diff --git a/TOOLING.md b/TOOLING.md
index 79909a6..5765c46 100644
--- a/TOOLING.md
+++ b/TOOLING.md
@@ -295,12 +295,33 @@ How it unfolded, because each step misled in a different way:
   hours. It needs `Restart=on-failure` and probably a `MemoryMax=`, or it will
   be dead the next time the cookie needs refreshing.
 
-### Cost of the pause
+### 2026-08-22 — caught up by hand, cleanly
 
-`official_artms` and `0ct0ber19` both had active stories on the evening of
-2026-08-21 that will expire uncollected. That is the price of stopping, and it
-is the right trade: spending requests on story endpoints minutes after
-clearing a scraping warning is exactly the behaviour that was flagged.
+Both surfaces were fetched manually the next day, on the owner's call, at
+**roughly double the configured caution**: `--sleep-request 12 20`,
+`--sleep 5 10`, `--rate 500K`, versus the defaults of 6-10 / 3-6 / 1M.
+
+| run | result |
+|---|---|
+| stories, 6 profiles | 16 media, +21 files, **0 400s, 0 429s** |
+| posts+reels, 12 sources, `--abort 50` | 26 media, +64 files, **0 400s, 0 429s** |
+
+So the 400s really were the challenge state and nothing more: once the
+interstitial was dismissed in the browser, the same endpoints served normally.
+The stories that looked lost — `official_artms`, `0ct0ber19`, `cher_ryppo`,
+`kimxxlip`, `zindoriyam` — were all captured before expiry.
+
+**This does not retire the warning.** Two hand-paced runs a day later are not
+evidence that the previous cadence was safe; they are evidence that the
+account still works. What actually changed the request cost is `--abort 50`:
+twelve sources across six profiles, `official_artms` included at 1829 posts
+and 781 reels, finished in minutes for a few dozen requests where the old
+behaviour would have spent ~400.
+
+Note the gap this leaves: **the scheduled `full` mode still uses the default
+6-10s pacing**, not the 12-20s used here. Reconcile that before re-enabling
+the timers, or the automation will be less careful than the hand runs that
+followed a warning.
 
 ## What changed on 2026-08-20