# Dialogue Doctor — Chapter 21 — Round 2 (verification)

audit: dialogue_doctor | chapter: 21 | round: 2 | owner: claude | stance: skeptical verification of round-1 repairs, then fresh re-check
chapter text: `output/chapters/chapter_21.md` — verified byte-identical to `revision_snapshots/chapter_21/chapter_21.0009.20260704T044943Z.after_dialogue_doctor_round1_repairs.md`; no post-repair drift.
round-1 audit: `output/critiques/claude/chapter_21.dialogue_doctor_round1.md` (11 findings, revision orders 1–14)
manifest coverage: scene 01 (lines 2–59) required; scenes 02–04 not-required (0 counted dialogue lines). Scene 04 (SMS exchange, lines 96–117) re-audited by explicit round-2 order, continuing the round-1 exception.

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## ROUND-1 REPAIR VERIFICATION (orders 1–14, checked against the before/after snapshot diff and the current text)

1. **EXECUTED** — "The room held that." (49) is cut; the paragraph now opens directly on the knife beat ("He noticed his hands had picked up the utility knife off the shelf edge and were folding the blade in, folding it out, and he put it down."). No replacement beat-holder was inserted; the room-as-agent calibration ban holds at this line.
2. **EXECUTED** — "I got tired before you got brave." (51) is replaced with "I stopped waiting." following the calendar she already invoked ("You had October. You had most of November."). Dated fact, no chiasmus, no replacement zinger. The collateral cut of "Both of those things happened." also removes round 1's narrow therapy-speak survivor.
3. **EXECUTED** — "Put it on my side of the ledger." (43) is replaced with "That is true. That is mine." Self-accountable, no coinage, no figure; the ledger family stays rested and the literal loan sheet keeps sole ownership of that image.
4. **EXECUTED** — Odile's four-sentence speech (39) is now two sentences, at card mass: "You have worked under my name for eleven years," she said, "and never said it was yours. I put public paper where hands would find it on purpose." The biography caption ("You hid inside this room and called it a job") went with the preamble, which also deletes one of the five shaped lines counted in round 1's fake-sharp finding.
5. **EXECUTED** — the totality claim is gone: "whole of what I did" has zero hits in the chapter. Reread integrity re-tested below.
6. **EXECUTED** — the quiet-caption (37) is replaced with action only: "Odile set her cup on the flat files. She looked at the loan sheet. He looked at it too and did not touch the pen." Her answer at 39 proves the quiet was refusal, as ordered.
7. **EXECUTED** — "His voice stacked facts because the facts were easier to lift than the next sentence. He made himself lift the next sentence." (27) is replaced with the physical pivot "He took his hand off the shelf edge."
8. **EXECUTED** — "He heard the list happening and stopped it." (35) is replaced with the stop itself: the list breaks mid-item — "I told her which volumes had the installation shots. I told her-" He shut his mouth.
9. **EXECUTED** — the pre-certification at 53 is cut to a plain launch: "'Odile.' She stopped in the doorway." The cost is now paid after the speech, in dialogue ("You will be less convenient." / "Yes.").
10. **EXECUTED** — "That was all the confession he was going to get, and it was more than she had ever put on paper in her life." (59) is cut. The scene ends physical: initials, clipboard one degree straighter, upstairs. "The lender owning the loan" stands as the single permitted decode.
11. **EXECUTED** — the consent-logic sermon (103) is cut in full ("That sentence was not kindness... pre-approve refusal."). What remains is the typed-and-deleted fragment plus the single allowed clause of recognition: "recognized the species, and deleted them back to nothing."
12. **EXECUTED** — the count error (105) is fixed with the preferred option: "He sent it, put the phone along the sink edge, and went back to the brushes." No self-count remains.
13. **EXECUTED** — the growth thesis (105) is cut ("There was nothing to prepare. Preparing was the old tool. The entire point of Sonia's... carrying nothing."). The ordinary terrible wait and "Each time he set it down like the drill." remain, unexplained, as ordered.
14. **EXECUTED** — the reply-rating (111) is cut: "Six syllables, no door opened, no door closed," "did not mine it for more than it held," "It gave him a day and a fence," and "Neither was forgiveness" are all gone. The surviving orienting clause is exactly the one round 1 sanctioned: "Sunday was two days away and he was not going to spend them building anything."

Residue sweep of the full chapter for "whole of what," "ledger," "tired before," "room held," "four sentences," "forgiveness," "syllable," "door opened," "rhythm," "load-bearing": zero hits.

**Round-2 target verdicts:**
- **Line 39 repair:** VERIFIED. No totality claim survives. The two sentences assert only placement and intent ("I put public paper where hands would find it on purpose.") and bound nothing — consistent on reread with Odile knowing from night one and having conducted the pairings. She still never claims ignorance; Theo's either/or question (35) still goes unanswered, correctly.
- **Odile sharp-line density:** VERIFIED below threshold. Round 1 counted five shaped lines; the two ordered offenders are gone and a third ("You hid inside this room and called it a job") went with the order-4 trim. Remaining shaped inventory: "I put public paper where hands would find it on purpose." (39 — the material admission round 1 ordered preserved; accuracy, not an aphorism-delivery vehicle), "Eat before you decide anything else about yourself." (51 — card-licensed feeding imperative, same template as her card's "Eat. Then decide to be tragic."), "You will be less convenient." (55 — accuracy, sanctioned in round 1). The replacements "That is mine." and "I stopped waiting." are plain admissions, not zingers.
- **Dialogue-diagnosis narration:** VERIFIED gone. The fact-list caption (27), the list-stop caption (35), and the quiet-decode (37) are all replaced with action or a mid-item break. Full re-scan below found no new instances in any scene.
- **Text-message section:** VERIFIED. Consent logic is shown once (typed fragment, deletion) and explained zero times; the count reads "He sent it"; no door/forgiveness language names the chapter card. Details under scene 04.

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## SCENE 01 — stockroom confrontation, Theo / Odile (lines 2–59) — full re-check on current text

**1. VOICE CONVERGENCE:** CLEAN — read with attributions covered, lines 15–57. Theo still goes long and stacks facts under shame ("You could have pulled them yourself. You haven't asked me to pull anything off that shelf in years... and I number the crates," 27); Odile still compresses and corrects ("I sent you for nine catalogs," 25; "It was partly your fault," 47). Strongest counter-candidate: "That's not an answer." (Theo, 31) — compressed enough to be hers; survives because it is a grievance-demand, not a correction, and he reverts to fact-stacking at 35.

**2. MONOTONE Q/A RHYTHM:** CLEAN — turn-length map on the repaired text: Odile medium report (15), four short beats (17–25), Theo long (27), Odile four clipped facts (29), Theo short (31), monosyllable plus cup (33), Theo long with the list now breaking mid-item (35), silence rendered as three actions (37), Odile two sentences (39), accusation (41), admission (43), broken plea (45), five-word verdict (47), knife (49), dated facts plus soup (51), boundary speech (53), five words (55), one word (57). Strongest counter-candidate: the opening volley (17–25); survives — beat five (27) breaks it, and the volley is her card-licensed corrective literalism against his accusation, not two speakers sharing one rhythm.

**3. MISSING INTERIORITY:** CLEAN — the focalizer stays lit: the anger arriving "the size it actually was instead of the size he needed" (35); looking at the loan sheet and not touching the pen (37); the knife fold-in / fold-out (49). Strongest counter-candidate for a dark stretch: 55–57, where Theo registers nothing between "You will be less convenient." and "Yes." — survives; the boundary speech has just priced the cost, and the O.M. paragraph (59) immediately resumes his read of consequence. The repairs removed explanation, not presence.

**4. QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS:** CLEAN — "Did you want her to find it, or did you want me to finally say it, and she was just in the path?" (35) is a real question, still pointedly unanswered — correct for the true-partial design. Counter-candidate: "You will be less convenient." (55) — a position delivered as a statement, which is what it should be. No portent-questions.

**5. FAKE-McCARTHY MINIMALISM:** CLEAN — "The room held that." is gone and nothing stark-stamped replaced it; the knife action carries the beat alone. Strongest counter-candidate: "and did not claim it was" (33) — clipped narration after a monosyllable; survives (unchanged from round 1's narrow pass: it reports what she declined to assert, not a performed starkness) and the shape was not extended anywhere in the repairs, per round 1's condition.

**6. JARGON-TRADING:** CLEAN — headcap (3, 5), loan sheet / returned column (11), condition reports (53), "the '96" (27): each translated by the action around it or by standing catalog plot. Counter-candidate: "headcap" — survives; the sentence shows thumbs checking a book's top edge.

**7. ATTRIBUTION OPACITY:** CLEAN — two speakers, alternating turns, action anchors ("she said, and drank her coffee," 33; "She picked her cup back up," 51). Counter-candidate: the unattributed "Yes." (57) — survives; only Theo can be accepting the inconvenience he just purchased.

**FAKE-SHARP:** CLEAN — density accounting above (round-2 target verdict). Re-ran every exchange against the cut-list: no exchange exists to deliver an aphorism; no noun-question/portentous-answer; no "in [abstraction]" lines; the two rhythms stay distinct; no zinger lands where she is conceding fault — her concessions now read "That is true. That is mine." (43) and "I stopped waiting." (51), plain where friction and plainness are owed. Strongest counter-candidate: "I put public paper where hands would find it on purpose." (39) — shaped, but it is the ordered-preserved admission and the answer his accusation demands, speakable as said.

**INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION (rule 9, both directions):** CLEAN — over-explaining: both round-1 instances (53 pre-certification, 59 confession-rating) are cut, and nothing decodes twice; "the lender owning the loan" (59) is the single decode and it earns its place by naming what the initials do on the literal sheet. Over-stripping: the cuts did not darken him — 35, 37, 45, 49 keep his mind on the page. Strongest counter-candidate: "He knew what he was about to ask for, and he asked for it anyway, because at least asking plainly was one honest act available to him this morning." (45) — orientation before the plea; survives because it is his lived permission to make a shameful ask, reacting to the moment rather than explaining the line after it lands. The opposing rewriter should not extend this shape either.

**STANDING BANS / CHAPTER-SPECIFIC CHECKS (scene 01):**
- **DIALOGUE DIAGNOSIS (guide §2 zero tolerance; §6 any instance, any scope):** CLEAN — all three round-1 instances replaced with action (27, 35, 37); full re-scan found no new instances. Considered and survived: "That's not an answer." (31 — rates content sufficiency, not phrasing; §2 requires deflection be visible as deflection); "and did not claim it was" (33 — declined assertion, not delivery); "asking plainly was one honest act" (45 — rates the act of asking, not the sentence's shape, rhythm, or delivery).
- **ORACLE MONOLOGUE / FINAL-REVEAL LEAK / REREAD INTEGRITY (Odile true-partial):** CLEAN — see round-2 target verdict on line 39. Also re-tested 43 ("I thought about it less than I should have" — true on reread: she weighed the cost to June less than she should have) and 51 ("I stopped waiting" — true on reread: she stopped waiting and acted). Nothing states or implies knew-from-night-one; nothing claims ignorance; nothing bounds her involvement.
- **MENTOR-SPEECH MASS (card: one sentence, sometimes two; no speechifying):** CLEAN — 39 is at two sentences. Counter-candidate: 29 runs four sentences ("I wrote that page. I paid the printer. It has been public for thirty years, Theo. Anyone with a library card could have read it to you.") — survives: four clipped facts under direct accusation, declarative fragments complete in intent per her card, defense by fact-stack rather than speechifying, and the library-card line is insult-as-diagnosis aimed at the person, not the sentence. This turn is at the mass limit; it must not grow in any future touch.
- **THERAPY-SPEAK:** CLEAN — the round-1 narrow survivor ("Both of those things happened.") was cut with order 2. Strongest remaining candidate: "That is true. That is mine." (43) — brushes accountability cadence; survives because it assigns fault as fact in her fragment register, with no feelings-management vocabulary.
- **PLAIN-SPEECH FLOOR (§2):** CLEAN — Theo: "I need you to tell me it wasn't my fault." (45). Odile: "It was partly your fault." (47). Every exchange is followable as text; a cold reader can state what each party asked, learned, or refused.
- **CONTRACTIONS (rules 4–5):** CLEAN — Odile's full forms ("It has been public for thirty years," 29; "That is true. That is mine.," 43; "There is soup upstairs," 51; "You will be less convenient," 55) are card-licensed cutting precision; Theo default-contracts throughout ("You haven't asked me," "That's not an answer," "I'm done being the route").

**REVISION ORDERS (scene 01):** none — no FAIL verdicts.

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## SCENE 02 (lines 62–73) and SCENE 03 (lines 76–93)

No dialogue; manifest: not-required. Not audited for failure modes 1–7. Round 1's routing note remains open and is repeated, not closed: scene 02's "She had painted a man maintaining the perimeter of a room so that he would never be required to stand in the middle of it" (71) still summarizes the fear canvas in a single thesis sentence against the Ch21 prompt's "Do not summarize what it means." It was routed, not ordered, in round 1, and the round-1 repairs did not touch it. Route again to Narrator-Publicist / Plain Translation; it is outside Doctor remit and does not block this audit.

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## SCENE 04 — SMS exchange with June (lines 96–117; manifest: not-required; re-audited by round-2 order)

Form note: two-party text exchange, documentary form (Ch18 precedent). Exclusions applied and named per verdict: a three-message exchange cannot volley (mode 2), and SMS compression is the native register of the form, not performed starkness (mode 5).

**1. VOICE CONVERGENCE:** CLEAN — Theo's ask is practical and specific ("Can we talk? Sonia's. You pick the day and time and I'll be there." 101); June's reply is a compressed fence in her exact-noun economy ("Sunday. 9. Just coffee." 109). Counter-candidate: his one-word "Okay," (113) against her clipped register — survives; the single word is the only non-managing acknowledgment available.

**2. MONOTONE Q/A RHYTHM:** CLEAN — exclusion: one ask, one answer, one acknowledgment; no rhythm to converge.

**3. MISSING INTERIORITY:** CLEAN — the wait paragraph keeps him present ("The wait was terrible in an ordinary way. He wanted to move something and had nothing in reach worth moving." 105); the reply beat keeps weight and intention ("He read it four times. Sunday was two days away and he was not going to spend them building anything." 111). The round-1 cuts removed explanation without darkening him.

**4. QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS:** CLEAN — "Can we talk?" (101) is a real request requiring a real answer; the reply neither poses nor answers a portent-question.

**5. FAKE-McCARTHY MINIMALISM:** CLEAN — exclusion: the clipped texts are form-true. Counter-candidates: "and that was all." (113) — survives as the scene-closer, now standing alone as round 1 required (the growth thesis and reply-rating that crowded it are gone); "painted side keeping its own counsel against the brick" (115) — considered against the Ch21 object-as-agent calibration ban; survives, at the outer limit, because the figure states the literal fact of the object's placement (Theo faced it to the wall at 93 precisely so the painted side is withheld and the label is not) and records his scene-03 decision rather than doing emotional work for him. Any additional object-agency introduced in a future touch fails; this is the ceiling, not a license.

**6. JARGON-TRADING:** CLEAN — "Sonia's" is the established diner commons; nothing untranslated.

**7. ATTRIBUTION OPACITY:** CLEAN — sender and receiver unambiguous throughout.

**CONTINUITY (carried check):** CLEAN — "He sent it" (105); no count is asserted anywhere. Fixed per order 12.

**FAKE-SHARP:** CLEAN — the growth thesis is gone; the wait paragraph now holds only the reflex and the action ("His head kept reaching for preparation: what he'd bring, what he'd say first, contingencies for each of her possible openings. Each time he set it down like the drill." 105) — the growth stays unexplained, as the chapter card's failure state requires. Strongest counter-candidate: "The wait was terrible in an ordinary way." — plain self-report, speakable, no thesis; survives.

**INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION:** CLEAN both directions — (a) consent logic: shown once (typed fragment *If you'd rather not, I completely under*, then deletion, 103), explained zero times; the "not X. That was Y" template is gone with the sermon. (b) reply-reading: no mining, no rating; four reads plus the sanctioned Sunday clause orient without decoding her. Nothing explains twice; nothing goes dark.

**STANDING BANS / SPECIFIC CHECKS (scene 04):**
- **DIALOGUE DIAGNOSIS:** CLEAN — the syllable-count caption is gone; no narration characterizes either message's form, rhythm, or delivery. Counter-candidate: "recognized the species" (103) — survives as round 1's permitted single clause of recognition: it names his own unsent words by what he does with them (deletes them to nothing) and must not be extended.
- **THESIS NAMING:** CLEAN — no door language, no "forgiveness," no restatement of the chapter card's felt experience. The card is now carried only by the quoted messages and by the portrait scene's literal half-open door (81–85), where it was paid in paint.
- **OVER-MANAGED APOLOGY:** CLEAN — the sent text contains no apology essay, no painting mention, no management clause; the typed management clause exists only as the deleted fragment. Counter-candidate: "You pick the day and time and I'll be there" — full scheduling control to June without performed deference; survives.
- **HIDDEN COERCION:** CLEAN — gift-leverage: the study stays faced to the wall and unmentioned in the exchange (93, 115); urgency: none — "Sunday" accepted with one word; guilt-freight: none in the sent text. Counter-candidate: naming Sonia's; survives — public, neutral, June-known, and she countersets the terms ("Just coffee.").
- **OVER-EXPLAINED CONSENT LOGIC (round-2 target):** CLEAN — verified; shares its evidence with INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION (a).

**REVISION ORDERS (scene 04):** none — no FAIL verdicts.

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## OVERALL: CLEAN

All 14 round-1 revision orders verified executed, with the diff between `chapter_21.0007...before` and `chapter_21.0009...after` snapshots matching the orders one-for-one and the current chapter byte-identical to the after snapshot. Fresh re-check of scene 01 (all seven failure modes, FAKE-SHARP, INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION, standing bans) and scene 04 (same, with named form exclusions) produced zero FAIL verdicts; counter-candidates shown per criterion. One non-blocking routing note remains open outside Doctor remit: the scene 02 thesis sentence at line 71, re-routed to Narrator-Publicist / Plain Translation. Watch-items for any future touch, none blocking now: Odile's line 29 is at card mass limit; the "and did not claim it was" / "asking plainly" narration shapes and "recognized the species" must not be extended; line 115's "keeping its own counsel" is the ceiling for object-agency in this chapter.
