Radix | Vale Four | S4E16 | GE43

A Lilith painting goes up for auction, an old rival bids against Tessa, and Cassady gets his first real look inside her world: her gallery, her private collection, and a greenhouse where no wire can follow.

Humanity is over, and the monsters are deciding what comes next. In the Halloween premiere of Lilies, the first season of After After, succubus Tessa Finn is under investigation as a suspected black widow: three dead husbands, a fortune, and a demon overlord who wants her married again. The investigator assigned to her case is falling for her. In a succubus happily ever after, will he be her partner or her prey? Deep Dream State is a full-cast monster romance and desire horror audio drama by Neural Nets And Pretty Patterns. Listeners vote on which monster faction shapes the story. Rated R.

After After is the monster romance fifth season of Deep Dream State. Naia takes control of humanity’s next step, seven extrahuman factions make their case, and listeners vote on what comes next. Monster romance, desire horror, queer posthuman desire, and a species-level happily ever after.

I know exactly what you are.  You’re trade. Evergreen is the finale of DDS’s fourth season, Vale Four. Every DDS season looks at something through the lens of desire horror. That means it asks why we want unsettling things. This season looked at ads. Each linked set of stories, or cycle, was about an advertising phenomenon. We did earworms, facial telemetry, microtargeting, and gaming. We wrapped up with astroturfing: fake grassroots that makes it unclear what’s real. The whole season followed a corporate sabotage plot. One faction tried to tank Vale Four before a massive IPO. In the finale, we’ll find out if that whole plot was real or theater. You have to listen to find out that answer. I can give you some hints, though. Yes and no. If you want to fully decode this, check the cycle finales: Sinker, The River, Bullseye, and Sublimate. These texts matter: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, any Greek myth guide, A Star Is Born, and The Lesser Key of Solomon It was a dark romance the whole time. It’s on you to figure out who was romancing whom. A post-credits sequence with the Muppettes explains the show’s transition into monster romance. State Of The Dream The Deep Dream State is NSFW. It’s certainly rated R, containing sexual language and references. The website and trailer are PG, as is the Season 4 opener Refrain. That’s all by design; we believe in intimate storytelling but not blindsiding. I am the showrunner, sound designer, publicist, writer, director, and a voice actor. That’s a lot, but “adult stories are real stories” is my bit, and I’m fully committed. Season Five, After After, is under supported development. We recently crossed 60,000 downloads despite a very unclear niche, so we don’t intend to stop now. Auditions for Season Five are open. Email [email protected] if interested. Season Five will be resolved by audience voting. The setup will be clear, but the ending isn’t. Listeners choose the faction they want to hear more from. Cast & Crew Written, produced, directed, sound designed, and publicized by Neural Nets And Pretty Patterns. ISNI 0000 0005 2877 6254 Assistant Director: Bliss Blank · IMDb Chavito as Mr. Beefcake | Syndi Rella · IMDb as Hespa Sports | Neural Nets And Pretty Patterns · IMDb as Z | Ring of Kees · IMDb as Tessa Finn | Swirls and Twirls · IMDb as Iris Vale | Dizzy Dollie · IMDb as Naia Anderson | Bliss Blank · IMDb as June Lowell | Tickled Panda · IMDb as Hilton | Dakota Dream · IMDb as Astoria EPISODE LINKS Evergreen on NNPP | Blubrry | MusicBrainz Evergreen is the eighteenth episode and Season 4 finale of Deep Dream State, a monster romance, science fiction romance, and desire horror audio drama by Neural Nets And Pretty Patterns. It concludes Season 4: Vale Four. S4E18 / GE45. Duration: 18:08. SHOW LINKS Deep Dream State | Trailer | YouTube | Vale Four | DDS Glossary | Cast | Scripts Index | Neuralpedia | Support the Show on Patreon | Deep Dream State on IMDb | Deep Dream State on MusicBrainz | Wikidata | TV Tropes | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | RSS EXPLORE THE NEURALVERSE Neural Nets And Pretty Patterns | NNPP IMDb | NNPP MusicBrainz | NNPP BookBrainz | NNPP ISNI: 0000 0005 2877 6254 | NNPP IPI: 01346215468 | 01346215566 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 monster romance, science fiction romance, and desire horror audio drama written and produced by Neural Nets And Pretty Patterns. It explores psychological fiction at the boundaries of control, identity, desire, and complicity. The elements depicted are fictional and intentional. All performances are works of fiction and take place within a consensual creative context. Source

Yield kicks off with a very normal ad for Spotlight, assuming your definition of normal includes performance conditioning and Iris Vale enjoying the attention a lot too much. Then everybody goes to court, where Elle tries to win a serious legal case while the rest of the cast provides the world's least helpful whispered commentary. Long-running jokes and suspiciously specific phrases start paying off in ways that suggest somebody has been planning this for a while. By the end, the legal question may be settled, but the show is still very interested in asking whether all of this was theater, which is exactly the sort of question you want answered one episode before the finale.

The Deep Dream State enters its final Vale Four cycle with Radix, a story about astroturfing, manufactured agreement, and the illusion of control. Naia, Tessa, June, Z, and Meg move through competing layers of reality as candid conversations and behind-the-scenes fragments become part of the experiment itself. Everyone thinks they understand who is watching, who is performing, and who has the clicker. They're all wrong.

Z releases the eager wolfgirls for the hunt while Elle and Porsche watch Tessa’s subjugation through the library’s magical surveillance system, only to realize the approaching wolfgirls are real and flee deeper into the stacks. In the library’s core chamber, Elle and Porsche discover the real Vale Four amendment, updated schematics, and surveillance-free routes dumped into Snarecraft by an apparently careless developer, giving them both damning evidence and a possible path to freedom. At the safe house, Blake learns from the REAL secret of the game from Hespa. A climactic Vale Four ad reveals a business model. After the ad, Z and Iris drop the sales performance and reveal a model of hubris.

Hubris becomes a game mechanic as every team begins to get exactly what they deserve. Team Alchemy remains in the Panoptic Library. Z keeps Team Leash ready for the hunt, with Gia fully settled into her darker concubinded role. Team Flowers watches from the Second Secret Library, where total visibility means they can see everything and cannot look away. In the forest, Team Thorns learns that every vine and every thrall Tessa cuts down comes back stronger, until the balance of power begins to reverse.

Team Alchemy trusts the map. Team Alchemy should not trust the map. Meg reads the signs; Leandra reads the room, and the room has been waiting for both of them. The library at the end of Deep Ward isn't a reward, it's a job interview with no correct answer, and the price goes up every single night.

We see you scrying. The Deep Dream State‘s built for some fast lane changes. Whatever it’s got for handling is on display here; each scene’s drastically different. It’s all unified by the game. An augmented reality game for commercial deployment’s being used to hunt down the game designers. That’s dark. Every scene blends that darkness with high fantasy elements, but the mixes come out much different. That – and some love for live play podcasts – is why there’s a die roll in each scene transition. It opens comic. The Muppettes, observers who always watch the action, put on their sorceress robes and get to incanting. Even though it’s funny, there are some real secrets uncovered here, including the real origin of the name Meridian A. It gets dark. When Z sees the Muppettes scrying, he puts his hunting team of wolfgirls through the paces. Prior subjects Gia (played by Valentina Vallay), Celeste, and Clara have found a new place at Vale Four. The writer isn’t barely disguising anything here. The Muppettes are horrified; Z clearly delights in freaking out the audience – listeners included. (The Deep Dream State is NSFW thinkykinky material. This scene should be flagged as high spice level.) It shifts to unsettling. Team Flowers and Team Alchemy navigate their way through Hespa’s map. They find their way through raging floodwaters, their own unspoken desires, and the medieval origins of the worst sports podcast of any epoch. They arrive soaked and breathless to a secret they were told didn’t exist. Cast & Crew Cast Astoria : Dakota Dream Leads the Muppettes’ ritual, uncovers the force behind Meridian A, discovers that the thing she is watching can watch back. Hilton : Tickled Panda The nervous novice whose questions keep the ritual grounded until one word opens Team Leash. Tessa : Ring of Kees The queen of Team Thorns,  discipline dressed in finery. Laura : Lux Peralta Returns as part of the hunting party Astoria watches moving through Snarecraft. Z : Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns Catches the Muppettes scrying, turns the gaze back on them, and trains his wolfgirls to hunt by scent. June : Bliss Blank Part of the  hunt Astoria observes as the teams move through Hespa’s map. Porsche : Princess Ella Trusts Elle’s route, accidentally summons Midstream, and reaches the marker for a library that shouldn’t exist. Elle : Echo Doll Follows what she believes is Hespa’s pattern, gets stranded in the river, and accepts a deeply dubious rescue. Meg : Bun Li Reads traps as systems and Leandra as badly, then confronts a map that refuses to stay legible. Leandra : Talithara Knows the route behind the waterfall, remembers the Puzzlers, and reveals that the hidden library leads back through Deep Ward. Clara : Vixen Clouds The newest member of Team Leash. Hides under a blanket, remembers FaceTrace, and learns that pretending not to be seen is not the same as hiding. Gia : Valentina Vallay Breaks treatstick protocol, accepts correction, and is recruited to hunt by scent. Celeste : Panda Moanium Performs tricks for Clara without permission, loses Trixie time, and joins Team Leash’s hunt. Cael : Jericho Caine Returns as Caellum, a medieval Midstream merchant selling ball lore, guild membership, and suspicious raft transport. Mudrick : Violently Passionate Caellum’s eager shield-mate, fascinated by every kind of ball and fully committed to the worst sports podcast of any epoch. Hespa : Syndi Rella The absent architect whose recycled maps, hidden routes, and secret library guide every team toward something they were told did not exist. Naia : Dizzy Dollie Part of the wider hunting party Astoria’s ritual observes across Snarecraft. Quintessence is the twelfth 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, Snarecraft Cycle. Listen & Explore Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns – Official Site Deep Dream State – Official Site Vale Four – Season 4 Deep Dream State Cast Deep Dream State Glossary Show Wikidata Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts RSS Feed Support the creator on Patreon All episodes archive Canonical Tumblr Page View this series on IMDb MusicBrainz for Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns BookBrainz for Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns, including show script books Producer ISNI: 0000 0005 2877 6254 IPI: 01346215468 | 01346215566 Google Knowledge Graph: /g/11zjw94pww 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 Source