# Dialogue Doctor — Chapter 20, "No Advice / Keys Here" — Round 12 (current-text verification)

Target: `output/chapters/chapter_20.md` (current text, post-Genericization restoration). Manifest requires scenes 02 (lines 24–59, Ruth/Sam visit), 03 (lines 62–93, Asha call), and 04 (lines 96–145, Nia call). Scene 01 (0 dialogue lines) and scene 05 (1 quoted utterance, the execution run's text messages) fall below the manifest threshold and are excluded from blocks; scene 05's text-message form additionally sits under the reading guide's documentary-chat handling and was checked only for diagnosis/therapy-speak leakage (none found). Read cold with attributions covered, against the voice cards for June, Ruth, Sam, Asha, and Nia, reading guide §§1, 2, 5, 6, 8, the fake-sharp cut-list, and the Ch20 prompt anti-tics. The round-12 charge is verification that the restored lines (Ruth's "Some of it was easier for me," Sam's freight/hand-truck lines, Asha's radiator terms and "Cheap enough to forgive," the Nia column exchange, the studio-clause assurance, the spoken "It's 10:52") survive this audit's criteria in place — so those lines were treated as the prime suspects, not as pre-cleared.

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SCENE 02 (June's apartment, Ruth/Sam catalog errand, file lines 23–57):

1. VOICE CONVERGENCE: CLEAN — covered attributions and re-sorted all 14 lines by ear; the three speakers stay assignable. Ruth runs flat inventory ("We're double-parked," "We know how to deliver a box," "We have a car"); Sam runs physical-warm with one joke shape ("What's the freight?", the hand-truck line, "She'll like that better than the dish"); June runs compressed logistics that fracture when exposed ("The class is--" She stopped. "The class is the part that works."). Strongest counter-candidate: "We know how to deliver a box" (Ruth) beside "That's not an opinion. That's a hand truck." (Sam) — both refuse June's over-instruction dryly. Survives because the mechanisms differ audibly: Ruth's is a two-beat flat correction with no image, Sam's converts refusal into a named object; swap the tags and Ruth acquires an equipment joke her card ("controlled, dry, humane"; one editorial-sharp line maximum, spent on the confession) does not permit.
2. MONOTONE Q/A RHYTHM: CLEAN — mapped the exchange shape: one genuine question in the whole scene ("What's the freight?"), answered with an over-long routing paragraph, not a matched-length return; the rest is declaration, reversal ("Actually, no. Tell Mara I'm bringing the dish myself Tuesday"), confession, and deflection. Strongest counter-candidate: the closing run "We have a car." / hand-truck line / "Noted." — three short turns in sequence. Survives because none is an answer to a question and the weights are unmatched (offer-as-inventory, joke, thanks that immediately fumbles into "Both of you--thank you. For the box.").
3. MISSING INTERIORITY: CLEAN — June's mind stays lit at the pressure points: the cardboard edge pressed "a line into her thumb" while she over-instructs; the glaze flaw read ("the cobalt had pooled and gone almost black, and it was the best part of the dish") carrying the reversal decision; "June looked at the receipt so she wouldn't look at Ruth" orienting the confession beat; "June did not turn the receipt over" registering what Ruth's eyes stopped on. Strongest counter-candidate for a dark stretch: Sam's box-carry choreography (file line 37), four clauses with no June register. Survives because it is under two sentences of business between two interiority-carrying beats, and the chair moved "six inches to the left" is itself June's optical observation.
4. QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS: CLEAN — checked every interrogative and every line with question force. "What's the freight?" wants the answer it gets. Strongest counter-candidate: "I want to be clear that I'm not asking." (June) — a position delivered as meta-statement. Survives because it is literally the scene's engine stated plainly (the plain-speech floor's register, not manufactured portent), and Ruth and Sam answer its content, not its aura: a car and a hand truck.
5. FAKE-McCARTHY MINIMALISM: CLEAN — attribution is regular (said-tags plus action beats), and the short lines are priced by the situation: a double-parked two-minute visit announced in line one. Strongest counter-candidate: "We have a car," Ruth said. — clipped to four words at an emotionally loaded moment. Survives because the car is established fact ("We're double-parked"), the line is an offer phrased as inventory rather than performed starkness, and Sam immediately un-strips it with the hand truck.
6. JARGON-TRADING WITHOUT TRANSLATION: CLEAN — the scene's only term of art is Sam's "freight," asked while physically testing the box's corner, answered with contents, count, owner, and route ("Catalogs. Eight. They belong at the studio. They're Odile's."). No world-terms left unweighed. Strongest counter-candidate: "leave them at Sonia's with a note for Mara" — three proper nouns in one instruction. Survives because all three are established persons/places and the instruction's shape (contingency routing) is the point being characterized.
7. ATTRIBUTION OPACITY: CLEAN — three speakers, every turn either tagged or preceded by an owning action (Sam crossing to the box; Ruth not moving from the kitchen edge). Read-aloud with tags covered produced zero mis-assignments. Strongest counter-candidate: "She'll like that better than the dish," Sam said. — the tag arrives after a Ruth-adjacent beat. Survives; the tag is present and the warmth is Sam's register anyway.
FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — ran all 14 lines against the cut-list, hardest at the two restored care lines, which are exactly the shapes the cut-list hunts. Strongest counter-candidate: "That's not an opinion. That's a hand truck." — the "not X. That's Y" template, quotable, joke-timed. Survives on the cut-list's own terms: it is not an aphorism-delivery exchange (its entire content is a refusal to say anything wiser — advice converted into equipment, which is the scene's assignment); it is speakable in one breath by a person holding a box; it arrives at a moment where Sam is allowed to be light (June has just forbidden opinions, not confessed); and the other half of the exchange is aggressively unquotable ("We have a car."). Second counter-candidate: Ruth's "I kept them to myself and called it manners." ... "Some of it was easier for me." — "called it manners" has editorial polish. Survives as Ruth's one licensed sharp construction this appearance, spent on self-implication rather than insight about June, with the delivery broken by the bag-strap fumble and the second sentence left unfinished in content (what was easier is never supplied — friction kept, per rule 8). Ruth then refuses the therapeutic turn herself: "You can leave that part out. We came for the dish."
INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — tested rule 9 both directions. The mind is present (see mode 3) and never explains twice: the confession gets an object response (looking at the receipt) and no narration about what Ruth's admission means; the hand-truck line gets "Noted," not appreciation; nothing captions the care mode (the tics tracker marks this fragile — verified: no line in the scene names or rates the no-advice behavior). Strongest counter-candidate: "The rectangle by the door was bare except for a strip of dust where the box had been." — post-exit beat that could be read as meaning-stamp. Survives as concrete absence with no gloss attached; the next line is dishwashing.

SCENE 03 (Asha call, 4:05, file lines 61–91):

1. VOICE CONVERGENCE: CLEAN — the named risk is Asha/June convergence, since both trade in rates and dates. Covered tags and re-sorted: Asha's lines carry dock-floor compression and self-interrupting environment ("Talk fast, I'm holding a door with my whole body," "Forty-nine five and written access is real," "Take the crating if you get it. It's indoors."), June's carry offer-sheet order and consent framing ("First one's a question and it's yours to say no to," "Today I need a yes or no on sending your name"). Strongest counter-candidate: June's terms recital ("Terms: W-2, $49,500, six months funded...") sits in Asha's information register. Survives because the narration prices it as recitation, not voice ("this part she knew without notes"), Asha demanded speed in line one, and June's non-recital lines in the same call revert to her card ("I did want to feel less bad" — plain admission, no craft-noun armor, full form under exposure).
2. MONOTONE Q/A RHYTHM: CLEAN — the call alternates recital, interruption by physical event (gate boom, pallet jack, off-phone shout), and unmatched turn lengths: Asha's longest turn (the Dana/Kessler terms, file line 83) against June's seven-word answer ("$2,643 and whatever paid crating I can get in December."). Strongest counter-candidate: the "Okay. Second thing?" / "Second thing is I'm in." hinge — question and echoing answer. Survives as a single two-turn pivot, not a pattern; the echo is June accepting Asha's agenda structure, which is the scene's power arrangement made audible.
3. MISSING INTERIORITY: CLEAN — checked the two places June's mind could go dark: during her own recital (lit by "the notebook open and the pen capped, because this part she knew without notes") and during Asha's long terms turn. Strongest counter-candidate: file line 83, Asha's terms paragraph, where June registers nothing for nine clauses. Survives narrowly: the turn is first-delivery of plot facts the reader must weigh, Asha's dock events break it twice, and June's reaction arrives as the scene's closing act — uncapping the pen and filling in the right page, the card-true response (notation instead of feeling words). The orientation beat that matters most is present at the scene's true pressure point: "June looked at the left page of the notebook, at GOOD in her own handwriting" before admitting "I did want to feel less bad."
4. QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS: CLEAN — inventoried the questions: "Say the studio clause again" (imperative wanting information, gets it), "Who writes that?" and "Why aren't you taking it?" (both genuine, the second explicitly de-fanged by its own speaker: "That's not me being polite"), "can you get from here to March?" (answered with a number). Strongest counter-candidate: "So the real question: can you get from here to March?" — the "real question" frame flirts with portent. Survives because the question is literal solvency arithmetic, immediately answerable and answered, and the framing is Asha's hustle-math triage (her card: counts hours, schedule-aware), not manufactured weight.
5. FAKE-McCARTHY MINIMALISM: CLEAN — clipped lines are priced by the held freight door and the off-phone shout; attribution plus environment beats keep the starkness earned and situated. Strongest counter-candidate: the hang-up ("Asha hung up before the word was finished") — a stark exit. Survives because it is action, not stripped dialogue, and it denies the preceding line ("Cheap enough to forgive") any landing room — the opposite of performed minimalism.
6. JARGON-TRADING WITHOUT TRANSLATION: CLEAN — this scene carries the chapter's heaviest term load (W-2, W-9, net-45, load-in, deposit structure) and each term arrives with its consequence attached: "You invoice the 25th, net-45, you'll see money in March"; "$980 all in with the wall, by December 10"; "a body on January 4, eight a.m., three weeks minimum." Strongest counter-candidate: "he needs your W-9 by the 15th" — the one untranslated form name. Survives because its weight is fully carried by the deadline attached to it, and the reader needs the date, not the tax mechanics; June's notation ("DEC 15--W-9 KESSLER") confirms followability.
7. ATTRIBUTION OPACITY: CLEAN — two speakers, phone form, tags plus asymmetric environment (freight noise belongs only to Asha's side). Covered-tag read produced no mis-assignments; the dock events function as attribution. Strongest counter-candidate: "Okay. Second thing?" — untagged short turn. Survives; only Asha holds the agenda-advancing role at that beat, and the reply re-anchors ("Second thing is I'm in.").
FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — the cut-list's hardest tests here are the two restored Asha lines. Strongest counter-candidate: "The room's not pretty. Cheap enough to forgive." — voice-card anchor nearly verbatim, fragment-cut for rhythm, quotable on its face. Survives because it is a price judgment doing first-delivery work (why $340 is livable), spoken mid-shout with the hang-up amputating any resonance, flanked by the deflationary radiator fact and coat instruction — the line prices the room down, which is the reverse of aphorism inflation. Second counter-candidate: "Send my name because I'm qualified. If you're trying to feel less bad, don't." — a warning with edge at a vulnerable moment. Survives the zinger-at-wrong-moment bullet because the confused/ashamed party is June, not the speaker, and the text refuses the volley: June's return is not a comeback but the chapter's plainest sentence ("I did want to feel less bad"), followed by Asha's flattest ("Okay. Second thing?"). No exchange exists to deliver a portable maxim; every sharp edge is attached to a transaction.
INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — no narration re-explains the consent beat, the referral ethics, or the admission; the scene's meaning lands in the notation act ("DEC 10--DANA, $980..."). Strongest counter-candidate: after "If you're trying to feel less bad, don't." — a loaded line where June's register could be owed (cut-list bullet 7). Survives because the silence is not unmarked: June's eyes go to GOOD on the left page — the exact cost of the line (her guilt about preferring the good offer refused) is registered in object before she answers.

SCENE 04 (Nia call, Friday 10:40, file lines 95–141):

1. VOICE CONVERGENCE: CLEAN — the special charge: Nia must be distinct from Asha and from June. Covered tags across both calls and re-sorted. Nia's lexicon is institutional clock-and-column ("Torres.", "Walk me through it. I ran the math with you three weeks ago," "every line I have a column for," "I have payroll at eleven"); Asha's was dock-and-rate; June's is press-and-surface ("The proof press in the back room. Trueing the bed, keeping it usable"). No line transplants across the three without card breakage. Strongest counter-candidate: June's "If the program ever needs freelance install, I itemize and I'm fast" against Nia's "I know her invoices. She itemizes." — the same verb inside six lines. Survives because "itemize" is the work-world's actual word for the practice both are pricing, each use makes a distinct claim (June's professional reliability offer; Nia's reference evidence for Asha), and June borrowing the counterparty's procurement register to keep a door open is a speakable move, not authorial bleed.
2. MONOTONE Q/A RHYTHM: CLEAN — Nia's prompts run one to five words ("But.", "Okay. Tell me the counter.", "You know what I'm going to ask next."), June's answers run one word to five sentences with a mid-turn breakdown; no matched-weight volley develops. Strongest counter-candidate: the opening ("Walk me through it" → June's walk-through → "But." → the Vandercook turn) — prompt/answer/prompt/answer. Survives because the weights are radically unequal and the second answer fails on the page ("Or the sink would--" She stopped.), which volley rhythm cannot survive.
3. MISSING INTERIORITY: CLEAN — June's mind runs through her hands on the decision objects at every turn: receipt under her hand at "I'm calling to say no"; finger on the crossed-out VANDERCOOK line at the want; touching the TASKER page while conceding the job's goodness; turning the receipt print-side up ("the Marchetti header, the faded total") at the column exchange; "June read it off the right page" grounding the counter recital. Strongest counter-candidate: Nia's closing double-turn (the Asha acceptance through "come see it") passes without June register. Survives because it is the call's decompression, June's next beat answers it in the scene's own currency ("I will."), and the post-call register is object-rendered, not absent: phone down, receipt squared with the table edge.
4. QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS: CLEAN — Nia asks nothing rhetorical; her interrogative force is all imperative prompt, which is her card's deadline-driven mode. Strongest counter-candidate: "You know what I'm going to ask next." — a statement standing where a question would go, the classic portent shape. Survives because the referent is established business, not aura (Nia's Ch15 "If you say no, send me someone good" is on her card verbatim), June answers its content instantly and completely ("Send you someone good. I did the asking already, yesterday, with her permission."), and the followability test passes: a cold reader can state what was asked and what was delivered.
5. FAKE-McCARTHY MINIMALISM: CLEAN — the call's short turns are attributed or unambiguous, and the starkest line is priced. Strongest counter-candidate: "But." — one word, no tag, no beat. Survives because a two-person phone alternation leaves no assignment doubt, the line is a brisk elicitation exactly matching "under pressure: deadline-driven," and the scene does not strip elsewhere: office noise, printer catch, and key clicks keep the far end embodied.
6. JARGON-TRADING WITHOUT TRANSLATION: CLEAN — the special brochure check ran here hardest. "Vandercook" arrives pre-weighted (the notebook's crossed-out line, planted at file line 9 and touched at line 113) and is glossed in apposition ("The proof press in the back room. Trueing the bed, keeping it usable."); June's counter-terms recital is grounded as a physical act of reading the notebook page aloud, each figure carrying its consequence ("invoiced the 25th, paid in March," "no real heat," "February is a blank line in my notebook"); Nia's column metaphor translates itself by enumeration. Strongest counter-candidate: the counter recital (file line 125) — four figures and a blank in five sentences, the scene's closest approach to brochure. Survives because every number was independently established on the page (Thursday's right-page ledger and Asha's call), so the recital reads as compression of known weights, not first-dump; and its last line is not a term but a cost ("February is a blank line in my notebook") — dialogue, followable, weighed.
7. ATTRIBUTION OPACITY: CLEAN — two speakers, tags regular, far-end action beats (printer, keys) own Nia's side. Covered-tag read clean. Strongest counter-candidate: the run from "Okay. Tell me the counter." through the column exchange — four turns with tags only on alternating lines. Survives; strict alternation plus register difference (column diction vs. line-item diction) leaves no doubt.
FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — this is the round's center of gravity: the column exchange is a two-speaker completed figure, the single most cut-list-shaped object in the chapter, and it was restored on purpose. Strongest counter-candidate: "That's a worse offer," Nia said. "That's a worse offer on every line I have a column for." / "It is," June said. ... "The line it wins on doesn't fit in a column. Ten feet, north window." Ran it against every applicable bullet. It survives, on current-text specifics: (a) the exchange does not exist to deliver the aphorism — it exists to let Nia be right on the record (the no-strawman obligation), and Nia's half is literal spreadsheet truth in her own payroll diction, not an installed metaphor; (b) one shaped construction per side, in a call whose spine is otherwise bare ("I'm calling to say no." / "But." / "It is."); (c) the volley is broken mid-exchange by object business (the receipt turned print-side up) rather than running clean; (d) June's half is immediately cashed into an unquotable line-item ("Ten feet, north window") and deflated into shop talk ("I itemize and I'm fast") — the exit ramp a fake-sharp exchange never takes; (e) the excluded workshopped material is confirmed absent — no "Buy a ticket like a civilian," no "Go do your worse offer," no post-call essay (the call ends in a squared receipt, not narration). Second counter-candidate: "For the record, I didn't put the studio clause in to sweeten it. I meant it." — "for the record" plus a two-beat close. Survives as plain speech doing repair of a specific earlier fact (the clause June cited twice), humane without being wise, and it is Nia's licensed single shaped moment already counted. Third counter-candidate: "It's 10:52," Nia said. "Have her email before one. I have payroll at eleven." — the spoken timestamp could read as a composed exit stamp. Survives because it is literal deadline management by the character whose card is deadlines (the chapter's binding "time must stay visible" runs through her), it revises her own earlier instruction ("email me today" → "before one") with a stated reason, and June's text at file line 147 cashes it as fact ("Said no at 10:52"), making the line load-carrying data, not cadence.
INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — both directions tested. The mind is present through object handling (mode 3) and never doubles the dialogue: the refusal's reason is spoken once, in scene, and narration adds no gloss; the Vandercook want gets a finger on a crossed-out line, not an essay; the call closes on an action ("turned the receipt square with the table edge") with zero summary — the old post-call essay's absence is confirmed against the current text. Strongest counter-candidate: "I know. That's why this is hard." — direct emotion-naming that could be the double-explaining shape. Survives under the guide's interiority rule: the naming is the event (the concession that the offer's best clause is exactly what makes refusing cost), it is spoken not narrated, and nothing repeats it.

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SPECIAL CH20 VERIFICATIONS (per round-12 charge, dispositions above, indexed here):
- Care without advice: Ruth and Sam issue zero directives, zero opinions, zero wisdom; their three restored lines each convert care into logistics or self-implication (scene 02, modes FAKE-SHARP/4). No character or narration captions the mode — the tracker's "achieved / fragile" condition holds.
- Asha/Nia/June distinctness: adjudicated at scene 03 mode 1 and scene 04 mode 1; the three registers (dock-rate, clock-column, press-surface) survive covered-tag sorting across both calls.
- Nia refusal plain and speakable: the no is delivered in single facts; the column exchange is the call's one shaped exchange and holds under the cut-list (scene 04 FAKE-SHARP); confirmed absent: "Buy a ticket like a civilian," "Go do your worse offer," and any post-call essay.
- No dialogue diagnosis: full-chapter sweep of narration around every spoken line — no wording/delivery/rhythm characterization anywhere; nearest candidates ("That's not an opinion. That's a hand truck." — self-referential content claim, not diagnosis of another's language; "That's not me being polite" — Asha framing her own intent) both fall outside the banned family.
- No therapy-speak / "follow your heart": absent; "feel less bad" is plain diction, and Nia's counsel never leaves material ground ("That doesn't have to happen" is a staffing fact claim, answered with a probability claim).
- Scene 04 terms followable: adjudicated at scene 04 mode 6; every figure in the counter recital is pre-established and consequence-bearing.
- Contractions (rules 4–5): default-contract holds across all speakers; the three full forms found are all licensed — June's "It is" (bare agreement while conceding, card: full forms when trying not to fall apart; tracker logs it watch-only), June's "I will." (commitment emphasis), Ruth's "I want to say one thing" (no contraction site). No stiff-formal defect.

REVISION ORDERS: None. No verdict line above is a FAIL; every criterion carries its checked evidence and strongest counter-candidate per the stance requirement.

OVERALL: CLEAN

Standing cautions for Ch21+, carried as constraints rather than orders on this text: no third "Noted" (spent at two); the "not X. That's Y" template is now used twice in this chapter's dialogue (hand truck; "That's not an opinion") and should rest; "itemize" is at two mentions and should not become June's professional-credibility default; Asha's anchor line is spent nearly verbatim — future Asha appearances must not recite card samples; and the spoken-timestamp move ("It's 10:52") is single-use — a second character announcing clock time in dialogue would harden it into a device.
