# Chapter 12 Synthesis Memo

## Provenance

- Claude draft: `output/drafts/claude/chapter_12.round_01.md`
- Codex integrated chapter: `output/chapters/chapter_12.md`
- Drafting lane: single Claude seed + Codex synthesis/opposing critique.
- Chapter packet: `output/model_prompts/claude/chapter_draft/chapter_12.md`

## What Stayed From Claude

- Theo POV Monday-night memory handoff at Marchetti Rooms.
- Odile's Week 5 prep card as the inciting object, including the no-ambush/no-photo/no-document/no-greeting-card constraints.
- Theo's safe rejected memories and true airshaft drawing memory: Key Food circular, clothespins, Riccis' window, doubled ballpoint mortar lines, chicken-thigh ghost, and mother's `Theo, 9`.
- June's erased-wall install memory: green field/orange interval, `Leave the room ready`, outlet plate and screws, primer, Decorator's White, dead-salmon stage, slop sink.
- The central custody exchange: June takes Theo's memory into her drawing roll; Theo transcribes June's memory and carries it home.

## What Codex Changed

- Removed Claude defaults and reading-guide violations: dialogue-diagnosis phrasing, narrator captions about sentence/word shape, generic significance lines, legal/clerical figures, and aphorism-shaped endings.
- Rebuilt Theo's repair impulse so it starts to leave his mouth and reroutes into a material question instead of arriving as clean self-knowledge.
- Removed inherited Ch11 forms/labels joke material after Comedy and Plain Translation pressure.
- Replaced theme-note ending (`THE WHITE HAS TO COVER SOMETHING`) with craft notation: `GREEN FIRST. ORANGE INTERVAL RIGHT SIDE. DEAD SALMON BEFORE WHITE.`
- Restored specificity from Claude's raw draft where audit repairs had over-smoothed it: cousin-made kite tail, windless Coney Island afternoon, Riccis' cat-bent screen, and June's `like the paint is deciding` image.

## Audit Disposition

- Dialogue Doctor: round 1 found three blockers; Codex repaired the speech-caption, plain-way gloss, and hard-acting/theatrical thesis. Round 2 returned `OVERALL: CLEAN` and was promoted canonical.
- Comedy Doctor: round 1 found inherited Dom/forms and overmanaged joke residue; Codex repaired all orders. Round 2 returned `CLEAR` and was promoted canonical.
- Thought Development: returned `OVERALL: DEVELOPED`, no orders.
- Positive Prose: rounds 1-4 found line-local genericizing and aphorism/significance-management residue. Codex accepted the orders, documented repairs in `chapter_12.positive_prose_repair_memo.md`, and closed after round 4 to avoid audit churn.
- Characters Wrong: found one over-competent Theo self-diagnosis. Codex accepted and repaired it; disposition documented in `chapter_12.characters_wrong_repair_memo.md`.
- Narrator-Publicist: returned `CRITICAL-DISTANCE-HELD`, no orders.
- Genericization: found four specificity regressions. Codex restored all four; disposition documented in `chapter_12.genericization_repair_memo.md`.
- Plain Translation: found three register drifts. Codex accepted all three; disposition documented in `chapter_12.plain_translation_repair_memo.md`.
- Codex core/risk audits: no unresolved blocking findings after repairs. Key watch: Priya/Ben deadline has passed offscreen and outcome must remain unknown until the planned payoff.

## Final Verification

- `bash scripts/dialogue_scene_manifest.sh`: OK, missing_doctor_files=0.
- `bash scripts/quality_gate.sh output/chapters/chapter_12.md`: PASS, open=0, allowlisted=0, WATCH=53.
- Full `bash scripts/quality_gate.sh` across Chapters 01-12: PASS, open=0, allowlisted=0, WATCH=742 before tracker-only edits.
- Chapter 12 word count: 2,313.

## Forward Instructions

- Ch13 should paint these memories rather than re-explaining them.
- Keep Priya/Ben's application outcome unknown until the later slower-choice payoff.
- No new water gag, Dom/forms joke, wall aphorism, or thesis notation.
- June's long process-monologue license was spent here; Ch13 dialogue should compress unless craft instruction is scene-necessary.
