The audit is written to `output/critiques/claude/chapter_22.comedy_doctor_round4.md`. The completed document:

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# Chapter 22 Comedy Doctor — Round 4 (round-3 repair verification)

Scope: full current chapter (`output/chapters/chapter_22.md`), all three scenes, re-swept cold — not a diff review, though the single round-3 repair is verified point-by-point first. Register calibration unchanged: reading guide §2 — warm, precise, lightly comic; Emily Henry at ~60% banter density; Morisaki/*Before the Coffee Gets Cold* quiet as floor; target reader the O'Leary/Henry-calibrated reader who wants comedy generated by these two people's specific damage, not narrator wit. Chapter-card constraints applied: private romantic climax, "release, earned and unspectacular," "no public-grand-gesture energy," plainness over eloquence. Cross-audits consulted: Dialogue Doctor round 4 (OVERALL: CLEAN) and Positive Prose round 2 (LLM-CLEAN-FOUND; both orders verified executed on the current text — L5 carries Dana's observable facts, L163 ends at "this morning"; the DD4 "back" fossil at L139 is confirmed deleted). Line numbers cite the current file; the round-3 cut removed a clause inside line 3 without shifting numbering, so all round-3 cites remain valid.

## ROUND-3 REVISION ORDER 1 VERIFICATION (L3)

The order: cut "and she stood there cataloguing that like anyone was paying her to." — end the sentence at "where the glaze thinned at the rim." — replace with nothing — add no new tag anywhere in the chapter.

1. **The clause is cut** — EXECUTED. Grep for "cataloguing" and "paying her" across the chapter: zero hits. Current L3: "It sat on the drainboard, cobalt going almost green where the glaze thinned at the rim." The sentence ends exactly where ordered.
2. **No replacement** — EXECUTED. The paragraph now runs observation (glaze) → action (wrap, unwrap, table) → verdict ("for no defensible reason" / "because Tuesday was two days away"), one deflation per beat, no third pass. Nothing was grown at the cut site.
3. **No new tag anywhere** — EXECUTED. Full tag sweep of every "which/like/where/as"-form clause in the chapter (work shown in distribution): the deflecting-tag family stands at exactly 5, its ceiling; the only tag-shaped clause not previously adjudicated (L29) is resolved below and is not a member.
4. **Knock-on counts** — EXECUTED as predicted: June's self-noticing notes drop to 1 ("She filed that away without knowing yet what it was for.", L73 — grep confirms no "cataloguing"/"memorizing" sibling survives); the round-3 blocking item (funniness 1) is gone from the inventory, which now carries zero partial scores.

## Items considered and excluded as non-comic (tension or texture, not attempted comedy)

All round-3 exclusions were re-verified verbatim-stable on the current text and hold on their round-3 grounds: the Dana wall-clearing fact (L5); the two stale bubbles (L7); "the exit installed before she'd even reached for the door" (L13); "The tape crackled under her." (L33); "The coffee came fast because it was all she had asked for." (L41) — re-checked verbatim-stable, still diner logistics, still not to be sharpened into a tag while the family sits at ceiling; "the circles matched badly enough to bother her" (L41); "Week what?" / "Three." / "Three." (L49–53) — arithmetic dread; the L73 observation run (collar, razor line, primer) — every clause an observed fact, plants the stockroom reveal and the L163 payoff; "The good easel was just free. The clean jars were just there." (L79) — self-indictment mid-confession, and reading it as a joke would soften the beat; the bodega cat (L91) — evidence-grade specificity for the earned-stay case, must not become charm; "If you were going, I'd hope it went well..." (L93) — composure as content, graded on the page by item 13; "a square with my name on it" (L103) — pathos; "Oh," (L115) — the §6-sanctioned once-at-the-confession instance, grep-verified single; "Not the part I didn't see." (L121) — consent precision, deadpan-shaped but comedy-reading would soften the portrait terms; "not to anything with a guest list" (L131) — terms enforcement; the delivery bike with salt-dried tires (L157); "I learned it this morning, but I know it." (L169) — honest recency admission in his careful-apology cadence.

INVENTORY:
1 — "washed it at seven for no defensible reason ... took it back out, and put it on the kitchen table, because Tuesday was two days away" (L3) — mechanism: deadpan self-audit + literalized indecision — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the blue dish is the Ch18-planted Mara tether; the tote/Tuesday system is this book's) — dramatic work: nerves through object; arms the item-30 bookend — workshopped: no (post-repair the paragraph makes this joke exactly once: the glaze observation is the evidence, "for no defensible reason" the verdict, and no third pass exists)
2 — "made her want to tuck the phone under the Tasker receipt and close the notebook, which was not a plan" (L13) — mechanism: literalized avoidance impulse + deflecting tag — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (Tasker receipt, notebook, her filing system) — dramatic work: pressure spike before drafting — workshopped: no
3 — "The first draft was *We should probably talk, yes*, which looked like a dentist's reminder. *Fine* was meaner than she felt. A paragraph ... turned, halfway through, into an explanation of why he should not feel guilty before he'd even arrived, so she held her thumb down until it disappeared." (L15) — mechanism: escalating failed drafts, register collision (clinical politeness vs. stakes), evidence on screen — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the comma-stiff "yes," the Tuesday class, the pre-emptive guilt management map her exact wound and derive "Sunday. 9. Just coffee.") — dramatic work: produces the chapter's terms; the reader watches words die — workshopped: no
4 — "It was 8:04. She sent it before the hour could argue with her." (L21) — mechanism: personified second-guessing, compressed — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (borderline, carried with re-verification; the argument she outruns is the specific 8:04-proposing-9 awkwardness on the page) — dramatic work: decision under self-suspicion in one clause — workshopped: no
5 — "put on the good sweater, telling herself it was the warm one" (L23) — mechanism: self-aware rationalization, deadpan self-permission — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no as the opening beat of the three-beat cold thread (items 26, 29) — dramatic work: desire through object without confession — workshopped: no
6 — "considering the usefulness of walking to the corner and back once" (L27) — mechanism: deadpan audit register on a stalling impulse, quantified ("once") — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no ("usefulness" does ironic advance work for "Don't be useful right now," L85) — dramatic work: entry pressure; primes the theme the booth detonates — workshopped: no
7 — "Theo stood halfway when he saw her and sat back down, which she appreciated, because there was nothing to do at the top of that gesture and they both knew it" (L29) — mechanism: aborted-gesture anatomy, deadpan (the half-stand's dead end named precisely) — source: character/situation (his host reflex misfiring physically; her exact read of it) — funniness: 2 — portable: no ("they both knew it" is eight weeks of shared history, and the beat enacts the chapter card's no-grand-gesture term as booth choreography) — dramatic work: sets the scene's anti-performance contract before a word is spoken — workshopped: no — NEW to inventory this round: rounds 1–3 neither inventoried nor excluded it; tested against the deflecting-tag family in distribution and ruled out
8 — ""They do the cinnamon thing on Sundays," Theo said, and stopped. "You didn't come for that." / "I did not."" (L37–39) — mechanism: host-reflex misfire caught mid-line + full-form deadpan — source: character (his card: practical offer before emotional statement; her card: full forms for emphasis) — funniness: 2 — portable: no ("the cinnamon thing" is Sonia's-Sundays texture; still the book's single instance, grep-verified this round) — dramatic work: the misfired practical care he is about to renounce, self-caught — workshopped: no
9 — "She waited for the list, schedules and keys and how he would restructure the known world so this could never happen again. He reached for his cup instead." (L61) — mechanism: hyperbolic anticipation + misdirect — source: character (schedules/keys are his card's diction) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: sets up the refused list; his restraint lands as change — workshopped: no
10 — "I wrote six things. I'm not going to read them." (L63) — mechanism: specificity + refused performance — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the renounced list is his tic renounced) — dramatic work: repair dramatized as not managing her — workshopped: no
11 — "She watched him nearly do it anyway, nearly tell her she'd had no way to know, and then he drank his coffee instead." (L81) — mechanism: misdirect, repetition-with-variation of item 9 (item 9 refused his own list; this obeys her "I need you not to fix it") — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the swerve only means anything against her L75 instruction) — dramatic work: he passes her stated test physically, on camera — workshopped: no (cup-misdirect family holds at 2, varied; a third would repeat untransformed)
12 — ""Don't be useful right now," June said. "You were about to offer me crates." / "Freight elevator," he admitted." (L85–87) — mechanism: anticipatory unmasking + escalation-by-confession (she guesses crates; the truth is bigger) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (crates and the freight elevator are his art-logistics identity — the instrument of the harm — almost recurring at the worst moment) — dramatic work: the wound performed live and declined; "admitted" costs him; sits immediately before the joke-free stay declaration and does not leak into it — workshopped: no
13 — "That's the right amount." (L95) — mechanism: deadpan quantification of feeling — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (grades his claim-size against the staying-isn't-for-you term she just set) — dramatic work: enforces the earned-stay terms; conduct grade 2 of 3 — workshopped: no
14 — "The waitress refilled them both without asking, which was the correct level of involvement." (L97) — mechanism: deadpan grading — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no ("involvement" is the scene's negotiated subject; the waitress accidentally models the terms June wants) — dramatic work: thematic echo disguised as service note — workshopped: no (tag-family member, counted below)
15 — "I'd been walking past it for a month like it was going to file a complaint." (L99) — mechanism: personification in bureaucratic register + self-deprecation — source: character (complaint-filing is the admin world he lives in) — funniness: 2 — portable: no in his mouth about that canvas — dramatic work: confesses avoidance and proceeds straight to "I read it wrong" without deflecting — workshopped: no
16 — "June took two bills from her notebook and set them on the slip before Theo's arm made it across the Formica." (L135) — mechanism: physical preemption, timing — source: situation/character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (check standoffs travel; this one is her L19 term enforced from the notebook that holds the Tasker receipt and Dana's wall) — dramatic work: "just coffee" enforced bodily — workshopped: no
17 — "Just coffee means I buy the coffee." (L137) — mechanism: term-literalism — her own text enforced as payment law — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (callback to the L19 text; fourth and final "just coffee" instance) — dramatic work: keeps the repair asymmetry legible; the gag's terminal escalation — workshopped: no (six speakable words; the reply it earns is an action, not a returned capper)
18 — "He moved the sugar caddy beside the napkin holder and left the slip under her cash." (L139) — mechanism: displacement activity as concession — the reaching hand redirected into tidying — source: character (his card's stress vocabulary: straightens labels, performs competence; here the performance IS the yield) — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the caddy business only reads because the book built his tidying-under-stress; with the "back" fossil now deleted the clause is cleaner than at round 3) — dramatic work: he practices receiving without a word; sets up the grade — workshopped: no
19 — ""Good," June said. "Keep doing the quiet version."" (L141) — mechanism: deadpan imperative grading conduct — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no ("the quiet version" has the concrete referent set: the unread six things at L63, the un-offered crates at L85, the un-contested check one line up) — dramatic work: sets the terms of how he gets to love her; conduct grade 3 of 3 — the ceiling; any added grade in any future touch fails on sight — workshopped: no
20 — "put it in her notebook against the page with Dana's wall on it, where later it would confuse her. That was fine. Her life had earned one confusing receipt." (L143) — mechanism: anticipated-future deadpan + self-permission — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the receipt filed against Dana's wall is the two lives entering one notebook) — dramatic work: integration without a speech — workshopped: no (tag-family member, counted below)
21 — ""you do not touch my stain." / "The umber one," he said. "There's a jar under it. I put it there Thursday. Old habit. I can take it away." / "Leave the jar. I might want clean water. The stain stays."" (L145–149) — mechanism: mock-property terms over a flaw + pragmatic alibi for accepting care (the alibi shape is item 5's, varied) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (umber stain, water jar, *After Class* are the class-world inventory) — dramatic work: she claims her half's imperfection as hers and accepts his care move without granting absolution — workshopped: no
22 — ""I'll try in front of you. It'll be terrible." / "It won't, though," she said, aggrieved. "That's the other annoying thing about you."" (L151–153) — mechanism: compliment-as-grievance — source: character (her card's honest-warning-dressed-as-joke, inverted into praise) — funniness: 2 — portable: no ("the other" indexes the wanting she confessed at L79) — dramatic work: her rare devastating praise with her dignity kept; closes the booth warm without going soft — workshopped: no
23 — "my plan was nothing. My whole plan was to do nothing and let it be your call." (L159) — mechanism: repetition, escalating commitment to passivity — source: character (his recursive over-explaining under shame) — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: consent posture stated as logistics — workshopped: no
24 — ""I know," June said. "You put it in the second text."" (L161) — mechanism: deflation-by-citation — his confession graded against his own paperwork — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the second bubble is the chapter's opening wound, L11–13) — dramatic work: closes the loop on the exit-installed text without absolving it — workshopped: no
25 — "black with three sugars, the single inefficient thing in his entire operation, and she had watched him doctor it this morning" (L163) — mechanism: incongruity via audit register (efficiency review of a man) — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no ("his entire operation" is the usefulness identity the book built; the order memorized since week one is her secret care move) — dramatic work: desire through specificity; loads the kiss — workshopped: no (the PP2 cut is confirmed: the sentence ends at "this morning" and the known/not-known payoff stands alone at item 27)
26 — "coming up half a step from the curb and getting the angle wrong at first, off-center, his nose cold against her cheek. Then it was right, and brief because she made it brief" (L165) — mechanism: physical imperfection deadpan + agency-repetition ("brief because she made it brief") — source: character/situation — funniness: 2 — portable: no as a unit — the wrong-angle first kiss alone is genre-stock, but the unit is anchored by the cold nose (the December thread's middle beat, between items 5 and 29) and by her governance of the kiss's duration, the chapter's terms-setting comedy compressed into one clause — dramatic work: keeps the climax unspectacular per the card; consent legible (his hands stay pocketed) — workshopped: no
27 — "he tasted like too much sugar, which she had known he would and had not known she knew" (L165) — mechanism: epistemic chiasmus — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (pays off items 16 and 25 inside the kiss; the chapter's single known/not-known instance, PP2-verified) — dramatic work: renders the kiss as accumulated attention — workshopped: no
28 — ""It does," he said. "I stocked it in October." He winced. June laughed, first time all morning." (L173–175) — mechanism: self-incriminating reassurance — his truthful answer re-confesses the courtship-by-provisioning; the wince is him hearing it — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no — dramatic work: the asymmetry wound still live inside the warmest beat, made survivable instead of erased; the laugh stays uncaptioned — workshopped: no
29 — "the cold working through the good sweater, which was, as suspected, not the warm one" (L177) — mechanism: repetition-with-variation callback ("as suspected") — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (closes the three-beat cold thread: sweater alibi, cold nose, cold verdict) — dramatic work: retro-confirms she dressed for him while letting her keep the alibi — workshopped: no (tag-family member, counted below)
30 — "she wrapped the blue dish in the towel again and set it in the tote by the door, two days early, and this time she left it there" (L177) — mechanism: repetition-with-variation bookend (the opening's wrap/unwrap loop resolved; "two days early" reverses "because Tuesday was two days away") — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the dish is the Mara tether; the loop is item 1's) — dramatic work: decision embodied — the morning's indecision is over without a sentence saying so — workshopped: no
31 — "`TUES = 4:00 / jar stays / I turn it or it doesn't turn`" (L177) — mechanism: deadpan legalism — the morning's terms compressed to index-card grammar — source: character — funniness: 2 — portable: no (the pinboard system and `FEB = coat` lineage are this book's; the jar and turning terms exist only in this chapter) — dramatic work: renders the portrait-consent terms as object, not summary; the comedy sharpens the terms rather than softening them — workshopped: no

CHAPTER VERDICT: CLEAR

31 items: 31 at funniness 2, 0 at funniness 1, 0 at 0 — the round-3 blocking item is cut, not repaired-in-place, and nothing partial replaced it. Sources: character 26, situation-shared 5 (items 7, 8, 16, 18, 26 lean on scene pressure), narrator-overlay 0 — the overlay hunt was re-run on every narration item post-repair and found none; with the cataloguing tag gone, the chapter's closest thing to overlay is item 4, which holds because the personified hour is her own hesitation with a deadline. Mechanism variety holds: misfire-and-catch, aborted-gesture anatomy, anticipatory unmasking, term-literalism, refused performance, physical preemption, displacement-as-concession, compliment-as-grievance, self-incrimination, deflation-by-citation, epistemic chiasmus, mock-property terms, bookend resolution — no dialogue mechanism repeats untransformed; the one narration repeat (cup-misdirect, items 9 and 11) is varied and capped at 2. Strongest item: 12 — ""You were about to offer me crates." / "Freight elevator," he admitted." — the book's central wound almost recurring in real time, caught by her, escalated by his honesty. Weakest surviving item: 4 — "She sent it before the hour could argue with her." — still the closest survivor to overlay, holding on the grounds above.

Distribution findings. Density: right for the card's "release, earned and unspectacular"; the confession stretch (L45–79) carries zero jokes, and items 9 and 11, the only comic beats inside the accounting, exist to be refused/obeyed. Sweetness: NOT OVERSWEETENED — the three protected beats re-verified on the current text: the apology (L45–71) is joke-free; the portrait-consent terms (L119–133) are joke-free until the comedy returns as enforcement (items 21 and 31 sharpen the terms, they do not cushion them); the stay declaration (L89–95) is joke-free between item 12 and the grade at item 13; "I stocked it in October" re-opens the wound inside the warmest beat rather than smoothing it. The round-3 repair was a pure cut and added no sweetness anywhere. Cringe: none for this reader. Deflecting-tag family: EXACTLY 5, at ceiling, breach resolved — "for no defensible reason" (L3), "which was not a plan" (L13), "which was the correct level of involvement" (L97), "where later it would confuse her" (L143), "as suspected" (L177). Full tag sweep shown: every "which/like/where/as"-form clause in the chapter was tested for membership; the "which meant" clauses (L3 dish, L27 half-cup, L73 thumbnail) are her earned inference form (observation → deduction), not deflation, and are excluded; item 7's "which she appreciated, because there was nothing to do at the top of that gesture" was the one unadjudicated tag-shaped clause in the chapter and is ruled OUT of the family — the family's signature is a dry verdict deflating June's own displacement or feeling, and this clause states her feeling straight ("appreciated") and locates the comedy in the gesture's geometry, not in a June verdict; it also adds no spoken conduct grade (that ceiling counts spoken grades and stands at 3). The family may not gain a member in any future Ch22 touch; L41 ("The coffee came fast...") remains the standing temptation and remains verbatim-unsharpened. June self-noticing notes: back at 1 ("She filed that away without knowing yet what it was for.", L73), grep-verified — the repair took the count from 2 to 1 exactly as ordered; a second filing-note in any future touch re-tips it.

Tracker checks (current text, grep-verified). "just coffee": exactly 4 instances, none added, and the gag does NOT read as an unvaried catchphrase — each instance does a different job: L19 sets the term (her text), L35 enforces it aloud against the menu, L137 converts it to payment law, L159 is Theo citing her term back in thanks — the only instance in his mouth, which is variation, not echo. SPENT at 4 per calibration; no Ch23+ reuse without transformation. "Cinnamon thing": still the book's single instance (grep across all chapters). Conduct grades: exactly 3 ("Good." L65; "That's the right amount." L95; "Good... Keep doing the quiet version." L141) — at ceiling. "Oh,": once (L115), sanctioned. No smirk/chuckle/"a beat"/"Noted." (grep clean). Cup-misdirect: 2 (items 9, 11), at cap. `FEB = coat`: L5 and L179 pinboard anchors only; the comedy lives in the new card (item 31). Housekeeping (non-blocking, for the orchestrator): the Ch22 tracker rows ordered appended in round 3 are STILL not in `output/tics.md` (grep finds only Ch21 rows referencing Ch22) — append them at this round's verified counts: deflecting-tag family 5 (ceiling, closed), cup-misdirect 2 (cap), self-noticing 1, "just coffee" 4 (spent), conduct grades 3 (ceiling), "Oh." 1 (spent), cinnamon 1 (book-single).

REVISION ORDERS:

None. Round-3 Revision Order 1 is executed on all of its terms — the clause is cut, the sentence ends at "where the glaze thinned at the rim.", nothing replaced it, and no tag was added anywhere in the chapter. The re-sweep found no new blocking item: zero funniness-1 scores, zero portable items, zero workshopped items, and the one previously untracked comic beat (item 7) clears on all six fields. With Dialogue Doctor round 4 CLEAN and both Positive Prose round-2 orders verified executed, Chapter 22 is committable on comedy once the tics.md housekeeping rows are appended.
