[tl;dr] Have you planned for your retirement? (A confession and a proposal)

Day 3,246, 13:00 • Published in USA USA • by fingerguns

Pfeiffer,

This is a confession. None of this will come as a surprise to you, since you’ve always known the truth of things. But for all the things I have said in the media, there is so much more I haven’t said. The sun is setting and I want to get this out there while there are still a couple people around to read it.

Once upon a time you pursued me pretty hard. You wrote a series of articles singing my praises and making me offers it was very difficult to refuse- a newb program, fame and power, part of Canada. You did this when the game was probably its most active, and this courtship was witnessed by over a thousand people and triggered hundreds of comments. Had I not already had one foot out the eRep door for RL reasons and been a totally selfish coward, who knows what could’ve been. As it was, I made my choice. I saw an opportunity that was wholly political to help my party in my absence. While things were pretty good between us, the same could not be said for our parties and quite honestly I worried that the Feds would never be able to get over that final hurdle and become the top party in the country. Rejecting you caused some problems for the Feds, but it also helped get them there.

I’m still not sure if I regret what I did for my party, but I regret how I did it. I was cruel to you as a person and basically nuked our RL friendship. I waited until you were all the way out on that limb before I cut it down. I was also unfair to who you are as a player. I accused you of ‘rigging elections’ without ever clarifying what that meant. I said I hated the way you played the game without putting it into any kind of context. I left it intentionally vague because I wanted people to hate you. I wanted them to fill in the blanks with their darkest thoughts and project their worst fears. You’re not A polarizing figure, you are THE polarizing figure. My intention was to draw a very clear line in the sand. You are either with Pfeiffer or you are against him. I was betting on more people being against you (especially after my article) and that would be the tide that took the Feds to the top.

Gah, saying that out loud... ugh.


Basically, I’m a garbage person


I mean, I guess in that regard, I was successful. You are still the line in the sand. We just went through two consecutive elections where people have already forgotten who you were running against. It didn’t matter. It only mattered what people think of you. I keep being reminded of the role I played in this. Not just in rejecting your proposal, but in banning you from my party’s forum and helping to create this ‘Pfeiffer as a super-villain’ narrative. The 3 year old threads where your banishment was decided were recently excavated and I couldn’t help but laugh. For any of you reading this who are not in the Feds, the reason he was banned from the Fed forum was literally because he was so helpful to new players. I felt threatened by it. CLEARLY he was up to something. The narrative I helped create- that you are this immoral monster who will exploit anything and anyone to gain a shred of power, had fully taken off. Your temporary time out did not expire before I had to leave the game and therefore it was still in tact when I came back 3 years later. Nobody could remember why it was there. “Pfeiffer being Pfeiffer” is what they keep saying. It’s what I used to say. Again, it allowed people to fill in the blanks.

I drudge up all of this again only to put into perspective what a major thing I think it was for you to forgive me. I did you wrong. I did you very wrong. We had become very good friends and we worked together very well, and throughout most of that time I was planning to double cross you. I came on board as your VP to discover all the dirty details of how you cheat- only to find out you weren’t. You rally people who aren’t paying attention and get them to start paying attention. That’s not illegal. That’s not bad. That’s just more than most are willing to do. I referred to this as ‘rigging elections’ because you want to be as certain as possible what the outcome will be ahead of time. Even if you think you have a decent chance of winning, you want to leave no doubt. You don’t want surprises. At a time when we were doing UNITY elections, this meant drumming up votes in every top 5 Party...including my party. I didn’t like that. I’m still not fond of that tactic even when people in my own party do it to my own party. I believe the active players should be the ones making the decisions. But I seem to be the weird one on that front, not you. We have witnessed a number of zombie uprisings in the Feds, and not because we were in danger of being PTO’d, but just because some people didn’t really like whoever was running.

I see how these methods are just part of the game. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it. It’s just campaigning. It can actually be a very good thing as it can bring people back to the game. I took an ‘icky feeling’ I had about a campaign tactic that is now widely employed and led people to believe there was something legitimately unethical happening, without ever saying what.



It looks like a new Pfeiffer conspiracy!



I also called you a bully, which I won’t even try to defend because everyone knows this about you. You are lawful neutral. You follow very strict principles and codes and people who violate these things are in for a world of pain. You have no tolerance for it. This is actually a great quality about you if one happens to be on your side. It makes you a stalwart leader, a loyal friend and a fierce defender. If they are on the other side of an argument, however, you are relentless in shutting them down. I remember when I took away your pdb access. You were extreeemely pissed off. I painted you as being a petulant child. I even described it as an ‘Oblige-eclipsing hissy fit.’ That was unfair of me, and another thing for which I needed forgiveness. I mean, you did act that way, but it’s for my own childish reasons that I took it away in the first place. I never liked the idea of us being so closely associated in other people’s eyes (a trait I find disgusting in others that I am super guilty of). I didn’t mind so much being your Vice President, but if I’m in the driver’s seat I don’t want there to be any question about who is running the show. I am very much my own woman and my own player. I didn’t want to be thought of as a Pfeiffer puppet and I went to extreme lengths to leave no doubt.

That strong independent woman persona was so important to me that I shit all over someone who had only ever been my friend and helped me out when there was little to be gained. And then I made fun of you for being upset about it. These are not the only examples I have of not caring at all about your feelings and just doing whatever I thought would be best for fingerguns or the Feds. In a lot of ways I can say I always played this game honestly and with integrity...until the subject of you comes up.

I didn’t think I would ever come back to this game. I didn’t think I would ever talk to you, specifically, ever again. I didn’t think I would ever have to own up to what I did or face the consequences of the situation I helped create. I thought it was all behind me. When, out of nowhere, eRep entered my life again, you were the last person I wanted to talk to and literally the only person I needed to talk to if I was going to stick around.

You would not have been out of line if you told me to go f**k myself. It would have been perfectly justified for you to come at me with everything you had, totally embarrass me and drive me out of the game. If you were even half of the monster I made you out to be, you could’ve lit me up. You have a lot of material to work with. Or if I had truly broken you, your friends would’ve told me to go away. And I would have.

What I got instead was, “It’s been 3 years. I’m over it. I forgive you. How have you been?”



How dare you forgive me.


It was like getting punched in the heart. Even after all of that, you were still a better friend to me than I ever was to you. This is a game you love and you have been invested in for years. I can take or leave it. I come and go. I am deeply invested in my little pockets of things, but this is your game. And I screwed it up for you. I am a big part of why so many people in this game totally despise you but don’t really know why. If there is anything in eRep that is actually deserving of a years old grudge, surely this would be it. But you were just happy to see me. You were cautious about what I was up to, naturally, but still happy to see me.

I resolved immediately to play things the right way this time. It’s just a game and you are my friend. There is nothing in this game and nothing about this game that is more important than actual friendship and having fun with people you genuinely like. I can’t undo anything I did. Even now there will be people who read this and think I am working some angle toward some nefarious...something. But f**k those people. You know the truth and I know the truth. And this is, ultimately, about us.

Let me get to the real point.

You wanted to be a power couple. I can’t offer you that because we don’t have any power. My last term as PP is coming to a close and that’s all I had left. You’re in Congress, but that’s not really power and that will wrap up soon, too. I can’t imagine that you would take another run at CP after seeing the lengths people will go to to keep you out. There are really no new players to help and we can’t even take Canada anymore. We’re just two regular players in the eUS, fighting like hell to combat the ennui.

That fight is so much easier when we’re together.



I originally wrote two different responses to your proposal. One was the epic ‘hell no’ that everyone knows about. The other was what I actually wanted to say, if I didn’t feel so obligated to make decisions as this fingerguns persona I had built and I wasn’t so concerned about what I would leave behind for the Feds when I left the game. Reading it again, there is one phrase that is repeated multiple times and it’s as true now as it was then- I trust you. We have a lot of fun together but I also trust you more than anyone else in this game. You are the one person I know for a fact would never betray me. If I have any regrets it’s only that you can’t say the same thing about me. That’s a mark against my character I will always be ashamed of and it’s a mistake I will never repeat. Believe that.

3 years is a long time. A lot has changed. The game has changed. We are 3 years older in our actual lives. Our priorities are different now. When you came after me before you said there were no more mountains left for us to climb, so that has gotta be suuuper true now. We’ve done the things we’re going to do. We are in our golden years. I want you to spend them with me.

I don’t have a plan. There is no strategy here. We’ve been asked to visit some other nations. That could be fun! I’ve never really been anywhere but here or done anything other than be a Fed, but I am ready to become Pfeifferguns full-time, if you’ll have me. To me, that really just means having a lot of fun (no butt stuff) and going where the wind takes us. Shutting out the stupid and just having a blast together- doing the streams and hanging out with fun people. Maybe doing politics, maybe not. But whatever it is we end up doing, we do it together.

This isn't as romantic as it should be. This isn't the super big deal you deserve. But, I hope you're into it anyway.

So… what do you say? We won’t be a power couple, but we could be a couple.

Pfeiffer, will you eMarry me?




I know this is going to get trolled and I don’t even care.
I just want to have fun in this game.