# Dialogue Doctor — Chapter 07, Round 2 (repair verification + full re-audit) (`output/chapters/chapter_07.md`)

Stance: cold re-read, skeptical professional editor, verifying the Round 1 orders against the repaired text and re-running the full scene block — not certifying only the repaired lines. Manifest scope: scene 01 (lines 1–4, assignment-card epigraph, 0 dialogue lines) — not required. Scene 02 (lines 7–120, 29 dialogue lines, 40 quoted utterances) — required, audited below. Reading-guide exclusions consulted: none declared for this chapter's form (standard spoken dialogue, one continuous class scene); ordinary-talk calibration applied to cohort logistics lines before flagging. Mechanical gate on the repaired text: 0 open findings, 62 WATCH (non-blocking); a direct sweep of the final text confirms no `load[ -]?bearing` string, no "in the tone of," no "question underneath," and no "economy of" survives anywhere in the chapter.

REPAIR VERIFICATION (Round 1 orders 1–3):

1. **Order 1 (line 88, delivery caption — zero tolerance) — EXECUTED.** The raw construction "Luis stood in front of it saying, 'The paint has weight. You used all of it,' in the tone of a man pleased with his wife's economy of nothing" now reads: "Luis stepped back until his heels nearly touched the taped aisle. 'The paint has weight. You used all of it.'" (line 88). Luis's line survives verbatim as ordered (it is his voice-card example line). The replacement is a placement beat — stepping back to take in an enormous panel — squarely in his card register ("checks the sightline … adjusts placement, then states one direct fact"). I checked for a synonym caption riding the new beat: there is none; the sentence after the quote moves immediately to Ben's easel. No characterization of how Luis sounds survives in any form.
2. **Order 2 (lines 88–100, fake-sharp quip carousel) — EXECUTED.** The three cohort lines no longer share the statement-plus-dry-rider shape. Luis: card line untouched. Priya: the balanced epigram "It's the eyebrow that hurts. Of everything you know about me, that survived." is replaced by "That's my eyebrow. I saw it. We can move on." (line 90) — flat, directive, body-triage in her brisk clinical register, with no antithetical turn. Mara: trimmed past the order's minimum — both polished riders ("It looks better painted than it ever looked on me" and the interim "The evidence is on the wall") are gone, leaving the scarf claim and the November ruling ("That's my scarf … June, you're keeping it through November, I've decided.", line 100), and the clementine interception is preserved exactly as the device that ends her sentence ("Priya tossed her a clementine before she could extend the ruling"). Odile's two composed critiques ("The mouth is observed. The cheek is an apology. Scrape it.", line 94; "Leave the blank.", line 98) are now the only composed lines standing in the walk, per the style bible's license allocation.
3. **Order 3 (line 114, subtext caption) — EXECUTED.** The sentence now ends at "instead": "She could have asked. *Rack's communal.* *Is it dry?* *Are you keeping that?* She turned back to her own panel and smoothed the tape onto the back instead." (line 114). The because-clause ("because the question underneath those questions did not belong in a room this small") is cut entirely, the italicized candidate questions remain literal and speakable, and I checked the surrounding paragraphs (lines 112–120) for a relocated synonym — "what she was really asking," "the real question," or any equivalent. None exists; the unasked question is answered only by action (writing THEO BRENNAN without a pause, racking her own panel face out), as ordered. This also completes the half-executed Codex tic-audit order on raw line 120 ("keep questions/action literal").

SCENE 02 (studio, lines 7–120 — memory-portrait Tuesday, trade-sides critique, cleanup/rack):

- **1. Voice convergence — CLEAN** — covered attributions and read all seven speakers blind; the repair changed the convergence picture, so I re-pressed the riskiest pair: post-repair Priya ("That's my eyebrow. I saw it. We can move on.", line 90) against Luis ("The paint has weight. You used all of it.", line 88) — both now short and flat; they survive separation because Priya's flatness is procedural triage that moves the room along (her under-pressure card: "clinical and directive") while Luis's is a single material observation with no management function (his card: states one fact, no follow-through — "kept walking," line 106). Theo still explains himself when ashamed ("I couldn't get the paint to tuck," line 74); June's dryness remains exclusively self-aimed ("I've made a man. Beyond that I promise nothing.", line 34); Odile speaks only in imperatives and diagnoses.
- **2. Monotone Q/A rhythm — CLEAN** — checked all question-bearing exchanges; strongest counter-candidate: the kraft-paper exchange "How bad is it over there?" → "I've made a man… I promise nothing." → "I'm sorry in advance…" → "Leave them out. That's the assignment." (lines 32–38), four alternating lines of similar weight — it survives because the fourth line breaks the volley by redirecting to the assignment rather than answering, and lengths vary; elsewhere questions get asymmetrical returns ("Did you eat?" → "I will," undercut by narration, lines 52–54) or imperatives ("Can we talk to them?" → "You may talk. You may not describe yourself.", lines 16–18).
- **3. Missing interiority — CLEAN** — June's mind is on through every exchange: the rubber-band reach and retraction (line 42), "She didn't need it. That was worse." (line 44), "June stood beside the evidence and waited for him to notice how much of it there was." (line 78); strongest counter-candidate, re-checked because the repair shortened line 114: the rack sequence (lines 112–118) — it survives because "She could have asked." plus the three italicized candidates is interiority, and the block-capitals beat ("two Ns, no pause at either of them, no glance at the door") keeps her mind visible through the close.
- **4. Questions-as-statements — CLEAN** — every spoken question is a genuine ask ("Can we talk to them?", "How bad is it over there?", "Did you eat?"); strongest counter-candidate: the italicized unasked questions "*Rack's communal.* *Is it dry?* *Are you keeping that?*" (line 114) — they survive because they are explicitly unspoken candidates, literal and speakable, and post-repair carry no caption converting them into portent.
- **5. Fake-McCarthy minimalism — CLEAN** — attribution maintained; clipped lines tagged or carried by adjacent action; strongest counter-candidate: "He didn't answer that." (line 84) after "It's the one I had." — a loaded short line plus silence — it survives the cut-list's unmarked-silence bullet because the focalizer marks the non-answer and the silence resolves immediately into his counter-offer of the missing datum ("They're gray. For the record."), with the cost already registered at line 78. Second candidate created by the repair: Luis's now-untagged "The paint has weight. You used all of it." (line 88) — survives because the action beat immediately preceding it ("Luis stepped back…") carries attribution and the starkness is his card register, not performed.
- **6. Jargon-trading without translation — CLEAN** — gouache/gesso/values/plumb are translated in situ ("gouache lifts when you scrub," line 56; "dried two values too dark, so the head floated," line 56); strongest counter-candidate: Luis's "Gouache dries lighter. Your darks will be fine by nine." (line 102) — survives because it carries its own translation and June's "The cheek won't." shows exactly what the term cannot fix.
- **7. Attribution opacity — CLEAN** — pressed the high-risk conditions: kraft screens (every over-screen line tagged: "Mara asked, from somewhere behind her kraft paper," line 16; "Priya's voice came over the screens," line 52) and the repaired critique-walk paragraph (line 88), which now packs Odile's walk, Ruth's panel, Mara's panel, Luis's quote, and Ben's panel into one paragraph — it survives because Luis's quote directly follows his named action and no other speaker is live in the sentence; strongest counter-candidate: the two untagged closing lines of the kraft-paper exchange (lines 36–38), which survive on established two-speaker alternation.
- **FAKE-SHARP — CLEAN** — re-ran the full cut-list on every exchange, with extra pressure on the repaired stretch (lines 88–100): the carousel is broken — Luis flat fact, Priya procedural triage, Mara warm claim cut off mid-ruling by a thrown clementine, Odile's two licensed critiques the only composed lines. Strongest counter-candidates: (a) Priya's "We can move on." (line 90) — a dry close, but directive rather than aphoristic, functional in her card's clinical register, and it does work (it releases Ben from the critique); (b) June's "I'd have asked for flattering. Accurate is fine." (line 76) — quotable-adjacent, but speakable, self-aimed, and a deflection visible *as* deflection per the plain-speech floor, with the plain admission underneath stated two lines later ("I know. It's the one I had.", line 82); (c) Odile's "The rack is communal and so is blame." (line 110) — composed, but Odile is the only character licensed for high-density memorable lines, and I decline to flag under that named allocation. Rule 7 check: the majority of the scene's dialogue is functional or unquotable (jar logistics, "I will," "It was two seconds," "Stop. Trade sides," the knot exchange, "The cheek won't," "No").
- **INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION (Rule 9, both directions) — CLEAN** — direction 2 (explaining twice): the line-114 caption is gone and no replacement caption exists anywhere in the closing sequence; re-checked the other repaired sites — line 88's new beat is action only, and line 100's "before she could extend the ruling" names anticipated content, not subtext. Direction 1 (over-stripping): the repair shortened line 114, so I pressed whether the rack sequence went dark — it did not; the italicized candidates, the declined sentence, and the countersigning marker beat keep June's relationship to the moment legible. Strongest counter-candidate for allowed plainness: "and June liked him enormously." (line 106) — bare, reacting rather than re-explaining, within June's allowed plainness.
- **DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS (book zero-tolerance, reading guide §2/§6) — CLEAN** — swept every narration-about-speech construction in the chapter: the line-88 tone caption is cut with no synonym substitute; "moved on without a word, which from Odile was a medal" (line 88) survives because it reads Odile's withheld critique of a *painting* through five weeks of calibration, not anyone's sentence; "before she could extend the ruling" (line 100) names content, not delivery; "Mara narrating the spellings to the room" (line 116) is a literal activity; "He didn't answer that." (line 84) is a fact about silence, not a characterization of phrasing; "'No,' he agreed" (line 106) is a plain speech verb. The marker "squeak … like it was countersigning" (line 118) is narration about an object, not speech. Plain-speech floor and followability re-confirmed on the memory-portrait exchange (lines 74–86): each principal states plain facts ("I know the knot's wrong."; "They're gray."; "I know. It's the one I had."), and a cold reader can say what each party learned and admitted without decoding.

REVISION ORDERS: none. All three Round 1 orders are executed as specified, and the full re-audit of the current text surfaces no new blocking finding.

OVERALL: CLEAN

Round 1's three blocking findings are resolved in `output/chapters/chapter_07.md` as it stands; the chapter clears the Dialogue Doctor for acceptance.
