# Claude-Tic Audit - Chapter 01

Target: `output/chapters/chapter_01.md`
Mechanical input: final quality gate PASS, open=0, WATCH=80. WATCH families: repeated descriptors 46; hands/body 10; trailing participles 9; from-X-to-Y 1; temperature 2; eyes 1; uncontracted casual dialogue 3; wp-aivocab cluster 1 (`key` in `key ring`), em-dash dialogue 4; sensory checklist 1; And/But start 1.

- CLEAR - tic 1 em-dash overuse - checked narration and dialogue. Nearest miss: `"Oh," June said. "We're not—" / "—on the list," Odile said` (79-81). This is interrupted dialogue, not rhythm filler. Narrative dashes at 7, 57, 109, 117, 137 are not dense enough to govern cadence. ORDER: none.
- CLEAR - tic 2 shimmer prose - checked descriptive runs. Nearest miss: `the light in it was ten in the morning in an unheated room, the hour when nobody performs` (35). The image is bound to June's painter-eye and `Winter Kitchen`, not free-floating atmosphere. ORDER: none.
- CLEAR - tic 3 sentence-mood verbs - checked `mattered/earned/weighed/carried`. Nearest miss: `what that restraint cost across an entire painted winter` (47). `cost` is craft-specific and concrete. ORDER: none.
- CLEAR - tic 4 default-elegant noun phrases - checked `a kind of/something like/small/quiet/careful`. Nearest miss after synthesis: no `kind of` phrasing remains; `a good exit` (111) is direct scene judgment. ORDER: none.
- CLEAR - tic 5 softening adverbs/qualifiers - checked dialogue and narration. Nearest miss: `probably since whoever set them` (19), which is June's practical uncertainty, not narrator hedging. ORDER: none.
- CLEAR - tic 6 narrator-as-philosopher intrusion - checked reflective passages. Nearest miss: `She had quit so far in advance of failing that nobody ever got to watch` (127). This is June's wound made active in the decision, not detachable wisdom. ORDER: none.
- CLEAR - tic 7 theme gloss after beat - checked after `Winter Kitchen`, Odile offer, and stockroom decision. Nearest miss: `There was a version of tonight... and that version was honest` (127). It precedes and pressures "Don't fix it," rather than explaining a landed beat. ORDER: none.
- CLEAR - tic 8 recursive negation - checked for `not X, not Y` stacks. Nearest miss: `Nobody reads labels at openings. / You do` (19-21), a short exchange, not recursive negation. ORDER: none.
- CLEAR - tic 9 self-aware meta-clause - checked for `if that was the word`. Nearest miss: `I don't know a better word for it` (117), spoken by Theo about Odile's accuracy and in-character practical precision. ORDER: none.
- CLEAR - tic 10 over-balanced parallel structures - checked long paragraphs. Nearest miss: `window, pot, cups, towel, ground` (47); it is June's visual circuit, not rhetorical balance. ORDER: none.
- CLEAR - tic 11 profundity-stamp ending - final lines: `"Your turn," she said, and handed him the pen` (141). This ends on action and transferred decision, not a short profundity stamp. ORDER: none.
- CLEAR - tic 12 default lovely/quiet/small register drift - checked warm-register scenes. Nearest miss: `The painting was smaller than she remembered` (35), a literal scale observation. ORDER: none.
- CLEAR - tic 13 default physical reaction beats - checked body response. Nearest miss: `folded down the corner of her program` (7) and `kept her feet where they were` (59), both character-specific restraint/actions, not throat/heartbeat defaults. ORDER: none.

Book-specific tics:

- CLEAR - breath/flutters/electricity/air-shift/smirk/chuckle/mirror/rain/skyline - no occurrences. Nearest miss: `The vent came on overhead` (95), a physical gallery detail with prior setup, not weather/emotion.
- CLEAR - coffee/diner ordering tic - not applicable.
- CLEAR - `Winter Kitchen` cap - invocation 1/5, used to establish June's origin and farewell. Nearest miss: crate label `W. KITCHEN, 1983` (99) is the same chapter's first invocation ecosystem, not a separate nostalgia hit.

WATCH reconciliation: repeated descriptors are mostly function words / necessary names in a single chapter; hands/body hits are actual `hand` object actions and the key motif, not jaw/throat defaults; temperature hits are literal painting subject (`cold`, `warm gray`); `wp-aivocab-cluster` is a false-positive `key` in `key ring`. Claude Plain-Translation later found three aphorism/register drifts and one six-years echo; all were repaired in `output/critiques/codex/chapter_01.plain_translation_repair_memo.md`. No WATCH family creates a blocking Claude tic after final synthesis.

Chapter verdict: TIC-CLEAN.
