Thanks for the feedback!
In particular, a better relationship usually mean "ok you can do that to me next time" and then ghosting the officer really made me laugh! I didn't think of it that way, but you're definitely right. I'll have to think about it, but I kind of like it. You gatta use the officers, instead of letting them use you.
Someone else also mentioned the 70%, 80%, 90% setup, so there's definitely some weight behind it. My thinking currently is that 100% is okay for easy, because easy is just there to teach you the gameplay loop. Hard is at 60%, because when the game was first released, there weren't any difficulty levels, and 60% (and 5 days) was the only setting. I keep it because I'm sentimental about it, but if it is really unfun, because you feel like you can't make meaningful decisions anymore, then I do think I should change it. My feeling is that hard shouldn't be beatable. It should be more about seeing how far you can get. But again, that journey still needs to be fun.
Thank you for saying that you like the writing. That really is my biggest anxiety. :)