anyone know why these white boxes are there

[savagepants]

[Crashdown117]

Normally, these are from missing strings, i.e. the game doesn't know what text to put there. From my experience, this is most often caused by a missing or broken translation, mainly with mod interactions or debug options.

Since this particular case appears to be related to regular interactions, I would suggest trying to run the game without any mods (just disable them from the game settings). If the issue persists, repair the game via Origin / verify file integrity via Steam. Otherwise, 50/50 through your mods to find the culprit (an explanation of this method can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/finding-broken-4-23751034).