# Synthesis Memo - Chapter 07

Committed chapter: `output/chapters/chapter_07.md`

## Provenance

- Claude raw draft: `output/drafts/claude/chapter_07.round_01.md`
- Codex Claude-tic audit: `output/critiques/codex/chapter_07.claude_tic_audit.md`
- Mechanical raw gate: `output/critiques/codex/mechanical/chapter_07_raw_quality_gate.md`
- Mechanical final gate: `output/critiques/codex/mechanical/chapter_07_quality_gate.md`
- Clean Claude audits promoted to canonical paths:
  - `output/critiques/claude/chapter_07.dialogue_doctor.md`
  - `output/critiques/claude/chapter_07.comedy_doctor.md`
  - `output/critiques/claude/chapter_07.figuration_audit.md`

## What Was Kept From Claude

- The chapter's core architecture: back-to-back/screened easels, acrylic gouache, safe-man attempt, Ch05 details returning, the gray-eye blank, reciprocal Theo panel, hidden study seed, name-on-rack close.
- Most of Claude's concrete paint logistics: ochre wash, lifted gouache, dark sweater value, raw gesso, palette knife scrape, drying rack/newsprint.
- The strongest dialogue/actions: Theo filling water jars; "I couldn't get the paint to tuck"; "They're gray. For the record"; Odile's "The cheek is an apology. Scrape it"; final clementine action.

## What Codex Changed

- Removed raw code fences around the assignment card/title.
- Repaired raw mechanical failures: one-sentence paragraph gravity, em-dash density, two banned echo-line poetic structures.
- Cut/refactored Claude-tic defaults: "No model was the model," "own kind of laughing," "true one," "specific exposure," "caught in the truth," and future-narrator shading.
- Removed the raw banned-word near miss (`it's load-`) and replaced it with Mara's plain scarf ruling cut off by Priya's clementine.
- Executed Dialogue Doctor orders: removed Luis delivery-caption, broke the critique-walk quip carousel, and cut the "question underneath" subtext caption.
- Executed Comedy Doctor orders: ceded "apology" coinage to Odile, cut the portable meter simile, and replaced "scarf radar fully operational" with Mara's action.

## Findings Accepted / Rejected / Deferred

- Accepted all blocking findings from Claude Dialogue Doctor round 1 and Comedy Doctor round 1. No blocking finding was rejected.
- Accepted Figuration Audit's no-orders verdict; closest-call images stay because they are anchored in visible paint/object evidence.
- Deferred only tracker-level watch items: legal-clerical register at cap, Odile quotability at cap, straightening-things cap, and clementine/fruit watch. These are logged in `output/tics.md` and should shape Ch08/Ch10.

## Acceptance Rationale

The chapter now enacts the card: June tries to paint a safe man, but the actual memorized Theo arrives in the paint; Theo's reciprocal panel proves equal attention without confession; the public rack/name action makes the private memory socially inspectable. The ending is action, not thesis. Mechanical gate passes with open=0 and allowlisted=0.
