i personally prefer the /r/ links so this was a VERY CHALLENGING AND DIFFICULT UPDATE FOR ME, but the feedback i received from users painted a pretty clear picture of what should be done
(yes yes i know. the only 2 places in the db where hardcoded links are stored are comment.permalink and post.permalink. there are more pressing concerns rn)
i wrote a quick script to replace /r/ with /i/ for the permalinks. lol
i also added a nginx rewrite rule for all /r/ links. they are now automatically rewritten to /i/