All inputs reviewed. The audit follows — Chapter 16 is largely in register, with one blocking finding (a speaker-attribution stumble that half-lands the flyer banter's best deflation) plus cooldown notes on the chair-count and clementine families.

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`INVENTORY:`

`1 — "Theo. You're famous," Mara said, and Theo lost his count at eleven. (line 5) — mechanism: interruption/deflation — the public-pressure announcement detonates inside his control ritual — source: character (Mara's direct warmth; Theo's counting) + situation (forty flyers exist) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (fourteen chairs, the Ch13 kiss flyer) — dramatic work: executes the Voice Check 15 order (chapter opened by another person's voice, mid-task) and destabilizes Theo's competence in the first sentence — workshopped: no`

`2 — "holding it out to him the way you'd hand someone their own mail" (line 7) — mechanism: deadpan domestic simile; the charged object delivered with postal neutrality — source: character (Theo's domestic noticing per voice card) — funniness: 2 — portable: no as placed (the flyer is his own face mid-kiss — it literally is his own mail; the aptness is scene-derived) — dramatic work: characterizes Mara's tact (delivery, not teasing) and keeps the cohort non-nosy per packet — workshopped: no. NOTE: this spends the chapter's one recognitional-simile slot (span cap from Ch10 tracker); "the way a painting can let hands do" (line 55) and "the way she came at everything" (line 59) were checked and ruled outside the you/people family.`

`3 — "They look good. The brush stayed in." / "That's the camera," Theo said. / "It's a phone." (lines 11–15) — mechanism: credit-deflection punctured by flat literalism (the photo is good because of you two, not equipment) — source: character — funniness: 1 AS PRINTED — the deflation belongs to Mara, but "It's a phone." opens a paragraph that continues "Theo looked down at the address block," and the action-beat convention attributes the line to Theo, where it half-works as a different, weaker joke (Theo deflating his own excuse); two competing readings means the intended one stumbles — portable: no (the brush from the Week 5 kiss, Priya's 80lb matte) — dramatic work: refuses Theo's escape from the photo's truth — workshopped: no. BLOCKING (funniness 1).`

`4 — "Theo looked down at the address block and found no correction to make." (line 15) — mechanism: competence seeking refuge in proofreading and finding the door locked — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: his one professional escape route from the photograph closes on the page — workshopped: no`

`5 — "Ben came in behind Priya already talking about distribution. He had a route. The route had three zones." (line 17) — mechanism: mock-summary compression; Theo's host-weary précis of a Ben monologue we are spared — source: character (Ben's route/forms card) rendered through Theo, not narrator-overlay — funniness: 2 — portable: no (forty flyers of the kiss photo) — dramatic work: plants the gag the exit pays (item 16); Ben's planning has new stakes (distributing Theo's exposure), satisfying the Ch06 tracker condition — workshopped: no — the anadiplosis is two flat sentences, not punchline syntax`

`6 — Sam "arrived in the middle of zone two," dragged the table six inches, "There... Now people see it first." → Theo put his copy face-down "and finished the chairs wrong twice before he got fourteen" (lines 17–19) — mechanism: care-move comedy escalating exposure, answered by competence-failure tell — source: character (Sam's spatial care per card; Theo's counting breaking down) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the cohort's warmth is the pressure, exactly as the packet ordered; the wrong-twice chairs convert the opening gag into symptom — workshopped: no`

`7 — "Priya read hers and quietly moved the clementines to June's station." (line 21) — mechanism: wordless care-logic (fear assignment → June will need feeding) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: telegraphs the assignment's cost before anyone speaks of it — workshopped: no`

`8 — "Okay," she said. / "Okay?" Theo said. / "It's a clear assignment." She put her bag down. "I hate it. It's clear." (lines 25–29) — mechanism: compression + reversal; June applies her craft-praise syntax ("The left edge is good. Don't fix it.") to a thing she dreads — source: character, dead-center of her card — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: establishes June's stance toward the dangerous Tuesday without melodrama; deflection visible as deflection per plain-speech floor — workshopped: no`

`9 — the umber cuff "five days old now and apparently permanent by choice" (line 23) — mechanism: deadpan inference — source: character (Theo reads the kept mark and says nothing) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (Ch14 mineral-spirits refusal) — dramatic work: kiss-thread custody in six words, no jar gag inherited — workshopped: no`

`10 — Odile "started decanting medium into small jars, eight of them, as if the evening were about jars." (line 35) — mechanism: deadpan performed-indifference, clocked by the one person who knows her — source: character (Odile conducts through logistics and denies it; eight jars, one per student, is the tell) — funniness: 2 — portable: no as placed — the "as if X were about Y" template is stock, but the count and the strategy are this book's — dramatic work: reread plant; on second read this is a woman steadying herself for the Tuesday she designed — workshopped: no`

`11 — "fixing the keys—he repainted the keys three times, the keys were fine—" and "The painting could hang in any hallway. That was the problem." (line 41) — mechanism: displacement repetition + deadpan self-verdict — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the wrongness becomes visible through paint and craft judgment, not speech, per packet step 6; "could hang in any hallway" is the portability test run in-world on the wrong fear — workshopped: no`

`12 — Ben said "Nice save" without turning around. Theo said "Thanks" with his palm still flat over the cup. (line 49) — mechanism: understatement valve; the room's obliviousness measured against the spiral — source: situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no as staged — dramatic work: the one release in the 900-word painting sequence, and it isolates Theo rather than comforting him; rawness intact — workshopped: no`

`13 — "grayed it down with the green's complement like a first-year" (line 49) — mechanism: self-deprecating craft tag — source: character — funniness: 2, the chapter's weakest survivor; "like a first-year" alone is any-art-novel filler, but complement-graying is exactly the textbook fix, so the joke is competent-Theo reduced to textbook mid-panic — portable: no as placed (checked hardest for portability of any item; the craft specificity holds it) — dramatic work: pressure showing in technique — workshopped: no`

`14 — Luis "bent slightly to the bottom edge... 'You left the underpainting.'" / "That was the assignment." / "It's better than the assignment," Luis said, and moved on. (lines 59–63) — mechanism: delayed material verdict — source: character (card sample shape: "Mara is not wrong. She is early.") — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the cohort sees enough without decoding, per contract; the chapter's craft thesis carried in six words and an exit — workshopped: no — quotable but inside Luis's license; one volley, within his two-verdict cap`

`15 — Odile's critique cluster: "over the top of nothing, because her glasses were still in her hair" (line 73); "Don't touch it again" (line 73); "You started with furniture." (line 75); "Varnish neither. They're a pair now. Pairs hang together or they lie." (line 79) — mechanisms: cliché deflation; praise-as-prohibition; insult-as-diagnosis; material pun (hang/lie are gallery-literal first, verdict second) — source: character, the licensed speaker — funniness: 2 across the cluster — portable: no — dramatic work: "furniture" proves she reads the underpainting (reread-consistent with knowing); "pairs hang together or they lie" arms the showcase stakes — workshopped: no, but quota math below`

`16 — "Ben skipped zone three of the flyer route entirely." (line 81) — mechanism: repetition-with-variation payoff of item 5; the gag returns as barometer — source: situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the heaviest dramatic load of any comic item — the room's rawness measured in dropped zones instead of named feelings, satisfying the no-unsourced-quiet rule — workshopped: no`

`17 — "On the way out, nobody said *fear*. Theo counted that too." (line 81) — mechanism: tic converted to elegy; the counting joke from line 5 lands the third variation as grief instrument — source: character — funniness: 2 at the dry-wince scale this register trades in — portable: no — dramatic work: closes the raw exit; the comedy is now doing the mourning — workshopped: no`

`18 — "Do you want me to take the catalogs back?... Nine's a lot of shelf." (line 85) — mechanism: dramatic-irony deadpan; retrieving the armed bomb disguised as shelf management — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (S-CATALOG-01) — dramatic work: the genuine right-thing attempt failing as logistics, per packet step 10; "I logged them out, not due" / "I saw you write it" stays fact, not the banned Ch14 rationalization family — workshopped: no`

`19 — three-word confession loaded ("Odile's my aunt") → "She wants the chairs in eights for December. For the show. I'll send you the layout." (lines 93–95) — mechanism: anticlimax substitution; joke-shaped, dread-bearing — source: character — funniness: 2 at dread scale, deliberately unfunny in effect — portable: no — dramatic work: the reactive-scene decision (delay) dramatized as a swerve; June's "Okay." x2 checked against the paired-echo ban and cleared (same speaker, compression-under-dread, not an A/B beat-closer) — workshopped: no`

`20 — "Priya had left the second clementine on June's bag like a tip." (line 83) and "the clementine still riding on the flap" (line 105) — mechanism: incongruity simile + object exit — source: character (Priya) — funniness: 2 — portable: no as placed (the clementine chain runs from line 17 through the door) — dramatic work: warmth-floor repair that does not blunt June's exit line — workshopped: no, but see clementine count below`

`21 — "He recognized the plan making itself useful and kept it anyway." (line 107) — mechanism: self-aware deadpan; his evasion diagnosed in his own thesis vocabulary (useful) and retained — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: executes "he can know he is failing and still delay" without nobility-through-self-condemnation — workshopped: no — checked against the curtain-line-flourish failure mode that blocked Ch15's closer; this one is flat syntax, no triad, no object agency`

**Distribution checks.** Density: ~21 items across ~3,000 words, front-loaded by architecture — the flyer arrival carries the comic mass, the painting/critique middle runs near joke-free with one valve (item 12), and the close converts comedy into dread instruments (items 16, 17, 19). The joke-free middle has its named reason: this is the flagged emotional-peak fear assignment, and the three raw zones — June's canvas of Theo (lines 55–57), the close-view exchange ("You made it mine," lines 65–71), and the failed disclosure/exit (lines 93–105) — contain zero quips; the stillness is concretely sourced (Mara's unfinished sentence, the clementine peel "quitting in the middle," brushes into the jar) rather than narrated quiet. Mechanism variety: eleven distinct mechanisms (interruption, simile-deadpan, literalist deflation, mock-summary, care-move comedy, competence-failure tell, performed indifference, displacement repetition, material verdict, insult-as-diagnosis, anticlimax substitution, tic-conversion); deadpan dominates as register, which is the book's committed register, not monotony. Source: zero narrator-overlay items — the three overlay candidates hunted hardest ("their own mail," "as if the evening were about jars," "like a tip") all resolved to character perception doing scene work. Sweetness: nothing softens what should cut — checked the strongest counter-candidates: item 12 lands during Theo's spiral and isolates rather than comforts; item 20 arrives after June's exit line ("the most honest you've ever been in this room" / "In paint") has already landed unblunted. Cringe: none; nothing misjudges the warm-precise target reader. Inheritance sweep: no Ch15 call-station/list-frame interiority (the count is interrupted by Mara's voice in sentence one — the ban dramatized); no coat-count adjudication reprise; no noon/deadline motif; no Ch14 paired echoes or "public documents" rationalization; retired families (not a personality, I'm cargo, Not symbolically, water gag, alleged cherry) all absent. Tracker math: chair/count comic family runs five variations (lost count, wrong-twice, the painting's "count visible," "counted that too," "eights for December") — each mutates and the family arcs from comic to indicting to elegiac, so it passes here, but it is now SPENT as comedy; Odile aphorism-grade count ≈ 4 ("Leave the wrong where I can find it," "Don't touch it again," "You started with furniture," "Pairs hang together or they lie") — at ceiling, no fifth, and the next class chapter should run nearer 3; clementine touches = 4 (station move, peel stop, tip, flap) — functional and arc-shaped here, but the fruit is one chapter from becoming the coffee-order tic the Ch07 tracker warned against; "as if correct custody could make it harmless" (line 39) is one clerical-register term in narration — Theo's archive vocabulary, earned, but per the Ch15 precedent no second clerical term may join it.

**Verdict: CLEAR** — majority funniness-2, character/situation-sourced throughout with zero narrator-overlay, non-portable, mechanisms varied, and the comedy is doing the emotional-peak chapter's mourning rather than puncturing it. Strongest item: #8 — "It's a clear assignment... I hate it. It's clear." — June's craft-praise syntax aimed at the thing that will cut her open is the register's whole promise in nine words. Weakest surviving item: #13 — "like a first-year" — smallest scale and the nearest to stock; survives on the technical truth of complement-graying, which is exactly the textbook move a panicking competent man would regress to.

`REVISION ORDERS:`

1. Item 3, line 15 — `"It's a phone." Theo looked down at the address block and found no correction to make.` Failure: funniness 1 (blocking). The deflation is Mara's, but the action-beat convention hands her line to Theo, and the wrong reading half-works as a weaker joke, so the intended one stumbles on first pass. Order: re-attribute unambiguously — either tag it (`"It's a phone," Mara said.`) or break Theo's action into its own paragraph so the unattributed line defaults to Mara. Do not add a comeback or a third volley beat; the exchange must end on Mara's flat correction with Theo's proofreading retreat (item 4) as the button.

Cooldown directives accompanying CLEAR (not blocking, logged for the tracker): the chair/count family is spent as comedy after this chapter — counting may persist as Theo's behavior but no new count-shaped joke through the rupture chapters; retire the clementine as comic prop until the rupture aftermath; the chapter's one recognitional-simile slot is used (line 7); Odile's quotability is at ceiling (~4) — next class appearance targets ≤3; no second clerical-register term may join "custody" in Ch17 narration.
