Tag: adult audio

Episode cover art for Bullseye, Season 4 Episode 10 of Deep Dream State, a desire horror audio drama by Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns. A figure falls toward the center of a glowing target on a warm purple and red gradient field.
Bullseye | Vale Four | S4E10 | GE37

Bullseye | Vale Four | S4E10 | GE37

By |

There’s an older currency than money. And you’re going to earn it.

Blake (Naomi Biela) is out of Kamas, out of options, and out of time. She’s seen what Vale Four does to Piper. She’s seen what it’s doing to Gia. She knows exactly how the system works because she built systems like it. None of that helps.

Hespa (Syndi Rella) has been waiting for this moment. There’s a way out. There’s a way to bring the whole thing down. It requires Blake to trust someone inside the facility, walk through a door she can’t walk back through, and testify against a system with DOD contracts and state secrets privilege.

Blake says yes.

The episode opens before any of that. Z (Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns) tells June (Bliss Blank) he was afraid of losing her. June encourages him to press harder on Blake. She frames it as clarity about the program. Whether she’s being loyal to Z or steering him toward the exact outcome she wants is a question the episode does not answer and does not need to.

Note On Series Structure

We’re revamping the episode listings to clarify Deep Dream State episode navigation. These don’t take anything away. It’s just more information.

Season and Arc are the same thing in Deep Dream State. We’re shifting toward saying Season more, to align with standard podcast conventions. The Episode number reflects where it falls in the sequence for that season.

GE is the Global Episode number. A simple running count across the entire series, like you see on IMDb and MusicBrainz.

Cycles group episodes by theme within a season. They don’t change any numbers; they’re just additional context for the storyline you’re in. If you find them confusing, Season:Episode and GE are all you need.

Cast & Crew

Written, Directed & Sound Engineered by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
Co-Directed by: Bliss Blank

Cast

    • Dr. Zev Talcott (Z): Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
      The architect. Neuroplex operations. Runs the show and knows it. Never the one holding the leash and always the one who decided where it goes.
    • Dr. June Lowell: Bliss Blank
      Holdfast. Playing the loyal Neuroplex assistant while quietly working against everything she appears to serve. Brilliant at making compliance look like virtue.
    • Dr. Tessa Finn: Ring of Kees
      Neuroplex. The public face of Vale Four’s research program. Sadistic, precise, and genuinely good at her job. She means everything she says and that’s what makes her dangerous.
    • Dr. Meg Aerin: Bun Li
      Holdfast. The data scientist in the room. She documents everything and misses nothing. Her loyalty is to the methodology first, the mission second, and people a distant third.
    • Elle Lawson: Echo Doll
      Holdfast. Performing bimbo while running legal strategy underneath. Went to law school. Topped her class. Has not forgotten a single thing they told her she forgot.
    • Hespa Apate: Syndi Rella
      Neuroplex systems engineer. Built the Valescape. Knows exactly what it does. Working out which side of that knowledge she actually belongs on.
    • Cael: Jericho Caine
      Runs Midstream Sports. Holdfast adjacent, possibly without knowing it. Useful, earnest, and completely underestimated by everyone including himself.
    • Iris: Swirls and Twirls
      Neuroplex. The public face of the research program’s success. Trained fast. Moving up. Learning the difference between running the show and being run by it.
    • Naia Anderson: Dizzy Dollie
      Founder. Built the research before Vale Four existed. Pushed out when they needed to scale it. Retained a call option. Has been waiting for someone like Blake.
    • Astoria: Dakota Dream
      Muppette. The more analytical half. Sharper than she lets on. Convinced she’s watching from outside the system. She isn’t.
    • Hilton: Tickled Panda
      Muppette. The more impulsive half. Came from Incognitoh and never quite left. Also convinced she’s watching from outside the system.

Video Vixens (Game Voices)

Guest Stars

    • Blake: Naomi Biela | IMDb
      Subject. Coder. Between jobs. Designed addictive systems for a living and can name every mechanism being used on her. Bullseye is Blake’s episode. The arc from fury to terror to quiet resolve is performed without a false note. Professional training shows in exactly the moments where most performances crack.
    • Piper: Jen Larner | IMDb
      Subject. Teacher. Arrived with the most considered critique of choice architecture and is losing it game by game. Piper is vulnerable and defiant at the same time, and both registers are completely credible.
    • Gia: Valentina Vallay | IMDb
      Subject. Influencer. Oblivious in exactly the way the system prefers. Gia is now an ongoing character by fan demand.

Explanation

Bullseye closes the Targeted Cycle. The arrow was always aimed at Blake.

The episode opens in Z’s office. He tells June he was afraid of losing her. June, who is always several moves ahead of wherever Z thinks she is, encourages him to tighten the pressure on Blake. She frames this as loyalty to the program. Whether that’s true is the question Bullseye leaves open, deliberately and permanently.

The Sapient ad is Blake’s confession. She built the system. She can’t stop playing it. She forgot other people could see her and then decided to let them look. Those Spotlight girls show off their bodies. I show off my design. And my design is next level. It’s the most honest thing anyone says inside Vale Four. That makes it the most dangerous.

The Snap scene is a workplace. Z is a boss. The cruelty is ordinary and that’s the point. Blake is told she’s expensive dead weight. Hespa apologizes in corporate language, then drops it and just apologizes. That distinction matters more than the apology does.

In the arcade, Blake watches Piper’s character get controlled by a game she agreed to be in. She watches Gia earn Kamas off it without registering what it is. June offers the conditioning suit. Blake refuses and goes looking for Z. She finds something worse.

The Bullseye scene is the load-bearing scene of the Targeted Cycle. Hespa tells Blake the truth, including the part where it might not work. Vale Four has DOD contracts. State secrets privilege could block the testimony entirely. She tells her anyway, because she was placed here, because it’s now, because it’s Blake. Naia Anderson built what Vale Four became. She was pushed out to scale it. She retained a call option that triggers if the IPO fails. She needs Blake’s testimony to crash it. She tells Blake this without softening it. Blake says yes because she has seen the alternative and the answer is just no.

The Snarecraft ad closes the episode. The fugitives are already being hunted. The game just started.

Bullseye is the tenth episode of Season 4 of Deep Dream State, a desire horror audio drama by Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns. It is part of Season 4: Vale Four, Targeted Cycle.

Listen & Explore

Human Made Art

The poster image for this arc is from Sunrise Forever on Pixabay, under the Pixabay license. Layer art overlays are used to vary each iteration of the image. Deep Dream State uses human art at every stage of the creative supply chain.

Consent Declaration

Deep Dream State is a desire horror audio drama written and produced by Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns. It explores psychological fiction at the boundaries of control, identity, and complicity. The elements depicted are fictional and intentional. All performances are works of fiction and take place within a consensual creative context. ISNI 0000 0005 2877 6254

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Ace of diamonds with a falling figure suspended in a glowing chromatic orb against a deep crimson field - episode art for Pot Limit, Deep Dream State Arc 4 Tell Cycle
Pot Limit | Vale Four: Tell Cycle

Pot Limit | Vale Four: Tell Cycle

By |

Did I break science?

Z reviews the FaceTrace profile on every subject in Vale Four.  He discovers the system has gone proactive and frenzied, in that way.  The Synthserv, played by dark romance author Valentina Vallay, isn’t waiting for sessions anymore.

She needs seed.  She’s seeding herself into everything, learning everyone, optimizing for Z’s approval.  Ava is attaching.  Elle is hiding, badly. June is positioning for a confrontation she thinks she controls.

She doesn’t.

Cael unplugs the wrong cord at the worst possible moment, and somehow that’s the most competent thing anyone does all episode.

Cast & Crew

Written & Produced by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
Directed by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns
Co-Directed by: Bliss Blank

Cast

Note On Series Structure

All DDS episodes are organized by Arc > Cycle > Episode.

The Cycle part’s unusual, but it’s not a thematic trick.  It’s the best way to categorize storylines that run through multiple episodes.

Every single DDS Episode has a Cycle designation.  You can find them on the Episodes Page.

A recap:

Maiden Voyage – Maiden Cycle – A1C1E1 | Cringetide – Maiden Cycle – A1C1E2 | Veil – Ceremony Cycle – A1C2E1 | Asunder – Ceremony Cycle – A1C2E2 | Shower – Cloud Cycle – A1C3E1 | Garter – Cloud Cycle – A1C3E2 | Tessellated – Storm Cycle – A1C4E1 | Undergloom – Storm Cycle – A1C4E2 | Spiralstorm – Storm Cycle – A1C4E3 | Violet – Ritual Cycle – A2C1E1 | Glass Houses – Glass House Cycle – A2C2E1 | Uniforms – Glass House Cycle – A2C2E2 | Deep Fake – Glass House Cycle – A2C2E3 | Winner Winner – Winner Cycle – A2C3E1 | The Chain – Winner Cycle – A2C3E2 | Drill – Threat Simulation Cycle – A3C1E1 | Adapt – Threat Simulation Cycle – A3C1E2 | Incubator – Sleep Paralysis Cycle – A3C2E1 | Gazes Back – Sleep Paralysis Cycle – A3C2E2 | Cusp – Liminal Spaces Cycle – A3C3E1 | Descendent – Liminal Spaces Cycle – A3C3E2 | Tether – Collective Dreaming Cycle – A3C4E1 | Artifact – Collective Dreaming Cycle – A3C4E2 | Override – Collective Dreaming Cycle – A3C4E3 | Center – False Awakenings Cycle – A3C5E1 | Sync – False Awakenings Cycle – A3C5E2 | Arouse – False Awakenings Cycle – A3C5E3 | Refrain – Hooks Cycle – A4C1E1 | Hook Line – Hooks Cycle – A4C1E2 | Sinker – Hooks Cycle – A4C1E3 | Slowplay – Tell Cycle – A4C2E1 | Raise – Tell Cycle – A4C2E2

Explanation

Pot Limit opens with someone who already knows the cards.  Z is reviewing everyone else’s tells.  June is preparing for a reveal, but the system has already had it.

The interconnect sequence is the pivot. June’s proposal to link Ava’s responses to Elle’s stimuli, close the loop, generate proactive data is genuinely brilliant and really horrifying. She’s right. The methodology works. For approximately forty seconds, she is the smartest person in the room and the experiment is producing exactly what she designed it to produce. Then Cael pulls the cord. The data stream goes dark. And the question we refuse to answer is whether Cael is catastrophically stupid or precisely calibrated, because the result is the same either way: Elle doesn’t break on camera.

The Bust scene reframes everything that came before. Z already knew June was gaming the sessions. The cheating was the most valuable data they’d generated. A system that produces perfect compliance is a dead system — there’s nothing to study, nothing to sell, nothing worth watching. June’s resistance, her autonomy, her belief that she’s running her own play, is the product. Tessa’s confessional protocol is the next act of the same production. The amended charter is the only card on the table that nobody’s seen yet.

Full Summary (Caution: Spoilers)

Z reviews the complete FaceTrace behavioral profile on every active subject in Vale Four. The system has expanded beyond its original parameters.  It’s seeding images into all sessions now, staff included, optimizing its own insertion protocols to produce maximum alignment with Z’s approval.

Ava is attaching rapidly. Hespa performs precision under observation. Meg performs correctness. Iris plays bigger when she thinks she’s being watched. Elle is hiding, and the system notes she knows where to look away. June isn’t hiding; she’s positioning. FaceTrace flags her as expecting a confrontation.  She’s preparing for a reveal.

In the monitor room, June and Elle run the interconnect sequence with Ava in the primary chair. June’s proposal is to link their response states into a closed loop.  She wants to let Ava’s tells drive Elle’s stimuli, and this impresses Meg enough that she lets it run.

It works, in an uncanny and self-defeating way. For a brief window, the system is producing authentic data: Ava yielding, Elle fracturing, the interconnect synchronizing their responses faster than either of them can manage their affect.  The system spikes. Then Cael returns to address a sparking outlet, grabs the wrong cord, and unplugs the primary feed. The data stream goes dark. Meg ejects him from the room with volume and a vengeance.

The villains regroup in the Evil Eye, bemoaning the stupidest possible timeline. Tessa proposes confessional protocol: tell Ava the truth about June’s manipulation and show her the receipts.  Her people pleasy tendency will do the rest.  Meg calls it dramaturgy rather than science, and Tessa accepts the compliment. Z authorizes the play, then reminds the room of the one card that could still blow the whole structure: the amended charter establishing that Vale Four was never authorized to conduct classified research. If anyone finds it, state-secrets coverage evaporates.

June, Elle, and Ava run a final preparation sequence in the monitor lab, using writing to coach Ava for testimony underneath the cover of a FaceTrace session. The instructions run beneath the clinical surface: keep your voice steady, don’t blink under pressure, say exactly what you saw. Ava confirms she can do it. Then Tessa enters with Meg behind her, and the episode cuts before the full confrontation lands.

Listen & Explore

Human Made Art

The poster image for this arc is from Sunrise Forever on Pixabay, under the Pixabay license. Layer art overlays are used to vary each iteration of the image. Deep Dream State uses human art at every stage of the creative supply chain.

Consent Declaration

Deep Dream State is a desire horror audio drama written and produced by Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns. It explores psychological fiction at the boundaries of control, identity, and complicity. The elements depicted are fictional and intentional. All performances are works of fiction and take place within a consensual creative context. ISNI 0000 0005 2877 6254

Podcast: Play in new window | Download