbbed from the impact.
Once he had gotten his entire rant out, his arms slowly started to sink down, and he felt himself slightly deflating as his yelling and shouting fizzled out into nothing but heavy breathing that hoisted his chest up and down in long movements as the adrenaline slowly began to settle in his blood.
At some point, he had stopped even looking at the person he was yelling at, and now his gaze was entirely removed from Cierrophai and instead stared straight to the ground in front of him once again as James could do nothing more than just stand and breathe for a moment, as his everything-deprived brain needed to do a full reset after the sheer overload it had just brought upon itself.
Though it seemed like he wasn't entirely alone there.
Apparently, the sudden 180 change from the behavior the people even around this place of captivity had grown used to from him was enough to momentarily break the stalemate of uncaring sternness that had previously dictated the conversation. Cierrophai's eyes widened for a moment and his previously tightly wrapped arms relaxed a bit from the sheer surprise of the sudden rise in volume and 'colorful' language.
However, someone else -surprisingly so- seemed to be far less thrown off their groove by James' sudden fit, and now used the opportunity of both participants being stunned into silence one way or another to make his entrance once again.
“As I said, Cierrophai, James by no means simply decided to ignore the rules set by this place,” Afuéhner explained, now far more empathically than he had attempted earlier. “Admittedly, his chains were already broken when I got here...but I'm sure if you give him a chance, he will have a good explanation for that as well. He certainly hasn't given me any indication that he has any intention to cause unnecessary complications during his confinement to this place.”
As he spoke, Afuéhner gently extended one of his short-clawed hands, almost as if reaching it out to Cierrophai as a gesture of good will.
The coluyvoree's face now briefly darted back and forth between the old Councilman and the still just heavily breathing James, his demeanor apparently not quite able to decide if it wanted to keep up the aggressive confrontation or to allow itself to be corralled into a more conversational direction.
Ultimately, the governor still sounded far from happy as he spoke up again, however he was no longer yelling his words, and his posture turned from 'entirely closed up' to a mere 'severely upset' one as his arms didn't hug his torso quite so tightly anymore, and he also stopped pushing himself up to his absolute maximum height.
“Forget the chains for a moment,” he said with a heavy shake of his body and loosened a single arm from the wrapping to point down to James with it. “I wouldn't care if he just broke the chains. What I care about is that he clearly thinks that, because he got away with it once, he can just ignore the laws and autonomy of our system whenever he damn well pleases!”
At that point, James had somewhat caught his breath again. And although his entire body had already started to tingle from the adrenaline slowly leaving his bloodstream, it immediately threatened to flare up again as he heard that.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, staring up at the governor. His voice was hoarse from his earlier yelling and weak from his still heavy breathing, however even he himself could feel that there was an undeniable intensity behind it that seemed to also get through to Cierrophai as he looked back down at James.
“Oh, don't try to play dumb,” he tried to demand, however, his words were lacking their earlier bite, almost as if something about the very thing that had driven him to his determined actions just moments ago suddenly didn't completely add up for him anymore. “The loop that your atrocity injected into our systems may have fooled us momentarily, but I hope you didn't think that we wouldn't notice it eventually.”
The rush in James' veins turned from fire to ice as he listened to the governor's words, his eyes slowly widening.
“Loop? What loop?” he asked, entirely taken aback by this new, sudden information, his already overtaxed mind immediately reeling with the darkest possibilities. “A footage loop? In your camera systems? When was that?”
Some of the guards that were accompanying Cierrophai but had kept themselves in the background so far glanced at each other after witnessing James' honest distress at the revelation.
Cierrophai himself however seemed to still feel the need to hold onto his animosity-born suspicions, as he repeated his pattern of trying to dismiss James presumed attempts at 'playing dumb'.
“Oh, come on. You of all people-” he began to say, was then however interrupted by a much more powerful voice that spoke right over him in a vigorous manner.
“Just tell us when, governor!” Afuéhner harshly demanded of Cierrophai, actually causing the coluyvoree to flinch back for a moment. His focus intensified by the stress filling his veins, James could see the nearly invisible membranes that formed the man's eyelids blink a couple of times as he processes the Acting-Councilman's order.
Ultimately, he made a displeased humming sound.
“Last night,” he still complied with the command, even if he clearly wasn't happy about it. “Just before the first hour of the day.”
“And you think I did that!?” it came out of James before he could even attempt to put up any resistance against it. “I was in my sister's hospital room, fucking ***praying*** that nothing's going to happen to her!”
“And I'm supposed to believe that?” Cierrophai replied, immediately snapping back into his earlier sternness now that James was seemingly challenging him. “Quite handy for you that there is no footage to disprove that now, isn't there?”
“What possible reason would I have to lie about that?” James asked, his voice a mixture of argument and desperation at the sheer senselessness of it all.
Cierrophai just released another hum.
“Well, I don't know. But whatever it was, you clearly didn't want us to see it, so it couldn't have been anything good,” he stated categorically. “People may have been willing to forgive you when you could still claim your life was on the line, but hacking our systems simply to go on an unseen adventure? This isn't something that even the law of undenied candidacy can't protect you from.”
The governor seemed pretty smug about his statement for a moment, but then immediately recoiled in shock as James didn't at all give him the reaction that he had expected.
Instead of defending himself, trying to argue or just saying anything at all, James had simply begun to slowly stumble forwards, moving towards Cierrophai in a clumsy but steady fashion with his arms extended in the governor's direction.
Reacting as if a rabid beast was about to charge him, Cierrophai stumbled back a step, not even managing to lift his arms in defense in front of his chest – even if that was way too high to even be reached by James in the first place.
“Hey, hey, hey, stop immediately!” the guards behind the man yelled out and lifted their weapons, training their barrels onto James as he kept moving towards the governor without any signs of stopping. “I'm warning you!”
But James didn't heed the warning, and he kept advancing step after clumsy step. There wasn't that much distance between him and the governor, yet still it felt like an eternity was passing while he slowly crossed it in his almost zombie-like motion, all the while Cierrophai seemingly forgot how to walk backwards and simply stared at the approaching human in horror.
“I said freeze!” the coluyvoree guard yelled out and threateningly thrust his rifle forwards in an attempt to get the human's attention.
“For the love of the stars, do not shoot!” Afuéhner intensely urged them with his hands highly raised, and everything seemed to freeze as James took the last step, fully closing the gap between Cierrophai and himself, gently placing his hands on the governor's ivory outer shell.
There was no force to his movement. No threat at all. His palms barely touched the man, not exerting any force. Not even his powerful synthetic arm exerted any pressure other than James' weight slightly leaning against him as the human already lost the ability to stand straight on his own.
The guards were standing with their weapons steadily pointed at the deathworlder, ready to pull the trigger the moment they saw something they didn't like. The only thing saving James at that moment apart from Afuéhner's insistence was most likely just how utterly ragged and defeated he must've looked at the time, not exactly giving off the aura of someone that could pose a serious threat.
Meanwhile, Cierrophai stared down at him with all the dignity of someone who just had feces thrown at them by a homeless person and was now seriously hoping that it came from a dog and not some other source. Of course, that disgust was not directed at James specifically and was entirely focused on the mechanical appendage pressing against the governor's natural armor with bark-like texture. His eyes didn't leave the place of contact for a second as the scene simply froze like that, nobody moving a muscle for a few long heartbeats.
Then, finally, the silence was broken.
”Please.” James said quietly. So quietly in fact that, after managing to tear his eyes away from the mechanical hand touching him, Cierrophai tilted his head a bit in obvious confusion, seemingly wondering if he had really heard it or not. Taking a deep breath, James repeated himself and continued a bit louder. ”Please, for the love of whatever you think is holy, have this place searched. I don't care if you think it was me. I don't care if you search our rooms especially thoroughly. I don't care if you lock me in a dark room for the rest of the time I stay here. Just please, search this entire place for whatever has happened while the cameras weren't watching. I can't-”
James' voice failed him for a moment as all he could get out anymore was a desperate gasp, while his brain refused to make any more sense of the situation other than 'absolute emergency'.
Swallowing heavily and slowly closing his flat hands into fists as they gradually slipped off of the governor's exoskeleton, he forced the last words out.
“I can't do this again.”
Now sliding completely off, James' hands fell down to his sides, leaving him to stand unsteadily as he no longer had anything to support himself against. After that, the scene froze once again. Cierrophai looked down at James with an expression that clearly had no idea what it wanted to be. Meanwhile, the guards still had their weapons pointed at James, although they seemed far less aggressive about it now that any threat seemed to have dissipated from him. Afuéhner just stood and quietly observed the scene with his face warped in worry.
Eventually, it was one of the guards who first broke the silence again, as they slowly allowed their weapon to sink down, away from James' body.
“Uhm...Sir?” they asked with a look over at the governor, who still hadn't moved ever since James had stopped speaking.
Rattled out of his stupor, Cierrophai briefly shook his head in a quick, almost shuddering motion, before using his arms to run their tips downwards along his own body in a motion akin to wiping himself clean.
“Get me as many people as you can,” he then said once he had gotten a hold of his senses again, glancing down at James one more time before turning his focus completely to his own guards. “Everyone on duty, everyone on call, everyone you can pull away from the couch while they sit and watch T.V., I want them all! If the Realized has really infiltrated this system, I want to know it. If any of the humans or their friends have left their rooms at a time that they weren't supposed to, I want to know it. And if anyone aside of authorized personal has otherwise attempted to meddle with this secured facility, then you better believe I want to know it. Do you understand me?”
The guard stood stunned for a moment, their transparent lids blinking a couple of times, before their brain eventually fired back up and they shot into a salute.
“Y-Yessir!” they announced before immediately hurrying away, presumably to get the order out through the proper channels.
In the meantime, Cierrophai already turned his attention to the other guard. Without looking back in his direction, the coluyvoree used two of his arms to gesture towards James as he continued his commanding tone.
“And you! You bring him to a secured room and have him watched around the clock, got it? I don't want to see him. I don't want to hear. I want him where he won't be a danger to others, and others won't be a danger to him. Do you understand me?” he deeply demanded from the guard, who quickly followed his colleague's example and moved to salute him.
“Yes, Sir,” the guard then replied before turning to James. “Come, Candidate Aldwin. You will be moved to a secured room while we conduct the investigation.”
James hadn't reacted to what was happening so far. Despite the fact that he was seemingly getting what he asked for, he couldn't manage to summon up any joy or even hope at that fact. After the constant ups and downs of these last few days, constantly burning the candle on both ends, he had finally reached a hard limit. And so, he didn't protest in any way as he was gently taken along by a thin, gentle arm wrapping around his organic bicep, as his new guardian clearly figured that the swaying primate wouldn't be able to make the way on his own.
As he left, he just managed to hear Cierrophai give one last order, as the governor turned his stern gaze over to Afuéhner.
“You and I are going to have a serious talk,” he informed the man in a way that didn't leave any room for argument on the matter. However, he didn't catch if the old Councilman had any opinions to voice.
After a brief walk that went by in a blur, James was led into a dark room that was a lot smaller than the one he and Shida had been locked into together, and only contained a single bed and nothing more. The door was quickly locked behind him, and without a single thought in his mind, James made his way over to the bed, simply falling onto it once he had gotten close enough.
Usually, he wouldn't have been able to even close his eyes for more than a moment in a situation like this. However, eventually, there came a point when all the stress in the world couldn't keep even a human awake anymore.
The only action that he was still able to take was to pull his phone out of his pockets. And in an absent-minded, near-automatic movement, he sent out one single voicemail to a number of his contacts before his eyes finally shut as he was forcefully dragged into the land of uneasy dreams.
“If I die, make sure you secure the footage somehow. I don't care about the means."
–
After James had been taken away, Cierrophai had waved Afuéhner along, planning to take him to his on-site office to have a long, serious conversation about boundaries and the autonomy of individual territories to govern themselves. However, it was quite a walk to the office, including a slow elevator ride. And just before they fully made it there, their way was suddenly interrupted by the very guard that the governor had just ordered away earlier, hurrying in their direction with waving arms before stopping in front of them, entirely out of breath.
“You better have a good reason for being here right now,” Cierrophai grumbled at the man while crossing his arms and waiting for the guard to finally get enough control over his breathing so that he could explain himself.
“Yes,” the guard replied between heavy breathing while leaning onto his knees with four of his arms. He seemed to have really exerted himself on the way here. Just what could be so important at a time like this? Maybe the investigation would turn out to be unnecessary because he had already figured it out?
“Speak, friend,” Afuéhner encouraged the guard in a milder tone, and slowly but surely, the man recovered enough to find his voice.
“It's- it's ships, Sir. There's ships,” he brought out once his breathing allowed it.
Afuéhner and Cierrophai both tilted their heads up in surprise.
“Ships?” Cierrophai finally collected himself enough to answer after a long pause. “What ships?” – James stirred slightly in his deep slumber as his subconscious vaguely picked up on something happening around him. His mind and body were far too taxed to fully react to it, and he couldn't really be sure if he dreamed it or not, but for a moment, he was almost sure that he heard the door to his room open.
Despite his current state, something inside him tried to stir him up and into action, knowing that whatever possibly came in there could be a serious danger. More and more, he began to shift and squirm on top of the sheets, as his survival instincts tried with all their might to get his stubbornly overtaxed body into motion.
However then, suddenly, it was interrupted by a noise that pierced all throughout his limited awareness as it moved up close to him.
”Shhhhhhh,” a gentle voice shushed him, causing his subconscious mind to focus on nothing but the sound. It was torn on the voice that it heard. The sound was familiar and caused a mix of emotions within him. Most of them were bad, negative, and saw the intruding voice as something that they didn't want to have around them. However...none of them saw it as a threat. And despite all the negativity attached to it, it also had something that was...oddly soothing. Something deep and primal that, against all odds, managed to quell his squirming and gently allowed his mind to fully sink back into slumber. Something that spoke to a very small part at the very core of his being as it silkenly whispered to him. ”Schlaft jetzt, mein Schatz."
And before even his instincts knew what was happening, he was already plunged into a pleasant darkness once more.
…
Slowly but surely, James eventually came to again, having no idea how much time had passed. As he woke, his mouth was dry and had an awful taste in it, and he was sweaty all over from sleeping in all his clothes within the hot room keeping 'standard temperature'.
However, those small discomforts almost immediately ceased to matter as he darted upright, the memory of what had happened just before he slept instantly returning to him in a flash that went by like a movie reel.
As he unsteadily fumbled to his feet and immediately got ready to hurry over to the door to bang against it in order to find out what had happened while he had been out like a light-switch, he was momentarily stunned as he found the large gate standing wide open instead of locking him inside.
With his previously hurrying steps slowly coming to a halt, he couldn't help but stop and stare for a moment.
However,
“What the..?” was all he could really think as he slowly moved towards the open door, just really hoping that this wasn't some sort of sign that something awful was happening again. Oh well, at least if someone was hacking the systems once more, they did have the decency to wait for him to get a good night's sleep in before they did.
Swallowing heavily, he finished the last few steps towards the door slowly while trying to mentally prepare for all kinds of eventualities that could be awaiting him on the other side of the threshold. Figuring there would still be guards if this wasn't some worst-case scenario, since he was supposed to be watched 24/7 this time, after all, he cleared his throat and decided to make his presence known, just in case.
“Hey, don't get spooked, I'm coming ou-” he tried to announce, but had to interrupt himself as he nearly ran right into two dark shapes that passed by his door just as he was trying to poke his head out.
Quickly pulling out of the way, James blinked after the quickly marching silhouettes, and his eyes needed a moment to adjust to what he was actually looking at.
Those weren't the backs of coluyvoree moving away there.
“Morning, sleeping beauty!” a familiar voice from right behind him suddenly made James shoot around as a hand pressed on the small of his back, just close enough to more taboo parts to be suggestive. His own hand pressed onto his chest to fight against the heavy beating of his heart from the sudden shock, James turned to the intrusive appendage's owner.
“Fucking hell, Koko, don't do that after the week we've ha-” he immediately began to complain, but only got so far in before his brain caught up to the fact that something wasn't quite right here. “Wait, Koko?!” he burst out and heavily shook his head before focusing fully back on the Commander and childhood friend of his. Unlike the last time he had seen her, Koko was fully decked out in her complete U.H.S.D.F. gear, including uniform, breathfilter, bodycam, and even weapon – which someone currently under house-arrest probably shouldn't have. “What are you doing out here?” “Watching you sleep, obviously,” Koko replied cheekily and reached out to pat James' shoulder. “Been a while since I got to see that, after all. Although I figure it won't be long 'til I have Shida to the point that she's going to invite me to-”
With both his hands, James grabbed the Commander by her shoulders and looked directly into her obscured face.
“Koko, focus!” he demanded of her in an equal mixture of desperation and exasperation. After a second, Koko released a sharp breath. And when she spoke up again, her tone had shifted into one that was way more dry and direct than before.
“Reinforcements arrived sooner than we anticipated. Apparently, we weren't updated about their exact movements as to not tip anyone of to it in case we were being closely observed. But, when a certain voicemail reached them one way or another, they decided to put the pedal to the metal,” she informed him succinctly. “And when they asked nicely if they could please inspect the place that their Ambassador was being held in, the locals simply couldn't resist their charm.”
James admittedly needed a moment to process that. In a quick motion, his head briefly snapped in the direction that the two other dark shapes – which he now knew had to have been more uniformed human soldiers – had left to earlier.
“Wait you mean...” he mumbled at first, before changing his mind on what he wanted to say and snapping back at Koko's specific phrasing. “Please tell me this isn't going to be a huge diplomatic incident.”
Koko released a slightly amused breath and reassuringly pressed her hand onto his chest in an effort to calm him down.
“Don't worry, they didn't threaten anybody or anything, I promise,” she assured him as his nerves slowly but surely began to settle. “Apparently, it didn't even need all that much convincing in the end. From what I heard, a couple of people vouched for you, and that was enough to sway the governor's mind on the issue. We've been granted full access to work with the coluyvoree forces to find out what exactly is going on. Seems he is tired of his systems being invaded at the end of the day.”
James listened to her quietly, keeping his hands on her shoulders as he wondered for just a second if this was just a dream. However, if it was, he somehow doubted that his temple would be hurting as much as it did, so he was probably either awake or had knocked himself silly. He chose to believe in the first option here.
And therefore, he carefully dared to hope again.
“And...Nia?” he asked hesitantly, not sure what he would do if he didn't get the answer that he wished for.
“Is being taken the best of care of,” Koko replied with a gentle nod and reached her hand up to softly hold his arm that was still on her shoulder. “For real this time.”
James couldn't help it, and he entirely deflated, basically only keeping himself upright my clinging onto Koko's shoulders as his knees buckled under him from sheer relief.
“Thank goodness...” he breathed out with barely any voice, causing Koko to let out a gentle chuckle. With surprising strength, she changed her grip on him away from his arm and to his body, as she pulled him into a hug that James was all too happy to accept and return.
After a few seconds of that, he felt Koko heavily hammer her palms onto his back.
“Alright, big guy,” she said and then encouraged him to stand on his own two feet again with a mild push against his shoulders. “Now that you're awake we got a job to do. Your girlfriend really wants to meet up.”
With that, she pulled away from the embrace and nodded for him to walk with her. And, with his body feeling like it had just gotten a few tons lighter all at once, James had absolutely no problem with that.

Hi all - had an odd thing happen last night and realized afterward it was totally a scam attempt, phishing attempt, social engineering... whatever you want to call it.
I rarely answer my phone for numbers I don't recognize, and so the other day I got a call, let it go to voicemail and listened to it afterward. It was an automated voice which had already started talking when the recording started, so it only recorded "Press 1 to confirm or 2 to cancel". No idea what that was for but I noticed the phone number was listed as coming from "Indiana, Pennsylvania", which I thought was an odd town name. A few minutes later I got a phone call from New Mexico - didn't answer that either and they didn't leave a voicemail.
Well, last night my phone rang and it was the same Indiana, PA coming up. I was just watching TV with my wife so I answered it. This time I heard the beginning of the message. I don't have it verbatim but essentially it was saying that it was Coinbase and a suspicious login was detected on my account - press 1 if this was me or 2 if it wasn't. I was already suspicious as I know this isn't something CB does. I pressed '*' and the call ended.
30 seconds later, phone rings again and it's the New Mexico phone number. I answer -
"Hello?" - "Hi, is this ?" I'm a bit stunned but realize what's happening, so I say "No, this is not . Can I help you?" "No, I'm only allowed to speak with , are they available?" "Sorry there's no one here by that name." And the guy hangs up.
He spoke perfect english, sounded professional and didn't sound like he was calling from a noisy call center.
So, hopefully this helps someone out there from getting scammed, or keeps others a little more aware of how far these scammers will try to go to get into your account. I suspect that had I fell for it, he would have pretended to be a Coinbase employee and would have used the fake previous call to say they suspected someone was trying to get into my account and 'help' me secure my account by locking it down or somehow getting me to share my password. I know that's how a few people who have come here with their scam story ended up getting compromised.
As for how they had my information to begin with - who knows... but I did use 3commas back when they were 'hacked' (which I think was actually an employee who leaked or sold customer data), so that's one potential avenue for my information to have gotten out.
And if that dude or his cohorts are reading this as I'm sure they lurk here, I'd like to say 'Get fucked, then get a real job'. Karma's a bitch and I hope you get it back tenfold for robbing people of the little bit of money they've been able to save up.

Hi there!
I have an iPhone13 and I live in California. My location has suddenly started saying Arizona but it is not consistent. I first noticed it when I redownloaded a old app and received an email to confirm it was me signing in and the location said Arizona. This continued to happen several more times. I would go into google and type “San” and instead of San Diego coming up, San Tan mall in Arizona would pop up as a suggestion first. However if I googled mall near me, it would reset to my location instantly and find malls in San Diego.
Here’s the big part. I have someone very unwell who won’t leave me alone living in that state. Is it possible they have my phone hacked? I’ve called AT&T as well and Apple and they say it’s “impossible” but I hear people getting stalked and hacked all the time.
Also, another thing was when I got a new phone and updated it, texts from someone else they knew that was harmful to them was all deleted as well as voicemails but nothing else as far as I could see.
I don’t know what my next step is. My phone overheats more then I’ve ever had a phone do and I constantly have lagging since this started. This has been going on for a few months but I’ve owned the phone for a year and a half.
This person did have access to my phone 5 years ago and my MacBook. They’re sneaky so who knows if they’ve been in my apartment but I do have cameras..but those could be hacked too with the same wifi.
Thanks in advance for any information and help!
I really want to know if and how this is possible that they could have done this.

“You have a lovely night now! Drive safe!”
Paul, the manager who takes over my shift at the Endwater Lodge, yelled to the back of my head as the front door was sliding shut with a small hiss behind me. He never knew to watch his volume past 7 pm. It’s a small lodge, your voice travels throughout the entire building.
Instead of heading back in to lightly chastise sweet Paul like I normally would as a general manager, I just rolled my eyes and made the short walk to my car. It was a Friday before a very busy weekend, the lodge was packed and the guests were full of “I’m on vacation” wine coolers. They were loud, mean, and impatient.
But my unusual double shift was over, and all I could think about was my bed. Normally someone else took the afternoon shift on Fridays, but everyone but Paul and I was out sick that week. So I worked the morning to late evening, the first time I had ever done so in my years of working here. My schedule was the only one that didn’t change, it had stayed pretty consistent after I had been promoted—one of the only perks of being the GM.
The drive home didn’t take long, a quick 10 minutes through the densely populated suburbs that surrounded the lodge. This apartment was in the perfect location, a gift brought to me on a once silver, now patinated platter.
Coming upon the apartment that night, I could feel the unease building in my stomach as I looked into the dark windows.
Before living there I had lived with my parents, but they had informed me that I had a couple of months to find a place as they were moving to their final resting grounds. Florida.
I worked at the lodge non-stop for weeks, picking up extra shifts so that in the event an apartment came into my sights I could afford it. The listing practically found me, a flyer had been posted to the bulletin outside the lodge. A perfect little two-story for a very cheap monthly price. It had space for a craft room, allowed pets AND had a pull-in garage. No street parking for my old Buick.
It was the perfect place for me, so I scheduled a walk-through within 5 minutes of viewing the listing. I heard back in seconds. The viewing went perfectly, the landlord loved me and seemed quite desperate to have someone fill the vacancy. Either I was the only one who reached out about the listing, or he had a hard time keeping someone here. I could feel that he was buttering me up as we walked through, so I knew the catch was coming. The catch did, right at the end as I was about to sign the lease, in the form of “House Noises”.
That’s literally what my landlord called them. House noises.
He kept reiterating that it had to be the house settling, or the water heater clicking, or maybe it was the plumbing. It had been happening since he took on the property, and there wasn’t any explanation for it. He’s had pest control, inspectors and plumbers check every part of the house. They found nothing. He even showed me documentation that they had inspected the place. Reading through they seemed just as confused as the landlord.
Taking one look at the rent prices in any other place, I told him I had good noise-canceling headphones and that I'd take it. I can deal with “house noises” as long as the thing isn’t going to fall on me.
It definitely wasn’t going to fall in, the house was solid, I could see that just from looking at it. It was built in the 40’s, a craftsman style house in the middle of modern pre-fabs. I had my father who has a history in construction take a look at it, and he said the same thing as the others. A beautiful house with a strong foundation.
The noises persisted, even after confirming that they shouldn’t. They started out small, a scratch and a creak every now and then. An odd noise from the basement, a small pitter patter in the attic. I blamed the house settling, mice and the hot water heater for as long I could, but after a while I couldn’t reasonably blame the house. The red flags were waving so persistently, but I couldn’t bare leaving this gem of an apartment.
I also couldn’t leave the stray cat I was feeding. I had never seen it with my own eyes, but I kept finding mangled mice in my backyard. In hopes of getting it to stop leaving corpses everywhere I started leaving out a bowl of kibble every night. And every morning it was left sparkling clean, every last pebble eaten. I thought the cat was thankful for a meal it wouldn’t have to chase, but it still left corpses all over. Insatiable. I kept feeding it, hoping one day it would stop.
So I learned to try and co-exist with the sounds. Only one event was ever really concerning at the time.
I was getting ready to take on a last-minute afternoon to evening shift. Someone had asked to switch shifts last minute the night before, so I slept in through my normal morning shift. I was brushing away my late morning breath when I heard something move across my attic. A long drag of something heavy being pushed across the uneven floorboards. I heard it catch and fumble, as if it caught on something, and then I heard it resettle back onto the attic floor.
I grabbed my phone and went to stand on my sidewalk while I waited for the police, dialing 911 before I even made it out of the house, slamming the front door harder than I meant to in my rush to get out. They made it in minutes, searching the house, the attic, and the basement but there was no one there. I went up with them to the attic after they came down with nothing to report, and found exactly what they found. Nothing.
Nothing had been moved in the attic. I started to think I imagined the whole thing. While searching for the intruder in the small attic space I noticed some odd markings on a dresser that was here when I moved in, five small mold spots sat like fingerprints on the corner. The only thing different or out of place since the last time I was up here.
There were no leaks or reasons for the furniture to get moldy, but the spots were present nonetheless. I cleaned them with bleach water and notified my landlord, they were still present but small after I scrubbed at them. The landlord was still in the process of hiring someone to clean it.
There hadn't been any other sounds like that, but smaller noises continued. I was trying to pretend that they didn’t bother me, but it wasn’t working. I couldn’t afford rent anywhere else, so I moved on as best as I could.
Leaving the lodge that night, the tiredness sat heavy behind my eyes, I let the unease sit in my stomach. No sense in fighting it. Once I was in bed, the comforter bundled around me, even the noises couldn’t penetrate that feeling of safety. I slept heavy, and that night I knew I would be gone to the world before my head hit the pillow.
The process of parking my car, unlocking my door, and throwing my work bag down was branded into my muscles at that point. Before I knew it I was stripped down to my underwear, leaving my work clothes in the hallway to wash the next day, and then I was making my way up the stairs to my bedroom.
Turning at the top of the stairs I took in the sight of my bedroom door, the feeling of unease was blaring in my stomach now, present all over my skin.
My bedroom door was closed.
I hadn’t closed my door when I left.
I never did.
My body cautiously took me to the door without me asking. My hand reached for the handle like a magnet to metal. My palm touching the smooth cold is what awoke me out of my stupor, taking my hand away the thoughts started to spiral behind my tired eyes.
- I should go down to my car and call the police. I should go back to the lodge and have Paul come search the house with me. I should call my dad -
Before I knew it my hand was back on the door handle, and I was pulling it to the side with the softest of clicks, taking caution in a house that only I should occupy.
I needed to see what had been plaguing me and this house for months, and I just knew the answer was in there. Something deep in me said to look upon this with only your eyes, and for some reason I listened.
I let the door follow it’s natural path to the wall but stopped it before it swung open fully. My eyes immediately fell to the bed, the only thing out of place in my dark room, the outside lamppost light illuminated my small room enough for me to take in the figure laying under my pale yellow comforter.
There was someone in my bed.
The first thing that hit me was the smell, a heat was present in my room that had never been there before. The smell of rot, festering and hitting my nose, coiling and almost causing me to gag out loud. The smell of cat food lingered in the air, it was an unmistakable smell.
I followed the figure with wide eyes, starting at the grey feet hanging off the end of my bed. My sheets barely covered their ankles, the sharp bones protruding and cutting against the pale paper-thin skin. The sound of gruff breaths took over the static in my ears. Long, raspy chokes filled the space between me and them, making my skin crawl whenever their breath would hitch and gurgle out. My eyes found their back, they were turned to me, oblivious to the fact the owner of the house returned.
Their back was covered in the same pale grey skin I had seen on their ankles, but it was pockmarked with odd black spots that stood out so harshly against their backdrop. My mind immediately thought of the black spots in my attic, the spread was the same.
I could see the bumps of their spine and the tips of their shoulder blades, they looked like they would slash right though the thin skin. Their spine was bent, hunched unnaturally and at such a severe angle. Spindly hair covered the head that was turned away from me, greasy and matted to the back of it's skull, chunks missing in spots leaving nothing but pale rotted skin in it's place. The hair that was left around the bald spots was long enough to trail across my white sheets like an oil spill. The black spots were spreading off their back and onto on my sheets, reaching all the way down to the side where my mattress and box spring met. Eating whatever it could find. This person, this thing, filled my bed like they owned it.
I needed to leave.
With all of my willpower, I started to back away from the threshold, never letting my eyes leave the sleeping figure. I brought my hand up to find the wall, letting it be my guide back to the top of the stairs. I was only a couple of steps away from the top stair when my hand caught on something hanging on the wall.
A picture frame holding me and my father at my graduation. I had just placed it on the wall a couple of days ago, trying to bring comfort to this odd place. It started to swing back and forth, a perfect pendulum, scraping against the drywall and echoing in the silent house.
I could both hear and see the figure stirring. Their breath had caught in their throat, hacking its way out of their mouth with a wet guttural sound. It sounded exactly like the noise I thought the water heater was making, but now I could hear how unnatural it sounded. I don’t know how I ever convinced myself it was a manufactured noise.
I could see their arms pushing them up from the nest they had made, could hear their bones cracking and clicking. They were turning and turning, a large long unatural bend until their eyes met mine.
Deep-set eyes peered out from between the strands of long hair, sat above sunken starved cheeks and a long skeletal nose. The whites of their eyes took over, a cloud of milky white that bled across where there pupils were supposed to sit. The same deep black marks present on their back covered their face, spreading across their cheeks and nose, digging into their skin and eating at the flesh they were covering.
Their mouth hung open like a scream, stuck in a mimicry of horror. Their jaw swung on the same pendulum my picture frame had found, like it wasn’t attached to their skull. Hanging on by ligaments and muscle, thin skin stretching and spreading to keep it present.
The scream that released from me was unbidden, but it set off an important switch in my head. The switch to run, the need to flee.
Turning I stumbled my way down the stairs. I heard an odd muffled screech of something behind me, closer than I wanted it to be. It almost sounded like my name. A contorted version, but the syllables were there. It made me run faster, fumbling down the steps as quickly as I could.
I pushed my way off the wall at the bottom of the stairs, sending my body careening toward the front door. Not thinking, I ran straight past my work bag and clothes, it wasn’t until I was by the garage door that I thought about the keys sitting near the front door. Turning back the door was still wide open, but the thing wasn’t there. Instead of thinking any more about it, I ripped my eyes away and took off down the street.
My brain thought of the nearest safe haven, and my feet automatically took me to the lodge. Without looking back I sprinted down the dimly lit streets, my feet screaming as they hit the uneven hard sidewalks. I heard a muffled screech again but it was far away, contained in that house. I could almost feel that it stopped following me after I made it out the front door, but I wasn’t going to let feelings overtake logic. I wasn’t going to stop until I was inside somewhere that wasn’t my apartment or the outdoors.
It felt like an eternity, but finally, my eyes met the fluorescent lights leaking out of the sconces by the front of the lodge. My fists found the front door first, slamming like they could break through the key card locked metal.
Paul’s wide eyes met mine, taking in my almost naked appearance and ushering me in. He found a thin comforter in the backroom for me to cover myself with and sat with me holding my cold hands until the police arrived. Paul had called them, but they had already been called by my neighbors. Some had even seen me running down the sidewalk, awoken by the odd screeching they heard. I never even thought to slam on their doors. I had just wanted to get away from that house. To get to someplace I trusted.
With the police present, I started in on what I had seen. Paul listened as I told the story of what I found in my bed. If my mind were in a different space I would have known to omit certain details, details that made the entire thing sound impossible.
I took in the faces of the men listening to me after I finished with my story and could tell Paul was the only one who believed me, who actually took in the words I was saying. Three of the policeman left to search my house and the area for a “deranged homeless man”, leaving one policeman to keep watch with Paul and I at the lodge.
They found nothing. They searched the house from top to bottom and found no one. They found my spotted bed sheets, the twisted mess of comforter the stranger left for me, my clothes and work bag. They found everything I had mentioned, but no sign of anyone. Paul led me to a vacant room, checking all the nook and crannies for a pale man when I asked him to.
Paul came in late the next day to wake me, knowing that I hadn’t slept a wink. He had checked on me so many times throughout the night and morning, peeking in to check on my form but meeting my unsleeping eyes everytime.
He brought me breakfast and notified me that the police were back to ask me more questions. I had them come to the room to talk, not feeling like having this chat in the busy lobby. We discussed my story again, me reiterating the same information I told them the night before. They must have expected a different story, but I knew what I had seen and didn’t want to lie to make others more comfortable. They told me there wasn’t much they could do since they didn’t find the suspect, but that they would put out a BOLO for a man matching that description, and that they would have someone sit outside my house for a few weeks.
I told them I would not be living there anymore, I would only return to get my stuff. The only thing I asked of them is that they destroyed my bedding as I didn’t want to see it upon my return, and that they were present while I packed up my stuff. They sat outside on the front stoop while Paul and I messily packed up my things. I had called my landlord and left a voicemail with him about what had happened, but he never returned my calls.
While packing up the odds and ends in my bedroom and the adjacent hallway, I noticed that the picture frame I had bumped in to was gone. I looked all over the hallway, asked Paul if he had grabbed it and he said no, stating that he hadn't seen a frame there to grab. After searching for a while I decided it didn’t matter.
Before I left, I felt called to the attic. To the dresser covered in spots.
I guess I felt the need to verify it, that the mold was real and I hadn’t imagined it. I’m still not sure why I went up there, to be honest. I remember painstakingly scrubbing at those spots, there wasn’t any need for verification. But my whole body said to visit that space one more time.
Paul followed me up without asking, which I was very grateful for. Walking toward the dresser my foot found an odd board. When my foot sat directly in the middle of it, the other side of the board clunked against the bottom of the dresser. Standing on either side of the board didn’t move it, the pressure had to be applied right in the middle.
I had never noticed it before, it was always flush with the floor when I was up here, airtight to the joists below. When asked Paul helped me move the dresser away from the odd board.
Pushing again on the middle, the board gave way, wiggling out of its tight space. Without the dresser there to stop it, Paul and I slide the board aside with ease.
Once moved the smell of rot and cat food filled the small attic space. My eyes watered immediately, my lungs sucking the fragrance into my nose, leaving me gagging. I heard Paul stagger backward, and when I turned to check on him he was holding the wall to try and steady himself.
Sitting below the joists, above the ceiling panels, and underneath the floors we were standing on, was my picture frame.
Mine and my father's face was smiling back at me, mold dotting the glass surrounding our faces. The floor around the frame was covered completely in mold, the black taking up so much of the space that I couldn't even see the ceiling panels anymore. Small corpses of mice were decomposing into the mold, bones poking out of the black, a quick meal for the void to take. With my hand covering my nose, I slammed the board back into place and pushed Paul toward the entrance of the attic.
I told the police about what I had found, what conclusion I had decided on, and left.
I haven’t heard back from them since the last time I called a couple of days ago. They stopped answering my calls after a while, not wanting to listen to deranged telling's of a man eating mice in walls. So I left them with the house, left them in the past and tried to start the process of healing.
Three weeks later I find myself here, in Paul’s guest room. The entirety of my things packed and slid to the side, sans bedding and picture frame. I’ll be living here until I can find a new place, or until I feel comfortable to go out on my own again. Paul stated I could be his new roommate, and I’m thinking more and more about taking that offer. I don’t know if I can ever live by myself again.
Although, I wasn’t ever really living by myself now, was I?
Everything was going as okay as it could, considering the circumstances. Each day I could feel my paranoia lessen, each day I felt more like myself. Even Paul and I were starting to get closer, eating dinner with him most nights was starting to be something I looked forward to.
Things were getting better. They were really starting to look up.
Tonight when I returned from my shift at the lodge Paul was sitting on the couch, eating leftover stir fry that I made the night before. I rushed up the stairs to change into comfier clothes, ready to have some stir fry and complain to Paul about the guests of the day.
Reaching over my head to put my oversized night shirt on my eyes followed the side wall up to the ceiling over my bed, foggily grazing where the paint met the ceiling. In an instant, the fog cleared when my eyes met small pockmarks.
Black spots of mold were starting to spread across the ceiling like stars.

Hi apologies in advance if this ends up a long one but I'm looking for opinions, advice and basically a place to rant. Last week my 12yo daughter was on one of her 'hyper manic moods where all she wants to do is play and fight late into the night. On Tuesday around midnight she started up and to cut a long story short her dad and her had a water fight (which she started), which then turned into a fight throwing eggs and ended with her still up and down around 130am after showering the egg out of her hair she still had a little shell in there. When I told her this she told me she couldn't be bothered washing it again she was going to cut it off, (this is a regular behaviouthreat of hers and she's always cut chunks out here and there because I've always tried to keep my girls having long hair). Anyway after the usual no please don't from me and her dad she started hacking at one side (at one point to the scalp, and not straight either) at this point she is becoming worried and stressed (which is only making her hypermood worse) as she's been bullied since starting secondary in September and she realised she had made a bit of a hash of things, she turned to her dad for help tidying it up. We explained to her about the different lengths and how really the only way to get it even would be to shave that part, she looked at pictures on her phone of women with shorter hair and a shaved side and we encouraged her as to how cool she would look with it styled right. I wasn't happy but at this point what could we do, she went and got the clippers herself and asked dad to make it look better and to his credit he did a good job. She had started too high so it did have to be shaved to that part but apart from being close to the middle parting it looked acceptable. She didn't go in the following day but I managed to get her in the last 2 days of the week. School decided that because she wasn't prepared to part her hair thinly to cover the shaved side she wasn't allowed in certain classes as the teachers had issues with it being so short, She didn't feel confident and felt like she looked like a boy when she did this so she refused and they put her in the pastoral hub to do her work. She didn't attend Monday and we took her to a.proper salon to be styled, layered, washed the works. She came out oozing with confidence excited to show it off the next day. For the past 2 days she has been placed completely in isolation after morning register. Last night I had a phone call from childrens services as the school was concerned her hair had been shaved as a punishment, which couldn't be further from the truth however at the same time the school are accusing us of being abusive parents they are also punishing our child by isolating her from her peers when she already struggles with social interactions. As her parents due to her behaviour of late (general attitude and things she's picking up from older kids. Nothing to do with her hair) she has been grounded for a month and her phone taken off her but as a parent I am now reluctantly feeling guilty about this as she literally goes to school to sit on her own and isn't even allowed to walk the dog on her own at the moment. I feel as if I need to lax our punishments to counter the destruction school are doing just out of stubbornness. They don't allow her to take regular breaks, she's stuck in a room full of loud and disruptive kids and while she's holding strong and knows we are fighting all we can for her case you can see it taking its toll. Her family liason worker has been off this past 2 weeks and seams to be the only one who has taken the time to listen to us when incidents have happened and has my daughters back at the same time. I even have a voicemail from her a few weeks ago praising us as parents and telling me we were doing all we could do get her in and were doing a fantastic job given the situation. My daughter had also shaved her eyebrows off completely the week before half term, the liaison worker gave me a call because I actually had no clue she had done it (she had done it late at night and left the next morning with a hat on so I wouldn't see) the FLO agreed with me at that point thar we think she was doing this for attention and next time to just stay nuteral, not give any opinions or fight and no battles as she feeds on drama and pushes until u break. So I did just that this time stayed very calm, didn't feed into the drama of the threats and now we are accused of abuse. I think the SW understood things better after our call and I'm confident this is as far as it will go but it still has to go to the manager for a decision on if they will do anything. My daughters gutted and cannot believe they would think that of us especially her dad, we both have adhd so we understand certain things she's going through that maybe nurotypical parents wouldn't get and because our approach is different it gets labled negatively. We are doing the best we can, currently writing emails but she knows she will be isolated again tomorrow and Friday. It's sad that now she had shown the kids who were bullying her that she doesn't care, what can they say to me now kids of mindset, to then have the school make things difficult for her. The kids are notnonly leaving her alone but as noe interating with her and being nice to her. Uniform policy states no extreme hairstyles but the way I explained it was its a consequence of a symptom of a condition she is currently suffering with, it should fall under the disability act and be treated as such. It wasn't a fashion statement it was a midnight midweek fix while also being pregnant and trying to give my other 2 children the attention they need as my oldest does take up and extreme amount of time and energy in general. On Saturday I woke at 8am and didn't go to bed again until 1 am Monday morning as she was having a hypermanic episode again. By withdrawing her from school life and excluding her from her peers there's a risk she will be hyper and explosive while at home and school don't even give that a second thought. Any advice, thoughts, ect Thank you if you actually read the whole thing.

Right now I am feeling a lot of things. I don’t know how this happened. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I think my relationship is definitely over. My wife is asleep now after crying to the point of throwing up for several days. I’ve made an urgent mental health referral for her but she’s going to go stay with her mother for a while.
I never thought I’d actually be posting here about my own relationship but here we are. And the most humiliating context possible. It doesn’t seem real, I know because I struggle still to believe this has happened but I promise it is. I’ve barely slept for a week and this is going to be long I think so I’m sorry if parts don’t make sense.
I have already sought and received (conflicting, contradictory) legal advice. I’m posting here asking for advice about the relationship. This case is slightly different I think because I’m not worried about her cheating on me again. What I’m struggling to deal with is the knowledge that this thing has happened, and I can’t undo it. I need advice on how to deal with this knowledge and whether this relationship can be salvaged for the sake of our child.
What I will do is try and briefly summarise what’s happened from both of our perspectives. With mine you will understand my initial shock, then with hers (which I have struggled to make head or tail of for days) you will see what this evil fucking bastard piece of shit has done.
MY PERSPECTIVE
I am 34. My wife is 32. We have been together for 7 years, married for 4, and have a 2-year-old son. My wife was an only child from a wealthy family. She was raised in a strict religious setting and has been quite introverted with few romantic relationships in her life. She had one serious boyfriend before meeting me, from her church.
She is intelligent, she’s not stupid, she has a master’s degree in history from a good place. All her life she’s conformed to a certain stereotype of being a stay-at-home wife, trying to do the right thing, whatever. She’s involved at church and does lots of charity work. I have always felt I don’t deserve her. She’s unbelievably beautiful not just in the outside but on the inside too and for the past 7 years I’ve been living a dream.
I’m a project manager. I earn okay money. Before our son was born my wife worked part-time as a teaching assistant at a school for kids with special needs. After he was born she stopped working to take care of him and money got strained.
In my job, there is a programme manager (like my boss’s boss) who is one of the biggest assholes you could ever imagine. For the sake of this story I will call him Scott. Scott is only 29 but he’s the nephew of one of the directors. From day 1 he’s done everything he can to mock and bully people under him. He’ll ask for changes to be made to certain work deliverables at 5pm, we’ll work on them all night, then in the morning he’ll smirk and say ‘actually I think I liked the old version better, forget it.’ He openly tormented one of my work buddies with a stutter until he signed off with stress.
There is so much more he has done but I want to keep this short as possible. I’ve complained to my wife about him many times over the years but crucially she has never met him, as he goes to separate work parties with senior managers and we obviously aren’t connected on social media.
For a long time I was promised a promotion to senior project manager, with a significant pay bump. This is why we had a kid when we did. The promotion never came. Cuts were made, some people got the promotions, some people didn’t. Scott had a big say in this. He has hated me since I called him out for his behaviour in front of other people (I told him to lay off an assistant PM who was crying while he mocked her).
I didn’t get the pay increase we were expecting, but I couldn’t easily quit due to the job market and the fact other places paid even less. They dangled the promotion in front of me - a few more months, a few more months. I began spending more time at work to grind for the promotion, I wanted it to be impossible for them not to promote me.
My wife found things tough after the birth. She felt lonely and confided in me that she wondered how things would be if she had built a career instead of staying at home. There weren’t really any arguments over this but she was often sad and contemplative. Still, she did her best.
Cut to last Summer. I get called into a meeting with Scott. He offers me a contract with a guaranteed promotion in 10 months’ time, with a bigger pay rise, if I commit to leading an important project for the firm. He said he understands if I can’t hack it with the baby. I tell him of course I can. I get on the project and start working even more hours, getting in early and staying late, doing some weekends, but all for our family.
My wife was supportive. At first, never complained. We were a team. However, she started dropping our son at her mother’s and getting involved with clubs and meet-ups to keep her from boredom. One of these was a painting club. Her Facebook is public and she posted about starting this painting club before I had the meeting with Scott.
She mentioned to me a few times about a new friend she had made, let’s call him Jeff, at the painting club. Jeff worked for a charity, she said, and had pictures of himself in Africa and South America helping disadvantaged kids. Naturally I feel a little bit jealous that someone else is getting to spend time with her, but I trust my wife, I’m glad she’s having fun.
Jeff was very artistic, he knew a lot about stuff like music and history and she enjoyed getting coffees with him after art class occasionally. Once we invited him for dinner, and he accepted, but cancelled last minute and asked for a rain check. Schedules never seemed to match. He didn’t have social media.
Around this time she started getting jealous and insecure when she never had before. She would ask questions about where I’d been. If my phone pinged she would always ask who text me. She started crying and saying how much she loved me, missed me, but I would remind her why I was working so much, for her, for our son.
She started getting especially jealous of an assistant PM who she met on two occasions at work events. I had no idea why she became jealous of her. She would interrogate me about her and demand to know if I had seen her. At work, Scott kept giving me more and more work, and demanding I visit client site, which meant no cellphone access for long periods of time and overnight stays.
Let’s cut to the chase. Currently the project is nearing completion, only a couple months left. Last Friday afternoon Scott dumps a ton of work on my desk that needs to be reviewed with the client before the weekend. I hop in my car and explain to my wife that although I’ll be unavailable, I’ll be driving home that night, as I wanted to be with her Saturday morning to start the weekend together.
I go to the client site and end up working until around 11, but get everything done. I leave and cellphone access returns. I have 5 missed calls from my wife and these texts:
‘Are you fucking kidding me’
‘I know exactly where you are’
‘How could you do this to me’
‘Pick up the phone’
Then a while later
‘Don’t come back tonight.’
And then
‘I have dropped (son) at my mother’s house. I’m out with friends. We will talk tomorrow.’
I am utterly bewildered. I phone her but it goes straight to voicemail. When I get home the house is dark. Her car is gone. I phone her mother and she says my wife just dropped off our son and left, by herself, in tears, but didn’t explain anything. She assumed we had a big argument.
I phone my wife’s friends (she doesn’t have many) but none of them know where she is or have heard from her. Eventually I panicked and called the police, but they weren’t interested. I fell asleep at her mother’s place and woke up early. I had 2 ring camera notifications on my phone - one at 0357 showed my wife entering my house with a stranger. Literally a guy I’ve never seen in my life. He looks like a trucker or biker type in his 40s or 50s, got a gut, disheveled, unattractive. He’s grinning to himself. Another ring notification shows him leaving the house at 0543.
Naturally I freak the fuck out, I think my wife has been kidnapped or killed or something. I shout for her mother to watch the baby and drive like a madman to our house. Almost break down the front door. She’s in the bedroom just got out the shower and drying her hair. Everything is clean. I ask her where she’s been and what the fuck is going on. She just raises her eyebrows at me and stays silent. I demand to know who the guy was, where she’s been, is she okay, my panic starts turning into anger. She just quietly goes in the bathroom and closes the door to finish getting dressed.
A while later she comes out, she’s clearly been crying and she’s shaking slightly. She sits down at the table with me and tells me she knows where I was last night. I say I was at the client site like I said. She gets angry. She tells me she’s fucked two other guys, so now she has one over me.
It felt like my heart dropped out my chest. I start to cry. She starts crying too, she says she hates herself and what she did but I made her do it. I beg her to tell me what’s going on and she goes ‘I know, I know, don’t lie to me, I know you fucked (assistant PM).
She then shows me a photo.
I don’t know if this photo is AI, photoshopped, doctored, or what. all I know is it LOOKS like I am standing outside a hotel in our city kissing (assistant PM). I’m speechless. She’s sobbing hard asking how could I do this to her, now everything’s ruined, our family is destroyed.
HER PERSPECTIVE
This is already long so I will try really keep this short and I can give more detail in comments if needed.
My wife gets lonely and bored when I work late. She regrets not using her degree or making a career. She tells herself it’s all worth it because I’m a good man and her being at home is helpful to me.
She eventually starts leaving our son and going to the hobby clubs. At the paint club she meets Jeff. Jeff is in fact Scott, my colleague from work, but she doesn’t know it. But Scott MUST have known it, and in fact he MUST have stalked her to that club deliberately. He lies about who he is and what he does. He weasels his way into a friendship with her. He starts to act as a confidant. They hang out occasionally outside of the paint club, but nothing ever happens (I believe her here).
Subtly he puts doubts in her mind about his work. He misses a session of the paint club one week and tells her it’s because he’s helping his sister, who got cheated on (Scott doesn’t have any sisters). With my wife so bored, her imagination goes into overdrive and he stokes it.
She stalks my social media and finds a picture where it looks like assistant PM is grabbing my bicep in a group photo. She obsesses over it to an unhealthy point. She confides in Scott/Jeff, shows him the picture, he agrees it’s worrying.
Scott/Jeff presents himself as a bohemian artist, a free spirit, which fascinates her. He claims he only enters open relationship because human sexuality is too sacred and expressive or something. He goes on and on about that sort of stuff. Since she is from a very conservative religious background, and had only slept with one guy before me, she’s quietly fascinated.
On the Friday it all went to shit, after I go to the client site around 1630, he calls her asking to meet urgently. He says he needs to talk about me but that my wife shouldn’t worry, it may be nothing. He sends her a picture - the picture she showed me - of what looks like me with assistant PM.
She drops our son off and meets him at a dive bar in a fairly rough part of town (so none of our acquaintances who would be out of a Friday would see her, I think). She cries, he keeps drinking with her. Obviously she can’t talk to me and Scott knows this. He fans the flames as much as he can and starts suggesting things to her. ‘Im so, so sorry’ he tells her. The best thing to do is to get back at me. I’ve been treating her like a fool the whole time. I expect her to be the good girl, she’s been the good girl all this time, and where has it led her?
He knows her insecurities and uses the things she has shared with him. She’s very drunk now and still crying. He starts picking out people in the bar, ‘what about him? Or him? Maybe that guy would hurt him the most? You deserve this, let’s get back at him.’
His arm is around her and when she turns to look at him she makes a decision and kisses him. She feels completely betrayed and that her whole life has been wasted as a housewife. She’s never done the ‘crazy thing’, she’s never ‘’’lived’’’, I’ve cheated on her, her obsessions and suspicions pile up, she is drunk, and something snaps. I don’t understand why or how this could have happened under my nose. She ended up fucking Scott, not even at his place, but in the dirty fucking alley behind the bar.
Once it was done she said she felt ‘confused but empty’. He buys them both another drink. She talks to him about his ‘free love’ philosophy, I have no idea the kind of bullshit he peddled her but it was persuasive, he preyed on her insecurities and asks her if she feels good being ‘wild’. She feels so hurt, confused, betrayed, and yeah, probably exhilarated from what she did, that she takes it as some kind of epiphany.
Scott is done and says he will leave, but he tells her that what many of his hippie girl friends used to do (who all live such amazing, interesting lives now, in beach huts in Bali, etc, etc) as an ‘initiation’ sometimes was play a game, where they would go to a bar alone and pledge to fuck the first guy that hit on them, no matter who he was or what he looked like.
He buys her another drink and leaves her in that shitty dangerous bar alone and drunk. She steels herself and thinks that by degrading herself she is claiming power in her life and getting revenge on me. After a while a middle-aged drunk hits on her, she invites him back to our place, they make out in the taxi, they fuck on our house, in our bed.
CURRENT STATE
I spent some time convincing my wife the picture was fake. She had the digital version and also a printout she made. When I moved the digital from her phone to the PC and blew it up massively you could see faint traces of edits. I also showed her assistant PMs social media, and she had Instagram stories with friends in a town in another state the night before. She entered some kind of shock/denial, still insisting I had done it, trying to find a way for it to be true to excuse what she did.
It was more difficult to find out Scott/Jeff’s real identity. He text her from a mobile number, he didn’t like her taking his picture, when we looked at his number in WhatsApp his pfp was of a sunset. However, I suspected it would be someone from work who would have known about assistant PM and been able to see pictures of her. I went onto her social media and scrolled through her followers, bringing up different profiles for her to see, feeling increasingly nauseous as we reached Scott’s profile.
I told her who he really was and it finally hit her. She went white as a ghost, began loudly retching, and ran to throw up violently. She was screaming and hysterical and so was I. She started literally pulling her hair out. I don’t want to go into all that.
She’s now severely depressed. It turns out that the name he gave her was actually Scott’s middle name, so he didn’t give her a fake name. Some people have told us that he hasn’t done anything legally punishable, as he claims the picture was sent to him by someone else from a secure proton mail email account. Apparently telling her all the stuff about working at a charity isn’t a crime.
The person I love most in the world has fucked the person I hate most in the world, not to mention a complete dirty stranger in our own house where my son lives. I don’t want to live in the house any more, I have been sleeping in my car, I don’t want to imagine what happened between 0357 and 0543. I don’t want to know details of what happened in the alley. I torture myself wondering, I ask her, she either shakes her head and sobs or I force her to tell me, then immediately tell her to stop when I hear a detail.
She was deceived, she thought I had cheated on her, and it was the result of a definite mental break. She wasn’t her right self, beyond just being drunk, something is seriously not okay. Scott had manipulated her into this behaviour for apparently no reason other than to try and destroy me.
Realistically what steps can we take from here. Is there anything to salvage? I’m so tired and sorry that this was so long and full of typos probably. I don’t want to tell anyone we know and neither does she. I haven’t been into work since this happened.

This is driving me nuts.
Someone is apparently trying to hack into my yahoo email. The first sign was I got a voice call for a yahoo security code on my mobile (the actual 2FA phone that was listed). I was asleep and it went straight to voicemail anyhow as I have my iphone set to block all non-contacts.
I had this eerie feeling about it as about 12hrs passed between the voicemail being left and me actually noticing. Could they have been trying to hack into my voicemail to retrieve it?
Nothing really looked out of place in my email. The password was not a reused one, it was unique. No devices appeared to be logged in. Despite that I removed my cell, changed my password and switched to an authenticator.
Ever since then yahoo has been calling my home phone (always been a landline) over and over at random intervals. I have no clue how my landline got involved as I don’t ever recall using it for yahoo.
This email, btw has a grim history in dataleaks as it’s over 20 years old. But the leaked passwords were long changed.
Just wondering why someone would opt to send the authorization code over voice vs SMS.

Your grandmother Joan and I at her kitchen table. Tommy Tiny Penis fumbles for something, gum perhaps, in his pocket, spilling out a baggie of cocaine. All of a sudden the beads of sweat on his brow and his anxiousness stand out even more. Joan and I both look at something on her wall - a plaque? Its round, maybe it wassa plate. A single word in black lettering across the diameter. It was positioned near the ceiling, along the kitchen wall, almost to the front room. Was it in German? We had been trading jokes with our beers. I observe that Priscilla and I would eventually be buying some of the same and heroin as well downtown, and that we're always happy to share if anybody wants some. This information seems to give the sweaty, uncomfortable man indigestion and grunting, he briskly stumbles to the restroom without adding to the jovial conversation. Later, I overhear Joan speaking to her three daughters, relating that " guys like me always beat guys like him - its specifically what they do. "
I've been using the Truecaller app to handle my calls and texts forra bout four years now. Its one of those programs that is endearing - buggy, subject to crashes. My favorite p2p Frostwire is also included in this category. Every time - and I do mean every single time - its updated something is noticeably fixed and something else is broken. I've been using p2p programs since the original Napster, have many fond memories of KaZaa, Morpheus, and Limewire. I won't stop using Frostwire until its abandoned and rendered obsolete. I'll even wear their logo t-shirts and paste their stickers on random car bumpers. Itsan exciting event when it updates, immediately searching through the screens and menus seeking the functionality that says it's still there but isn't. Some peoples watch sitcoms to pass their time I'm told.
Truecaller has the amusing habit of being a somewhat permanent record of text threads. Both conversationists can edit and delete their phone's text messages all they want. And the next time that text thread is opened they'll be downloaded in their original form from Truecaller's servers and right back in their original places in line. It's been referred to as the snitch app, as it has been used in court as evidence. The only way to delete SMS permanently is if the original speaker in the thread deletes the entire thread. Otherwise, it'll just keep resending at intervals. I've made use recently of E2PDF as well - it pairs nicely with Truecaller and tuna. Also, a courtroom approved program, it converts entire text threads to - you guessed it - PDF files. My continuing epic saga also updated at intervals on the Internet Archive - The Gospel of Saint Patricia - was recorded this way. I have a four-year long text thread on my 4th generation Moto G. I am not willing to entertain the notion that it may beea partial cause of my third-party calling app's intermittence. Assof tonight it's at 791 pages, growing organically and digitally every day.
Truecaller also hassan other habit that's entertaining - crowdsourcing its ID information, which pops up and replaces whatever corrections a user has made on their device every time it updates. It usually reverts back to whatever the user's labels were after a bit of usage. Usually. More than 72% of the time.
I have come to anticipate with smiling glee the new round of mysterious contacts that may be hiding behind that icon when MBs are being added.
(I also enjoy typing questions with lots of adjectives and detail into the Amazonian search engine. I'm sitting alone on someone else's barely too small futon onna Saturday night if anyone else is lonely...)
So. I have been texting and calling the phone numbers that my missing fiancé and best friend Patricia Ann Roberts implored me to contact her on, day or night, for years. A few months ago two were disconnected permanently after I managed to hear an extremely short, stressed, frightened few words from my love before the line went dead. Earlier that month I had discovered that Tommy Tiny Penis's line had been changed in its response - the blocking of my number removed and a robokiller screen installed. It immediately let me through, and I left eight voicemails. The next day that one cancelled of service as well. That's how I had named his number in my Truecaller contacts list - Tommy Tiny Penis. There issan other number I still am calling, a 313 landline, probably paid for by his company. Shortly after the cell lines were removed, I noticed briefly after an app update that the contact header had changed. No longer wassit Patty Landline, but Turkey Bone. Which only makes sense if one understands just how infantile and utterly void of useful knowledge Thomas Wayne Randle truly is. I imagine someone availed him, finally, to the fact that his number came up as Tommy Tiny Penis in Truecaller, er something. So in childish protest he renames the remaining number Turkey Bone, probably meaning to say Turkey Neck, which would at least almost make sense, if you were five and this was your first day of first grade. But no. Instead he invokes an image of two children at the folding legged card table on Thanksgiving, each holding a vaguely Y-shaped glossy and greasy object between them in their fingers. One sneezes and wipes its oozing nostrils, inadvertently snapping the thin, fragile wishbone.
Even the largest turkeys have bones at max the circumference offa dime. I will refrain from making a pun using the word " fowl " here. Sixty-three years old, and an embarrassment to the species.
Complete refusal to learn from mistakes or accidental successes. Step on the head of the one in front of you and sink it underwater as you ford the brook. Take and immediately destroy and irresponsibly dispose of. Replacing the sadistic pain and suffering caused to others in the place where happiness from accomplishment and empathy could have been fostered. A wannabe demon. Not real evil. Real evil is actually a threat onna mass scale. That can only occur with the stealth of hiding in plain sight while wearing a sandwich ad sign. Being able to shove packaged food into one's mouth does not impress the recruiters on either side of the moral conflict. If demons exist and eat souls, then Tommy and his lookalikes are still quite safe. Nothing to see here, just plaster garden gnomes.
​
Patty is the most beautiful and intelligent sister nextdoor. One of the only people I don't have to modify my choice of words in speech to so they may understand part of what I'm saying. Anyone who claims that this is anything but a horrendous crime punishable by jury trial is insulting her. Suggesting that she is as ugly, selfish, weak, and sadistic as they themselves are.
Today is my missing fiancé's fifty-sixth birthday.
She is ten years, six months, ten days, and one minute older than I.
We were both born to the same delivery room staff and certificate signing doctor, on the Air Force base in Abilene, TX.
Both of our mothers were having planned, scheduled births at full term, and we were both the first of the day.
Next to me and one on one in conversation she is completely confident, an amazing listener and orator, comprehending information spoken atta percentage I've never imagined could actually exist. Patient enough to maintain an attention no matter how demanding the thoughtful exercise. Knowledgeable about how a human body works and disciplined enough to maintain it. Imaginative, with the creative vision that the Makers of our species possess, to invent and produce the cutting edge of human wisdom and knowledge. That is the Artist's goal: to take the collected knowledge farther.
A truly breathtaking, amazing person. Who has spent the past eighteen years living with a talentless possessor of people; a follower who hates new ideas and actively tries to destroy them. A hollow shell with no created self, only robotic repetition of irrational and self-defeating tradition.
Patricia's voice in my earbuds is stereophonic and the slightly lower pitch offa woman who has been smoking for decades. Dark like tinted glass, as John McCrea says.
" I wassat a party and he was wearing a Hello! My name is... sticker that had Fugazi written onnit. I thought that was clever and he told me he had made it up. Then two days later I saw it written onna cassette case you pulled out of your leather's jacket pocket that had your joints innit!
Fugazi issa French word meaning " fake ", and also the moniker offa noisy Do It Yourself work ethic espousing band, I had informed her, Tommy Tiny Penis glaring at me and sniffling, oily perspiration sheening his brow. Like wow, man. Whata fucking born loser; a phrase truly only applicable to him. The conversation ensuing would reveal that he has also been taking the credit the past twenty years for writing at least four lines directly stolen from the long, spoken introduction to the track " Chemical Imbalance " by the SkateNigs, which, if you haven't heard, you should totes stop reading this and go listen to. I will not be offended. I recommend playing a full set of air drums in sync upon the inevitable second listen. The air ride cymbal you are not hitting with a drumstick I predict will give that arm an especially fine workout. Also up on his plagiaristic docket are the Butthole Surfers, one of the best bands to ever call San Antonio a home, however briefly. Both Gibby Hanes and Paul Leary have degrees from Trinity University, the most expensive per semester college in Bexar County and surrounding area, and home to 91.7 KRTU - jazz and other not popular music! I have contributed enough monetary donations to this station's pledge drives that my torso has been adorned with their logos often.
We should have known. There's that word " should " again. Tommy's taking credit for work not his own was not an isolated incident but an embedded, lifelong pattern. According to my fair lady love the man hasn't stopped bitching about how much fucking cooler I am than him since the day we met. Even to people who have never been to Texas nor met me nor ever will meet me I come up in his conversations. Twenty years later, give er take. Wow. I hadn't hadda thought involving him since the last time he was ineptly attempting to insult me. If my memory hadn't been inspired by Patty's voice his name and face would have disappeared forever in favor of more useful and fun data.
Like this industrial sewing machine service manual, I could only find an online copy of in German. All forty-five plus pages offit. That was way more entertaining than the pathetic coward narcissist loser Thomas Wayne Randle has ever been, even to itself.
He only buys porn with brand names like Penthouse and Hustler. Even though he has cohabitated, in separate rooms of course, with a goddess for eighteen years. Even though she hates it, and she pleads with him that its degrading he still insists on never getting a blowjob. Instead, he'll pretend, like he always does, that he's someone else, someone he thinks is cool, and insists on masturbating in her hair and on her face. Because sex to him, everything to him - and I speak of the pathetic coward narcissist loser Thomas Wayne Randle - issa desperate lie where he pretends, he has power and is somehow important, even though the " man " has never once had an original thought in his entire wasted existence. A waster of life and time. Twenty-eight years of Rogaine with Minoxodil, an ingredient found in laboratory rat urine. Both crying for and resenting his mumma, sexually stimulated by his memories of when she'd spank him.
Does Ira Glass still do This American Life?
She listens to NPR. We were both listening tooit when an interview with the Temptations was playing, that day at Pam's when we met yet again, and assi entered the building I laid a warm, wet hand upon her bare pelvic bone, she emitting an exciting " oooohhh ". Two days after she and Tommy Tiny Penis hooked up. He would later fuck Pam, at her then current boyfriend's house, who was present, on the couch in the living room, in the ass I hear, while I was locked outside with Paula by a mischievous Patty, and my then girlfriend Prissy was at work assa waitress at IHOP. She suggested our little new in-law holiday group each say something defining of themselves assan introduction to each other. I offered a quote I had recently heard from one of the Temptations on NPR. And her eyes continued to sparkle, hazel reflecting blue. Later, Tommy Tiny Penis attempted to earn brownie points with the girls' parents, Ken and Gloria - my next door neighbors, by taking the group out to dinner at Olive Garden, saying he knew the head chef working. So. Filing into our seats at the table, Patty launches a convincing argument to her father Ken, insisting that she sit in the chair he was about to plop down upon. Winning convincingly, she seats herself not next to Tommy, but directly in front and across from me. Smiling conspiratorially. She issin full information gathering mode. She remembers to this day what I ordered. Not the most expensive nor the least expensive menu items, as someone being treated has a tendency to do. But selections based on the nutrient content and healthiness of the meal. Dark leafy greens, lean protein, only a bit of oil instead of heavy calorie content dressing. Beers, multiple, selection based on how well the brew recipe paired taste-wise with the food ordered. While eating, her father attempted to pass the salt in my direction, after being handed it from Tommy, who had just immediately doused his large steak with the saline grains. I told him, apparently in my default radio announcer voice, that I never added seasoning to food until I had tasted it, my reasoning being that it was an insult to the person who had prepared it, in this case a paid professional. Preparing a meal issan artform, and assan artist I recognize the sweat and effort of the cook or chef. The food as placed with purpose upon a plate by another is a finished product - the last stage of producing art is the presentation to the audience. It is now up to the audience to appreciate the finished work. To apply seasoning without tasting issan insult by an uncultured, unaware, and unappreciative person. If modifications need be applied after tasting to match an individual's preferences, then so be it - it's their food. Unbeknownst to me, the actual person who had prepared the food, the actual head chef on duty who obviously Tommy did not know at all, was standing directly behind me when I said this. He announced his presence, and I was rewarded with a complimentary meal, including the beers. Three beers, most likely. Tommy would attempt over and over that week to catch me in acts of verbal plagiarism, or insult me, only to always be bested by my quick and always razor honed intellect. I had already been practicing my craft for more than a decade by that point. The coward even uttered a " faggot " in my direction as Prissy and I left, under his breath, only to have my sharp ears pick it up. So, spinning with overdramatic flair and facing the opponent as always, I pointed out why that isn't an insult, and indeed that I could never be insulted by him, adding a well-placed and accredited quotation by Tom Waits, in French. Much to the confusion of the attacker and the delight of Patricia. I make memories, man. I even blew Patty a kiss, 'til we meet again, which we would, of course.
To backtrack a bit, when mischievous Patty locked me outside with the youngest sister Paula, who I almost always sat next to on the school bus if I rode it, she never speaking to me, I had immediately postulated that since we were so rudely confined all night to the expansive backyard that she and I had a duty to retaliate in kind and consume every single beer. Which we did, triumphantly. Paula grew up to be a big girl, and a voracious consumer of alcohol. Taking me up on the challenge, she matched me beer for beer until they were all gone. 108 each, in five hours. That's one 12oz bottle of various brands every five minutes. And at no time, as mischievous Patty observed, mischievously, did I ever hit on Paula in any way. Come morning we were in someone's car listening to her CD collection. I inquiring about any I didn't recognize. I put in 10,000 Maniacs' Our Time In Eden album, informing her that I had all of their catalog on cassette, including the earliest collected demos. Much to her surprise. I would continue to confound that woman over the coming decades. Upon daybreak, Prissy returned and released us from the walled backyard that her younger sister and I would have escaped in someone's vehicle had we could in pursuit of more beer. She had to go get her daily dose of methadone from a clinic downtown. Patty cringed as she threw the van keys assa softball pitcher would, directly at my face, as was our custom. And I, wearing the leather jacket my grandmother had given me on my eighteenth birthday a decade earlier, caught them without thinking or flinching with a swooping downward arm movement. Prissy's dealers lived in the neighborhood behind the clinic. She was into heroin and cocaine, and I was into her. We went back to my house and I grabbed my guitar, always the disposable emergency income, and a Seymour Duncan JB pickup I had purchased new but not installed yet. I pawned those and used the extra cash for more cocaine than the planned amount, which I would divide into two nice-sized lines on the bathroom countertop for Patty and myself. Tommy, I was informed later, didn't want to share the baggie of coke and meth mixed he carried. With us or her. Ugh. How fucking uncool is that? I guess Pam got some. Eew. I smile now, writing this, remembering Patty playing footsies with me under the table at Olive Garden, and again at Christmas a year or so later under her grandmother's kitchen table, with her grandmother and aunts sitting around us. I customarily wear steel toed boots, ankle high. But that day at grandmother's I had some cushy old man sandals my aunt had given me on, leaving my feets open this time to return the playful gestures.
Tommy Tiny Penis sounds like a cameo antagonist inna children's cartoon. Maybe one oriented for a more adult audience, now that I read what I just wrote. Because obviously, Tommy Tiny Penis is notta suitable babysitter. I mean, ultimately pathetic and harmless because of his malformed pudenda and obvious lack if skills and knowledge concerning sex, but notta character that garners a kind of sympathy or even pity. Too arrogant, inept, and stupid to learn and grow from his experiences. Just a big, fat, butt of jokes for the protagonists to constantly spew victoriously. Entertainment forran audience with a sense of righteousness and morals that find continuously masturbating to lolita porn nauseating. Maybe midway through the episode a brief subplot could be introduced wherein his dear, dear mumma is explained through a brief but hilarious montage to be an additional inspiration for his stunted and fruitless attempts at child rape. Nevertheless, slobby Tommy Tiny Penis ends his villainous vignette as he began it, a corny throwaway uninspired hack piece filling midseason space while allowing a slower character story arc to peak in the season finale for Our Heroes.
Tommy Tiny Penis's cartoon theme song is performed by the band Extreme, guest soloist Yngwie Malmsteen. Oooh. And the gay singers from Boston that married each other. They even include lyrics about how he didn't support their right to wed, supporting further his miniscule antagonist role. And an endorsement from Pantene, for hair that rocks leopard print.
​

I 19f am 34 weeks pregnant with my ex boyfriends baby 19m. Back story we've always had a rocky relationship between us even before I became pregnant, we dated for about 5 months at the end of 2022 to the beginning of 2023. In those 5 months he was very controlling already but I figured as my first serious relationship it was normal. During that time he would go through my phone or physically not let me leave my house and take my keys to prevent me from leaving, I don't like screaming so until I/he can calm down I'd try to leave because I also don't like to be yelled at constantly with out us even getting through to each other. He would see that as me being immature and childish, so he would tell me I'm not allowed to leave and make me stay but he would just yell at me to the point I would shut down and just not talk. The first time he got physical with me he'd taken my phone from me again and said we needed to talk (I smoke weed, he doesn't like my dealer. I'd like to point out that I smoked a lot but also had my own place and worked full-time to pay all my bills. He thought I was a bum for smoking) and he started to go through my phone again, I told him I was through with his behavior and tried to take my phone back he said no and ended up shoving me hard I'd hit my breaking point here and I pushed him back he tried to run into another room with my phone and I followed and there was more shoving and i told him to leave and to never come back and he said no we're gonna talk this out and I said i reallyl don't have to deal with this and grabbed my keys, i said keep the phone we both know theres nothing in it and started to walk away to leave, he said im not allowed and took my keys. I panicked with this and tried to grab them which resulted in him shoving me and I shoved back after a while and he ended up choking me and throwing me around the house. He also ended up breaking my phone this day and took my card to go get it fixed, when he went and did this he hacked into all of my accounts snap, insta, and email and reset them to go to his email and phone. He also put find my phone on his phone to see my location. I was unaware and just happy my phone was fixed. We ended up moving in together and I ended up breaking up with him after I found out about all the things he'd hacked into. I also found out that I was pregnant the same day but I later miscarried due to stress. Now we ended up on and off for a month after a while of time apart and I ended up pregnant again this time I wasn't sure if I should get an abortion or not and told him this. I ended up keeping the baby and moved closer too him/family. He continued his controlling behavior location needed and always wanted to go through my phone which I allowed at this point. When I finally went through his I found other girls, and exs. He talked about hotels and getting them pregnant or how much he loved them and when I confronted him he said it was when we weren't together. Wed broken up for a week and he'd already had all of these girls in his phone. I broke up with him again and this kinda continued I just kept finding new girls or girls he'd said he had blocked but turned out they weren't all through out the time we were together. I'd never gone through his phone the first time we dated, I felt it was disrespectful but now I figured if it's something he can do I can too. He ended up getting physical with me again one day again when I came over to break up with him. He'd shoved me into a bed and told me I wasn't allowed to leave then when I opened his window to leave he put his arm around my neck and a hand on my arm and slammed me to the ground. I started yelling and he was scared someone would hear and let me go, I went to the police and they wanted to press charges and so did I, but his family convinced me not to. As it would ruin his life. We ended up moving in together and the physical stuff never stopped, he continued to shove, throw, and choke me. On 4 more occasions, all of this while telling me I couldn't leave or tell anyone. On the last occasion I ended up telling someone ( there were to many bruises this time and I was terrified of whether my baby would survive this one) and moved out, some other instances that happened. I was sick and I knew I needed to go to the hospital I was running a 103 fever for 2 days straight with severe back pain and vomiting, he would tell me I'm fine and that I could just wait, then he'd tell me later when someone would tell him I needed to go then he'd say we should go. But he made it seem like the wait and time he'd have to spend in the hospital was a big deal, and I should just take some Tylenol and rest. His family ended up saying they would take me and he ended up taking me. I had a severe double kidney infection and was hospitalized for a week. My doctor and obgyn were not happy and said I should've came sooner and that I was almost too late. I was without a phone for a few months and we put his number down and he said he never got any calls or voicemails so I ended up missing 3 follow up appointments and some with my OBGYN. He also told me I shouldnt work after this and just stay home and be a good housewife and that he'd take care of everything. ( He often would accuse me of cheating when i was working and didn't like me being seperated or near his family for fear of what I'd tell them he'd done to me.) He's also told me I should just get an abortion,that I should *** my self,that noone will love me except for him, that the baby isn't his, and that I'm the controlling and abusive one, that he doesn't need help ( he said if I didn't try to leave him he wouldn't have put his hands on me) and that he doesn't have anger issues and doesn't need therapy. He also tells his family that I'm emotionally abusive and controlling and that I make up him putting his hands on me. When I showed his family the pictures (one person) they said that my BD said that those weren't from him and that I just "bruise easy" he proceeded to call me a bitch and said that I make out my BD to be the worst person and if I didn't try to leave (my BD) that he wouldn't put his hands on me. They also said that they think I cause all the issues and that I'm probably a whore and the baby isn't my bds. I told them and my BD that if they wanted a paternity test now or after I would be happy to give one and that it was no issue, I know who I've slept with ( only my BD) so I know it's his. But he's got everyone convinced that it possibly couldn't be when he's the one speaking to their girls and exs at his work. So I broke up with him and left to another state to be with different family to get away from him, and some of his family. He's been telling me that I'm breaking up his family ( our child and him) and that I'm just doing this to hurt him and not thinking of the baby, and that I'm being selfish and only thinking about myself. I feel like I'm keeping both me and my baby safe from him, as hes put his hands on me while I'm pregnant I'm not sure what he'll do when he's stressed and my baby is out. I'm scared there would be a freak accident of some sort, I'm also just scared in general of his behavior towards me and it's really been affecting my own mental health. There's a lot more I could add onto here but I didn't want to write too long of an essay. So would I be the asshole if I cut off all contact with him and some of his family?

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/MNThr0w
My friend [30sM] just got married but I [28F] did NOT attend because my crazy ex/stalker boyfriend [28M] was going to attend...but I didn't send in an official RSVP.
TRIGGER WARNING: Abuse, controlling behavior, stalking, mentions of infidelity
Original Post Aug 1, 2016
I received the online Save the Date and of course replied Yes. Then I was scrolling through the guestbook and saw my ex's name. When I saw his enthusiastic reply of Yes, my heart figuratively stopped, I felt cold inside, and I started hyperventilating.
The Ex This man abused me for months, isolated me from my friends and family, used me for money and sex, and then cheated on me. He made me feel crazy for confronting him about his drug use, about the girls hanging around him...I eventually stopped asking him because I wanted to keep him happy. When he moved away for a few months and we were long distance, he had friends that would report back to him if I went out with friends; he would confront me on our Skype chats about me being out with guy friends "unchaperoned" and would forbid me to go out without a chaperone. I eventually caved and didn't go out with any of my friends unless they were the girls he knew or I just stayed home. I lost contact with many friends and my family. But then, we were engaged and something broke in me when I realized I would have to give up everything to be with him and I envisioned myself either dead or wanting to be dead when I saw our future together.
When I finally broke it off for good with him, he had previously installed a key logger into my phone and computer (is that the official term?) and was able to see everything I sent and did. He threatened suicide if I didn't talk to him, so I said, "Go right ahead" and notified his Mom he was making threats against his life. I told her that if he contacted me again, I was going to the cops. She said she would take care of it.
A few nights later, I went to a late movie by myself and got a call saying he was right outside my apartment. He saw my light on and just wanted to talk. I was not there at the time. He had a history of stalking and previous allegations of abusing his ex-girlfriends. The next day, I started the proceedings to get a restraining order out on him (fun fact: they are really hard to get). The order of protection was granted for 1 year and I have moved on.
I got a new laptop, phone, and changed my address. He was blocked on Facebook and I deleted all of our mutual facebook friends so they couldn't report back to him on me.
NOW Seeing him RSVP to a mutual friend's wedding threw me off kilter. My current boyfriend was unable to attend with me (work) so I didn't want to go alone. I meant to email the groom and explain how I didn't want my drama to overshadow his wedding, and that he may not have been aware of the crazy ex drama that happened a couple of years ago BUT I saved it as a draft and never dealt with it. I pushed it back to my mind and was focusing on work and school. But I got the email reminding me about the wedding, didn't know what to do, and did not show up. I sent the newly married couple an Amazon package from their wedding registry with my apologies and offers to take them out to dinner after their honeymoon but I don't know how to ask him now.
Questions: How do I bring this up to the groom? How do I explain why I didn't reply and why I didn't show up? Do I go into detail about the horrible things my ex did? Do I show them a copy of the restraining order? Do I just continue to ignore and later message the groom to just take them out for dinner?
tl;dr got spooked away from a friend's wedding due to the presence of an abusive ex and want to reconnect with my married friend and his wife now but I was rude and didn't reply No on the official wedding invite and feel ashamed and not worthy of their time. Wat do?
tl;dr got spooked away from a friend's wedding due to the presence of an abusive ex and want to reconnect with my married friend and his wife now but I was rude and didn't reply No on the official wedding invite and feel ashamed and not worthy of their time. Wat do?
RELEVANT COMMENTS/INFO FROM OOP
On her friendship with the groom

TECHNICALLY the ex was friends with the groom before I met him. They were church buddies when they were young but my ex moved away when he was a teenager, and I met the groom in college. His sister and I were in choir together in high school (my hometown is SMALL) and we bonded over a love of rock music. So time wise, ex knew him longer but I think I know him better as an adult.
I did decrease my contact with the groom after the breakup because I did think the same thing, "How could he be friends with such a monster?!" I cut contact with all the people who were friends with the ex because I didn't know if they would report back to the ex. But I would still go to his rock shows and occasionally text him until he got really serious with his now wife and then we just sort of followed each other on facebook.
If I tell the groom about what happened to me, would it decrease my chances of seeing the ex again? I don't ever want to see the ex again in this lifetime, or the next. Part of me was hoping he was dead or in jail...
HOW do I stop trying to please everyone? It's a personal issue I've worked on after this whole debacle but it's this whole "obedient daughter" mindset I grew up with, that I'm rewarded eventually for bending over backwards to please everyone around me.

On why the groom didnt know about the abuse and how her ex got away without anyone knowing

He didn't know about the abuse. I just told him it was an ugly breakup and he had said he was sorry the ex and I were no longer together, because we had made such a good couple, I was such a good influence on him, etc.
My ex is very good at manipulating people. The man has a high school degree but is a whiz at technology things (he was a part of the Anonymous group that hacked into things) and was very schmoozey when in groups. He had that way of talking to people that made him very popular.
He's a horrible person but his Dad abused his Mom growing up so I guess it was part of him? It made it normal to him to abuse me and all his other past girlfriends?

Update Aug 10, 2016
Thank you to all that gave me solid advice and nice PMs. You all are very nice, and I appreciate you all. Special thanks to u/YesILeftHisAss2398 for the amazing advice and I've saved hehis comment.
So I took the advice of some to CALL my friend rather than an impersonal email or facebook message and left a nice voicemail offering to take him and his wife to dinner and apologizing for missing their wedding. He called back and squeezed me in their packed schedule before they leave for their honeymoon.
I saw them last night for dinner! I gave them hugs and apologized again for missing their wedding. The groom said he vaguely remembered the bad breakup AND the restraining order but said he thought enough time had passed because the order of protection had expired. He also said they sent out the invites and save the dates in waves and the ex and I were in different waves. He said he thought we could put aside our issues for one day for his special day. He said he had invited family members that didn't get along with one another with the expectations that everyone could put aside their issues for his wedding. I told him I didn't want to see the ex ever again, especially being alone at the wedding, and wasn't comfortable at all attending. My friend acknowledged this, and then we had a good dinner and caught up since our college days.
They confirmed they had received my many gifts the day after their wedding. THEN they said the Ex had RSVPed, and volunteered to be the sound guy (emcee and sound system) but DID NOT SHOW UP. My friend had to man the sound system on his own wedding day. The groom and bride said they would have rather me show up than the Ex.
We have plans for me to see their house when they return from their honeymoon and hang out more frequently (they have an incredible collection of board games). It was a great dinner.
TL;DR I apologized to my friend and his wife for my absence on their wedding day, they have forgiven me, and we are still friends.
EDIT: I want to thank everyone for their comments and their messages. TRULY. It took reading the comments and advice from internet strangers to realize what shitty "friends" I had. This was my throwaway account, so I was reading ALL of the comments on my regular account and being unable to reply. Replying on mobile would have been difficult.
Again, thank you all. I plan on being Very Low Contact (VLC) to No Contact (NC) with the groom and his wife. I DO deserve better friends than that, and it took the comments and kindness of internet strangers to reveal this to me. Thank you all, and here's hoping karma gets the groom and my ex. :)
THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

Link to original post here.
-------------------------------------------------------
The abandoned steel mill was eerily quiet.
Above my head, I could feel the oppressive threat of the oversized steel beam, poised to fall and crush me. A chain connected its quick release latch down to a ridiculous and oversized lever, bolted to the floor.
Next to that lever, my captor, and in truth; acquaintance, stood.
He was standing wearily, and he stared intently at the watch on his wrist.
"This is just unbelievable," He remarked, true outrage in his voice. "No professionalism in this city anymore. I could be torturing you for all the heroes care."
It was currently hour seven of the hostage situation. The mood had never been tense, but it was getting decidedly stale.
"Hey man, is it okay if I go pee?"
The villain, or Jeffery, as I he had acquiesced to being called, waved a dismissive hand in my direction.
I shrugged off the chains that he had lazily wrapped me in, and waddled off to the bathroom.
On my way back, I swung by the cooler that Jeffery had brought, and took out and opened two lagers. As I re-entered the steel mill floor, he was yelling into a phone.
"-and if you think I'm ever going to turn up at any of your events anymore, you're going to be disappointed! You've always been a two-bit hack of a hero, and now I'm realising why! No gumption! No discipline! A lazy arrogant brat!"
In place of ending the call, Jeffery overhanded the phone with all his might into a brick wall.
"Who was that?" I asked, cavalierly.
"The number 2 hero, you know the guy, whats his name? Smile Guy?"
I nodded, "You mean Smile Smith? What did he say? Sounds like you guys really got into it."
I handed Jeffery one of the beers, and we sat down on a nearby ledge.
"Oh he didn't answer. Left him a voicemail."
I smiled at this.
"So how's things with you?"
Jeffery sighed deeply, and took off his mask.
This didn't shock me. I was likely one of the few people with whom the villain shared his secret identity, and after all this time, the true shock was the gauntness of his face. His cheek-bones were more pronounced then the last time I had seen him, and there was an unhealthy pallor to his skin.
"It's been....hard lately." He reluctantly admitted. "You know I fell twelve places on the villain charts last month?"
I smiled reassuringly at him, and raised my beer. He mirrored the gesture, and we clinked bottles.
Taking a long swig, I pondered. Humour, I decided.
"You're surely still above that pig guy right? What's his name?"
"You mean the Oinkmaster?" He replied, shaking his head, "They caught him half a year back, cornered him in a factory. He ended up burning it down with himself inside."
I fought to control myself, but my childish humour slipped out anyways.
"Bet it smelled good though."
Jeffery laughed despite himself, and I sensed some of the tension leave him.
"You're a bad man, John." He ventured, shaking his head.
"We'll... you're the expert."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you enjoyed my writing, you can check out my other WP stories on my personal subreddit, as well as some original work of mine.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) in /UltraMobile

Copied from /MintMobile FAQs
Official FAQ:
See official Ultra Mobile FAQ and Terms and Conditions
Troubleshooting Guide / Issues with Network/Calling/Messages / What are APN settings?
If you have no signal, seem stuck on 2G, low bars, or dropped/choppy calls or extremely slow speed, please follow this troubleshooting guide which fixes almost all issues or at least determines the root cause (location, phone, SIM, account).

• If on Android, follow the below, which is more detailed than ultramobile.com/setup/android/.
  • Go to Settings then the following to add APN
    • Samsung: Connections > Mobile Networks > Access Point Names
    • Pixel: Network and Internet > SIMs > [Ultra SIM] > Access Point Names
    • OnePlus: Wi-Fi & network > SIM & Network > [Ultra SIM] > Access Point Names
  • Tap the 3-dot menu in the top-right > Reset to default.
  • Add +
  • Name: Ultra
  • APN: Wholesale (make sure W is capitalized)
  • MMSC: http://wholesale.mmsmvno.com/mms/wapenc (Some people have used http://mms.msg.eng.t-mobile.com/mms/wapenc and gotten to also work)
  • MMS port: 8080 (leave blank if using t-mobile.com in MMSC above)
  • MCC: Leave as is, never change : 310
  • MNC: Leave as is, never change : SIMs issues starting in 2022 are 240, older ones are 260. If you try to change it the APN will not save.
  • APN type: default,supl,mms,ia
  • APN protocol: IPv4/IPv6
  • APN roaming protocol: IPv4/IPv6
  • MVNO type: GID (option only on some devices such as Pixel and OnePlus)
  • MVNO value: 756D (option only on some devices such as Pixel and OnePlus)
  • - Save
• For iPhone you cannot set APN yourself, it should set automatically.
  • Check for carrier update: Settings > General > About > Carrier update
  • Reset Network Settings: Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings (note: you will loose saved WiFi passwords and Bluetooth pairing). Then do full reboot by powering off and on.
  • If that fails you can bypass automatic APN by going to unlockit.co.nz/fw/, select Create APN on the bottom, United States and carrier Ultra Mobile or T-Mobile, Create APN, Download Profile, then go to Settings\Downloaded Profile and Install the profile.
• If you have an older SIM (pre 240 MNC such as 260 MNC), and you want 5G UC access on Android, it is recommended to order a new replacement SIM or eSIM. For Androids only the 240 MNC SIMs have 5G UC access. Apple can get 5G UC bands on older SIMs but will not show the 5G UC logo.
• Try turning Airplane mode on and off.
• Turn 5G off and then back on, for Pixels maybe even leave it off
  • Apple: launch Settings > Cellular > Cellular Data Options > Voice & Data > LTE.
  • Android: launch Settings > Connections > Mobile networks> Network Mode > 4G/3G/2G (auto connect)
  • Android/Apple: After it connects change it back to 5G/4G/3G/2G (auto connect) or 5G Auto.
• Pixel Modem issues: Pixel (especially 4-6a) phones have notoriously bad modems and firmware as it will try to connect to "faster" toweband even when the signal is way worse than a "slower" band, causing no/low signal or slow speeds - this affects all T-Mobile carrier customers including Ultra. You have two work-arounds to this issue:
  • Settings > Network & internet > Adaptive connectivity > Adaptive connectivity Enable/disable
  • Keep 5G off when driving, or even off at all times if you are on the edge of one 5G toweband's range.
• Log into your Ultra account on the app/site to make sure your account is active and you have 4G/5G data left ("Unlimited" plan throttles after 40 GB).
• Try reseating the SIM card by taking it out and back in securely.
• Try the SIM in a different device, and/or make sure your device is not just "compatible" with Ultra and T-Mobile but is "fully compatible" by having all LTE bands, especially band 71 - see below section "What Devices work with Ultra Mobile?" for checking true compatibility, as the Ultra compatibility checker is not the most accurate.
• Try multiple locations. Since Ultra runs on T-Mobile there could be a T-Mobile outage in your area so check by using downdetector.com/status/t-mobile/map/ which uses crowd-sourced data from Ookla SpeedTest app and social media to detect outages, or ask neighbors on T-Mobile carriers if they have issues including calling/visiting local T-Mobile/Metro stores.
• Check your coverage area for T-Mobile by following below section "Will Ultra work at my location" as actual coverage area is different than what Ultra/T-Mobile says.
• If the SIM does not work at all in multiple devices and locations the SIM may be bad so you can order a replacement SIM using the Ultra site/app, or contact Ultra support for a free one if site/app order will charge you the normal $10. Also if you have a Pixel and an older 260 SIM, it is recommended to order a newer SIM or eSIM if you want 5G UC access

Issue getting/sending MMS/SMS/RCS/iMessage (Android phones)

• If you ever had your # on iPhone, if iMessage is still set up for you phone # you will not get messages from iPhone users. You will have to deregister you phone # from iMessage by following https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/
• Go to Settings > Network & internet > SIMs > Access Point Names and tap the 3-dot menu in the top-right > Reset to default. and then redo the APN steps in top of this post.
• Try both MMSC and MMS port settings listed in APN settings at the top of this post.
• Clear the app cache for messages app: Settings > Apps & notifications > See all 'xx' apps > Messages > Storage & cache > Clear cache > Clear storage.
• On your messaging app settings, go to Settings > Chat features > Turn off RCS and MMS off, then turn back on and verify the #.
• Update person you are having trouble receiving/sending message from/to's contact as not Android instead just "Phone" or "Mobile"
• Try different messaging app such as Google Messages.
• Have any person with an iPhone who you cannot get/send messages from/to do the below troubleshooting steps to fix on their end

Issue getting/sending MMS/SMS/RCS/iMessage (iPhones)

• If you ever had your # on Android phone, if your phone # is still registered by Google, you will not get messages from Android users sending RCS or through Google Messages. You will have to deregister your phone from RCS Messages by following https://messages.google.com/disable-chat
• Settings > click on the Apple ID > Names, Phone numbers, emails. Make sure your number is set for iMessage.
• Settings, Messages, Send & Receive and ensure that your number is selected and not your email address.
• If an Apple user is having trouble getting or sending messages with you, turn off iMessages and FaceTime from your phone, wait 10-15 minutes, then re-enable it
• If an Android/dumb phone user is having trouble getting or sending messages with you, ensure MMS and Group Messaging is on by going to Settings > Messages > MMS Messaging [Slide On] & Group Messaging [Slide On]
• Sometimes Android users try sending you RCS messages which iPhones cannot get. In which case you will have to have each person sending you a message do the following:
  • If they ever had their # on iPhone, if iMessage is still set up for their phone # they will not get messages from iPhone users like yourself. They will have to deregister their phone # from iMessage by following https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/
  • Have them clear app cache for messages app: Settings > Apps & notifications > See all 'xx' apps > Messages > Storage & cache > Clear cache > Clear storage.
  • On their messaging app settings, go to Settings > Chat features > Turn off RCS and MMS off, then turn back on and verify the #.
  • Update your contact on their phone as not Android/Google instead just "Phone" or "Mobile"

Enabling/Issues with WiFi Calling

• Make sure your phone supports WiFi calling.
• First enable the feature on the Ultra App/Website dashboard including adding your emergency 911 Address by going to Settings > Phone > WiFi Calling.
• Enable it in your phone settings when simultaneously on both a good cellular network connection and on WiFi. If trying to activate overseas, you may be able to do if you are on a VPN to the US, but may need to do immediately after a network reset.
• Some phones (especially Pixels) may require you to reset network settings after turning on WiFi calling (warning - you will lose saved WiFi passwords and Bluetooth pairings). Network reset: From a Home screen, swipe up to display all apps. Navigate: Settings> Reset options > Reset Wi-Fi, mobile & Bluetooth > Reset settings. If prompted, enter the PIN, password or pattern and tap Reset Settings to confirm.
• If having trouble while on Wi-fi calling, VPN and/or modem/router firewall settings may be conflicting so either disable VPN on your phone when doing WiFi Calling/texting, disable WiFi Calling altogether, or disable/tweak your router firewall.
• Software updates and some full reboots may require WiFi calling to be reactivated before use, so you would need to be on both cellular and WiFi and then turn off and turn on WiFi calling in your phone settings, and then you may need another network reset.
• Some models of Androids are "software locked" to a carrier, so would need unlocked ROM or otherwise hacked to remove bloatware and allow WiFi calling on all networks.

Enabling/Issues with Visual Voicemail

• On Apple make sure there is not a carrier update - Settings > General > About > Carrier update (if available)
• On Android, Disable Visual Voicemail (VVM) in your phone settings
  • From a Home screen, open the Phone icon (Phone by Google app, icon is blue old-school phone on white background). If this phone icon is not on your home screen, swipe up to display all apps then tap the Phone icon.
    • Note for Samsung phones: There is a Phone by Google app and a Samsung Phone app, you have to open the Phone by Google app to change settings, get from store if not installed.
  • Phone App > ... Menu icon > Settings > Voicemail > Visual Voicemail.
• Reboot phone
• Dial in to Ultra voice mail 855-616-9530, make sure your password is set and a greeting is selected. You may have to record an actual greeting. After all steps you can later get rid of to go to standard one if you want.
• To reset your voicemail password, type #PWD# on your keypad and hit “Send.”
• Disable Wi-Fi
• Enable VVM in Phone app settings, give it about 5 mins.
• Have someone call you and leave a new message, see if you get notification and VVM.
• Re-enable Wi-Fi
• You can use Phone App/Voicemail to change greeting or go back to a standard one.

Also note that not all Androids support Visual Voicemail on Ultra, and sometimes an OS update will add Visual voicemail support and other times it removes it. The reason is manufacturers don't test all the dozens of combinations of model and OS updates specifically on Ultra (which has its own APN and VV settings) and dozens of MVNOs (would be over 1000 tests a year if they did), just the big 3. This is why Ultra says Visual Voicemail is not supported on all Android devices, as they cannot control what OEMs do, and you can't complain if it is not supported, and if it is supported is a bonus. If your native phone app does not support, you can use 3rd party app like YouMail or Google Voice.
When entering password it says it is incorrect, even though you know it is correct and have already reset it.
Is your password more than 20 characters? The password setting part of the site lets you type more than 20 character but truncates the password to 20, but password entry doesn’t truncate. So if you set it longer just use the first 20 characters.
Where should I buy Ultra phones as both a new and current customer? / Does Ultra ship their own phones or use a 3rd party? / Are phones from Ultra locked?

• You can order from phones.ultramobile.com. However, these are shipped and fulfilled from a 3rd party Quality One.
• iPhones and Samsung Galaxy phones purchased any of the above ways are locked to Ultra for a year, but other manufactures (Pixel, OnePlus, Motorola) are not locked.
• If you want to return a phone you must return both SIM and phone within 7 days, and fill out RMA form at both phones.ultramobile.com/RMA.html
• You can get a new unlocked or T-Mobile locked phone from a retail store/online or direct from the manufacturer. You can trade in your old phone for a credit through the manufacturer (Apple, Samsung, Google), or sell your old phone on Swappa/Back Market/eBay/Facebook/etc
• You can also buy an used, refurbished, or even new phone on Swappa.com, Back Market, eBay, Facebook Marketplace, or anywhere else. Just make sure it is not locked to another carrier (phones locked to T-Mobile post-paid work on Ultra) and is compatible with Ultra/T-Mobile (see below)

How do I return a Phone and/or SIM from Ultra? How do I get refunds?

• If you want to return a SIM purchased on Ultra's site, retail location (Target, Best Buy, Amazon) or an activation after a trial fill out return form on your account within 10 days of purchase
• If you want to return a phone from phones.uttramobile.com you must fill out RMA form at phones.ultramobile.com/RMA.html within 7 days of purchase
• If you want to return a phone and SIM combo DEAL, you must do both of the above within 7 days of purchase.
• If you missed the 7-day window, DM /MintMobileAlex after you have filled out the form above with the return ticket information, and explain the extenuating circumstances
• Retail locations (Target, Best Buy) may allow you to return through them but most likely not unless it is damaged and you want an exact replacement.
• After 7 days there is no partial refunds on any leftover months, and renewals after the first activation have no refunds at all.

What Devices work with Ultra Mobile? / What bands and technologies are required?
The official way to check for device compatibility is to use the Ultra Mobile app for iPhone or Android or use the website device checker; but those don't give band level detail (some phones may be "compatible" with Ultra but may not support all bands so might not get signal in your area) and the 3rd party database of supported IMEIs on the compatibility checker may be out of date. Also note international models are less compatible, for instance even the newest international models of iPhone and Samsung Galaxy do not have band 71, and even though newer Chinese company phones support US 5G bands they still do not support US 5G carrier aggregation band combos which mean they do not work on 5G in the US. For best results look up your phone on one or more of the following:

• GSMarena.com (expand Network section at top of phone details) or manufacturer website to see what technologies and bands are supported, making sure you look at EXACT model including country/region codes.
• frequencycheck.com can easily show which T-Mobile/Ultra LTE/4G bands your phone supports (must know the exact model #).
• cacombos.com, an advanced site which for each phone shows 4G/NR(5G) bands and 5G carrier aggregation combos. You would need to check a phone supports both 4G and NR bands to form 5G nBands.
• tmoband71.com has older (2022 and earlier) list of "fully compatible" Ultra phones, as it only has phones that support all Ultra/T-Mobile 4G/LTE bands and also shows which 5G bands these phone supports.

Make sure the phone supports VoLTE and the below bands:

• Required Bands: 2, 4, 5, 12
• Highly Recommended Bands, especially in rural and suburban areas: 66, 71 (if your phone does not support, you will loose over 1/3 the US coverage area)
• Optional bands on former Sprint network (being phased out for 5G use): 25, 26, 41
• Optional newer bands, used in combo Wi-Fi/Cell repeaters in select highly populated areas such as airports, universities, and high-rise apartment/commercial buildings: 46 (RX), 48 (CBRS)
• 5G Bands: n71 (Low-band), n41 (Mid/C-Band), 25/n258, 26/n260 & n261 (mmWave/High-band)

Note that phones locked to T-Mobile should work with Ultra, but make sure your phone is unlocked from other carriers such as AT&T, Verizon, and other T-Mobile MVNOs. Various IMEI unlock checkers are available online (such as this one from Swappa), but the best is to check with each carrier especially the carrier the phone was last on.
What Flip Phones/dumbphones works with Ultra?
Make sure to get a flip/slide/"feature" phone with 4G/LTE Band 71, VoLTE, and WiFi calling - those are actually few and far between.

• The best ones are the Nokia 2780 Flip and the 6300 4G. They supports all bands, VoLTE, WiFi calling, run KaiOS, have email, and come preloaded with (deletable) Facebook, WhatsApp, and YouTube apps.
• The Nokia 2760 Flip also is fully compatible but is only sold locked to TracFone or StraightTalk so you would have to wait out on those networks for 60 days before unlocking and being able to use a Ultra SIM.
• The Nokia 225 4G is a cheaper alternative ($49.99) and will work but is missing band 71 so will not be the best reception in some areas.
• See details on the above phones and buy direct at https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_us/feature-phones.
• For non-Nokia phones open https://tmoband71.com and check the feature phone box to see all non smart phones that have Band 71 - they are listed as more expensive MSRP but you should be able to find some on eBay or Swappa for cheaper.
• Also check out /dumbphones for recommendations or to ask advice.

What is Ultra's coverage and expected speed? Will Ultra will work at my location?
For the best answer get a 7-Day Trial from Ultra (physical SIM or eSIM), BestBuy, or Target. Retail SIMs costs $2 but get a $5 credit when you sign up from a trial. Note that activating from a trial makes you no longer eligible for promotional prices or referral credit, and you will have to pay taxes and fees, versus if you bought a 3/6/12 month bundle at retail then taxes and fees are included.
Note that Ultra's "Unlimited" plan is throttled after 40 GB to a 3G speed of 500kbps, so check your usage and make sure you use less than 40 GB/mo or else Ultra is probably not the best solution for your needs.
Ultra runs on T-Mobile networks so will get the same coverage except it does not get domestic roaming (on AT&T, Verizon, US Cellular, and other small regional carriers such as ACS/GCI in Alaska) that T-Mobile post-paid or pre-paid does. Ultra is “deprioritized” (on QCI 7) meaning it will get slower speeds than most T-Mobile plans (that are on QCI 6). How much slower depends on the exact second how many people are on the same tower & band compared to the capacity of the toweband, but with speeds usually between 20-90% of T-Mobile Magenta/Pre-Paid customers at the same time & location. For examples see these 4G and 5G Mint (same as Ultra) to T-Mobile Speedtest comparison videos, but your experience may vary. Note that 8-10 MBPS is good enough for 1080p HD video playback so anything more than 10 MBPS is not beneficial for most everyday uses. Check coverage, bands, and speed maps at these crowdsourced locations:

• CellMapper app (Android only) or CellMapper web based 4G map & 5g map - Also shows individual tower and band map, useful if your phone does not support all bands.
• CoverageMap and select T-Mobile. Has speeds and comparison to other networks
• OpenSignal App (Apple and Android). Has speeds, signal, and comparison to other networks

"Official" T-Mobile coverage:

• ultramobile.com/coverage map comes from T-Mobile and is the "theoretical maximum" coverage by T-Mobile engineers, does not accurately reflect interference.
• coveragecritic.com - Input your ZIP code and search to see if T-Mobile is 6.5 or higher in your area. Note this sources from the FCC from data submitted by T-Mobile which goes by "if one house in a ZIP code is covered the entire ZIP code is considered covered".

How does Ultra Mobile compare to Carrier X?
While you can ask in this sub, get a more objective opinion in /NoContract
Does Ultra work in Tablets, Laptops, or HotSpot Modem/Routers? Will USB tethering work?
Ultra officially supports Apple/Android tablets. It unofficially supports Chromebooks and Laptops (Win/Mac/Linux) and HotSpot routers, so should work but Ultra support may or may not help you get it working. Note on Unlimited plan only 10GB of "HotSpot" data is allowed and this data limit applies to all data on tablets, computers, HotSpot modems, routers, or tethering through USB. Any attempt to "jail-break" devices to swap ICCID to get around HotSpot limit is against Ultra Terms and Conditions and may result in account termination and device blacklist with no warning or refund. See /Rural_Internet, https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/planpicks/?fwp_data_plan_device_types=hotspot, and https://cellularinternet.info/plans.html for better options for HotSpot device carriers.
Does or will Ultra Mobile support SmartWatches (Apple Watch, Samsung Galaxy Watch)? Can I answer calls/messages to my phone on a SmartWatch?
Ultra does support "bargain" SmartWatches that have a physical SIM slot (not eSIM) but it will have it's own number and not be able to answer phone calls/text from your phone unless connected using Bluetooth. As for supporting Apple Watches and Samsung Galaxy Watches, see Ultra CTO rizwank's answer as to why it is "far away" (and see his update in 2022). In addition to eSIM, Apple/Samsung/Google SmartWatches require OEM to set up carriers on their servers (which it only does for carriers that sell its devices), and in order to have phone and watch share the same phone #, Ultra would need an additional technology called IMS / call path routing, and this technology costs tens of millions of dollars and has only ever been done by mobile networks operators (MNOs) or cable companies, all of which are multi-billion dollar companies much larger than Mnt/Ultra. Basically Ultra will only support if both T-Mobile lets Mint/Ultra use their IMS infrastructure, and Apple/Samsung/Google sets up Ultra on their end. After T-Mobile buys out Mint & Ultra, this is more likely to happen but not guaranteed as even Metro by T-Mobile does not support and they were purchased by T-Mobile years ago.
If you want to use an AppleWatch with cellular and have Ultra Mobile on your cell, do the following:

• Use an iPhone/iPad/Mac with a different Apple account to set up Apple Family Sharing and invite the apple account your phone is on to join your family group
• Use your family iPhone/iPad/Mac (different from one you want to pair) to set up the AppleWatch on the same Apple account as your phone and get a TruPhone eSIM for your Apple Watches at $10 a month or $99/yr ($8.25/mo)
• Set up conditional call forwarding (dial **61*[new number]# to turn it on and ##61# to turn it off) from your phone to the new Truphone number (so if you don’t answer on your iPhone, it will then forward the call to your watch).
• Set up Voicemail on the TruPhone line as with call forwarding if you don't answer either the VM would be on AppleWatch line.
• Log into all your apps that you want notifications for on your Watch on the device that set it up, which again must be on a different Apple account then your phone,
• If you want to use ApplePay to pay with your watch, you will need to Set Up Apple Cash and Set up Apple Cash Family and add the Apple account of your phone to Apple Cash Family
• All the above will allow your Apple Watch (even when not in Bluetooth range) to answer calls from your phone line as well as read/send iMessages (not SMS/MMS) to/from your phone # and share app usage/data with phone using you Apple account.
• It is missing some features including most Health Statistics and using ApplePay with credit cards (unless you set up Apple Cash Family per above)
• Outgoing calls/SMS/MMS from Watch would be on a separate line, and you cannot get SMS/MMS on Watch (you can only get iMessages), but other than that would be almost the same functionality as having the same carrier for both but is way cheaper as you can spend less than $25 for both versus minimum $80 to keep them the same carrier (Visible being the only cheap exception).

Will my phone still get software/firmware updates while on Ultra?

• For iPhones, Pixels, Motorola, and OnePlus you should get the same updates as on other carriers, might be a few days behind the first people as they postpone to spread download load.
• For Samsung phones since they make customer firmware based on the country and carrier code (CSC code) it depends on the EXACT model you have if Samsung releases updates for the unbranded CSC code XAA for that exact model. The short answer is if your EXACT phone model ends in "U1" (i.e. SM-G991U1) you will get updates but they might be a month behind major carriers, but if your EXACT phone model ends in "U" (i.e. SM-G991U) then you will not get updates unless you do one of these three things:
  • Find an active T-Mobile SIM card (borrow from friend, or maybe go to T-Mobile store if they are nice) and stick in your phone and perform a Network reset which will change the CSC code to TMB. Then request update. Then swap SIM cards back. This is the easiest method by far, but you will need to do each time you want an update.
  • Follow instructions online on on how to change your phone CSC code and change to TMB, then request update. Top google results are https://www.getdroidtips.com/how-to-change-csc-code-on-any-samsung-galaxy-device/ or https://www.droidwin.com/change-csc-codes-samsung/
  • Look at xda-developers.com forums on how to install a downloaded official or custom ROM for newer OS. Download official ROMS from https://www.sammobile.com/firmwares and search for the latest T-Mobile (TMB) or USA (XAA) one for your exact model #. It may matter if the model ends in a U or U1, but is best to install the U1 model to override the U model to make your phone unbranded and get updates automatically. Or use a custom ROM at your own risk.

Does Ultra charge taxes and fees? If so what are they? Can and do these fees change?
When buying a 3/6/12 month bundle with Ultra from a retail location (Amazon, BestBuy, Target) Ultra eats taxes and fees on the first three months and counts it as marketing expense to get new customers. However if you sign up direct with Ultra through app/website, as well as all renewing customers, Ultra makes you pay most of taxes as separate line items, but between 5%-40% in cellular taxes Ultra pays on your behalf to governments is still hidden in price as Federal, state, and local taxes and fees make up 15-45% of all your wireless bills (depending on where you live and which plan you get) so can be as high as 45% for those living in Chicago or Baltimore due to much higher state and local taxes. However all customers are charged the same taxes and fees, making customers in low tax states like Idaho and Nevada subsidize Ultra's tax payments for customers in high tax cities and states. See Ultra Terms and Conditions section 10 for a full breakdown of the fees but some taxes are separate and not in the terms as tax rates change quarterly but Taxes and fees are usually between 8%-10% depending on plan. The ZIP code you enter and what plans and length determine the tax & fees, and not until you enter this information and almost checkout can taxes be calculated based on the current rate - you still have time to cancel ordering/renewing before paying.
Ultra does change fees about once every couple years (usually by less than 20 cents/mo) and does send message out to all its users before increasing its fees. However taxes may increase on next renewal without warning beforehand - complain to elected officials about any increases in taxes.
What’s the deal with Ryan Reynolds? Mint Mobile? / Who owns Ultra Mobile?
See announcement T-Mobile reaches agreement to acquire Mint Mobile as a sale of Mint/Ultra Mobile to T-Mobile is pending and should be completed towards the end of 2023. Mint Mobile (formerly "Mint SIM") was started as a subsidiary of Ultra Mobile. Both companies share many technologies and customer support, but they have individual plans and billing and SIMs are not compatible. Ultra Mobile focuses on more international calls and roaming use and if you frequently call or travel internationally may be a better deal for you, otherwise Mint is cheaper. Ryan Reynolds bought a minority share of Mint and Ultra Mobile and is Mint spokesperson in many of their ads.
Thanks for being a member of this sub. Feel free to post any more suggestions to this FAQ.

So Jet got his start with MDE due to his successful ARG worldcorp.
What is an ARG? An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. It's like a puzzle for the viewers to solve through many different media forms. Videos, webtexts, random clues and a rabbit hole to dive into.
How does this relate to Fishtank?
The entire Summer saga screams ARG to me. If she left the show and ended up in psych ward sure, that's quite plausible for a mentally unstable girl on a stressful reality show. However, after she leaves her accounts are ALL hacked by some random 14 year old? Then Jet's voicemails are 'hacked' and we get more Summer information? This screams ARG to me which Jet has experience and a passion for especially since the person who originally leaked the voicemails remained anonymous.
Fishtank and Synanon a 1970s cult with tons of similarities to season 2.
"Entrance into the Synanon community required a strong initial commitment. Newcomers were first interviewed by Synanon leadership to gain entrance into the community.[14] Upon their arrival, those newcomers were forced to quit using drugs cold turkey, going through withdrawal for the first few days in the program.[21] Furthermore, for their first ninety days in the community, members were expected to cease contact with outside friends and family.[14]"
One of the most distinguishing practices of the Synanon community was a therapeutic practice commonly referred to as "The Game." The game was a session during which one member would talk about themselves and then endure intense criticism by their peers.[22] During this practice, members were encouraged to be critical of everything, using harsh and profane language.[14] The practice has been charactized as a form of attack therapy.[5] Outside of The Game, members were required to act civilly to each other. While in The Game, members criticized each other, but left as friends and supportive community members.[22] The Game served not only as Synanon's most prominent form of therapy and personal change, but also worked as a way for leaders to collect the opinions of community members. Because there was no hierarchy in The Game, members could freely criticize Synanon's highest leadership, who would then take member concerns into consideration when deciding policy.[14][22]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon
Read through this wiki if you are ever bored. It is likely that Jet chose 1973 to base a ton of Fishtank season 2's inspiration off of. The group therapy circle, the attic with its cult like symbol and therapy room, and this seasons focus on addiction likely takes root in Synanon.
The entire group therapy circle in fishtank is pretty much what the Game was to the cult Synanon. During "The Game" members of the cult would gang up on one person and break them down through bullying. Sam brought Bryan and Trish up to the attic and said "downstairs is an audition, the game starts up here." During fishtanks group therapy, there was a focus on addiction and bullying one person. Also, there was a theme within synanon where members were forced into relationships with one another which we constantly see within fishtank. "Good boys" of the cult were rewarded with "good things" and bad members of the cult would receive "bad things" within synanon. Synanon also had a rule of no violence and members had their hair cut as punishment.
If you are bored look down the rabbit hole of synanon and how much it relates to fishtank. There are endless similarities and I'm too tired right now to write it into a huge post.
Would love to hear some thoughts from others and some theories on the symbol within the attic.