# Dialogue Doctor - Chapter 23 - Round: Reader-Directive Sweep (2026-07-24)

Scope: full cold re-read after the Odile "Good form," beat was added at the checkout clipboard. No other text changed this round. Prior rounds preserved on disk (base was round 4 summary; see _roundN files).

Odile-delta verification: "Good form," she said, to the room in general. - two words of audible approval for Theo's boundary paperwork, delivered sideways, consistent with the softened card (praise rare but audible; humor that includes). It does not undercut the scene's silent-respect beat because the signing itself still happens without negotiation. CLEAN.

Chapter-level re-verification:
- 1: CLEAN - January-hours negotiation (Theo full-sentence terms vs. Odile's "And when the Zurich lender calls at ten?" / "Move around it.") keeps two registers; Ben/Priya subplot voices distinct ("We got it. The numbers worked... We still said no." vs. "In April, I want to know what you want. Not what the rent wants.").
- 2: CLEAN - painting passages alternate long process narration with short guarded exchanges ("You're doing the table." / "Don't." / "I'm not." / "I know. Leave the seam. Line them up and you get a third table neither of us saw." - the run resolves in a mechanism turn).
- 3: CLEAN - Theo's restraint is interiorized at each near-intervention (job leads unoffered, corner left leaning).
- 4: CLEAN - "Mine or yours," is a real question with a generous answer.
- 5/6/7: CLEAN.
- FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN - label-negotiation lines ("It tells them what to see. Cut it." / "Two underpaintings of one room, finished together.") are work-product under revision on the page, the opposite of composed-for-quotation; counter-candidate "Sugar is cleared." survives as running-gag payoff in ch24's register. Priya's coffee guess ("I guessed." / "Badly. It's fine.") stays friction-true.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN.

OVERALL: CLEAN
