Life Hacks/Mods Guide/Adjust Relationship

The basic Life Hack module holds the ability to adjust a lifie's relationship stats in regards to the player.

Standard relationship stats are divided into 8 categories, 6 of which are divided into 3 different mutually exclusive relationships which manage to effectively create something of a -100 to 100 range.

There are some conditions that will cause relationship stats to become more volatile, especially when attributes are changed via Life Hack. However, using Life Hack to set a relationship stat will remove that volatility and stabilize the relationship wherever it was set.

NOTICE: All indications of 10% ranges are generalities and should not be taken as precise thresholds for certain behaviors.

4th wall note: This page uses the term "lifie" to describe the person the relationship applies to. This is because it is written as though it is a user's guide for the hack. All the same applies to players who are in the story. The relationship stats of players will likely be less volitile as they regard this as a game instead of real life and thus will take things less seriously. At the same time though, this means their perspective will cause the effects of "friendliness," "enemy," "dominance," and "trust" to be amplified far beyond what the stat would suggest due to the fact that they do not take things as seriously and can regard actions of a far higher level in this stat the same as others would lower versions. Meanwhile while the effects of "fear" will be greatly mitigated, also due to them regarding this as just a game. In fact, the "fear" stat is unlikely to raise in the first place.

This document is a work in progress. I will be saving my progress several times through the process to avoid loosing my work.

Friendly / Enemy range

The friendliness / enemy range notes how positive/negative a person's general opinion and disposition is toward you. Increasing the friendliness stat will predispose a lifie to act in a more friendly and accommodating manner toward you and cause them to want to grant you all manner of allowances and hospitality. Has a positive influence on trust. Meanwhile, increasing "enemy" status will cause the lifie to become negatively predisposed and take a nasty attitude toward you, often acting in a rude manner or passing you up for manners of common courtesy. At higher levels it can even lead to vindictive or even murderous behaviors.

Friendly

• <10%: At the beginning of the friendliness scale, this indicates the lifie will grant you basic common courtesy and act toward you in a positive manner. First impressions will often put friendliness stats somewhere around 10% depending on personality and the manner of the interaction.
• 10-20%: This range is considered an area of moderately good regard one would generally be expected to grant to their colleagues or customers at work. At this range, a lifie will make accommodations for you even if it is somewhat inconvenient for them, but will only go so far as what they feel is reasonable to be expected of them in the situation. People with a strong adherence for social norms will automatically be in this range if you make a positive first impression. Usually comes with around a 5% boost to trust.
• 20-30%:This range is where a lifie would be considered to be behaving in a manner most people would regard as really friendly. This is where they will seem to be somewhat more relaxed and less on-guard, and will try to actually make an asserted effort to make you comfortable around them. Most children who want to be friends with you will automatically place you in this range on first impression. Usually comes with around a 5-10% boost to trust.
• 30-40%:At this range, a lifie will begin positively regarding you and show you preferential treatment. They will try to spend more time with you and the friendliness will begin self-perpetuating as they try to maintain a positive relationship. Children who are what an adult might consider "too friendly with strangers" will likely regard you at this level on first impression.
• 40-50%:This is on the cusps of where the system will officially regard you as this person's "friend" for the friendliness achievement, and attitudes will reflect this, although it has not quite crossed this boundary. The lifie will be at the level where they certainly feel they can be close enough. Whether or not the lifie themselves calls you a friend depends on their personality. Young kids will call you their friend as low as 20%, but the majority of teens or those who are not quite sure what friendship means might call you a friend starting at 40%. It is an adult or someone with a firm dividing line in their minds for what counts as a "true friend" who will conform to the system's 50% mark.
• 50-60%:This has freshly crossed the line of what the system regards as a "friend." At this range, the lifie will regard you as a close member of their social circle and is likely to actively advocate for you. They regard you as part of their "group" and thus deserving of far better treatment than anyone who is not "in" the group. The manner in which this relationship takes depends on the social dynamic between you. If "trust" is below 50%, there will be a behavioral correction that takes the lifie's behavior a little closer to the 50% mark due to their positive disposition toward you. This effect is more pronounced the lower below 50% the trust stat is (includes if it goes negative into the fear range.) (4th wall note, interpreting what "a little closer" means is up to writer's interpretation.)
• 60-70%:The lifie will regard you as a good friend. The friendliness is still at the level of "part of the social circle," but you have moves closer to their inner circle at this level. The lifie will advocate harder for you than they will for their more casual friends and will feel more comfortable around you. (Increases the small trust adjustment)
• 70-80%:At this range, the lifie will feel as though their relationship to you obligates them to do things they otherwise wouldn't consider for anyone else. This includes supporting you when your life is having difficulties, or when you make what they consider to be bad decisions. If the trust/fear range has entered the "fear" side of the equation, the lifie will still actively stick around. If submissive, they will make excuses for your behaviors that make them fearful. If dominant, they will attempt to correct your behavior. Either way, they will also be forgiving of things that they probably shouldn't be. This lifie will even be willing to do things that push the boundaries of their moral code to accommodate you, even facilitating these activities.
• 80-90%:At this range, a lifie's positive disposition toward you crosses into ranges most would consider psychologically unhealthy. The lifie will have developed something of a psychological attachment to you. They will have a fierce loyalty to you. If you have done things people would consider positive for your part in this relationship, the depths of their obsession with you might go unnoticed. However, if you act in a negative manner that violates the person's trust, the extents to which they will go to forgive you will simply astound people. They will be able to forgive anything short of potentially-deadly violence or especially repulsive non-consensual sexual actions. (In other words, raping this lifie themselves, or even one of this lifie's friends and family will be forgiven, but they might think differently if it was an underage member of their family and said family member was particularly traumatized.)
• >90%:Little to be added at this level, this level of friendliness will be the aspects of the previous level taken to a greater extreme. Forgiveness of negative actions will extend to literally any action, and they will be willing to actively cover up or even facilitate these acts.

Enemy

• <10%:At this range, the lifie will have decided that for some etherial reason they can't quite put their fingers on, they just don't quite like you. Will behave toward you in a manner that possesses a little less respect or good will than the way they treat most other people they meet on a day-to-day basis.
• 10-20%:At this range, the lifie will start showing their negative regard for you. The degree of this negative regard depends on the nature of your social relationship. They will become actively antagonistic with snippy comments, and maybe pass you up for common courtesy things in a mean-spirited way. However, their antagonism will not cross any lines that will make it overtly obvious to the casual 3rd party observer. Comes with about a 5% trust penalty.
• 20-30%:At this range, the lifie will be antagonistic toward you to a degree that it can be regarded as social bullying. Even casual 3rd parties will begin to recognize the nastiness this person is showing toward you, but people who have positive regard toward the lifie will be able to find some sort of excuse to dismiss it. The level of antagonism is not to the degree that the lifie would go out of their way to single you out (this requires "enemy" above 50%,) however their behavior will be easily noticeable.
• 30-40%:At this range, the lifie's antagonistic behaviors will be easily noticed by others. Whether or not they feel the need to intervene with this will depend on the nature of the relationships, but this is the level to which a school counselor or manager at work would take each participant aside and ask what is going on.
• 40-50%:At this range, the life's attitude toward you will begin to contain some actual malice. They will begin wanting to actually cause you physical or psychological harm, and will begin going out of their way to cause it and feel justified in doing so.
• 50-60%:This crosses the official line where the "enemy" status will be placed on the relationship between you and this life. This lifie will begin singling you out from others for the sake of their bullying or malicious acts, and put some real thought into ways to make you suffer. This would be regarded more as targeted bullying rather than anything more serious, but 3rd parties who see what is going on will find themselves disturbed by it. The level of threat perceived by 3rd parties scales by age category of the lifie holding this enemy status toward you.
• 60-70%:The level of the lifie's malice toward you will increase to a point where they are willing to knowingly cause property destruction of items of sentimental value or things that are not easily replaced, and otherwise crossing lines that would be considered low-grade felonies in order to cause you harm.
• 70-80%:Lifie will have a personal vendetta against you, considering you some kind of real threat that needs to be dealt with in some way. This attitude will justify in their mind any harm that they cause to you that is well beyond the lines they would typically be willing to cross. This is the degree of "enemy" status that dictators attempting to incite a genocide will need to get the majority of the population to in order to start up this kind of action. The willingness to kill will be there at this level, but requires social support for them to cross that line.
• 80-90%:The Lifie's hatred toward you at this point will have crossed into a self-destructive state of obsession. They will be willing to go way over the line for the sake of causing harm to you and anyone connected to you, all for the sake of making you suffer. This is the stage where they will consider not only murder, but they will also begin considering creative and vindictive ways to go about it that push their personality into darker and darker places. They still will require some kind of support or permission or someone egging them on to cross the line. This "permission" can also take the form of a perceived credible threat of you doing something they regard as justifying their action. However, they will not cross the line for no reason at all.
• >90%:All aspects of the previous range taken to a greater extreme. In this range, the lifie may consider crossing into unspeakable acts with no support or "permission" at all. They will simply do it just because of their own sheer malice.

Dominant / Submissive range

The dominant / submissive range regards how the power relationship between you and the lifie is perceived by the lifie themselves, and where they place themselves relative to you. Whether or not the lifie has a dominant or submissive attitude in the first place will pre-despose them to where they will gravitate when they first encounter you, and there are several other social aspects that will influence this dominance/submission evaluation. (for instance, adults will always be predisposed toward dominance over a child, more so for adults with a caretaker position over said child.)

NOTE: Any use of Life Hack to change aspects about yourself will cause any already established dominance/submission relationships to become extremely volitile and subject to rapid change for the next few interactions between you and a given lifie as the system attempts to re-calibrate according to new attributes. Use of cheats will cause similar volatility even to new relationships, especially if interactions boarder into areas directly related to your cheat.

Dominant

NOTE: When caretakers of a child of a certain age-range is used as an example, parents will typically be on the slightly lower end of it (above the 5% mid-line) while babysitters, teachers, or other caretakers will be on the higher end of the range (above the 5% mid-line) due to the shorter time exposure and having the energy to be more stubborn about their dominance where as parents are more likely to give in due to not wanting to butt heads too much.

• <10%:Lifie will show confidence toward you and not regard themselves as under you in any way. This is the standard default relationship of any lifie who has a confident personality and means they actually regard you as an equal. They will not feel that they can tell you what to do, but do not feel you have the right to tell them what to do either.
• 10-20%:This range is about equivalent to what a friendly and accommodating person will feel is the relationship between themselves and a service person. They will feel that they have some right to tell you what to do and you are obligated to do it, but they will also feel they need to be agreeable in their interactions and that you would be completely in your rights to refuse them and become angry if they were to be rude to you.
• 20-30%:This is the beginning of where the lifie will feel they have power over you. This is about equivalent to a friendly boss and their employees, or between a parent and their adult children. They will feel you have absolutely no right to tell them what to do, but if they tell you what to do then there is an obligation that you do it. However, there is still an element of friendliness and being accommodating about it where they will be very willing to listen to your input and opinion and may even be swayed by it. However, for you to get your way in the relationship you are obligated to justify your stance.
• 30-40%:This is the range typical of an adult parent/teacher/other adult in a caretaker position who is responsible for a teen-aged child. They would feel that they are obligated to maintain some form of control over you depending on the nature of your trust/fear relationship. If "trust" is high though, then they will feel that they can be friendly and accommodating if only because they feel they can trust you not to violate your place in the dominance relationship. Will not be well disposed to you telling them what to do at all, but will be likely to accept requests in accordance with friendliness relationship.
• 40-50%:This is the range typical of an adult caretaker over a child of elementary or middle school age. Will let you have your way, but it is always through the form of asking permission first making it clear that they are always in control. Typically such a relationship is firmly defined by a list of permissions they have given you and by your willingness to act within the permissions they have set up. However, the range of these permissions will tend to be rather reasonable and allow you quite a bit of freedom. If you are an adult, this would be regarded as a somewhat mildly abusive relationship unless there is some form of consensual BDSM relationship.
• 50-60%:This is the range typical of a somewhat controlling but still friendly parent over a misbehaving child they feel they have to give more "guidance" to. This relationship is defined by firm boundaries and the dominant lifie will keep tabs on you, wanting to make sure you are "behaving" within the bounds of the permissions they have given you. If you are a teen, this would be regarded as a controlling parent.
• 60-70%:This is the range typical of a babysitter over an elementary age child, or an adult over a toddler. The relationship is defined over a strict set of permissions designed to keep things exactly as the dominant party expects them to be, and the dominant party will be constantly keeping tabs on you to make sure the rules are followed. Maintaining this level of dominance requires a lot of energy on the dominant party's behalf, and so it is typically not held for extended periods of time in any form of healthy relationship and even BDSM relationships only see this level of dominance by the dominant partner in short bursts during the foreplay portion of some roleplay. As such, it is only maintained for toddlers who really might create trouble without this level of scrutiny, or by less experienced teen babysitters who don't realize they are doing more than is necessary and only need to keep it up in short bursts anyway.
• 70-80%:This is the range typical of the staff of some form of corporate or government childcare facility over a child or half-way house for reabilitating drug users or mentally infirm patients. This level of dominance requires some form of detatchment as well as by-the-book rules that need to be followed. There is very little if any room for negotiation on the part of the non-dominant party in this relationship, the rules and boundaries of the dominant party are to be followed absolutely. There is some room for freedom in the rules, but the rules are still absolute.
• 80-90%:This is the range typical of the staff of a low-security prison over the inmates or a slave holder over an obedient slave. The non-dominant party has zero room to oppose the dominant, but can ask for permission for things that are reasonable to request. Privilages and freedoms are greatly restricted, and all orders are expected to be followed immediately.
• >90%:This is the range typical of the staff of a high-security prison over the inmates or a slave holder who is trying to break a willful or disobedient slave. Holds all of the exceedingly strict restrictions of the previous range with the addition of almost constant monitoring and the dominant party asserts active measures to micro-manage every single aspect of every hour in the non-dominant party's day. Even asking permissions for simple things like using the bathroom or getting a drink of water are subjected to extreme scrutiny.

4th wall note: Inga Cole, the mother of this story, has a dominance relationship of 90% over all her children. This is a result of her having a naturally dominant personality combined with her reaction to having discovered that Charity was sexually molesting her younger siblings. Her extreme dominance toward Xander interacts with the higher trust and friendliness in the form of her expecting him to keep tabs on his sister for her and holding him partially responsible if anything goes wrong in the house. She expects him to be something like an extension of her own will to keep the family in line while she's away, which is the nature of the tight boundaries she holds him to. The more he keeps the rest of the house in order, the more friendly toward him and likely to grant him permissions she is.

Submissive

NOTE: Due to the nature of this category, there will be some additional information in the form of what kinds of things the submissive party will feel obligated to do for the dominant party on their word alone.

• <10%: