u/OGKINGS

Short version: Telstra gave me faulty phone, had issue with aggressive store person when trying to replace, sent it back, informed them 3 times I couldn’t remove the security settings as I can’t access the screen, they acknowledged this. However device must be unlocked to assess that it is faulty. This is there response. THE MIND BOGGLES. So illogical.

It looks like it’s going to go directly through the TIO.

I can’t post screenshots so I will copy and paste emails.

Important context:

When I sent the phone back, I let them know via phone call and online chat I wasn’t able to remove any security features as I can’t access the phone to do so. They had no issue with that.

A “senior” case manager from Telstra called me this morning due to an urgent status being put on my TIO account due to epilepsy and nocturnal seizures, she was made aware I couldn’t remove security features due to the faulty screen and said there was no issues (this was a recorded phone call thank the lord)

Telstra:

I have just received an update regarding your device. I understand this may be disappointing, however, I have been advised that the device will be returned because the warranty assessment could not be completed while security features remained enabled.

Our Device Care team requires access to the device to properly assess the fault you have reported. If security settings prevent the team from accessing the handset, they are unable to carry out the necessary assessment.
Once the device is returned, the relevant security features will need to be removed or disabled before the device is submitted again for warranty assessment. This will allow the team to access the device and assess the reported fault.

Once a successful assessment has been completed, the appropriate warranty outcome can then be determined based on the assessment findings.
I apologise for any inconvenience caused and appreciate your understanding.

Me:

This is not possible due to me not being able to access the screen. I told that to customer service and to you, when we spoke this morning. This is completely unacceptable. I want to speak to someone higher up immediately, before close of business today. 

Telstra:

Thank you for getting in touch with us on 30/09/26 about a complaint relating to your Telstra account number xxxxxxxxxxx

I'm sorry we haven't been able to reach an agreement by offering the following:

We acknowledge your concerns regarding the experience you have had with your device and the process undertaken to have the reported fault addressed. We recognise the inconvenience and frustration this situation has caused.

We also acknowledge the feedback you have provided regarding your experience at the Telstra store. Your feedback has been recorded and forwarded through the appropriate channel for review and action.

Based on the medical circumstances you disclosed, we have also offered Telstra Priority Assistance. Priority Assistance is intended for eligible customers who depend on a working home phone service because they, or someone living at the premises, has a life-threatening medical condition. We have made you aware of this option so that your eligibility can be considered where applicable.

In relation to the faulty device, Telstra's position remains that the device must undergo the applicable Device Care warranty assessment before an appropriate remedy can be determined. Our Device Care team needs to be able to access and test the device to investigate the reported fault. Where security features prevent access to the handset, the assessment cannot be completed.

We acknowledge that you have explained that the fault affecting the screen prevents you from accessing the device and removing or disabling the required security features. However, because the Device Care team was unable to access the device, the warranty assessment could not proceed and the device is being returned without a completed assessment.

Once the device has been returned, the relevant security features will need to be removed or disabled before the device can be resubmitted for assessment. This is required to enable Device Care to access the handset and properly investigate the reported fault.

Once the device can be successfully assessed, the appropriate outcome can then be determined based on the assessment findings. At present, as the assessment has not been completed, Telstra is not in a position to confirm the device's eligibility for a repair, replacement, or other remedy through this process.

You have advised that this outcome does not meet your expectations because you are unable to remove the required security features due to the reported screen fault, and you do not consider it reasonable for the device to be returned without the fault being assessed. You have also expressed dissatisfaction with the overall handling of the matter and are seeking a resolution for the faulty device without having to repeat the current process and wanting your device to be replaced immediately.

Despite your dissatisfaction with this outcome, Telstra's position remains that the required device assessment must be completed before the appropriate outcome can be determined.

While it's disappointing that we were unable to resolve your complaint, we are confident that our investigation and proposed resolution are appropriate. As a result, I've recorded these details and closed the case.

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your complaint, you have a right to take it to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO), which is a free and independent service. You can contact the TIO by calling 1800 062 058 or visiting www.tio.com.au

However if at any stage you decide to accept, please call me on 1800 241 787 quoting your complaint case number xxxxxxx

Where your issue involved any disputed amounts, these have been on hold during the complaint investigation. Our normal payment and collection processes will now resume. If you need help making payments, please call 13 22 00 or visit telstra.com/hardship.

 

Hi all,

Purchased a Samsung Galaxy Flip 8 on a plan with Telstra. As I’m going to pay for an iced coffee in a drive thru, the screen stops working. I take it to Telstra immediately, the advice on screen when the sales assistant was helping me, was to replace phone as it clearly wasn’t damaged and was a major fault. As she was about to replace it, creepy dude comes out from the back, says it’s Samsung’s fault, not Telstra and they can’t help me, I question why, as it’s from Telstra and I just received it and it’s clearly not damaged, he is yelling at me they haven’t had any issues with this phone (how would they know it’s only just been released) and we get into huge argument. I asked him to not raise his hands at me and to not speak to me the way he was, and he kicked me out of the store lmao.

Tried calling, they tried to get me to sign up for a new contract for a new phone. At loss at what to do. It’s brand new, I didn’t drop it and they saw in store there was zero damage to it.

Any advice?

EDIT: For those getting triggered and the weird dude spamming me to “kill myself” FROM is a fictional place solving this or this being correct holds no real weight in life. I hope that helps.

TD:LR

I think FROM is an unfinished fairy tale. The show keeps repeating two ideas: stories matter and go back to the beginning. The children were given a story during the sacrifice, and that story was born from love and that created hope. Rather than trying to save the children, I think the real answer is remembering the original story that started everything. As Ethan literally says: “You can’t finish the quest until you figure out the story.” The town isn’t trapped in a loop, it’s trapped in an unfinished story.

THEORY

I’ve been rewatching the series and I think I’ve worked out what my theory is and how it all fits together. I don’t think FROM is a time loop or traditional reincarnation. I think it’s an unfinished fairy tale. The two things we are told CONSTANTLY the entire series are: go back to the beginning and stories are important.

One thing I noticed on rewatch is how much important information gets introduced immediately in Episodes 1-3.

Before we know anything, the show focuses on:

protecting children
stories
crossroads
the symbol
beginnings

The very first tragedy is Megan dying because the adults responsible for protecting her fail. Now we know the entire series revolves around children who were sacrificed by the adults who should have protected them. The show tells us what matters (children) before we understand why they matter.

Then we get Julie’s story about Norman. The very first story told within the series. Norman dies. Ethan wants to go to the Lake of Tears because the fairies are coming back and they’re going to save him. Julie tells him Norman is dead.

Then Tabitha says:

Well, that’s good news then. Because there’s no such thing as monsters. And if there’s no such thing as monsters, then Norman’s still alive. She is immediately telling him an alternate version of reality, in response to Julie killing Norman. This will be relevant later.

EDIT: The first “story” we hear in the series is literally about death, monsters, saving someone and the Lake of Tears. All things that end up becoming important later. But what if it’s telling us the entire fairytale. Norman (the children) die. The fairies are coming back (Jade and Tabitha) to The Lake of Tears (From) to save them (to finish the story).

Then we get Tabitha talking about the road. They’re trapped driving in circles not knowing they are already stuck in the story and she tries to explain what might be happening. She says maybe it’s a switchback. Maybe they need to make a U-turn to get back onto the original road.

FROM spends a lot of time focusing on children’s stories, drawings, storybook logic and panning to random crossroads. The amount of times stories are mentioned on a rewatch is actually insane. Nearly every major character is introduced with some version of a story, a quest, a drawing, or being told to go back to the beginning.

Donna tells Jade, “Let’s start at the beginning.”

Ethan tells Jim, “No, let’s start at the beginning.”

The amount of times Jim mentions a story and the camera immediately cuts away is ridiculously comedic once you start looking for it.

There’s also the first scene in the diner with Jade which is so meta and hilarious if I am right about all this. At this point he still thinks the town is some elaborate escape room and says: there’s usually some kind of plot or clues.

This is funny because there IS a plot. There ARE clues. The clues aren’t hidden. They’ve been sitting right in front of us since Episode 1. The problem is that, just like the characters, we didn’t know how they fit together yet.

Which brings me to the title. FROM.

The clue is right in front of us. I think it’s an instruction.

The dictionary definition of “from” is:

a source
an origin
a beginning

The entire series keeps pointing backwards right from Episode 1. Back to the source. Back to the beginning. Back to where all of this came FROM.

EDIT TO ADD: I have been informed by a redditor that the show is called Origin in Spanish or in Spain idk which one.

One of Jade’s earliest visions in Episode 2 is the symbol on the roof of the cellar alongside the man crushed by the boulder. At the time it seems completely disconnected from everything.

Now we know the symbol is the roots of the bottle tree. We know the roots are connected to the sacrifice. We know the bottle tree stands above the place where the children were sacrificed and where the bones remain. But that’s not what’s important. It’s the STORY they were told.

Then there’s Ethan’s seizure-like experience in Episode 2. He comes back talking about things he saw before any of us understand the rules of the place. He says he saw drawings on the wall in crayon of his family and talks about the Lake of Tears.

Now, seasons later, Ethan is still looking for the Lake of Tears and Victor draws Ethan’s family so he can remember. Again, it feels like another example of the show revealing important things long before we understand them.

The more I rewatch, the more I think the writers knew exactly what they were doing from Episode 1.

Then there’s Sara’s story. She literally starts by saying, “You know the story of the little girl trapped in a room of broken glass?”

The girl knows the pieces used to form something. She knows there was once a shape. Every time she tries to put the pieces back together she gets cut. But she keeps trying because she knows there was an answer.

One of the biggest complaints people have about FROM is that nobody shares information. I think this is on purpose, that nobody actually has the whole story. Everybody is holding different pieces of the same broken shards of glass.

Even Jim LITERALLY says this out loud.

He says they need to put everything up on the wall and that it will be like telling a story ** cue camera panning away ** like every other time he mentions a story lmao. His wall literally looks like a giant story-planning spider diagram. Exactly how we are taught to create stories as kids in school. The writers could have chosen anything but they chose that.

Now we know the original townspeople sacrificed the children in exchange for immortality. Tabitha and Jade tried to stop it but failed. I think the Man in Yellow is a trickster. A very real portrayal of fairy tale trickster. The kind that makes bargains and gives people exactly what they ask for. Just not in the way they expected.

The townspeople sacrificed the children for immortality and he gave them exactly that. The curse is what immortality turned out to actually mean. The monsters became physically immortal. They can’t die, we know that from Fatima birthing smiley. But they can’t really live either. Jade and Tabitha who *most likely* didn’t actually partake in the sacrifice seem to keep returning in some form, so did they get their own warped version of immortality, or is this connected to the STORY told the children during the sacrifice? The town seems to have some kind of immortality. People who die there apparently never get to leave there has been a focus on that this season. Father Khatri remains part of Boyd’s story even after death. Marielle says everybody who dies here are still here. The story itself never ends. The immortality means that nobody gets an ending.

Then we get what I think this entire thing is about.

We’re told during the sacrifice:

Someone who loved the children told them a story (presumably Tabitha)
The story gave them hope.
The children poured their hope into the roots.
The roots became the tree.

Ethan literally tells Julie “everything fits together to tell a story, we cannot finish the quest unless we figure out the story“

Think about that. It isn’t technology like an escape room (theory). It isn’t traditional reincarnation (theory). It’s a story. And what’s the one thing that matters the most in fairytales? Love and hope. A story created from love gives hope > hope is poured into the roots > roots become a tree. That’s fairytale logic. Which might explain why the entire place operates on story logic and what did Tabitha do episode 1? Give an alternate version of a “story” to Ethan after Julie killed Norman. What if she did the same thing for the children?

Stories aren’t just references in this world. They seem to be part of how reality works.

And this is where my theory gets a little speculative but I’m going to use fairytale logic. What if the story told to the children wasn't just a random story? Imagine Tabitha's original self trying to comfort terrified children they know they can't save. What story would she tell? Probably a fairy tale about love and hope. About heroes returning. About good overcoming evil. About how this isn't the end. Maybe the story itself somehow changed the bargain, or created a loophole. Maybe that's why the children keep telling them to remember. Not just the sacrifice but because they forgot the story they were told when it happened?

Then the sacrifice happens and the children die. But the hope from the STORY is what survives and maybe creates elements of from. We see this can be true because of the bottle tree.

The story isn’t to save the children. Tabitha and Jade think that’s what they need to do, but that’s not what they have been told. The message is: Remember. The children are already dead and the sacrifice already happened. We also know because it’s been said a million times in the series, you can’t change a story once it’s written. So how will saving the children actually help?

Remembering logically becomes is the most important thing. Not them being sacrificed. The STORY that was told to them during the sacrifice.

Using fairytale logic, bargains with tricksters are usually broken by going back to the beginning and understanding the loophole around the original deal that was made, and what if what created the loophole was the story?

Now let’s look at everyone individually from a story or fairytale perspective. Every person needs to represent an archetype. If this really is an unfinished fairy tale, then everyone appears to have a role.

EDIT TO ADD: these loosely constructed archetypes typically found in fairy tales or children’s quest related stories. It is more to showcase the overarching narrative I am attempting to portray with an archetype.

Boyd (The Knight)

Every fairy tale has a knight. Not necessarily a man in armour, but someone who keeps going long after everyone else has given up. Boyd takes on impossible tasks, walks into danger when nobody else will, and carries the weight of everyone else’s survival. More importantly, he represents HOPE. The monsters don’t seem interested in simply killing him. They want to break him. In fairy tales, hope is often the thing that defeats a curse, and Boyd seems to embody it.

Tabitha (The Mother)

The Mother archetype isn’t just about having children. It’s about nurturing, protecting and grieving for children who have been lost (she doesn’t do a good job with Ethan and Julie though lol). Again and again Tabitha is drawn toward the sacrificed children, their memories and their suffering. While the other characters focus on escaping, she keeps being pulled back toward the original “sin” at the centre of the story.

Jade (The Scholar)

The Scholar is obsessed with understanding. They see patterns where everyone else sees chaos. Jade spends the entire series trying to decode symbols, visions, history and hidden connections. He doesn’t accept mysteries; he dismantles them. In fairy tales, the Scholar is often the one who discovers the truth behind the curse.

Victor (The Keeper)

Every fairy tale has a keeper of forgotten knowledge. The old storyteller, the hermit in the woods, the guardian of ancient secrets. Victor preserves memories, drawings, objects and stories. While everyone else forgets, Victor remembers. His entire existence revolves around protecting fragments of the past until someone is finally ready to understand them.

Julie (The Storywalker)

If this really is a story about stories, then Julie may be the most important archetype of all. She’s the one who can move between chapters. She isn’t a time traveller. She’s a Storywalker. In fairy tales, there is often a character who can cross boundaries that nobody else can. The one who can return to the beginning and witness what was lost.

Ethan (The Innocent)

The Innocent understands the rules of the fairy tale before anyone else. Ethan immediately accepts quests, stories, monsters and magical logic. While the adults spend seasons fighting against the rules of the world, Ethan instinctively understands them. Fairy tales often place the truth in the hands of the child because children believe in stories when adults have forgotten how.

Sara (The Oracle)

The Oracle receives messages nobody else can hear. She sees fragments of the truth before anyone else, but never receives the full picture. Sara is repeatedly described as uniquely connected to the town. She receives warnings, visions and instructions. Like many fairy tale oracles, she understands pieces of the story without fully understanding what they mean.

Jim (The Seeker)

The Seeker refuses to stop looking for answers. Jim’s instinct is always to connect dots, build maps and search for hidden meanings. His wall of clues wasn’t really a conspiracy board. It was an attempt to reconstruct the story itself. In fairy tales, the Seeker is the character who believes there must be an answer and refuses to abandon the search.

The Children (The Lost Children)

The Lost Children are one of the oldest fairy tale archetypes there is. Children abandoned, stolen, sacrificed or trapped. They are usually the heart of the story and the reason the quest exists in the first place. Everything in FROM seems to lead back to them. Maybe what happened to them is original wrong that the story is trying to set right.

The Man in Yellow (The Trickster)

The Trickster offers exactly what people want and lets them discover the cost later. He doesn’t need to force anyone to do anything. He simply presents the bargain. The townspeople wanted immortality, and he gave it to them. In fairy tales, the Trickster is often impossible to defeat through force. The only way to beat them is to understand the rules of the bargain they created.

The Town (The Enchanted Forest)

Every fairy tale needs a place where normal rules stop working. A place where people become lost, transformed and tested. The town is the enchanted forest. The place where the story unfolds. The place characters enter before they can discover who they really are and what role they play in the story.

I’ve also started noticing that the story seems to recreate archetypes rather than people. Not exact reincarnations. More like narrative roles. Abby becomes convinced the town isn’t real and tries to save everyone by killing them. Now we’re watching the same thing about to happen to Henry. They’re not the same person, but they occupy a similar role within the story. That’s why I think calling Jade and Tabitha reincarnations may actually be too simple. Traditional storybook reincarnation is obvious. You immediately recognise the same person, like Mina in the story Dracula. What we’re seeing here feels more fragmented than that. More like pieces of the same story resurfacing in different forms.

Even the trees seem connected to this idea. One thing I have wondered about was Tabitha entering a faraway tree carrying Victor’s lunchbox and ending up with Henry. Not where Tabitha came FROM. Not where Victor came FROM. Where the lunchbox came from. Its source. It’s “origin”. If the children’s hope literally created the trees, then maybe the trees aren’t random transportation devices at all. Maybe they’re trying to reconnect things to their beginnings?

Everything keeps pointing back toward Sara’s story about the broken glass. There was once a shape. Now there are fragments. Victor protects fragments. Boyd preserves hope. Jade searches for meaning. Tabitha follows the children. Julie can revisit chapters. The trees reconnect origins. The archetypes reappear in new forms. Everything in the town seems to be trying to reconstruct something that was broken a very long time ago.

Julie’s role isn’t about storywalking to save Jim. Maybe her role is to witness the story that was lost that will tell them how to break the curse and I think she’s going to use the children’s bone as a bookmark to go back and do that.

And if there’s one thing FROM has been telling us since Episode 1, it’s this:

Go back to the beginning. Go back to the story.