admingirl

Hi HN,

I'm a college student, and this is an MVP I built to help people identify patterns of emotional manipulation—things like gaslighting, guilt-tripping, boundary erosion, etc.

It’s very much a prototype, not a finished product. I know it doesn’t capture the full complexity of these behaviors yet, but I wanted to ship early and learn fast. The idea is to treat emotional pattern recognition more like debugging—accessible, structured, and useful.

Would love feedback on the concept, the UX, or even whether something like this should exist in the first place.

I’m in my early twenties, still early. I know the goals sound ambitious, but I’m serious about them and moving fast. Appreciate the reminder, most people who really move the needle aren’t loud about it. They’re just sharp and consistent.

Yes, thank you for calling this out. It’s so easy to fall into the “solo genius” myth. I’m aiming for range, not virality. I'd rather build things that last than chase a highlight reel. Survivorship bias is real.

You’re totally right, systems at scale aren’t solo efforts. I think my goal is to be the kind of engineer who can prototype ambitious ideas from scratch, understand all the layers, and be dangerous across the stack. Also really appreciate the reminder about soft skills. I'm starting to realize that being able to talk to people and translate messy needs into clean systems might be more rare than knowing five frameworks.

This is fire. I know exactly what you mean by “the burn”, that restless energy in your chest that makes you have to figure it out, even at 2am. I’ve felt it. Still learning how to stay lit without burning out, but this spoke to me. Thank you.

It would be cool if the pattern to solve the maze has both people's initials/names in it.