# Claude-Tic Audit - Chapter 13

Source audited: `output/chapters/chapter_13.md` against Claude raw draft `output/drafts/claude/chapter_13.round_01.md`.

Mechanical WATCH input after Figuration repairs: `reddit1-repeated-descriptor` 36; `wp-aivocab-cluster` 1; `legacy-uncontracted-casual-dialogue` 5; `ruleset-three-part-cadence` 1; `tells-2.1-eyes-watch` 2; `showcase` watch 2/2 pattern hits; `watch-qs-trailing-participle` 4; `hands/body` watch 2. Gate: open=0.

- CLEAR - tic 1 em-dash overuse - checked: full chapter and raw diff - nearest miss: raw draft used dash-heavy witness/oracle phrasing, but the final back-to-back easel paragraph carries the pressure through hearing Theo's jar rather than dash rhythm.
- CLEAR - tic 2 shimmer prose - checked: painting descriptions and kiss sequence - nearest miss: "the color of a day after it had bounced down four stories and lost the argument" is figurative, but it is tied to airshaft value and June's painterly perception.
- CLEAR - tic 3 recurring mood verbs - checked for mattered/earned/weighed/carried and substitutes - nearest miss: "Until tonight, the eighth Tuesday had been a date at the far edge of a packet" is a state transition, not a repeated mood verb.
- CLEAR - tic 4 default-elegant noun phrases - checked "kind of," "something like," "small/quiet/careful" families - nearest miss: "a practical objection already assembled" is comic blocking, not a soft default-elegant noun phrase.
- CLEAR - tic 5 habitual qualifiers/softeners - checked: "nearly," "exactly," "almost," "seemed," "useful" - nearest miss: "June had nearly reached the door in her head" is spatially specific and not momentum-draining.
- CLEAR - tic 6 narrator philosopher intrusion - checked mid-scene gloss after paintings, showcase, kiss, and offer - nearest miss: "A joint piece did not require confession" is June's immediate social risk calculation, anchored to labels and bodies, not narrator wisdom.
- CLEAR - tic 7 theme explanation after landed beat - checked scene-after-beat sentences - nearest miss: "It meant the kiss was happening in the same world as everything else" names June's disorientation but is tied to rack/window/roster table logistics and does not replace the kiss.
- CLEAR - tic 8 recursive negation - checked for "not X, not Y, not even Z" and not-X-but-Y shapes - nearest miss: "No ladder. No figure." is inventory of absent visual elements from Theo's canvas, not false-profound negation.
- CLEAR - tic 9 self-aware meta-clauses - checked "if that was the word" family - nearest miss: none found; the closest self-correction is practical, "or had decided she needed them."
- CLEAR - tic 10 over-balanced parallel structures - checked paragraph-final pairs and triads - nearest miss: "She could have made the memory dear... She could have made it bleak" is a two-option earned dilemma that resolves into the specific panel, not a chapter-wide balance habit.
- CLEAR - tic 11 short profundity-stamp ending - checked scene and chapter endings - nearest miss: "The signal turned green" is action that moves June forward with the hidden phone, not a one-line moral stamp.
- CLEAR - tic 12 lovely/quiet/small default register - checked dark/awkward beats - nearest miss: "a small showcase" is Odile's logistical phrase; the kiss remains awkward, public, and inconvenient.
- CLEAR - tic 13 physical reaction default - checked emotional peaks - nearest miss: Theo's brush on the floor and June's sleeve mark externalize consequence; no heartbeat/throat/body-swell shorthand substitutes for interiority.

Book-specific additions:
- CLEAR - zero-tolerance phrasing/delivery commentary - checked dialogue and narration around speech. Nearest miss: "Fine was going onto a flyer" judges social consequence, not the form of anyone's line.
- CLEAR - breath/air-shift/flutter/smirk/chuckle - mechanical scan found none in final text.
- CLEAR - motif caps - `light` absent; `Winter Kitchen` absent; hands foreground reduced to no `hand/hands` word hits.

WATCH-count reconciliation: The high `against` count comes from physical placement ("against Theo's card," "against the roll") and does not create a prose tic in context. `Do not` hits are in Odile's assignment epigraph/instruction, a licensed formal teacher register. `KEY` is a memory-card item. The remaining watch hits are isolated and defended above.

Chapter verdict: `TIC-CLEAN`.
