# Claude-Tic Audit - Phase 8 Batch 3 Ch21 Odile Cost

Source audited: `output/drafts/claude/phase8_batch3_odile_cost_theo_life.round_01.md` plus the Claude-originated insert material after Codex integration in `output/chapters/chapter_21.md`.

WATCH counts after current repair: Ch21 quality gate PASS open=0, WATCH=61. Main counts: `reddit1-repeated-descriptor` 21, `tells-2.1-hands-body-watch` 17, `watch-qs-trailing-participle` 7, `watch-qs-from-x-to-y` 3, `watch-qs-and-but-start` 2.

- CLEAR - tic 1 em-dash overuse - checked raw draft and current insert. Nearest miss: raw l.7 "clear - I won't ring" and l.25 "dolly and the lift, running it out ahead of him the way he did - and he stopped"; current Ch21 has no em-dash rhythm crutch in the accepted insert. Raw em-dash-heavy candidates were rejected.
- CLEAR - tic 2 shimmer prose - checked for adjective-stack atmosphere where action was needed. Nearest miss: current Ch21 l.85 "The gutter rose under Odile's hand" is concrete object action, not shimmer. Raw l.15 "pressing the gutter down" was retained in plainer form.
- CLEAR - tic 3 sentence-mood verbs - checked for mattered/earned/weighed/carried mood abstraction. Nearest miss: raw l.36 "standing material cost" appears only in Claude's explanatory note, not prose; current insert uses "Odile had reached for that too" as local causality, not mood-stamping.
- CLEAR - tic 4 default-elegant noun phrases - checked for "a kind of," "something like," and small/quiet/careful padding. Nearest miss: current Ch21 l.71 "the shape of it" is Theo's logistical cognition, not elegant vagueness; raw "test of the new edge" at l.29 was rejected.
- CLEAR - tic 5 habitual qualifiers/softeners - checked for adverbs and hedges draining momentum. Nearest miss: current Ch21 l.83 "if you need it" is a concrete offer boundary, not a softener; raw l.71 "whoever the two turned out to be now" was rejected with the Ch24 coda.
- CLEAR - tic 6 narrator-as-philosopher intrusion - checked for wisdom inserts. No candidate found in accepted insert; nearest raw miss: l.33 "Sunday would take what Sunday took" was transformed into concrete list pressure in current Ch21 l.91 and remains grounded in sink/gas/table/receipts.
- CLEAR - tic 7 theme-explanation after beat - checked for narrator gloss explaining the boundary. Nearest miss: current Ch21 l.91 "the receipts Odile would have to ask for herself" states the operative consequence; it does not explain the theme of agency.
- CLEAR - tic 8 recursive negation - checked raw and current. Nearest miss: current Ch21 l.69 "Not June." was a gate issue when paired with another `Not` construction and was repaired to avoid the banned cluster. Raw l.55 "Not that door. Not now." was rejected.
- CLEAR - tic 9 self-aware meta-clause - checked for "if that was the word." No candidate found. Nearest miss: raw l.29 "Not a question" is stage labeling and was rejected.
- CLEAR - tic 10 over-balanced parallel structures - checked for balanced antithesis. Nearest miss: raw l.59 "I'll come. I won't run the floor" was rejected; current l.83 has three practical clauses, but they escalate by boundary rather than mirror structure.
- CLEAR - tic 11 profundity-stamp one-line ending - checked ends of accepted insert and Ch21 scene. Nearest miss: current Ch21 l.91 ends the insert on a concrete obligations list, not a single-sentence profundity stamp; the chapter still closes on the pre-existing dark-phone/faced-wall structure.
- CLEAR - tic 12 default lovely/quiet/small register - checked for softening ugly or loud consequences. Nearest miss: current Ch21 l.83 "family papers through my coat" is plain and resistant; rejected raw material made the inconvenience tidier through colored key/dock props.
- CLEAR - tic 13 physical reaction default - checked for heartbeat/throat/body tells substituting for thought. Nearest miss: current Ch21 l.85 "The gutter rose under Odile's hand" externalizes the page state and Odile's loss of control; no stock body reaction carries the beat.

Book-specific additions:

- CLEAR - Theo fake-sharp boundary dialogue - checked raw and current. Found in intermediate repair and fixed: "`So do you`" and "`If you want Eileen, ask Eileen`" were removed. Current Ch21 l.79 "`She texted me instead`" and l.83 "`I can give you the number if you need it. That's all I'm doing.`" restore Theo's factual register.
- CLEAR - Odile quotability ceiling - checked Ch21. Nearest miss: l.87 "`Sunday dinner was never my errand`" is compact but reactive and self-limiting; no new oracle run or teacher monologue was added.
- CLEAR - over-invented side-cast/logistics - checked raw draft. Raw l.7 sister/girls/Mam, l.21 Marek/van-dock key, and l.71 long-crate coda were rejected. Accepted text uses only Eileen, already canonized in Ch17 as Theo's mother.

WATCH-count reconciliation: 61 WATCH hits seed sentence/body-density watch, but none map to an unlicensed Claude tic after repair. The 17 hands/body hits are mostly pre-existing Ch21 object/art handling; the new insert's key actions are phone, catalog, gutter, coat, receipts.

Chapter verdict: `TIC-CLEAN`.
