The audit is complete and saved to `output/critiques/claude/chapter_23.comedy_doctor.md`.

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# Chapter 23 Comedy Doctor — Finished Together / Labels

Read cold as the reading guide's target reader (§2: warm, precise, lightly comic; Emily Henry at ~60% banter density with sincere answers permitted; O'Leary found-family warmth; *Days at the Morisaki Bookshop* / *Before the Coffee Gets Cold* quiet as the floor) — the reader who wants comedy generated by these specific people's damage, not narrator wit painted over the scene. Chapter-card constraints applied: late-book payoff, not a banter showcase; comedy must arise from Theo's over-competent restraint, Odile's brutal economy, Priya/Ben logistics under pressure, and June's exactness; no joke may soften the costly New York path, Priya/Ben's slower choice, or portrait consent; `outcome rules: no character names the two-panel metaphor aloud`. Line numbers cite `output/chapters/chapter_23.md`. Spent-family greps run clean: `just coffee` 0, `Noted` 0, `whole of` 0, spoken `the math` 0, conduct-grade praise 0 (June's "Closer"/"That one" grade the label copy, an artifact, not Theo's conduct). The chapter's problem is not a spent phrase. It is a spent *construction*, run hard enough to become the chapter's default comic engine — and it blows past caps the tracker set in Ch11/Ch13/Ch14/Ch17, so the finding is measurable, not a matter of taste.

INVENTORY:
1 — "counted twice by half three, which was the tell, because nobody counts folding chairs twice for a room that seats eighteen unless he's counting them to keep from doing the other thing, which was standing in the middle of the floor rehearsing four o'clock" (L3) — mechanism: deadpan self-diagnosis via displacement — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (folding chairs / seats eighteen / four o'clock = this room, June's arrival) — dramatic work: establishes his nerves and the withheld-usefulness engine in beat one — workshopped: no (but rebuilds the Ch10-"spent" solitary-maintenance + self-audit cold-open, and opens the chapter on the `, which`-caption frame it then over-uses)
2 — "He had arranged a room around a woman who wasn't in it, out of her habits, for her comfort, without being asked... Carrying it back would be its own kind of arranging" (L3) — mechanism: self-catching + recursive deflation (undoing care is also care) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: names the restraint problem before June arrives — workshopped: no
3 — "a mug in one hand she didn't offer to split and a manila folder in the other she did" (L11) — mechanism: withhold/offer antithesis characterizing Odile's economy — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (Odile-specific) — dramatic work: sets her terms on entrance (shares business, not warmth) — workshopped: no — strongest workshop counter-candidate in the narration; survives because it reports a real two-handed gesture, not a composed spoken zinger
4 — "You met your feelings and issued a form." (L20) — mechanism: insult-as-diagnosis / register collision (feeling to bureaucracy) — source: character (Odile, the sole style-bible-licensed high-density voice) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (names the clipboard he just built and his exact pathology) — dramatic work: diagnoses Theo's whole arc as a jab — workshopped: no — STRONGEST ITEM
5 — "she folded it into thirds and put it in the cardigan pocket, which from her was a yes" (L23) — mechanism: deadpan translation of a minimal gesture (fold = assent) — source: character — funniness: 1 — portable: no — dramatic work: renders her yes without a line of dialogue — workshopped: no — BLOCKING (funniness-1; third `which`-caption reading of a small gesture inside 20 lines)
6 — "took the room in once the way she took rooms in... and not remark on it, which was her way of remarking on it" (L27) — mechanism: inverse-attention paradox + recognitional `the way` — source: narrator-overlay (Theo captioning June) — funniness: 2 — portable: yes ("X was her way of not-X-ing" and "the way she [does the general thing]" are interchangeable shapes) — dramatic work: renders the jar shorthand — workshopped: yes — BLOCKING
7 — "pretending not to would have been a lie with better manners" (L39) — mechanism: epigram / reframe — source: narrator-overlay — funniness: 1 — portable: yes (portable snowclone; twins with L101) — dramatic work: licenses him to look at the four studies — workshopped: yes — BLOCKING
8 — "she hadn't glanced at him once, which meant she'd been tracking him the whole time out of the side of the eye that did her real looking" (L49) — mechanism: inverse-attention paradox — source: narrator-overlay — funniness: 1 — portable: yes — dramatic work: shows June clocking his table-temptation before he acts — workshopped: yes — BLOCKING (repeats item 6's mechanism 22 lines on)
9 — "twice she said 'Mine'... not sharp about it, the way you'd claim a coat at a party" (L63) — mechanism: deflating recognitional simile — source: narrator-overlay — funniness: 1 — portable: yes ("claim a coat at a party" is interchangeable filler) — dramatic work: keeps the territory-claim loving, not combative — workshopped: yes — BLOCKING
10 — "He watched it cost her a second before it paid her one." (L79) — mechanism: cost/paid antithesis (fiscal compression) — source: narrator-overlay — funniness: 1 — portable: yes — dramatic work: registers mixed news before June speaks — workshopped: yes — BLOCKING (also revives the debt-figure narration the tracker retired in Ch18/Ch19)
11 — "January's a coat I don't have yet and a lot of lentils. But there's a key with a date on it now. That's a real thing to be broke toward." (L81) — mechanism: concrete specificity + reframe ("broke toward") — source: character (June's dry economy) — funniness: 2 — portable: no in the line's body, but "a coat" reuses the Ch20 "FEB = coat" unit the tracker marked PAID — dramatic work: keeps the New York path costly while dignifying the deadline — workshopped: no — WATCH (coat-motif reuse; see orders)
12 — "She sent me a photo of the studio-access form like it was a sonogram." (L89) — mechanism: incongruity simile (bureaucratic form = pregnancy announcement) — source: character (June painter-eye) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (anchored to Asha's form and June's not-going) — dramatic work: renders Asha's joy and June's un-bitter gladness; the path stays chosen, not lost — workshopped: no
13 — "He was quiet in the specific way of a man carrying a spreadsheet around behind his eyes." (L95) — mechanism: characterizing simile — source: narrator-overlay (Theo captioning Ben) — funniness: 2 — portable: yes (the image detaches cleanly; recognitional `the specific way of a man` frame) — dramatic work: primes the readiness-column beat — workshopped: yes — BLOCKING
14 — "a spreadsheet with an empty column is just a lie with math on it" (L101) — mechanism: deflation-epigram — source: character (Ben self-mockery) — funniness: 2 — portable: yes (twins with L39 — the two "a lie with [X]" epigrams read as one authorial hand across two mouths) — dramatic work: names why the working number scared him — workshopped: yes — BLOCKING (Ben is not the style-bible's licensed high-density voice)
15 — "I wanted the lease to make me not scared, and it turns out a lease can't do that. Who knew. Everyone. Everyone knew that." (L105) — mechanism: self-answer deflation — source: character (Ben) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (attached to the lease / eleven-minutes stakes) — dramatic work: self-deprecation that does not cancel "I'm scared it's the wrong call" — workshopped: no — WATCH (second polished Ben deprecation in ~5 lines)
16 — "Theo waited, which was a thing he was learning to do with his mouth shut." (L99) — mechanism: deadpan self-characterization — source: character (Theo) — funniness: 1 — portable: no — dramatic work: marks his restraint growth — workshopped: no — BLOCKING (funniness-1; the fourth self-audit `which` caption)
17 — "Priya put the chairs in rows the way she did everything, in threes." (L113) — mechanism: recognitional characterization — source: narrator-overlay — funniness: 1 — portable: yes (recognitional `the way` frame) — dramatic work: sets her order against the "left it crooked" release one line up — workshopped: yes — BLOCKING
18 — "the lender owning the loan on a form her nephew had made her that morning... She hung the clipboard back one degree straighter than he'd left it" (L115) — mechanism: reversal/payoff + precise over-correction as signature — source: situation/character (Odile) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (pays the L20 jab; the one-degree straighten is the book's Odile/Theo motif) — dramatic work: Odile submits to his system while keeping the last correction — workshopped: no
19 — "It's a wall text. It's explaining the joke before anyone tells it." (L131) — mechanism: meta-deflation (over-explanatory label = a joke pre-told) — source: character (June's editorial care move) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (guarded in-scene: "She wasn't grading him. She was doing to the card what she'd done to the doorway") — dramatic work: enacts the no-caption thesis; June teaching Theo restraint — workshopped: no
20 — "And 'views' is a tour bus." (L135) — mechanism: compression / incongruity (a word reduced to a tour-bus register) — source: character (June diction-precision) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (work-critique of the actual copy) — dramatic work: strips the label toward "finished together" — workshopped: no
21 — "Print a second one for the flat-file drawer. Labels walk off." (L149) — mechanism: deadpan logistics undercut — source: character (June) — funniness: 1 — portable: yes-ish (portable dry practicality) — dramatic work: keeps June un-sentimental at the label's emotional peak — workshopped: no — BLOCKING (funniness-1; the register's default deflection reflex)
22 — "Someone's going to tell you it's crooked and offer to fix it... tell them it's supposed to. Then come find me. I'll be at the coffee pretending I'm not watching the door." (L175) — mechanism: predicted-reflex setup (the cohort's fix-it reflex) + self-aware admission of wanting — source: character (June's wants-to-be-seen-and-not-caught contradiction) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: June choosing to be caught wanting = her arc's payoff; the crooked corner affirmed, not softened — workshopped: no

EXCLUDED as non-comic (tension / thesis / texture, not attempted comedy): "Her water was hers to run low. He wasn't going to top it off for her." (L7) and "He'd have handed it to her. He kept his grip on his own brush and let her reach." (L63) — withheld-care restraint, dramatic not comic; "the pencil label... reading out at anyone and the painted side reading out at no one" (L9) — precise image; "Line them up and you get a third one neither of us saw." (L57) — aesthetic law in June's register; "March is a long way to carry January." (L85) — tender, the dialogue doctor's fake-sharp call, not a joke; "The helpful version costs me the room. I only just learned to tell them apart." (L87) — thesis kept deliberately sharp; "let them be two cards" (L151) — restraint payoff.

DISTRIBUTION FINDINGS.
Density: right for a late-book payoff — comedy is present but subordinate to the joint-piece, label, and cohort beats. No DRY / THIN problem; the register's commitment is met.
Source split: of 22 comic items, character-spoken or character-action ~12 (the strong, memorable half — Odile L20/L115, June L81/L89/L131/L135/L175, Ben L101/L105/L15), narrator-overlay ~9 (L23, L27, L39, L49, L63, L79, L95, L99, L113; L11 borderline). The overlay half is the defect: it runs almost entirely through one construction family.
Construction monotony (the verdict driver), with counts:
- Recognitional `the way [X]` simile/tautology: L17 "the way she read a badly hung frame", L27 "the way she took rooms in", L63 "the way you'd claim a coat at a party", L93 "the way people come early when the place they came from wasn't working", L95 "the specific way of a man carrying a spreadsheet", L113 "the way she did everything, in threes", L167 "the way she took everything home" = **7 instances against the tracker's hard cap of 1 per chapter** (tics.md Ch11 "cap at one per chapter from Ch11"; Ch13 "1/1 cap; zero in Ch14"; Ch17 "4/4 cap"). Four are load-bearing comic beats (L27, L63, L95, L113).
- `, which [deadpan caption]`: L3 (x2), L23, L27, L49, L99 = **5 comic captions**, reviving a tic Ch13–14 drove to zero ("evaluative `, which` captions | 1 after repair | Ch14 should add zero").
- Twinned snowclone "a lie with [X]": L39 "a lie with better manners" (narrator) + L101 "a lie with math on it" (Ben) = **2, cross-voice** — reads as one authorial hand, not two characters.
- Twinned inverse-attention paradox: L27 (not remark = remark) + L49 (not glance = track) = **2**, same mechanism.
- Calculation figure: "doing arithmetic" (L45), "the arithmetic" (L81), "math" (L101) = 3, adjacent to the spent spoken `the math` family and the debt-figure narration the tracker retired.
Sweetness: NOT OVERSWEETENED — verified against the three protected beats. NY path stays costly (L81 "broke toward"; L87 "costs me the room"); Priya/Ben's slower choice stays sincere (L109 "I want to know what you want, not what the rent wants... That's my condition") with the fear unretracted (L105 "I'm scared it's the wrong call"); portrait consent carries no joke at all (L9, L165 rendered as pure restraint). One WATCH: Ben's fear is bracketed by two polished deprecations (L101, L105) — keep one plain so the beat doesn't tip toward comic.
Cringe: none for this reader.
Warmth floor: holds — embarrassment-free, and the close is warm (L175).

CHAPTER VERDICT: MONOTONOUS — the narrator-overlay source is over-recurring through a single construction family: recognitional `the way [X]` at 7x against a 1/chapter cap, plus 5 `, which` deadpan captions (a zeroed tic revived), reinforced by two twinned snowclones. The character-spoken comedy is genuinely strong and lands in register: strongest surviving item L20, "You met your feelings and issued a form." (Odile — character-sourced, non-portable, un-workshopped, doing the chapter's central diagnostic work in seven words). Weakest surviving item L79, "He watched it cost her a second before it paid her one." — a composed fiscal antithesis that barely clears "attempted joke," portable and workshopped. The verdict is not that the chapter is unfunny; it is that its wit-layer is being sprayed *at* the scene from one nozzle, and the caps it has blown past make that measurable.

REVISION ORDERS:
1. (verdict-level) `the way [X]` family — 7x vs 1/chapter. Cut to at most one. Keep the single plainest situational instance (L93 "the way people come early when the place they came from wasn't working" reads as observation, not painted wit — keep that or none) and re-source the four comic ones into action/character:
   - L27 "took the room in once the way she took rooms in" — cut the tautology; the jar-clock that immediately follows carries it.
   - L63 "the way you'd claim a coat at a party" — cut; the doubled "Mine" plus his hand going back to his eight inches already renders the casual territoriality.
   - L95 "the specific way of a man carrying a spreadsheet around behind his eyes" — re-source to Ben-action (he re-checks a number on his phone between chairs); the spreadsheet trait is already his and pays off at L101, so the caption is redundant.
   - L113 "the way she did everything, in threes" — keep "in threes," cut "the way she did everything"; the crooked chair one line up is the real beat.
   - L167 "the way she took everything home" — cut; "taking the dirty water home" already says it.
2. (verdict-level) `, which [deadpan caption]` cluster (L3 x2, L23, L27, L49, L99) — reduce to no more than two across the chapter; convert captions to action. L23 "which from her was a yes" — cut; she then takes his chair to sit and watch, which IS the yes. L99 "which was a thing he was learning to do with his mouth shut" — keep "Theo waited," cut the caption. Keep at most the opening L3 self-audit, which earns the frame once.
3. Inverse-attention paradox twin (L27 + L49) — keep at most one, de-workshopped. Cut L49's paradox outright: June's "You're doing the table," said without turning, already proves she is tracking him — the caption re-explains a line that just landed. If L27 survives order 2, strip it to "he watched her clock the second jar and say nothing" without the "which was her way of remarking" turn.
4. "a lie with [X]" twin (L39 + L101) — do not keep both. Cut the narrator instance L39 "a lie with better manners" (the weaker, and overlay); render the beat plainly — he looks at the four studies once because not looking would be its own dishonesty, with no epigram. Keep L101 only if de-polished so Ben is not out-aphorizing Odile's reserved register — land him on "I couldn't fill the column in" and let the empty column speak, or keep the epigram and cut L39. One shape, one mouth.
5. L79 "cost her a second before it paid her one" — cut; replace with a concrete read of her face or hand over the phone. The fiscal antithesis is composed narrator wit and re-opens the debt-figure narration the tracker retired (Ch18/Ch19).
6. Remaining funniness-1 items — L23 and L99 are handled under order 2; L21 "Labels walk off." (L149): accept only as plain instruction; if it reads as a deflection joke, trim the lilt. These three are the register's default dry-deflection reflex, and the purpose of orders 1–3 is to stop that reflex from being the chapter's comic spine.
7. (tracker, soft) L81 "a coat I don't have yet" reuses the Ch20 "FEB = coat" unit marked PAID / "do not repeat as a charm or thesis." The line lands and keeps the path costly, so do NOT cut it on comedy grounds — but reconcile with the tracker: either accept it as a deliberate January-vs-February rereader echo that extends the motif, or move the poverty-unit onto the lentils alone so the coat charm is not repeated.
8. (watch, no cut) Ben L101/L105 density — if order 4 keeps L101's epigram, plain-down one of the two so "I'm scared it's the wrong call" is not bracketed by comedy; this protects Priya/Ben's slower choice from reading as softened.

Non-blocking passes, shown with evidence (what the chapter should sound like once orders 1–5 shut off the overlay nozzle): L4 Odile "issued a form" (character, non-portable, un-workshopped, chapter's central diagnostic beat); L18 clipboard payoff + one-degree straighten (situation/character reversal, pays the L20 jab); L19/L20 June's label critiques (her sanctioned precise-critique care move, guarded in-scene against dialogue-diagnosis); L22 the warm close (her arc's payoff, plainly said); L11 mug/folder (strongest workshop counter-candidate — survives as a reported gesture, not a spoken zinger); L12 sonogram (character incongruity, keeps June's path chosen); L15 Ben "Who knew. Everyone." (self-answer, real stakes, does not cancel the fear). Each is character-sourced, non-portable, un-workshopped, and carries dramatic work.

Not committable on comedy while orders 1–5 stand: the recognitional-simile cap breach and the twinned snowclones are portable and workshopped by the audit's own definitions, and the monotony is measurable against the tracker's caps, not a matter of taste. The character comedy needs no repair; the narrator's wit-layer needs to be cut back to the two or three instances the register can actually carry.
