# Codex Critique - Skeleton Round 1 - Continuity / Causality Prosecutor

VERDICT: REVISE BEFORE CHAPTER CARDS

## Findings

1. **high - June's Philadelphia refusal is currently sequenced twice, creating a fuzzy earned-stay beat.**
   evidence: `output/outline/skeleton.md` says Ch 18 "she declines Philadelphia for herself and recommends another artist," while Ch 22 says "she chooses the possibility of staying before receiving Theo's apology." `output/timeline.md` mirrors Ch 18 as "June declines offer" and Ch 22 as "stay decision detaches from romance rescue."
   why it matters: The anti-default audit correctly required decline-before-confession, but the current map makes the refusal happen before the self-choice has been dramatized. That risks turning Ch 20-22 into explanation after the decision rather than pressure that earns it.
   revision order: Move the final refusal/recommendation to Ch 22, still before Ch 23-24 confession. Ch 18 should recognize the trap and not accept by default; Ch 20 should stage Ruth/Sam care and self-choice pressure; Ch 22 should make the actual call/email to Nia and recommend the other artist.
   acceptance test: A reader can identify the exact scene where June chooses against Philadelphia for self-owned art reasons before Theo's apology, and that scene happens after sufficient rupture/self-interrogation.

2. **high - The September-to-October gap is still a motivation gap.**
   evidence: Ch 02 covers "Sept 24-Oct 19" and Ch 03 jumps to first class. The skeleton says the gap "becomes useful," but the chapter map gives June no concrete escalation between saying yes and actually attending.
   why it matters: Three-plus weeks is enough time for a careful person like June to back out. If nothing binds her, the fake-relationship premise looks author-convenient before it even starts.
   revision order: Add two concrete gap pressures: Odile sends the first assignment card / supply list addressed to both of them, and June pays or receives a nontransferable materials packet from Theo/the gallery. Also give June one art-adjacent job in the gap that makes the class feel like the only room where she might make work instead of handle it.
   acceptance test: By Ch 03, June attending class feels like a chain of small choices and sunk emotional costs, not passivity.

3. **high - Artifact-borne showcase disclosure is conceptually right but under-designed.**
   evidence: Ch 26 says "June writes the artifact-borne truth into the wall label"; Ch 27 says "`After Class` reveals false start through underpaintings/label." No document defines what the label can say without becoming a public confession by another route.
   why it matters: If the label says too much, it violates the no-public-confession stance. If it says too little, the class cannot plausibly learn "enough."
   revision order: Define the artifact now: the wall label should disclose process, not gossip. Example function, not final prose: "begun separately from two versions of the same room; finished together after the underpaintings were left visible." Ruth's one line can quietly confirm she understands the false start. The class need not receive a full "we fake-dated" fact.
   acceptance test: The class can emotionally understand that the piece began from a false/separate place and ended true, without June/Theo making an announcement or explaining the nephew secret.

4. **medium - The "faced-to-wall canvas" adopted in revision notes is not actually integrated.**
   evidence: `output/revision_plan.md` accepts "artifact-borne showcase disclosure"; the anti-default audit ordered porting Map 3's faced-to-wall object, but `output/outline/skeleton.md` only mentions `After Class` and Theo's painting at the diner.
   why it matters: This is a dropped accepted finding and a missed suspense object for the coda.
   revision order: Decide whether Theo's private painting of June appears at the showcase. Stronger choice: it is present but faced to the wall in the back room until June chooses whether it can be visible. It is not part of the public class disclosure; it is Theo's first work and June's consent object.
   acceptance test: The final two chapters have a concrete withheld object that pays Theo's maker arc without turning the confession public.

5. **medium - The offer is good in specification but needs non-strawman guardrails.**
   evidence: Nia offers "six-month paid studio-manager/fabrication role with subsidized studio access and guaranteed install shifts." The skeleton says this repeats art-adjacent safety.
   why it matters: If handled carelessly, "studio access" plus "stable pay" will make June's refusal look irrational or like the book quietly made the offer bad.
   revision order: In chapter cards, specify the job is honestly good and Nia is honest. The problem is not Philadelphia; the problem is June recognizing she would take the stable handling/admin identity and postpone painting again because it rewards the avoidance she already knows.
   acceptance test: A reader could reasonably argue June should take the offer, even while understanding why she does not.

6. **medium - Several voice-card sample lines are too polished and could over-banter the book.**
   evidence: June: "That's a chair making several bad decisions"; Ben: "one of them is emotionally healthy"; Ruth: "That sentence is doing unpaid labor"; Sam: "a locked door with better grammar." These are useful anchors but dangerous if the drafter treats every exchange as quotable.
   why it matters: Reading guide asks for 60 percent Emily Henry banter density and "quiet interiority over quippiness." The voice cards currently make the secondary cast especially epigram-ready.
   revision order: Add a global voice rule that at least half of dialogue in ordinary scenes may be plain/functional, and mark the sharp sample lines as peak-register examples, not default frequency.
   acceptance test: Chapter cards and packets explicitly prevent every cohort member from delivering polished thematic lines in the same scene.

7. **medium - Odile's sample line risks revealing the rule elasticity too early.**
   evidence: Odile sample: "Couple is a word. Looking is the assignment."
   why it matters: Before Ch 28, that line points almost directly at the final reveal and the elastic couple rule. It may make Odile's knowledge too visible rather than rereadable.
   revision order: Mark that line as post-reveal/assignment-card calibration only, not pre-reveal dialogue. Pre-reveal clues should be material: crossed-out card wording, seating, pair/couple drift, and tailored logistics.
   acceptance test: No pre-Ch 28 Odile dialogue directly states that "couple" is only a word or that the rule is elastic.

8. **medium - Ruth's clocking role has a cost in notes but not yet in the chapter map.**
   evidence: NPC goals say Ruth's silence costs "a private argument with Sam"; the chapter map has Ch 06 "Ruth's misread forms" and Ch 20 "Ruth/Sam care," but no explicit scene where the cost lands.
   why it matters: Without the cost, Ruth becomes the trope the anti-default audit flagged: perceptive friend protects the fake couple kindly.
   revision order: Put the Ruth/Sam private disagreement either in Ch 11 as observed pressure or in Ch 20 as aftermath. It should change how Ruth speaks to June later.
   acceptance test: Ruth's silence has a consequence for Ruth/Sam independent of June/Theo's convenience.

## Open Questions

- What is the exact fictional gallery name and diner name? Leaving both pending is fine for Phase 4, but chapter cards need them before drafting.
- Which artist does June recommend to Nia when she declines? This should be seeded earlier enough to make the care move feel earned.

## Keep / Do Not Break

- Keep the same-night fear-assignment discovery.
- Keep the catalog acknowledgment delivered by Theo's care move.
- Keep the class ignorant of the nephew secret.
- Keep June's final offer refusal before confession.
- Keep the two-panel `After Class` concept.
- Keep Odile's final reveal private and late.

