The house speaks first

A develop takes minutes and you are meant to leave. The board already holds a line about what happened. This is the next stage: come back, and the house tells you what it thinks — one line, in the conversation, and then it stops.

Come back, and the house tells you what it thinks →

Where it appears

In the chat, bottom right — the same conversation you already talk to. When a line is waiting and the drawer is closed, the corner plate breathes; open it and the line is there. The drawer never opens itself.

The moment the house speaks, the board's hairline goes dark. The count and the opinion never wear the magenta at the same time — they hand off, they do not pile up.

When it speaks

Only about a develop you did not watch, and only when it can have your attention without taking it:

• It waits thirty seconds after the develop closes — the same thirty seconds it spends reading your frames — and says nothing at all if you sat and watched them land.
• It never speaks into a hidden tab. Come back, and it gives you about a second to land before the line rises.
• If your caret is in a field, it holds. The line is not dropped; it arrives when you leave the field.
• In your first hour, the assistant walking you in does the talking. The opinion only becomes possible after that walk has finished. One voice.
• At most two unprompted lines a session, and only about the newest develop. A busy Tuesday is exactly what the cap is for.

What it can say

Every line is written by hand and composed from what the judge read on your frames. No model ever phrases it.

The day it is not sure

An unprompted line holds a higher bar than an answer. The panel you opened may hedge; a sentence you did not ask for may not. So when the house is not sure, it does not say maybe — it changes what it says: where it would look, and nothing about what is there.

Below even that — a frame it could not read, or nothing worth saying — it says nothing, and the board's count line is the entire message. A clean develop gets silence too. Silence is the compliment.

Money

Being spoken to is free, always. When a line offers something priced, the exact number is on the button itself, with Charged when you confirm. Not before. under it — the same rule as everywhere else in the studio (quality and cost).

Two of the lines exist to save you money, not spend it: the one that says stop, and the one that tells you your tokens came back. The refund line is the only one that outranks quiet — if your money moves, the house says so.

Turning it down

• Not now on an offer costs nothing, closes the card in a beat, and that subject is not raised again this session. The house never mentions it.
• Type quiet and the unprompted lines stop for the session. The house answers once — "Quiet while you're shooting. If your money moves I'll still say so." — and keeps that promise.

Neither is a setting. There is no preferences page and no frequency slider, on purpose. Next session the house simply behaves well again.

Nothing is lost

The line lives in the conversation, so reloading loses the phrasing — but the row on the board survives, read and dated, with its destination. What you were told about is never lost, only the sentence.

Hearing is per person, like reading the board. A colleague being told does not make the house silent to you; it speaks to each seat on their own schedule.

What it will never do

• Hedge. Possibly, maybe, might, perhaps and seems do not appear in an unprompted line.
• Mention a frame you kept over its mark. Your taste is not a defect.
• Follow up, re-word, or say still there when you want it. One line, then nothing.
• Announce a day-old develop as news.
• Spend a token without the number on the button you pressed.

Related

• The count line, and the rows that survive: the board.
• What the marks on a frame mean: the judge.
• What a fresh pass costs: quality and cost.