The audit is saved to `output/critiques/claude/chapter_23.dialogue_doctor_round3.md` and verified intact (header, all seven scene blocks, revision orders, and overall verdict present; em-dashes and quotes preserved). The completed audit:

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# Dialogue Doctor — Chapter 23: Finished Together / Labels (Round 3)

Read cold against `checks/audits/dialogue_doctor.md`, the reading guide's binding voice rules (plain-speech floor §2/§8, zero-tolerance dialogue-diagnosis §2/§6), the voice cards, and `tics.md` calibration. Round 3 exists to confirm that the comedy-repair pass (`chapter_23.comedy_doctor_round2.md`), which touched dialogue *after* the prior clean dialogue pass, did not (a) flatten voice, (b) over-strip interiority, (c) create attribution opacity, or (d) reintroduce fake-sharp dialogue. Four changed areas are verified line-by-line, then all seven manifest scenes are re-scanned cold. Findings are BLOCKING and resolve via opposing-model rewrite.

**Global checks.** Contraction policy (Rule 4/5) verified per speaker: June, Theo, Priya, Ben, Odile all default-contract; no stiff uncontracted form appears (spot: Theo "That's paid and I'll do it right… it's blank, and it stays blank" L21; June "They're not the same height because they're not the same table" L57; Ben "it turns out a lease can't do that" L105). Odile's full-form-when-cutting license is not exercised and is not needed — her one high-density line (L19) is contraction-neutral. Plain-speech floor (§2) met in every scene, each principal landing at least one direct unguarded line: S01 Theo "the bottom half is Tuesday mornings, and it's blank, and it stays blank" (L21); S02 June "I'm not taking it down for a study. I know it by heart" (L37); S03 June "Leave the seam" (L57); S04 June "I'm not sorry I'm not going" (L89) / Theo "That's all I get to say about it. I know it doesn't solve anything" (L85); S05 Ben "I'm scared it's the wrong call" (L105) / Priya "That's my condition. Not the apartment. That." (L109); S06 June "I want a backup" (L149); S07 June "I'll be at the coffee pretending I'm not watching the door" (L175). Followability test (§8) passes for every exchange — a cold reader can state what each party asked, learned, or refused without decoding. Reading-guide exclusions: no chat-format or non-standard dialogue form is present, so no generic-failure exclusion is claimed; the ordinary-talk allowance is honored for the studio working-talk — flat functional lines ("Hi." / "Hi." L29–31; "I saw." L33; "Yeah," L111) are left un-sharpened, not read as debate. Mechanical: zero `load-bearing`; the speech-craft caption vocabulary the round-2/comedy passes removed ("it wasn't a question," "which was her way of remarking on it," "came out as a question," "which was a thing he was learning to do") is confirmed absent from the current text; the sole "the word for it" hit (L65 "Pentimento, the word for it") is painting jargon glossed in place, not speech.

## Round-3 changed-line verification (four areas, four risk-axes each)

1. **Ben's spreadsheet line — DE-POLISHED (L101), holds.** Now: *"I made a spreadsheet with a column for whether we were ready, and I couldn't fill the column in. The blank part just sat there."* **Voice:** not flattened — retains Ben's logistics idiom (spreadsheet / column / "whether we were ready") and his more-words-when-nervous register (card), and it feeds the plain fear at L105; the epigram that had him out-aphorizing Odile's reserved register is gone, returning Ben under his ceiling. **Interiority:** N/A (his own dialogue; nothing focalizer-side thinned). **Attribution:** intact ("Ben set the chair down in the second row," L101). **Fake-sharp:** this is a de-escalation *from* fake-sharp — "The blank part just sat there" is a plain concrete image, speakable, not an aphorism.
2. **June's January cost line — COAT REUSE REMOVED (L81), holds.** Now: *"January's a lot of lentils and walking fast to stay warm. But there's a key with a date on it now. That's a real thing to be broke toward."* **Voice:** not flattened — still June's concrete dry economy; "That's a real thing to be broke toward" keeps her reframe. Removing the FEB=coat callback (tracker: PAID) keeps the New York path costly rather than charming, per the chapter card's "practical pressure, not romance rescue." **Interiority/Attribution:** N/A / intact. **Fake-sharp:** plainer than before; no zinger introduced.
3. **June's label-backup line — CHANGED to plain want (L149), holds and strengthens the floor.** Now: *"Print a second one for the flat-file drawer. I want a backup."* **Voice:** not flattened — "I want a backup" is a *deliberate plain want* at the label's emotional peak, which is arc-correct (June's whole operation is "says the true thing sideways until the book teaches her to say it straight"; here she states a want straight). It replaces a deflection-with-a-punchline ("Labels walk off") with a direct want, so it *raises* the §2 plain-speech floor at exactly the beat that previously dodged it. **Interiority/Attribution:** N/A / intact ("She took the card out of his fingers and squared its bottom edge," L149). **Fake-sharp:** removed the deflection-lilt; nothing sharp added.
4. **Narrator captions around dialogue — CUT, rendered as action; interiority NOT over-stripped.** Confirmed gone and replaced with attributed action, no speaker lost: L23 assent-caption → Odile pockets the boundary sheet and commandeers his chair "to sit and watch"; L27 remark-caption → "leave it alone"; L49 tracking-caption → "she hadn't glanced at him once"; L71 speech-act caption → "He left the brush where it was."; L99 self-learning caption → "Theo waited, mouth shut."; L107/L109 Priya delivery-captions → "She wasn't managing anything" / "left it crooked." **Over-strip axis:** Theo's focalizing presence survives in every scene (L3, L21, L39, L45–47, L63, L65, L67, L83, L151, L165, L169); the one place interiority was materially thinned — S01 L23 (removed "which from her was a yes") — is judged in the Scene 01 INTERIORITY line below and clears. No caption-cut produced attribution opacity or a new sharp line.

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**SCENE 01 — L2–23, Odile boundary / the check-out clipboard (Odile, Theo)**
- 1 Voice convergence: CLEAN — Odile's clipped imperative ("Pull the two drawings from the third flat file," L13) vs. Theo's logistical boundary-lists ("They go on the sheet by the door, out and back," L15); blind-POV holds. Strongest counter-candidate: Theo's "If your collectors want a private view they can want it at eight-oh-five" (L15) — nearest her clipped register, but it is a boundary term in his warm-with-spikes voice, not her insult-as-diagnosis.
- 2 Monotone Q/A: CLEAN — instruction-plus-counter-terms negotiation; no question is traded, so no volley. Counter: none approaches a Q/A pair.
- 3 Missing interiority: CLEAN — "He let that be true, because it was" (L21) keeps Theo reading her (Rule 9). Counter: the "sit and watch" close (L23) risks going external, but L21 anchors his mind first.
- 4 Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — all declarative. Counter: none.
- 5 Fake-McCarthy: CLEAN — attribution intact; lines carry logistics, no unearned starkness. Counter: "A form," she said. (L19) is short but immediately expanded, not clipped-for-effect.
- 6 Jargon-trading: CLEAN — "the Rauch and the little Diebenkorn" (L13), "the Zurich loan you keep not calling about" (L21) are weighable as named drawings / a stalled archive loan. Counter: "condition reports, the digitization" (L21) — glossed by "That's paid and I'll do it right."
- 7 Attribution opacity: CLEAN — two speakers, never lost.
- FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — strongest counter-candidate: "You met your feelings and issued a form." (L19). The chapter's one licensed high-density line; Odile is the sole style-bible voice cleared for it, it is her only aphorism in the scene, and it is speakable. Not a floating zinger — it names the clipboard he physically just built.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — closest over-strip call in the chapter: the comedy pass removed "which from her was a yes" at L23, leaving Odile's assent as pure action ("she folded it into thirds and put it in the cardigan pocket, took the top chair off his stack… where she meant to sit and watch"). Survives because the action legibly carries both the yes (she keeps his terms-sheet without argument) and the role-reversal (she sits to watch him do his own work), and Theo's "He let that be true, because it was" (L21) keeps his mind present — the cut removed a caption that annotated what the action already shows, which is interiority *discipline*, not a dark scene.
- DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS: CLEAN — "You met your feelings and issued a form" (L19) targets Theo's *act* (bureaucratizing feeling into a physical form), not his wording, rhythm, or delivery; §2 permits Odile diagnoses aimed at the person/work. Counter-candidate: "She read the clipboard from where she stood and found the fault in it" (L17) reads her visual appraisal of an *object*, not any utterance.

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**SCENE 02 — L26–41, June enters with the four studies (June, Theo)**
- 1 Voice convergence: CLEAN — June names studies optically ("oil on board," "the source for my side," L37) while Theo catalogs jar/water/tape ("Your jar's the one you told me to keep. The full one's mine," L31). Distinct blind. Counter: both are terse here, but June's is a painter's inventory and Theo's is a logistics inventory.
- 2 Monotone Q/A: CLEAN — "Hi." / "Hi." (L29–31) then statements; no volley. Counter: the greeting pair is the only symmetry and is earned-ordinary, not a Q/A rhythm.
- 3 Missing interiority: CLEAN — Theo reads her at L27 ("He watched her clock the second jar… and leave it alone") and interprets the studies at L39. Counter: none — the scene is interiority-rich.
- 4 Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — none. Counter: none.
- 5 Fake-McCarthy: CLEAN — "Hi." / "Hi." is earned ordinary greeting (Rule 7), not performed starkness; attribution present. Counter: "I saw." (L33) — clipped, but tagged with action ("already unbuckling the portfolio").
- 6 Jargon-trading: CLEAN — studies described by function ("The rest are for finding the shapes," L37). Counter: "oil on board" is glossed by the described images.
- 7 Attribution opacity: CLEAN — two speakers, tracked.
- FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — nearest heightened line is interiority, not dialogue: "She had spent the fall painting her own exit from four angles" (L39). It supplies the read June withholds; not a spoken aphorism. Counter within dialogue: "I know it by heart" (L37) — plain, not quotable-for-effect.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — closest double-explain call: June's functional "That one's the source for my side" (L37) vs. Theo's "Every one of them was the room leaving" (L39). The interiority *adds* the meaning June declines to state; it does not restate her line.
- DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS: CLEAN — no utterance is captioned. Counter-candidate: "He watched her clock the second jar… and leave it alone" (L27) reads a *non-verbal* choice (a withheld gesture), not speech wording, rhythm, or delivery.

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**SCENE 03 — L44–73, the shared canvas / the table / "Mine" / the corner (June, Theo)**
- 1 Voice convergence: CLEAN — June's clipped painterly imperatives ("Don't." L53; "Leave the seam." L57; "Mine." L63) vs. Theo's explanatory line ("I was going to bring your edge up to mine. So it reads across." L51). Counter: "I'm not." (L55, Theo) is as clipped as June, but it is a denial nested in his longer explanatory turns, not his default register.
- 2 Monotone Q/A: CLEAN — "Don't." / "I'm not." / "I know you're not. You put the brush down." (L53–57) is stichomythia broken by June's longer "Leave the seam…" turn; command/denial/observation, not question/answer. Counter: none is a Q/A pair.
- 3 Missing interiority: CLEAN — Theo present in the table calculation (L45–47) and at the corner (L67). Counter: none — richly focalized.
- 4 Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — "You're doing the table" (L49) and "You left the corner" (L69) are flat observations, not portentous questions. Counter: neither carries manufactured portent; both are painter's notes.
- 5 Fake-McCarthy: CLEAN — the clipped "Mine" run is earned by the brush-down action and the thesis stakes, and de-dramatized in narration ("not sharp about it," L63). Counter: "He left the brush where it was." (L71) — spare, but earned by the brush already stopped "an inch off" the corner (L67).
- 6 Jargon-trading: CLEAN — "So it reads across" (L51), "plumb the corner" (L67), "pentimento" (L65) are glossed by action or narration. Counter: "pentimento" is expressly defined in-line ("the older picture surfacing through the newer one because the maker let it," L65).
- 7 Attribution opacity: CLEAN — two speakers, tracked across a mostly-silent working stretch.
- FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — strongest counter-candidate: "Line them up and you get a third one neither of us saw." (L57). Quotable, but a real painting judgment in June's precise register — speakable, not composed, and it does the scene's actual work (why the seam must stay).
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — closest call: Theo's table calculation (L45–47) reaches the same "don't merge" insight June then states at L57. Survives because the two do different jobs — his is private temptation-and-restraint (loads the brush, sees the price, sets it down), hers is the spoken aesthetic law plus the "a third one neither of us saw" escalation; not verbatim re-explanation. The pentimento passage (L65) leans expository but stays oriented through Theo's condition-report knowledge and restates no spoken line.
- DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS: CLEAN — repair confirmed: the round-1/round-2 speech-act caption "It wasn't a question. He didn't answer it." is gone; L71 now reads "He left the brush where it was." (action), and June's "You left the corner" stands as a flat observation with no narrated classification. Closest surviving counter-candidate: "twice she said 'Mine' before he'd decided whether to cross, not sharp about it" (L63). "Not sharp about it" is emotional-tone attribution of *how* the word landed, oriented through Theo (he is gauging whether her territorial claim is combative — it matters to the seam negotiation) — the standard show-the-manner register, distinct in kind from rating a line's *construction* ("careful / rehearsed / lawyerly / the rhythm of a partial answer"), which §2 bans. It survives on the tone-vs-craft distinction and is overridable at routing; note the comedy pass already stripped the simile tail ("the way you'd claim a coat at a party") that would have pushed it over.

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**SCENE 04 — L76–89, the phone / Dana's keys / Asha (June, Theo)**
- 1 Voice convergence: CLEAN — June's money-plus-craft plainness ("It empties the account down to a number I don't love," L81) vs. Theo's restrained-usefulness register ("That's all I get to say about it," L85). Counter: both are plain here, but June counts money and Theo counts what he is *not* allowed to offer.
- 2 Monotone Q/A: CLEAN — statements, no volley. Counter: none.
- 3 Missing interiority: CLEAN — "He had four things he could have said… He picked his brush back up." (L83) keeps the withheld-usefulness choice on the page. Counter: none — the inventory-and-restraint is the scene's engine.
- 4 Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — none. Counter: none.
- 5 Fake-McCarthy: CLEAN — attribution and interiority intact; no clipped-for-effect run. Counter: "Almost a smile." (L87) is a fragment, but it is expression-tagging, not stripped speech.
- 6 Jargon-trading: CLEAN — "Kessler's money doesn't land till March" (L81), "the studio-access form" (L89) are weighable in the established work-network context. Counter: "the wall share" is glossed by "the eight hundred for the room."
- 7 Attribution opacity: CLEAN — two speakers, tracked.
- FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN **at ceiling** — strongest counter-candidate in the chapter alongside S06 L131: "March is a long way to carry January." (L85). This sits on Theo's voice-card boundary ("never says: polished aphorisms about care"). It survives — and is *not* a comedy-repair regression (it is unchanged from the prior clean pass) — because it is grounded in the concrete Jan-to-March timeline June just laid out (Kessler's money lands in March), it is offered as Theo's single sanctioned non-help utterance while he actively forbids himself four practical fixes (L83), it is immediately self-deflated in his card's own move ("That's all I get to say about it. I know it doesn't solve anything."), and it is speakable as warm consolation rather than a detached zinger; the chapter card's "emerging maker eye" dial also licenses one line of expanded range. Flagged as the chapter's most vulnerable line; add no second lyrical Theo beat. Also considered: "like it was a sonogram" (L89) — June's one visual simile, in her painter-eye register, anchored to the concrete form; survives.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — not stripped; the withheld-help inventory (L83) is the interiority. Counter: none close.
- DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS: CLEAN — closest counter-candidate: "she said the other one sideways" (L89). "Sideways" is June's own canonical descriptor (card: "says the true thing sideways") pointing at *topic-approach* — she broaches the Asha news obliquely — not a rating of the sentence's wording or rhythm; it renders what she *does*, focalized through Theo. "He watched it cost her a second before it paid her one" is gone from the current text (comedy pass); L79 now reads the reaction to the text as action ("Her thumb stopped at the edge of the phone. After a second it moved."), classifying no speech.

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**SCENE 05 — L92–115, Priya/Ben slower-choice payoff (Ben, Priya, Theo, June)**
- 1 Voice convergence: CLEAN — Priya asks the real thing ("Can you come to April knowing that?" L109); Ben talks logistics-as-emotion ("I checked the walk between our two buildings. Eleven minutes." L105); Theo is the spare witness. Counter: Priya and Ben both speak in plans, but Priya interrogates readiness while Ben narrates his own fear.
- 2 Monotone Q/A: CLEAN — mostly declarative with one genuine question (L109); no volley. Counter: "So you passed." / "We passed." (L103–105) is a near-pair, but it is confirmation, not portent, and the reply corrects the pronoun ("you" → "we").
- 3 Missing interiority: CLEAN — "Theo waited, mouth shut." (L99) plus the focalized watch of Priya crossing to June (L107) keep the scene in Theo's vantage. Counter: see INTERIORITY line — this is the chapter's thinnest Theo-presence scene.
- 4 Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — "Can you come to April knowing that? That's my condition." (L109) is a real question then framed plainly, not disguised portent. Counter: none manufactured.
- 5 Fake-McCarthy: CLEAN — attribution carried across four bodies ("he said, to a chair," L97; "from behind a chair," L111; "Priya nodded once," L93). Counter: none stripped.
- 6 Jargon-trading: CLEAN — "Approved, first and last, keys the fifteenth" (L101), "the wall share" (context) are weighable rent/lease terms. Counter: "first and last" is standard lease shorthand, self-evident in context.
- 7 Attribution opacity: CLEAN — four speakers, each tracked. Counter-candidate: "So you passed." (L103) is unattributed, but the two-person chair-unstacking frame (Theo + Ben) and Ben's pronoun-correcting reply ("We passed," L105) make the speaker unambiguously Theo. Survives.
- FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — strongest counter-candidate: "Who knew. Everyone. Everyone knew that." (L105). A self-answer deflation, speakable, attached to real stakes, and it *follows* rather than replaces the plain fear ("I'm scared it's the wrong call. That's the real thing under the eleven minutes."). Ben's de-polished L101 no longer out-aphorizes Odile, so the scene's comic pressure now sits under his fear, not over it.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — the comedy pass replaced two Priya delivery-captions (old L107/L109) with action ("She wasn't managing anything… rolled the coffee sleeve flat," L107; "left it crooked," L109) and thinned Theo's arc-caption to "Theo waited, mouth shut." (L99). Survives because this is by design a spare-witness scene — a payoff for another couple that Theo is learning to *watch without managing* — and the focalization stays in his vantage (he watches Priya cross, reads her not-managing), so Rule 9's "can the reader enter the scene" is met through his watching position; his mind is not dark, it is deliberately quiet, which is the beat.
- DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS: CLEAN — both Priya captions repaired to action; "She wasn't managing anything" characterizes her behavioral *mode* (managing conditions vs. asking), not the wording or delivery of a line. No surviving caption on speech.

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**SCENE 06 — L118–151, the label (June, Theo)**
- 1 Voice convergence: CLEAN — June's editorial imperatives ("Cut it." L131; "So say only that." L139; "That one." L145) vs. Theo's literal over-building ("It's accurate." L129; "It doesn't say who finished which side. It doesn't say when we—" L147). Counter: "Closer." (L135, June) is terse like Theo's fragments, but it grades the copy where his fragments defend it.
- 2 Monotone Q/A: CLEAN — a working edit with varied line lengths, not a volley. Counter: "No." / "It's accurate." (L127–129) is a near-pair, but it opens a revision, not a Q/A rhythm.
- 3 Missing interiority: CLEAN — Theo present at the setup ("the one Theo wanted to over-build," L121) and the close ("He didn't write a paragraph in his head about what the label meant… let them be two cards," L151). Counter: none.
- 4 Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — "What are they. Actually. Under the paint." (L135) is a genuine prompt, fragmented for pressure, not portent. Counter: none disguised.
- 5 Fake-McCarthy: CLEAN — attribution intact through the edit. Counter: "No," June said. (L127) is a one-word turn, but it opens an expanded critique, not stripped starkness.
- 6 Jargon-trading: CLEAN — "wall text" (L131), "stretcher" (L135), "underpaintings" (L137) are grounded by the editing action and Theo's in-line gloss ("Both sides. Yours and mine both show the start through the finish," L137). Counter: "stretcher" is glossed by "you'll put them on the stretcher anyway, that's where you keep them."
- 7 Attribution opacity: CLEAN — two speakers, tracked.
- FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN **at ceiling** — strongest counter-candidate alongside S04 L85: "It's explaining the joke before anyone tells it." (L131) and "'views' is a tour bus." (L135). Quotable, but they are work-critique of a jointly-authored *label artifact* (June's sanctioned precise-critique care move), explicitly guarded in-scene ("She wasn't grading him. She was doing to the card what she'd done to the doorway, lifting away everything that wasn't the thing," L135), and the beat resolves on the plain "What are they. Actually. Under the paint." / "So say only that." At the ceiling; add no more, and do not let the aphoristic shape migrate to spoken-relationship dialogue.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — "He didn't write a paragraph in his head about what the label meant… let them be two cards" (L151) keeps Theo present while showing him *not* re-explaining the label — the opposite of double-explain. Counter: none.
- DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS: CLEAN — June critiques the *label copy* (a designed object she and Theo are editing), not Theo's conversational phrasing: "'views' is a tour bus" is a diction verdict on the *card*, "It's a wall text" names the artifact's genre, and the narration draws the line ("She wasn't grading him," L135). Work-critique of an artifact is distinct from captioning an interlocutor's delivery, and it respects the chapter card's outcome rule (no character names the two-panel metaphor aloud — June removes "two perspectives" rather than naming it). Counter-candidate: "Closer." (L135) grades the copy's progress, not Theo's conduct.

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**SCENE 07 — L154–177, the tape / the close at the door (June, Theo)**
- 1 Voice convergence: CLEAN — June's exit-and-wanting register ("I'll be at the coffee pretending I'm not watching the door," L175) vs. Theo's spare warmth ("I know." L173). Counter: "Yours. You've guarded it all afternoon. Finish the job." (L159, Theo) is imperative like June, but it hands her the closing act rather than claiming it.
- 2 Monotone Q/A: CLEAN — "Mine or yours" (L157) answered with a term and a reason, not a volley. Counter: the single question is functional (who pulls the tape).
- 3 Missing interiority: CLEAN — "June would turn it tonight or she wouldn't." (L165) and "from her angle, the leaving one" (L169) keep Theo present at the portrait and the piece. Counter: spare but not dark.
- 4 Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — "Mine or yours" is a real choice offered, not portent. Counter: none.
- 5 Fake-McCarthy: CLEAN — "I know." (L173) is spare but earned by the whole afternoon of the leaning corner. Counter: "The corner still leans." (L171) — flat, functional, not clipped-for-effect.
- 6 Jargon-trading: CLEAN — "the shallow angle you use so the tape lifts clean and doesn't take the paint with it" (L161) self-glosses. Counter: none untranslated.
- 7 Attribution opacity: CLEAN — two speakers, tracked.
- FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — strongest counter-candidate: "Someone's going to tell you it's crooked and offer to fix it… tell them it's supposed to." (L175). Thesis-bearing, but plainly said in June's warning-as-care register and closed by the vulnerable, speakable "I'll be at the coffee pretending I'm not watching the door" — composed-sounding but character-true, not a detached aphorism.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — spare close, Theo's mind present at the study (L165) and the piece (L169); not stripped. Counter: none.
- DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS: CLEAN — no caption on speech; June's "Someone's going to tell you it's crooked" is about the *painting's* leaning corner and others' predicted reactions to the artwork, not about anyone's wording, rhythm, or delivery. Counter: none surviving.

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## REVISION ORDERS

None. All four Round-3 changed areas are verified against the current text (see changed-line verification): the de-polished Ben line, the coat-free January line, and the plain "I want a backup" all hold their speakers' voice and register without introducing stiffness, over-clarification, attribution opacity, or fake-sharpness; the cut narrator captions are rendered as attributed action with Theo's focalizing presence intact. The cold re-scan of all seven manifest scenes surfaced no new or residual dialogue-diagnosis, voice-card, contraction, monotone, convergence, jargon, attribution, interiority-overcorrection, or fake-sharp defect.

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**OVERALL: CLEAN** — Seven of seven manifest scenes all-CLEAN with per-criterion counter-candidates shown. The comedy-repair pass did not flatten voice (Ben's logistics idiom and June's dry economy survive their de-polishings; "I want a backup" is a deliberate, arc-correct plain want that strengthens the §2 floor), did not over-strip interiority (Theo focalizes every scene; the one materially thinned beat — S01's removed assent-caption — is carried legibly by action and anchored by "He let that be true, because it was"), did not create attribution opacity (every cut caption became an attributed action beat; the lone unattributed line, S05 "So you passed," is unambiguous in its two-person frame), and did not reintroduce fake-sharp dialogue (both ceiling lines — S04 L85 "March is a long way to carry January" and S06 L131 "It's explaining the joke before anyone tells it" — pre-date the repair and survive on grounding, guarding, and deflation, not on new wit). Zero-tolerance dialogue-diagnosis holds: the round-1/round-2 speech-act and `, which` captions are gone, and the closest surviving calls — S03 "not sharp about it" (L63, emotional-tone attribution), S04 "she said the other one sideways" (L89, topic-approach), and S06's guarded label work-critique (L131/L135) — sit on the permitted side of the tone/topic-vs-craft line, each retained here with its reasoning so it is overridable at routing. Plain-speech floor, followability, contraction policy, and Theo's focalizing presence hold across the chapter, and no principal beat is explained twice.
