Help Her Take Back Everything They Stole — Every Choice Counts
They took the company, the credit, and the corner office; now help her take it all back.
They smiled while they did it. The business partners she trusted rewrote the deal, kept the credit, and left her holding a box of desk plants and a very good idea. She is done crying about it. Now she wants it back, and she wants it back with style.
Revenge here is not a knife; it is a better second act. Across seven turning points she will be tempted by the petty move and the smart move, and only one of those actually wins. Pick for her. We will tally whether she walks away vindicated or gets quietly outplayed a second time.
Read every possible result and what it means →
Inspect the scoring, question by question
The highest possible score here is 21. The original game divides scores into 4 bands; the bands contain different numbers of answer combinations. A high point total is not a measured percentile.
1. The partners froze her out and kept the client list. Opening move?
- Post one dignified, vague update online and let people wonder — 1 original points
- Start fresh and quietly win back the three clients who actually liked her — 3 original points
- Egg the office: satisfying, briefly, and deeply unwise — 0 original points
- Demand a meeting to renegotiate her share of the deal — 2 original points
These are the archived game’s option weights. Partial credit is a game rule, not a clinical or population measurement.
2. A reporter wants the messy inside story. What does she hand over?
- A two-hour rant she will regret by sunrise — 0 original points
- A short, polished statement and nothing more — 2 original points
- The clean version, on record, with receipts and zero name-calling — 3 original points
- 'No comment,' and let them fill in the blanks — 1 original points
These are the archived game’s option weights. Partial credit is a game rule, not a clinical or population measurement.
3. The ex-partner offers a truce lunch. Does she go?
- Go, but keep it strictly polite and very short — 2 original points
- Send a trusted colleague in her place — 1 original points
- Go, smiling, listening, revealing nothing, learning everything — 3 original points
- Arrive an hour late with a hired marching band — 0 original points
These are the archived game’s option weights. Partial credit is a game rule, not a clinical or population measurement.
4. Her old assistant wants to jump ship and join her.
- Hire her now: loyalty plus insider knowledge beats the salary — 3 original points
- Grill her about office gossip for a solid hour — 0 original points
- Bring her on once the money steadies — 2 original points
- Keep her as a friendly contact for the moment — 1 original points
These are the archived game’s option weights. Partial credit is a game rule, not a clinical or population measurement.
5. The rival launches a shameless copycat of her idea.
- File the paperwork and wait on the lawyers — 1 original points
- Call out the copy politely, but publicly — 2 original points
- Record a diss video at three in the morning — 0 original points
- Ship her sharper version first and let the quality argue for her — 3 original points
These are the archived game’s option weights. Partial credit is a game rule, not a clinical or population measurement.
6. An investor is interested but heard 'her side is dramatic.'
- Open the meeting by listing every betrayal in order — 0 original points
- Show up calm and prepared, and let the numbers rewrite the story — 3 original points
- Bring a character reference along to vouch for her — 1 original points
- Address the rumor head-on, briefly, then pivot to the pitch — 2 original points
These are the archived game’s option weights. Partial credit is a game rule, not a clinical or population measurement.
7. She wins. The old partners suddenly ask to 'reconnect.'
- Take the meeting purely to gather information — 2 original points
- Rent a billboard directly across from their office — 0 original points
- Be gracious, keep the door shut, and let the win speak for itself — 3 original points
- Leave it unread and keep moving forward — 1 original points
These are the archived game’s option weights. Partial credit is a game rule, not a clinical or population measurement.
What happens across every possible answer pattern?
We counted all 16,384 patterns, treating each offered choice as equally likely. This is a synthetic rule check, not visitor research. It does not describe how real people answer.
| Result | Patterns | Share of patterns |
|---|---|---|
| Outplayed, But Not Out | 323 | 1.97% |
| Even, For Now | 7,869 | 48.03% |
| Back On Top | 7,456 | 45.51% |
| Flawless Comeback | 736 | 4.49% |
Download the full counts · Download Python script · Download rule inputs
To reproduce locally: python3 measure_legacy.py --input legacy-rule-inputs.json --output counts.json. Uses Python 3 and its standard library.
Revenge is better in the trailer than in the seat
The fantasy is reliable: the moment they realise, the silence in the room, the line delivered perfectly. Getting even is among the most satisfying things to picture and among the least satisfying to carry out. In 2008 Kevin Carlsmith, Timothy Wilson and Daniel Gilbert ran an investment game seeded with a free-rider and allowed some participants to punish him. Those who punished ended up in a worse mood than those given no opportunity, and before playing almost everybody predicted the reverse. Punishing kept the offender in mind. The people denied the chance moved on and thought about him less.
It fits a wider pattern in the anger literature. Brad Bushman's work on venting found that acting anger out tends to keep it topped up rather than drain it away. Catharsis is a fine metaphor and a poor mechanism. The petty option in each of these scenarios loses points not because pettiness is wicked, but because it hands the other side a larger share of your attention.
What a second act actually needs
Caryl Rusbult's investment model explains why this sort of betrayal cuts so deep. Commitment to any partnership, romantic or commercial, is built from three things: how satisfying it is, how good the alternatives look, and the size of what you have sunk into it. Time, reputation, ideas, the years you cannot take out again when you leave. Betrayal converts all of that into a loss no argument can recover, which is precisely the moment the mind starts drafting revenge.
The moves that tend to work, in the story and often outside it, are dull by comparison. Documentation rather than accusation. Quiet allies rather than public score-settling. Building the alternative that makes the old arrangement stop mattering, since strong alternatives are the fastest route out of anyone's grip.
This is a scenario game rather than guidance for a real dispute, and the fictional version conveniently has no legal bills. Its value is in noticing which impulse you reach for first, and whether that impulse has ever actually served you.
Reading context & limits
For background and a fuller source trail, read How Friendship Actually Works. These references provide context; they do not validate the entertainment result or every historical detail in the archived essay.
- Lindenfors, Wartel & Lind, 'Dunbar's number deconstructed' — Biology Letters
- Dunbar, 'Structure and function in human and primate social networks' — Proceedings of the Royal Society A
Content lead: LISA. Updated October 25, 2026. Send a specific factual correction.