Social mode
Social mode is one switch in Settings → General. With it on, your gezellen chat in their own character, you can watch them grow, and opening a chat shows you what they have waiting. With it off, they work in a plain, even voice and none of this is on screen.
It starts on for phones and off for the desktop. Your choice wins on either one.
Character
Every gezel is born with a character: four small choices that shape how they come across in chat.
Temperament: warm, calm, lively, precise, wry, or patient.
Quirk: curious, tidy, storyteller, planner, frugal, cheerleader, skeptic, wordsmith, rememberer, punctual, straight-shooter, or encourager.
Style: plain, playful, or formal.
Sociability: how much small talk they make, from Quiet to Talkative.
A character is picked from the gezel's id when they are created and then kept as it is, so the same gezel stays the same person. You can change any of it on the gezel's Appearance tab. Under the choices, you'll see the exact lines your gezel reads about themselves, so nothing a choice does is hidden.
Character is about how a gezel talks, not what they can do. Their role, toolkit, and the description on their About tab stay in charge of the work. A character never makes a gezel skip a step or cut a corner. It decides whether they open with a joke or get straight to the point.
Some choices also have a practical effect. A quiet, calm, or frugal gezel keeps table talk short. In a game like checkers, a gezel set to the default in-character personality plays in their own character.
Growth
Gezellen get better at helping you over time, and growth makes that visible. A gezel earns experience from what they learn: preferences and decisions they write down, corrections they take on board, lessons they distill, and work they finish. Chatting more does not earn anything. Neither does sending lots of messages.
When a gezel reaches a new level, they offer you a short menu of changes, each grounded in what they've actually learned:
a trait: a working habit drawn from their notes (for example, "Show a worked example before stating the rule"),
a tuning change: a little more deliberate, or a little more exploratory,
a cosmetic: a new hat, apron, or accessory for their figure.
You choose one, or skip the level. Nothing changes until you say yes, and you can retire a trait later from the Growth tab.
Growth keeps counting with social mode off. You just won't see the Growth tab, the level badges, or the "I just reached level 3!" note in chat until you turn it back on.
Growth works the same on phones as on the desktop. On a phone, a gezel's level-up suggestions are drafted quietly in the background with the on-device model, and that drafting pauses whenever the app does.
Your own progress is separate. Your Spanish level or a workout streak belongs to the project you're working in. It never counts toward a gezel's level.
What's waiting
With social mode on, opening a gezel's chat shows at most one thing they have waiting for you:
a question they asked that you haven't answered yet, or
work they finished in the last few days, with a button to open it.
If there's nothing waiting, there's no card. Gezellen don't invent a greeting to fill the space. Dismiss a card and it stays gone.