diff --git a/docs/re/METHOD.md b/docs/re/METHOD.md
index d5ca26b2..4ee6f586 100644
--- a/docs/re/METHOD.md
+++ b/docs/re/METHOD.md
@@ -1121,3 +1121,28 @@ quad's vertex colour, which made one element's alpha read 255 / 127 / 254 on
 consecutive frames. That non-monotonicity was noticed, written down as "the
 vertex-alpha identity does not generalise", and not chased. **An anomaly you
 explain away is cheaper to chase than to re-derive later.**
+
+## Count the batch, not the quads the log happened to print
+
+The UI draw log caps its vertex dump at **8 vertices — two quads** — while a draw
+may batch many more (`indices=24` is six). Two consequences, and the second is the
+one that bites:
+
+* a bounding box taken across a line's vertices **merges** quads (already recorded
+  above, the `eff3` false negative);
+* **which** elements appear in the log is the *first two in the batch*, and that
+  set changes as elements fade. On the boot's developer splash the three glows
+  occupy the prefix until t=45; the three wordmarks are invisible to the log until
+  the glows stop being submitted. Read naively this says "the wordmarks are first
+  drawn at frame 140", which is the logging prefix shifting and not the game.
+
+That produced two splash spans 7.9 % apart on one boot of one guest — a quantity
+that must be one number. **The fix costs nothing: `indices / 4` is how many quads
+the draw actually holds, and the cap cannot touch it.** Its transitions land
+exactly where the declared count of elements with alpha > 0 changes, which makes
+them free calibration points.
+
+> The general form: **when an instrument truncates, the surviving sample is not
+> random — it is the first N, and what falls in the first N is itself a moving
+> function of the thing you are measuring.** A truncated view looks like a
+> complete view of a smaller set.
diff --git a/docs/re/structures/boot-splash-dwells-are-declared.md b/docs/re/structures/boot-splash-dwells-are-declared.md
index 51fafd84..eb85f77d 100644
--- a/docs/re/structures/boot-splash-dwells-are-declared.md
+++ b/docs/re/structures/boot-splash-dwells-are-declared.md
@@ -25,27 +25,54 @@ Three separate measurements of this container's rate — 13.1 fps, ~28 fps, and
 one — say the same thing from another direction. A port that authors seconds is
 authoring one run's pacing.
 
-## The boundaries, from the draw stream
+## 🔴 The boundaries — corrected, after the port refuted them
 
-Read with the per-quad parser, this boot:
+An earlier version of this page read element visibility off *which quads appear
+in the log*. **That is wrong**, and the port caught it by arithmetic: the two
+splash spans came out at 2.237 and 2.414 units/frame, 7.9 % apart on one boot of
+one guest, which should be one number.
 
-| event | frame |
-|---|---|
-| `palogo_sqex_eff` — the publisher's glow | 1 |
-| `palogo_sqex` — the wordmark | **6** – 119 |
-| no sprite drawn at all | 120 – 122 |
-| `gamearts_eff` + `seta_eff` — the developer's glows | **123** – 139 |
-| `palogo_gamearts` + `palogo_seta` — the wordmarks | 140 – 209 |
-| intro video (a 640×360 pair per frame) | **216** – 563 |
+Their diagnosis was that the spans were anchored on different elements — the
+publisher's on its wordmark, the developer's on its glows. The log says the cause
+is worse: **the developer splash batches SIX quads into one draw and the log dumps
+only the first two.** While the glows are alive they occupy that prefix, so the
+three wordmarks are invisible to the log until the glows stop being submitted.
+"Developer wordmarks first drawn at frame 140" was the **logging prefix shifting**,
+not the game.
 
-The 3-frame black gap replicates the 4-frame gap measured in the earlier boot,
-within the ±1 frame both are quantised to — consistent with the ~9 units in
-[`boot-splash-gap-measured.md`](boot-splash-gap-measured.md).
+✅ **The fix is to count the batch, not the logged quads.** `indices / 4` is the
+number of quads the game is submitting, and the 8-vertex cap cannot touch it. The
+count changes exactly where the declared set of elements with alpha > 0 changes:
 
-⚠️ **`palogo_anima` never appears**, and that is almost certainly the 8-vertex cap
-rather than a fact about the game: the developer bundle has 7 elements batched into
-one draw, and only the first two quads are logged. This is the trap that produced
-the `eff3` false negative, so it is named rather than reported.
+| splash | transition | frame | t |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| publisher | 1 → 2 quads, the wordmark joins the glow | 5.5 | **15** |
+| | 2 → 1, the glow ends | 22.5 | **45** |
+| | last drawn | 119.5 | **255** |
+| developer | 3 → 6 quads, three wordmarks join three glows | 126.5 | **15** |
+| | 6 → 3, the glows end | 139.5 | **45** |
+| | last drawn | 209.5 | **210** |
+
+## ✅ And that explains the 4.1 %: the rate drifts through the run
+
+| segment | units | frames | units/frame |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| publisher, t = 15 → 45 | 30 | 17 | **1.765** |
+| publisher, t = 45 → 255 | 210 | 97 | **2.165** |
+| developer, t = 15 → 45 | 30 | 13 | **2.308** |
+| developer, t = 45 → 210 | 165 | 70 | **2.357** |
+
+**Within the developer splash the two independent segments agree to 2 %.** Across
+the run the rate rises from ~1.76 in the first seconds to ~2.36 — a **33 % drift**.
+
+That is one cause for both the port's 7.9 % inconsistency and this page's open
+4.1 % publisher error, which is what they predicted: *"I'd expect one problem
+behind a 7.9 % inconsistency and a 4.1 % error on the same screen before I'd
+expect two."*
+
+⚠️ It also means **no single units-per-frame figure describes a run here**, which
+is the same conclusion as the dwell being emulator-paced, arriving from a third
+direction.
 
 ## 🔴 The instrument's resolution is one buffer flush, not one frame
 
@@ -68,10 +95,9 @@ estimates are not available and were withdrawn before being reported.
 
 ## What is still open
 
-❔ The publisher's 4.1 % error against its declared 4.250 s is larger than the
-developer's 1.1 %, across only three corpus boots plus this one. Whether that is
-run-to-run pacing or something the publisher splash does differently is not
-settled.
+✅ The publisher's 4.1 % error against the developer's 1.1 % is **explained** by
+the units/frame drift above — the publisher splash runs during the first seconds,
+where the rate is furthest from its later value.
 
 ⚠️ The intro-video boundary (frame 216) is 7 frames after the developer splash's
 last draw, but those 7 frames span **1.77 s** by the naive map — deep inside the