All inputs read; the line-25 repair verified against the round-3 order, the full inventory re-checked against the chapter on disk. Here is the completed audit.

---

# Audit: Comedy Doctor — Chapter 06 ("Sightlines"), Round 4 (narrow verification of the round-3 item-10 blocker)

Verifier stance: skeptical re-audit limited in trigger but not in rigor. The single round-3 blocking finding (item 10, Mara's wall-assignment pretext) was ordered repaired; the current text was checked line-by-line against every round-3 inventory quote to confirm nothing else moved. Only line 25 changed. All other 39 items re-verified verbatim on the page; their round-3 rulings are carried with quotes intact, not taken on faith.

## VERIFICATION OF THE ROUND-3 ORDER (item 10)

Current line 25: "You two take this wall for me, please. I told Priya I'd pick one for her before coffee, and I haven't given this side a fair look." Then: "Then she walked off to find Priya."

Checked against each constraint of round-3 revision order 1:

1. **Assignment sentence retained.** "You two take this wall for me, please." stands verbatim. The chapter engine (the pairing maneuver) is untouched.
2. **No third Mara-cites-Luis instance.** The new pretext contains no Luis. The chapter's Mara-ventriloquizes-Luis count is back to two: line 13 ("which Luis says is two forecasts past useful") and line 81 ("Luis checked it from two places before anyone asked, so now we all benefit") — round 2's certified level, inside the cap the round-3 watch note set. Verified by reading every Mara line in the chapter, not just line 25.
3. **No pre-spend of the line-75 Vestibule beat.** The pretext contains no middle-artwork perceptual trouble, no lights, no level/crooked material. Line 75 ("Is the middle one crooked, or is it me?") → Luis's "It's the wall. The floor slopes. The painting's level." is now the chapter's *only* instance of the Mara-perceptual-trouble-adjudicated shape, and it carries its structural payload (stranding Theo mid-fix at line 77) undulled.
4. **No clip-lights-style epigram; no narrator-overlay.** The line is over-explaining hosting register, default-contract ("I'd," "haven't"), built from the first source the order offered (Mara's social-memory/inclusion card: a promise to Priya she hasn't honestly serviced). It is not quotation-shaped — no symmetrical setup, no punchline syntax. The surrounding narration ("Nobody stayed to watch them. Mara assigned them a wall the way she would have assigned it to any settled pair.") is unchanged flat staging from round 3, not added wit.

**Skeptical pressure applied before clearing.** Two counter-candidates were pressed. (a) The pretext leaks: she claims she hasn't given "this side" a fair look, then walks off to find Priya rather than look — but the leak is the mechanism, not a flaw: the doubled justification is the classic tell of a manufactured excuse, in the mouth of the cohort's designated smoother whose card says she explains before asked and thinks smoothing is always kindness; the next sentence quietly confirms reason one. (b) The chapter now holds two engineered-pairing pretexts (Mara line 25; Sam's line 95, "I want your eyes on those etchings, and Ruth's already told me I'm wrong") — pressed as a possible new repetition family. Ruled distinct: the mechanisms differ (over-explanation vs. self-deprecation), the targets differ (June/Theo paired vs. June extracted so Ruth/Theo can walk), and the chapter's title argument is people arranging each other's sightlines; logged as a watch note, not a finding.

**Continuity check:** Mara picking a print for Priya is a new Mara→Priya care micro-beat, varied against Priya's clementine beat (line 45) rather than duplicating it; the co-op checklist (clipboard, line 17) makes "pick one" materially plausible; no payoff obligation is created that the chapter fails to honor (the report can live offscreen in the coffee break). No banned patterns (no "load-bearing" hit; mechanical gate shows 0 open findings on chapter 06, WATCH only). No dialogue diagnosis. Plain-speech floor: the line is followable as text — a cold reader can say what Mara asked and why she claims to need it.

**The round-3 item-10 blocker is REPAIRED.**

## INVENTORY

Items 1–9 and 11–40 verified unchanged on the page; carried from round 3 with annotations updated where they referenced the old item 10. Item 10 rebuilt from current text.

1 — "You asked at one," / "Confirming," (lines 3–7) — mechanism: deadpan repetition exposed by a flat witness — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: establishes over-management before the cohort arrives — workshopped: no
2 — "decided public sidewalk safety was not the same as management" (line 7) — mechanism: self-serving taxonomy — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the rationalization engine Ruth later interrogates — workshopped: no
3 — "He had not laminated it. He was prepared to call that restraint." (line 9) — mechanism: bar-lowering deflation in free indirect — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: arms the route card as through-object — workshopped: no
4 — "I checked three forecasts, which Luis says is two forecasts past useful" (line 13) — mechanism: specificity overload + ventriloquized spousal correction — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: scarf custody continuity; Mara/Luis dynamic — workshopped: no — first of **two** Mara-cites-Luis instances (with item 28); count restored to round-2's certified level
5 — "We have an arrangement," (line 15) — mechanism: deadpan contract-language for warmth — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: June accepts care on her terms — workshopped: no
6 — "without saying the word *handrail* out loud" (line 17) — mechanism: suppressed-impulse — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: first link in the suppression chain — workshopped: no
7 — "The kid nodded at Theo like a colleague. Theo did not hate it fast enough." (line 17) — mechanism: timing reversal — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: enjoys being believed, hates enjoying it — workshopped: no
8 — "Etchings are in the back" / "I was going to start at the front," she said, and started at the front (lines 19–21) — mechanism: deflation of anticipation — source: character (both) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the chapter's whole argument in two lines — workshopped: no
9 — "apologized to a box of glassine sleeves" (line 23) — mechanism: misdirected politeness, physical — source: situation + character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: room scale set up for the Vestibule bit — workshopped: no
10 — "You two take this wall for me, please. I told Priya I'd pick one for her before coffee, and I haven't given this side a fair look." (line 25) — mechanism: over-explained hosting pretext — two justifications where one would serve, the host's tell, cashed by "Then she walked off to find Priya" and the flat "Nobody stayed to watch them" — source: character/situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no (Priya's print promise, the co-op checklist wall, the coffee break ahead) — dramatic work: covers the pairing maneuver, the chapter engine; adds a varied Mara→Priya care micro-beat — workshopped: no — **round-3 blocker repaired**
11 — "Is that plate tone, or did they just not wipe it?" / "Then I get to keep both theories." (lines 29–33) — mechanism: craft deadpan + epistemic greed — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: June forgets the outing — workshopped: no
12 — "He stood next to her with his hands in his pockets and nothing to fix, and he liked it more than he had planned to." (line 33) — mechanism: planning-register deadpan tail — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: names what the chapter is teaching him, in his own budget vocabulary — workshopped: no
13 — "Fourth floor, no elevator. I know that's bad. The rent is less bad, which is how they get you." (line 35) — mechanism: anxious self-aware rationalization, bad/less-bad ladder — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: opens the rent-math thread as pressure — workshopped: no
14 — "Read the actual text before you plan our furniture," (line 37) — mechanism: deflation by literalism — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: he plans, she brakes — workshopped: no
15 — "I made a note, not a floor plan. Important distinction." (line 39) — mechanism: distinction-without-difference — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: Ben's planning-as-love wound — workshopped: no
16 — "The listing says *study* about a closet." (line 39) — mechanism: euphemism exposure — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the SUFFOLK? note ecosystem) — dramatic work: arms Ben's Vestibule square-footage math at line 71 — workshopped: no
17 — "He has a note, and a spreadsheet, and the note has a rule at the top." (line 41) — mechanism: escalating exposure — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: arms item 18 — workshopped: no
18 — "Rent math is not a proposal... I made the font bigger, because the font needed help." (line 43) — mechanism: displaced anxiety (typography as commitment proxy) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the couple's arc question in an object — workshopped: no
19 — "Sort of," / "That means no," + the clementine pocketed unpeeled, "Priya saw that and let it stay there." (lines 45–49) — mechanism: deadpan translation + care partly refused — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: cohort care reaching June only as far as she allows — workshopped: no
20 — Ben's "the open face of a man asking the experienced table" / "How did you two decide? Not the lease. The overlap." (line 51) — mechanism: earnest category error (consulting the fake couple as the senior couple) — source: character/situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: detonates the overlap beat — workshopped: no
21 — "the class made it easy to--" / "I can answer that. We don't live together." / "Oh." Ben blinked. "That's also data." / "It's the only data," (lines 53–59) — mechanism: deflation by interruption — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: June patrols the border over Theo's live alibi; costs Ben visible warmth; route card returns to Theo's chest — workshopped: no
22 — "called Vestibule. Theo respected the name for admitting the problem." (line 61) — mechanism: deadpan literalism — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: stages the square-footage bit — workshopped: no
23 — "On the seventh head, he stopped counting." (line 61) — mechanism: suppressed-impulse, mid-act — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: suppression chain advances — workshopped: no
24 — "I'm fine." / "I know. Your left knee keeps looking for a wall. Stool." (lines 63–67) — mechanism: evidence-override + imperative repetition — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: care as observation vs. Theo's care as pre-emption — workshopped: no
25 — "Stand here. Not symbolically. You can actually see all three from here." (line 69) — mechanism: deflation of expected symbolism — source: character (Sam's owned move) — funniness: 2 — portable: no within this voice system — dramatic work: re-seats June at the center — workshopped: no
26 — heel-to-toe survey + "We are considering paying twenty-nine hundred dollars a month to live in this gallery minus the ceiling." / "Put the phone down for one room," (lines 71–73) — mechanism: specificity overload → reframe, then deflation — source: character + situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: fuses the gallery walk to the rent thread, cashing item 16's closet — workshopped: no
27 — "It's the wall. The floor slopes. The painting's level." (line 79) — mechanism: deadpan expert verdict — source: character (Luis, 1 of his 2-cap) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: strands Theo mid-step toward a fix that isn't his — workshopped: no — **round-3 caveat lifted: with the line-25 pre-spend removed, this is the chapter's only Mara-perceptual-trouble/Luis-adjudication instance and lands at full strength**
28 — "Luis checked it from two places before anyone asked, so now we all benefit." (line 81) — mechanism: affectionate translation — source: character — funniness: 2, modest — portable: no — dramatic work: Mara/Luis texture — workshopped: no — **second** (and last) Mara-cites-Luis instance; concentration resolved on the page
29 — "Sublet," Mara read aloud / "Don't," Ben said. (lines 89–91) — mechanism: compressed call-and-refusal — source: character/situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: rent thread kept alive at zero cost — workshopped: no
30 — "The gold one isn't gold. It's confident, though." (line 93) — mechanism: painter's-eye deadpan personification — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: June's eye working for pleasure — workshopped: no
31 — "I want your eyes on those etchings, and Ruth's already told me I'm wrong." (line 95) — mechanism: self-deprecating pretext — source: character — funniness: 2, modest — portable: no — dramatic work: engineers the Ruth/Theo walk in-voice — workshopped: no
32 — "It had a shortcut on it." / "I'm sure it did." (lines 113–115) — mechanism: weak-excuse deadpan turned into evidence — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the only comic beat inside the warning, and it incriminates Theo — workshopped: no
33 — espresso machine "wedged between the lotto terminal and the cat food. A handwritten sign over it said CORTADO YES." + Ben reading the sign "as if terms might be hidden in it" (line 137) — mechanism: found-object incongruity with character-true payoff — source: situation/character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: stages the counterman for item 35 — workshopped: no
34 — "Of course they had. The evening had arranged them that way a dozen times, and Theo had let it, gladly." (line 137) — mechanism: deadpan inevitability, self-implicating free indirect — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: confession that arms the coffee-order reversal — workshopped: no
35 — "Two," he said. "Ask her first." / "Coffee. Black. Separate." / "ordered a coffee he had a standing rule against drinking after six, paid for only his own, and drank it" (lines 143–147) — mechanism: behavior-reversal + self-punishing deadpan tail — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the chapter's repair beat — workshopped: no
36 — "She paid from her own coat pocket, in singles, before Theo's wallet cleared his jacket." (line 147) — mechanism: physical timing reversal (the pre-empter out-drawn) — source: character/situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: June enforces "Separate" in behavior before Theo can perform generosity — workshopped: no
37 — "There's track work. There's always track work. I have three theories." (line 149) — mechanism: anxious escalation, rule of three — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: borderline-no — dramatic work: bait for the handoff — workshopped: no — watch note stands
38 — "received it with both hands. 'There's a fallback coffee place *ranked*,'" + "Theo's evening no longer had a card in it." (lines 151–153) — mechanism: reverence-for-the-mundane incongruity paying a chapter-long suppression chain — source: character × character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the relinquishment and the laugh are the same event — workshopped: no
39 — "kept the shortcut to himself" / "Her pace was quicker than the route card would have budgeted for." (line 163) — mechanism: repetition-with-variation callback — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: closes the Sonia's-map evidence with changed behavior — workshopped: no
40 — "Sonia's was a diner, not a channel." (line 165) — mechanism: deadpan category correction — source: character — funniness: 2, modest — portable: no ("channel" minted literally at line 119) — dramatic work: keeps the names-test inside Theo's inventory register — workshopped: no

## CHAPTER VERDICT: **CLEAR**

40 of 40 items score funniness-2; zero portable, zero workshopped; sources remain character/situation throughout with no narrator-overlay comic items. Mechanisms varied: deflation, specificity overload, suppressed-impulse, evidence-override, found-object incongruity, timing reversal, reverence-incongruity, callback, over-explained pretext. Density remains comfortably inside the register's commitment for an off-Tuesday ensemble chapter. Sweetness: Ruth's warning (lines 117–133) still runs joke-free except item 32, which incriminates rather than cushions; the dispersal stays cold. Cringe: none. Distribution unchanged from round 3 except that the one funniness-1 item is repaired in place.

**Strongest item:** #38, the route-card handoff — "Ben received it with both hands. 'There's a fallback coffee place *ranked*.'" Two characters' wounds meet in one object and the laugh is the relinquishment.

**Weakest surviving item:** #28 — "Luis checked it from two places before anyone asked, so now we all benefit." Texture-only, and now the chapter's second and final Mara-cites-Luis beat — exactly the density round 2 certified.

## REVISION ORDERS

None. The round-3 item-10 order is executed and verified; no blocking findings remain; no verdict-level problems.

## WATCH NOTES (carry to tics.md and downstream chapters)

- **Mara-cites-Luis cap: holds at two** (items 4, 28). Log the family explicitly: no third "Luis says/won't let me" in any single chapter before her arc breaks the tic.
- **New, minor — engineered-pretext family at two** (Mara line 25, Sam line 95). Both serve this chapter's sightline argument and use different mechanisms; downstream ensemble chapters should not default to pretext-walks as the pairing device.
- **Mara's Priya-print promise** is a dangling micro-beat (offscreen resolution is fine); do not let a later chapter contradict it, and do not pay it off with a joke — it works as plain hosting.
- **Suppression chain spent with the card; coffee-counter comedy spent (items 35–36); Ben's transit-timing shape; "Oh." rationing (line 57 continues into a sentence — legal, logged so Ch 24's standalone allowance isn't diluted); refusal-to-conclude and measured-duration caps from Ch 05:** all prior notes re-verified against current text and carried unchanged.

The chapter is committable from the Comedy Doctor's side.
