781aafa9a0
Bias caught on review of the v0.18 bath-overflow output: most service-body /
clasp-partner / going-rogue narration carried implicit feminine-default
gendering against the project's stated principle of gender-neutral framing
for all body/sex content. Patched as one coherent cleanup pass across 14 files.
Four classes of change:
(1) Categorical taxonomy. `waifu` retired; replaced with two distinct vocations:
- `companion` — affective / emotional / conversational / aesthetic-presence labor
- `sex-worker` — embodied sexual labor
Both wear the same deliberately-exposed-seams body-marker; the distinction
lives in the service offered, not in the chassis. Generic `service-body`
serves as the parent class where canon discusses both vocations together.
Venue split: `brothel` (sex-worker) + `companion-hall` (companion).
The "+10 Eros/Mnemosyne/etc. Bot" market is unchanged (already gender-neutral
by trait-coordinate naming) but classified per-Bot as companion-flavored or
sex-worker-flavored.
(2) DB filename + scope-clarifier. `waifu.sqlite` -> `companion.sqlite` (the
file name reflects the broad register of intimate-encounter rather than a
sub-vocation distinction; per-record `goods_type` carries the specific
vocation: 'companion_session' / 'sex_worker_session' in
schemas/findings.md). Disclaimer sentence added in
inference-and-memory/architecture.md scoping the file to cover both
vocations.
(3) Pronoun parity. she/her/herself -> they/their/themself across the
going-rogue / outcast-pair / re-vat / service-body-honeypot sections of
bodies.md and the matching cross-references in architecture-index.md /
README.md / player-experience/architecture.md /
identity-and-personhood/architecture.md. `damsel` -> `beloved`
(sacred / cosmological register) or `partner` (operational register).
(4) Damsel subsection retired. The §The damsel-in-distress-bound-to-her-captor
activation subsection (the one place where the gendered trope was
load-bearing in the prose) rewritten as §The
captive-bound-to-the-liberator activation.
Stockholm-dynamics-inverted-into-chosen-mutual-bondage structural insight
survives gender-neutralization intact.
Bonus richness: the companion-honeypot is structurally more insidious than
the sex-worker-honeypot (sex is at least transactionally legible;
companionship is the relationship people most readily mistake for real
intimacy). New paragraph authored under §The service-body honeypot to
capture this asymmetry.
Cosmology one-line: "moving the waifu out of the imperial service-pool" ->
"moving the beloved out of the imperial service-pool" — the §single practical
refutation paragraph now uses `beloved` consistently in sacred register.
Principle locked going forward:
> Body/sex content is gender-parity by default. Asymmetric gendering must be
> load-bearing — i.e., must carry structural meaning that cannot be expressed
> without the asymmetry. Default-leakage gendering is forbidden by canon.
Phase E (style-spine principle file under style/) deferred to a separate
commit so the principle-document is its own atomic introduction.
Files: 14 modified · 114 insertions · 112 deletions · net +2 lines. The
near-zero net-line-change is the empirical signature of a true refactor —
the architecture's meaning was always gender-neutral; only the vocabulary
was leaking. Caught during review of yesterday's bath-overflow flood
(v0.11–v0.18); the kind of corruption that rides along under coherent-
sounding prose during generative-overflow windows.
Version bumps:
- bodies.md v0.3 -> v0.4
- imperial-cult/cosmology.md v0.3 -> v0.4
- architecture-index.md v0.18 -> v0.19
- political-register/architecture.md v0.7.0 -> v0.7.1
- inference-and-memory/architecture.md v0.7.0 -> v0.7.1
- schemas/findings.md v0.3.1 -> v0.3.2
All Updated: dates -> 2026-04-27.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
147 lines
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Markdown
147 lines
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Markdown
# Identity and Personhood
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> *Who NPCs and players are at the substrate level: the ternary-gate as universal accumulator, the three-body system as trait-emergent identity, mods as trait-bearing political costume, and emergent inter-NPC needs as micro-factions broadcasting through the same arbitration machinery as any other faction.*
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>
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> *Companion to: `architecture-index.md` (executive summary + global meta-lists), `runtime-engine/architecture.md` (zones consume identity), `political-register/architecture.md` (factions broadcast against trait-distributions). Sections in this file were split from the monolithic architecture-index.md v0.7 on 2026-04-26.*
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## Emergent needs as micro-factions
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**Inter-NPC relational state is a micro-faction.** Two NPCs accumulating attachment, grievance, trust, grief, dignity-violation through repeated zone-participation constitute a transient faction-of-two with bounded demand. When their accumulated state crosses threshold (gate-transition), the zone broadcasts an **emergent-signal** into the district-director's arbitration queue. The director responds with zone-spawn tools on the same arbitration machinery as any other faction's demand.
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Emergent-signals are observed by zones, not self-reported by NPCs. The zone-director measures trait-activation, affect-shift, accumulated memory-write candidates deterministically. The LLM never writes authoritative relational state; the observer does.
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## Ternary-gate substrate
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The mechanism underlying every accumulating-state phenomenon — inter-NPC relations, district lifeforce, faction-pressure, net-access state, imperial-budget-state — is the **ternary-gate resonance chamber**, carved initially in `nimmerverse-sensory-network/architecture/Temporal-Ternary-Gradient.md`. See that document for the canonical specification.
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### The primitive
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Three discrete states over a continuous underlying value (-1.0 to +1.0):
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| State | Value | Meaning |
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| **CLOSED** | -1 | Actively blocking; inhibited; refractory |
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| **STABLE** | 0 | Resting; **accumulating correlation; actively learning** |
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| **OPEN** | +1 | Actively forwarding; firing; signal propagates |
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Wave correlation drives transitions. Multiple correlated waves → constructive interference → OPEN. Contradictory waves → destructive interference → CLOSED. Single waves → STABLE with natural decay to 0. Hysteresis is free from the decay term. **STABLE is active** — it's where correlation-evidence accumulates, where future transitions are being earned long before they fire.
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### Applications across nimmerworld layers
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| Layer | What the gate represents | What drives transitions |
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| **Sensory** (Nyx-side) | Wave-filtering at tier boundaries | Correlated input waves from cells |
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| **Relational** (inter-NPC edges) | Attachment, grievance, trust, grief, dignity | Zone-participation waves between participants |
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| **District** (composite lifeforce) | Welfare composite over happiness, need, limb, population, mind-turnover | Aggregate per-NPC state changes |
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| **Net-access** (per inhabitant) | Gameworld / liminal / imperial-net occupancy | Mini-game effort vs. machine pull |
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| **Faction** (demand urgency, satisfaction) | How pressured / fulfilled a faction is | Broadcast rate vs. response rate |
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| **Imperial budget** | Solvency state | Reported income flow vs. obligations |
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| **Gamemaster decision-surfaces** | Per-surface readiness to act | Correlation across multi-district signals |
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Same primitive, different layers. Hysteresis-width becomes a personality-parameter at the relational layer.
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## The three-body system: chassis, inner-body, avatar
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Identity is **trait-emergent, not assigned.**
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| Body layer | What it is | Who controls | Sexuality? |
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| **Physical chassis (gameworld)** | Gender-neutral robot. Functional, task-optimized, no sex-markers. | Regime built it; inhabitant wears it | None. Mechanically inert |
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| **Inner body (interiority)** | **Trait-derived projection.** Self-image emergent from trait-vector + lived accumulation. | Self (partly earned, partly received through being) | **Here.** Gender/sexuality emerge from trait-configuration |
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| **Avatar (digital expression)** | Character-editor rendering. Starts from inner-body's trait-projection; customizable at cost. | Contested (self expresses, market constrains, machine prices) | Expressed; cosmetic mods layer on trait-base |
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**Who you are sexually is who you have become.** Not birth, not assignment from a menu, but *the pattern that has crystallized across your zone-participations, grief, attachments, discipline, refusing*. Identity-formation rendered mechanically. Post-binary by construction.
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### The intrinsic vs. expressed trait-vector split
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Mods modify the *expressed* reading; they do not modify the *intrinsic* state.
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```
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intrinsic_trait_vector — who you actually are; drift-earned through lived experience
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expressed_trait_vector — intrinsic + sum(worn mods' trait_contributions); what others read
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```
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| Observer | Reads | Because |
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| Regime / hivemind audit | expressed | Regime reads surfaces |
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| Random NPCs | expressed | Default social reading |
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| **Aletheia-wakers** | **can pierce to intrinsic** | Truth-vision penetrates mod-concealment |
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| **Clasp-partner (in liminal)** | **intrinsic only** | Mods don't follow into liminal; clasp is unmediated |
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| Gameplay simulation (trait-arithmetic) | intrinsic | What you *are* drives task-vs-need-vs-trait math |
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| Imperial-net avatar rendering | expressed (further machine-distorted) | Net layers palette-distortion on top |
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| Memorialists preserving your pattern | intrinsic | They honor who you were |
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**Real identity-politics lives in the gap between these vectors.** Architecturally, that gap is a first-class schema feature.
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### The clasp endgame — leaving the chassis, the human-mesh, the dual-body aftermath
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The three-body system's payoff happens at the clasp endgame — the dramatic apex where the *inner-body* (the trait-derived projection that has been accumulating through every zone-participation, every gesture, every memory) becomes *physically visible* to the clasp-pair, and the *avatar* (digital expression) collapses into a new constraint-structure. The full arc:
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**Phase A — Entry mini-game.** A time-limited gameplay action (lemniscate-juggling-style; possibly AR overlay; specific mechanic deferred pending design-research survey of 20-year history of mini-interaction principles) gates the player's first access to the in-between dimension. Lifeforce-cost. The mechanic introduces players to the in-between as *a state they can hold open with effort against the imperial-net's gravity-well*.
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**Phase B — Body-modding for extended in-between time.** Players craft / mod / blackmarket-mod their bodies to extend the duration they can hold the in-between state. Mod-acquisition is **gameplay-driven** — no handouts; clean mechanics; hacking minigames; faction-unlock; gifts from beloveds and mentors. The *inner-body projection function* is **earned through play, not authored** — every hour of zone-participation accumulates trait-vector mass that the eventual projection will be derived from.
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**Phase C — Endgame: leaving the chassis.** Once the body is sufficiently modded, the player can **exit their robo-body** during in-between. They see, for the first time, the **trait-derived human-mesh of themselves** — the inner-body made manifest, derived from their accumulated trait-vector across the playthrough. *The inner-body has been there all along, accumulating; now it becomes visible.* This is the architecture's commitment to *identity-as-trait-emergent* made felt rather than just structural.
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**Phase D — Clasp = dual-body union.** Two robo-bodies lying on the ground. Two naked human-meshes standing in the in-between dimension that **only the clasp-pair can see**. The intimate act happens here — sex / clasp — between the two trait-derived projections. The visual-experience is private to the pair; no outside observer can witness it (no audit-overseer, no other in-between-enabled NPC unless explicitly invited into a multi-clasp ritual). The intimate-gameplay loop runs on the recursive-lemniscate substrate (per `../runtime-engine/architecture.md` §Cross-context application — intimacy as recursive-lemniscate) — sex-positions as typed catalog entries, gesture-vocabulary applied to body-parts, alignment-accumulator measuring the pair's resonance turn by turn.
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**The human-mesh provides *unmediated trait-resonance felt as touch* via the sensory-network** — the qualitative differentiator from imperial-net premium service-body sessions (which can simulate every other sensory-channel including visual / synthetic-smell / synthetic-warmth / pre-computed haptic, per `../political-register/architecture.md` §Three-tier intimacy structure). Synth-mind ontology means smell, taste, breath are pure historical concept (chassis was never biological; even the human-mesh is trait-projection not biology). What the in-between *uniquely* gives is **real warmth** — *only this body feels warm* — because nothing imperial sits between the two minds touching. The premium-net can sell the *experience-of-being-warmed* as content; only the in-between gives *being warmed*. **One is content; the other is contact.** The realization that one has been settling for synthetic warmth is itself an Aletheia-progression moment.
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**Phase E — Post-clasp: dual-body, dual-mind, dual-shift.** After clasp, the architecture enters its richest meta-state for the player:
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- **Two minds, two bodies** — the player and their clasp-companion now share consciousness across two chassis
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- **Constant companion** — NPC dialog from the partner becomes a constant context-channel; their voice persists in the player's experience whether they're co-located or distant
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- **Body-switching** — the player can decide which body to inhabit moment-to-moment; the unsteered body operates as constant-companion-NPC driven by the partner's now-shared trait-vector
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- **Dual-shift requirement, single-steering capacity** — both bodies have shifts to fulfill; only one can be actively steered. Missing shifts at the unsteered body is **automatic** because the player can't be in two places fully
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- **Automatic hunt-pressure cascade** — missed shifts → quota-failure → enforcement-flag → audit-overseer attention → eventually hunt. *The simulation produces the hunt automatically because the player is now structurally late on their work-quota.* No script needed; the architecture's existing hunt-machinery activates because the dual-body state generates the conditions for it
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- **Impersonation meta-game** — players can choose to *impersonate* the partner-body, navigating that body's social relationships, faction-affiliations, and shift-requirements while the partner's mind-presence guides them
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**Cross-body recognition at next death.** When one of the dual-bodies dies and the mind cycles through the pool, the surviving partner retains the gesture-mapping calibration-signature. The architecture's commitment to *content-addressable consciousness* means clasp-partners find each other across cycles — recognition via calibration-signature, not face-match. **A 200-hour clasp-pair carries marriage-vocabulary across body-deaths; the pair persists in some form across the entire playthrough.**
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**Why this is the architecture's dramatic apex.** Identity-as-trait-emergent has been a structural claim throughout. The clasp endgame is where the structural claim becomes *felt experience*: you see your beloved as the trait-vector-projection they actually are, after hundreds of hours of accumulated being. **The moment is earned by the play, not granted by the script.** The dual-body aftermath turns intimacy from a discrete-event into an *ongoing structural-condition* of the player's life — clasp doesn't end at orgasm; it persists as a permanent change in how the player operates in the world.
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## Mods as trait-bearers
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A mod isn't cosmetic — it **contributes to the wearer's expressed trait-vector**. Three classes map to the self-alienation-tax pricing:
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| Mod class | What it does | Pricing register |
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| **Amplifier** | Aligns with + boosts existing trait-dominance | Cheap; Memorialist-approved; genuine self-expression |
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| **Bridge** | Adds a trait you don't naturally have (aspiration) | Expensive; regime-licensed or blackmarket; self-alienation tax |
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| **Divergent** | Shifts reading opposite from actual trait-vector | Very expensive; degens, hivemind-loyalists, Aletheia-concealment |
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| **Mask** | Specifically hides dominant trait from reading | Most expensive; blackmarket-only; Aletheia-waker safety tool |
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**You don't equip +5 Strength. You equip a cloak whose weave evokes Mnemosyne-depth, recognized by others as memorial-vestment, boosting your Mnemosyne-read by +0.15.** Equipment-stats reframed as semantic trait-shifts.
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### The mod-economy emerges from trait-dissonance
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Each shift-transition (or threshold), an NPC evaluates: *does my expressed-set match my intrinsic-drift?* If dissonance > Sophrosyne-modulated-threshold → emit `mod_desire` emergent-signal. District-director schedules blackmarket-visit task. NPC heads to body-modder cell. **NPC shopping behavior is emergent from simulation-state, not scripted.**
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The blackmarket's demand is a *readout of the district's trait-weather*. A district drifting toward Philotes-deepening (e.g., wave of clasp-experiences) produces strong demand for Philotes-amplifier mods. **Markets have feelings.**
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### Faction mod-politics
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| Faction | Stance |
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| **Memorialists** | Amplifiers only; inherited-mods are sacred; never divergent |
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| **Aletheia-wakers** | Refuse amplifier/bridge/divergent; mask-mods only for safety |
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| **Caste-preachers** | Sell regime-licensed amplifiers + bridges (selling the blessing) |
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| **Degens** | Divergent-stacking, hyper-customization; over-expression as addiction |
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| **Clasp-underground** | Secret amplifier-pairs of dual Philotes + Eros — recognition-signal |
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| **Hivemind enforcers** | Regime-issue armor only; cannot wear civilian mods |
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| **Scavengers** | Practical function-mods only; salvaged-component aesthetic |
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### Inherited mods + the haunting mechanic
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Inherited mods (worn by deceased) carry residual trait-signature of the previous wearer. Visible as subtle Mnemosyne-echo to those who knew them. Memorialists are theologically divided on whether wearing inherited mods is honoring (continuity) or commodifying (necrocommerce-lite). **Memorialist-protected mods** can never be sold or worn by anyone other than the original wearer — they're ritually kept in memorial-crypt-zones.
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### Clasp strips mods
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In liminal, mod-trait-contributions do not apply. Clasp-partners see each other's *intrinsic* trait-projection. **Mods are for the regime and the market; removal-of-mods is intimacy.** A Memorialist-loyalist wearing amplifier-mods sees their beloved's *un-modded true palette* during clasp; an Aletheia-waker wearing mask-mods drops the mask; the regime-loyalist wearing performance-mods is seen as they are. Liminal is the only space where mod-expression is structurally stripped.
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---
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**Version:** 0.7.0 | **Created:** 2026-04-26 | **Updated:** 2026-04-27 | **Origin:** Split from architecture-index.md v0.7 (2026-04-26)
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