Audit written to `output/critiques/claude/chapter_17.comedy_doctor.md`. Full audit text follows.

---

# Comedy Doctor — Chapter 17: The Acknowledgment Page (round 2)

audit: comedy_doctor | owner: claude | tier: risk | trigger: flag:comic-register (reading-guide-mandated => every-chapter)
chapter file: `output/chapters/chapter_17.md` | raw provenance: `output/drafts/claude/chapter_17.round_01.md` | prior round: `chapter_17.comedy_doctor_round1.md` (CLEAR with 4 blocking orders)

Stance note: this is a sanctioned low-comedy chapter (Turn 3 rupture; the packet licenses "self-protective dryness, not banter"). Calibration target: the O'Leary-warmth / Henry-at-60%-banter / Morisaki-quiet reader. In this register a single workshopped or portable item does more damage than ten in a diner chapter, because here wit no character is generating under pressure reads as the author protecting the characters from the scene. Tested harder, not softer.

## ORDER VERIFICATION (round 1 → committed text)

1. **Order 1 (cut ", which it was")** — EXECUTED. Raw: "like a parcel she was returning, which it was" → committed: "like a parcel she was returning." Sentence ends at the prescribed point; no softening substitute added.
2. **Order 2 (de-workshop "a problem with a history")** — EXECUTED. Raw: "By the fourth it was a problem with a history." → committed: "By the fourth I didn't know how to say it without asking you to fix what I hadn't said." Replacement re-audited below (item 14); it sits in his fix-register and seeds June's "task" verdict.
3. **Order 3 (cut "because his hands had to hold a job even now")** — EXECUTED. Committed ends the clause at "heard the box scrape as he picked it up again." The scrape stands uncaptioned.
4. **Order 4 (strip the borrowed maxim)** — EXECUTED as prescribed. Raw: "hung as a pair because pairs that don't hang together lie" → committed: "hung as a pair, the way Odile had ordered them kept." Fact, not thesis; the Ch16 line is audible only to the reader who already owns it.

Also verified still absent (pre-round-1 cuts): "It fits in one sentence. I've checked." / "Strangers know the way out." / "filed it where true useless things went" / the flinch double-caption / "with everything practical stripped off it". Two additional repairs found beyond the orders: the raw's "in the voice of an employee explaining shift work" (delivery-rating, §2-adjacent) is gone, replaced by "Weeks ago he had told her which nights he closed; tonight the fact carried a different weight"; and "She heard her own voice come out level and was distantly grateful to it" (self-delivery caption) is replaced by "She looked at the keys still in his pocket," which now sets up "He took his hands out of his pockets. The keys stayed." Both replacements are net wins; neither is a comic item.

## INVENTORY

1 — "Neither was tonight's problem." (¶1) — mechanism: deadpan triage — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (Nia's thread / the fourth of December are this book's planted pressure objects) — dramatic work: holds the Tasker clock under the scene without opening it, per packet — workshopped: no (the raw's em-dash aside is now flat ledger rhythm — "with Nia's thread in it and the fourth of December in the thread" — clunkier and better; nothing performs)

2 — "June looked at the dimensions for a while. Then she decided not to think about the dimensions." (¶5, the plate) — mechanism: deadpan refusal + flat repetition — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (twelve by sixteen is the `After Class` ground from Ch14; the suppressed inference is plot) — dramatic work: plants Odile's design for the rereader while protecting S-ODILE-01 — workshopped: no. Tracker check: refusal-to-conclude family, held at zero since Ch13 — considered hard and ruled distinct: the banned family shrugs a beat closed for flavor; this schedules a specific named inference June cannot afford tonight, and the packet requires exactly this suppression ("June may infer... no one states"). Single-use license; see cautions.

3 — "because it was facing, she read it the way you read anything facing, without deciding to" (¶6) — mechanism: recognitional deadpan — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (it carries the packet's hardest structural requirement: accidental, not snooping) — dramatic work: makes the discovery blameless and ordinary — workshopped: no. Tracker check: recognitional "the way you/people" capped at 1/chapter since the Ch06–10 span audit; this is the chapter's only instance ("the way you carried the catalogs" and "the way she checked a measurement" are literal reference and self-procedure, not generic-person simile). 1/1, at cap, compliant.

4 — "She read it once as back matter. She read it again as English." (¶8) — mechanism: deadpan reclassification, escalating rereads — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: renders shock as procedure; executes the packet order that she reread "because facts refuse to change, not because the prose becomes mystical" — workshopped: no (the symmetry is roughened by the third reread's measurement protocol; the raw's drilled "She checked the colophon again. She checked the acknowledgment again." is now the unsymmetrical "checked the colophon and the acknowledgment again" — checked, cleared)

5 — "the way she checked a measurement she didn't like: each word separately, in order, looking for the error." / "There was no error." / "She checked the cover, because that was the next procedure when a measurement held." (¶8–10) — mechanism: incongruity (installer QA applied to betrayal) + repetition-with-variation — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (June's art-handler hands, established since Ch01) — dramatic work: this IS the chapter engine — betrayal as reclassification — workshopped: no

6 — "Once, at a museum... *attribution revised*... Same paint. Not one thing on the canvas had moved." (¶11) — mechanism: deflation via anecdote and fragment — source: character (her installation years; biography the book owns) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the packet's sanctioned label-change comparison delivered as memory, not decoration — workshopped: no ("Same paint." is fragment-snap syntax, but it is June's documented compression and carries the thesis; strongest counter-candidate in the apartment section, cleared)

7 — "*She's my boss* was payroll-true, the way the front room of a house is the house." (¶12) — mechanism: precision coinage + clarifying analogy — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: defines the partial-truth asymmetry in one move — workshopped: no. Note: the raw's stamp-fragment em-dash construction was smoothed into a plain clause — less quotable than at round 1, same content. Coinage caution carried forward: no "-true" extensions downstream.

8 — "She set that thought down next to the dimensions of the back-room painting and decided the pile could wait. She had enough that fit." (¶13) — mechanism: deadpan deferral; thought handled as sortable object — source: character (her sorting tell, literalized) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: stacks the Odile-knew evidence in reader view while June refuses it; protects the final reveal — workshopped: borderline checked ("She had enough that fit." is composed-adjacent) and cleared: pressure-speech interiority closing on workload, not wit; nothing in it is quotable detached from the pile. Same tracker ruling as item 2; same single-use license.

9 — "leaving a mess behind her was not who she was going to be tonight" (¶14) — mechanism: deadpan self-governance; tidiness as armor — source: character (voice card: packs, sorts, exits before anyone can watch her want) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the mess is eight catalogs in a line and squared index cards) — dramatic work: converts grief to procedure and gets her out the door — workshopped: checked (identity-negation syntax is a known contemporary move) and cleared: a private rule under pressure, not a line for the reader; it pays off when she squares the catalog on the step.

10 — "the one catalog knocking her hip at each step like a parcel she was returning" (¶15, the walk) — mechanism: freight simile — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the catalog cargo is this book's care object) — dramatic work: converts the care object into freight; pays forward to the shelf-return — workshopped: no (order 1 executed; the wink is gone, the freight stays)

11 — "She came up the last three steps so she wouldn't be talking uphill." (¶17) — mechanism: deadpan tactical blocking — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the iron back stair, the door light, geography the book built in Ch14/16) — dramatic work: June takes the scene's geometry before the scene — workshopped: no

12 — "The job is real — she pays me, there's a payroll service, I clock in, all of that is real — I was on the schedule before I—" (Theo, stair) — mechanism: escalating irrelevant proof; over-competent flailing — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the realer the payroll, the longer the concealment; June's "Stop." cuts the spiral before it can charm — workshopped: no

13 — "I didn't hope anything that organized," he said. — mechanism: self-deflating precision (the planner confessing his negligence had no plan) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (it answers her specific catalog accusation) — dramatic work: removes the scheming reading while confirming the worse one; devalued on page within one line ("That was probably true, and it changed nothing.") — workshopped: no. Softening check (focused instruction): cleared — earns nothing.

14 — "telling you would've been a confession instead of a fact. By the fourth I didn't know how to say it without asking you to fix what I hadn't said. ... There wasn't a week where it got smaller. I watched it not get smaller." (Theo) — mechanism: week-count escalation resolving into deadpan negative observation — source: character (inventory mind; fixer reflex named against himself) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the timeline is the confession's content, and "asking you to fix what I hadn't said" hands June the exact word her "task" verdict weaponizes two beats later — workshopped: no (order 2 executed; residue checked: "a confession instead of a fact" is antithesis syntax but a working category distinction in his careful-apology register, implicitly cleared at round 1 and re-checked here; "I watched it not get smaller" is the right unpolished shape)

15 — "You'd have helped her stack the chairs after." (June) — mechanism: bleak concretization; hyperbole-by-specificity — source: character + situation (class chairs, his staff reflex) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the entire asymmetry grievance in one piece of furniture he has actually stacked — workshopped: no (pressure speech: the period on a stated grievance, built from furniture the reader has watched him handle). Tracker check: Ch16 chair-count comedy spent, chair FACTS permitted — fact-shaped, compliant.

16 — "I'll tell her tomorrow morning. ... I'll move the pair into storage tonight... I'll redo the labels myself, you won't have to—" (Theo) — mechanism: escalation of offers; task-generation under catastrophe — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (storage, labels, the pair — this book's objects) — dramatic work: stages the care-move machinery as the evidence for June's verdict; does not soften — workshopped: no

17 — "You're trying to get a task. ... you want a list, you want errands, you want to carry it for me the way you carried the catalogs. You're not getting a task." (June) — mechanism: diagnosis-as-refusal, frame-and-return — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the catalog callback is the scene's own engine) — dramatic work: names the book's thesis wound — usefulness offered in place of honesty — at rupture pitch — workshopped: no (triple "you want" re-checked: asymmetric escalation under pressure, not setup/punch; cleared)

18 — "Saying *I know* isn't giving it back." (June) — mechanism: literalized figure extending her own "did my math for me and kept the answer" — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (only works downstream of her math line two beats earlier) — dramatic work: refuses absolution-by-acknowledgment — workshopped: no (answers, does not perform)

19 — "Ask your aunt." (June, the piece) — mechanism: deflation; kinship term as reclassified fact — source: character + situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the new label deployed once, at the exact question (the joint piece) where his usefulness lives; the flinch follows, and "She took no pleasure in it." keeps it from cruelty without unsharpening it — workshopped: no

20 — "There's a kettle inside. Or I can stand out here, I don't care which, just — tell me what the next part is." (Theo) — mechanism: care-reflex misfire; hosting under catastrophe — source: character + situation (mirrors her own undrunk kettle in ¶1, unremarked by either text) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: his last move is hospitality, and it is refused; bleak, unsoftened — workshopped: no

21 — "Tuesday looks like a room with one less chair in use," she said. "Don't set one for me." — mechanism: deadpan literal answer in his own terms — source: character + situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: delivers the chapter's irreversible change (she stops coming) as a logistics fact — workshopped: no (chair fact, not count gag; reuses HIS question's words, which is what pressure speech does)

22 — "One of nine," she said. "Returned. Write it in the book — you'll want the record straight, you're staff." — mechanism: register collision (clerical procedure as severance) + returning his chosen label — source: character + situation (the loan log `Catalogs (9) – J. Park – out Thurs 11/19` is on page in Ch14 and reprised here) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: hands back the care object as evidence and the word he hid inside — workshopped: no. Tracker check: clerical/custody figures capped in June narration after Ch16; this is dialogue about a literal ledger that exists; compliant.

23 — catalog placed "square to the edge, slip out, spine toward the door, the way stock went back on a shelf" — mechanism: deadpan procedure as insult — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (third shelf, left side is the scene's own material) — dramatic work: physicalizes severance; the care object goes back as inventory — workshopped: no

24 — "and came down two steps, and she stopped, and he stopped." — mechanism: timing repetition; physical standoff — source: situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: stages his obedience to the refusal before he speaks it — workshopped: no (checked against the paired-echo-closer ban: blocking choreography mid-scene, not a confirmation stamp; cleared)

25 — "You can stand where you grew up." (June) — mechanism: register collision (permission-granting syntax as wound) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (built from the acknowledgment page's own fact — the stockroom-floor winter) — dramatic work: the discovered page becomes her parting geography of him — workshopped: no (pressure speech; the raw's appended punchline "Strangers know the way out." stays cut, leaving the plain wound "I've been a stranger here the whole time.")

26 — "she heard him not following, heard the box scrape as he picked it up again" — mechanism: deadpan negative perception; bleak object close — source: character + situation (the flyer box from Ch16) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: he obeys; his hands return to work, uncaptioned — workshopped: no (order 3 executed; the scrape now does alone what the cut clause over-explained)

27 — "two unvarnished canvases hung as a pair, the way Odile had ordered them kept" — mechanism: situational irony rendered as fact — source: situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: pays the Ch16 pair order against the breaking pair without quoting the maxim; reread fuel for S-ODILE-01 — workshopped: no (order 4 executed as prescribed)

## RESIDUE HUNT (non-inventory, checked and cleared)

- "grammar the room already spoke" (¶3): the chapter's most detachable phrase; cleared as June's label-language work product doing wall-text plot setup — but Ch18 should not coin a second language-as-room figure.
- "staff was the label he'd chosen to wear in front of her" (¶12): second label figure; the packet sanctions label-change as the chapter's primary comparison; two label figures (this + the museum anecdote) is the ceiling, both spent here.
- "The facts stood where they'd stood" (¶10): object-agency check against the packet ban (the page may reveal; it may not accuse, wait, decide, or tell on): stationary verb, no agency — the immobility IS the point; cleared.
- "out of precedent instead of feeling" (¶2): checked against the "not X, but Y" false-profound ban — task description, not thesis stamp; cleared.
- "tonight the fact carried a different weight" (¶16): not a comedy attempt; flat transition prose, noted only because it replaced a delivery-rating clause and is the cheaper of the two repairs. Outside this audit's writ.
- Odile: absent, per the Ch16 quotability order. Her only words are the printed 1996 acknowledgment, which the packet requires; "He still knows." is back-matter sting and reread fuel, not a live aphorism. Ceiling respected.
- "Oh." reservation intact; no smirk/chuckle/"a beat"; no weather underline (door light and passing headlights are literal and unsentimental); no second kiss, no melodrama.

## DISTRIBUTION CHECKS

- **Density:** 27 items, all landing, in a chapter licensed for lower comedy (packet: "Comedy can appear as self-protective dryness, not as banter"). The named reason for reduced banter exists; the register commitment is met as dryness-under-pressure. Not DRY.
- **Mechanism variety:** June's procedural deadpan (items 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 23) and Theo's escalation-flailing (12, 13, 14, 16, 20) are the reading guide's own register split; register collision (19, 22, 25), deflation (6), diagnosis-as-refusal (17), timing (24), and irony-as-fact (27) vary the set. Not MONOTONOUS — but the procedural-deadpan count is high, and Ch18 is a scarf-return chapter: object-procedure-as-severance must not arrive as the default move twice running.
- **Sweetness:** clean. Every Theo bleak-comic beat is refused, interrupted, or devalued within two lines (12 → "Stop.", 13 → "changed nothing", 16 → "Stop offering me things", 20 → the refused chair). The raw's two could-soften narration captions (flinch, box scrape) are cut. The betrayal keeps its edge to the last line. Not OVERSWEETENED.
- **Cringe:** none found. Nothing performs at the scene's expense for the O'Leary / Henry-at-60% / Morisaki reader.
- **Source balance:** 27/27 character- or situation-sourced. Narrator-overlay count is now zero — both round-1 overlay items (the hands-hold-a-job caption, the borrowed maxim) are repaired.

## FOCUSED CHECKS (per instruction)

- **June's dry lines:** items 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 25 all pass the pressure-speech test — each is assembled from the other party's words, the scene's objects, or the discovered page itself, and each refuses or wounds rather than performs. No workshopped zinger survives in her mouth; the raw's two ("It fits in one sentence. I've checked." / "Strangers know the way out.") remain cut.
- **Theo's over-competent flailing:** items 12, 13, 14, 16, 20 generate bleak humor that deepens the betrayal — the comedy IS the indictment (the better his payroll evidence, the worse the six weeks). The one drift toward eloquence (round 1's "a problem with a history") is repaired; nothing noble or polished remains in his speech.
- **Partial/portable/workshopped:** zero stand. The four round-1 blocking items are verified repaired; the fresh read surfaced no new ones.

## VERDICT: CLEAR

Comedy lands in this book's rupture register: 27 of 27 inventoried items at funniness-2, all character/situation-sourced, none portable, none workshopped, mechanisms split across the two voices by design with collision and deflation variety around them. Strongest surviving item: **"You'd have helped her stack the chairs after."** — the asymmetry grievance compressed into one piece of furniture he has actually stacked. Weakest surviving item: **"the one catalog knocking her hip at each step like a parcel she was returning"** — post-repair it lands only as a flicker of freight; it survives because it converts the care object without asking the reader to nod.

## REVISION ORDERS

None. All four round-1 blocking orders are verified executed in the committed text (quoted above), no new partial, portable, or workshopped items were found, and no verdict-level problem stands. The chapter is committable on comedy.

Carry-forward cautions for the tracker (notes, not orders):
1. Ch18 (scarf return) must not inherit object-procedure-as-severance as its default comic move; June returning a second object with shelving precision twice running flattens the mechanism into a tic.
2. The refusal-to-conclude family stays at zero from Ch18; items 2 and 8 are licensed once as protected-thread suppression (S-ODILE-01), not as a reopened narration habit.
3. No extension of the "-true" coinage ("payroll-true") anywhere downstream.
4. Label figures (the museum anecdote + "the label he'd chosen to wear") are at two and spent; Ch18+ should not inherit label/ledger comedy from this chapter's spine.
