diff --git a/FIX.org b/FIX.org
index d0f93ab..21105ed 100644
--- a/FIX.org
+++ b/FIX.org
@@ -437,6 +437,56 @@ rename. typed-flan branch freezes the static language pre-dyn.
 All of it dispatches after the x86-dyn lane lands. The struct dyn-field
 refusal (01e60fa) is the stopgap 2 lifts.
 
+** The two models, named 2026-09-19
+With a collector in the runtime, the direction has a shorter statement than
+it used to. The dynamic paths mimic Clojure. The static paths mimic Odin.
+Both carry a little more ML than either of them does.
+
+That is a tiebreaker, not a slogan. A question on the dyn side that Clojure
+has already answered takes Clojure's answer unless there is a reason to
+depart, and the same holds for Odin on the static side. Keywords, maps and
+nil landed under that reasoning without it being written down yet.
+
+Common Lisp is consulted alongside Clojure on the dynamic side, and on some
+questions it is the better authority of the two. The condition system is the
+standing proof: handler-bind, the restarts and invoke-restart are Common
+Lisp, and Clojure has nothing resembling them. handler-case is the same
+lineage — Clojure's try/catch is the shape most reached for, but the form
+being added is Common Lisp's, and it is named for the Lisp rather than the
+Clojure because it is the unwinding half of a pair whose other half is
+already CL's.
+
+Where the two disagree, the question is which one the rest of Flan already
+agrees with. Conditions say Common Lisp. Maps, keywords and nil say Clojure.
+Neither answer generalises to the other's territory.
+
+The ML share is the part neither model supplies — the type system, the
+options, the exhaustive matching, and whatever a second ML surface would
+eventually add if the deferred syntax question ever reopens.
+
+** handler-case, decided 2026-09-19
+Flan has handler-bind, which is the resuming handler: it runs where the
+condition was signalled, with the stack still standing, and carries on by
+invoking a restart. What it has no spelling for is the other half — unwind,
+and answer the whole form with a value. Clojure spells that try/catch and
+reaches for it constantly; the closest thing here is a handler-bind plus a
+use-value dance that is far heavier than the intent, or a pre-check that
+races the read it guards.
+
+The gap showed itself when edn/read-file stopped returning an Option. The
+caller that used to write or-else against a None had nothing left to write,
+because the missing file now arrives as a FileError condition and the only
+concise way to answer a condition with a default did not exist. The shape
+wanted is:
+
+  (handler-case (edn/read-file "game-data.edn")
+    [(FileError [c] nil)])
+
+which keeps read-file's decision intact — the caller still says what a
+missing file means — while costing one form instead of a machine. Until it
+lands, sand.flan guards the read with file-exists?, which is a stopgap and
+racy, and should be rewritten the moment this exists.
+
 ** The JS backend answers string equality wrongly, parked 2026-09-19
 Typed = and != grew strings in daed039, and the JS dialect was not taught the
 case. A string there is a view object and the arm at lib/js.ml:856 compares