Slowplay | Vale Four: Tell Cycle

Don’t twitch. FaceTrace reads microexpressions before the subject knows what they’re thinking. Naia knows Vale Four is about to deploy it. June and Elle know they cannot afford a tell. The question is whether you can teach yourself to lie with your face. Highlights This is the first episode of the Deep Dream State’s Tell Cycle. Each Cycle in Vale Four looks at a different advertising phenomenon through the pink noir lens.  It’s uncanny but appealing at the same time. A full description follows; a few elements should be highlighted. 1. The guest stars are stars.  They always are.  In this case, we’re gratified to have Valentina Vallay on cast.  She’s a notable and fantastic voice actress.  She also plays the AI voice with sultry and evocative range.  It’s much better to cast a human as AI than the other ways around; that’s particularly true in this case. 2. Midstream is ridiculous. The Deep Dream State is fiercely independent.  We don’t intend to have real ads for the foreseeable future.  That allows us to have the weird fake ads ever. About midway through the episode, the most crazed sports podcast ever, Midstream, drops an ad.  This really makes Barstool Sports seem like Infinite Jest.  Highly recommended. 3. The sound design is innovative.  It’s tough to convey screens and writing and whispers even in TV.  The episode features a lot of passed notes.  That’s communicated with whispers, less filtered, and pencil scratch.  I think it lands and enhances the paranoid atmosphere. 4. The tech is real. The story is fictional .  We aren’t doing predictive or hard sci fi here.   At the same time, facial analysis for gauging consumer sentiment is real, advancing, and deeply unsettling. Cast & Crew Written & Produced by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns Directed by: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns Co-Directed by: Bliss Blank Midstream Sports: Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns as himself Recurring Cast Z – Neural Nets and Pretty Patterns June Lowell – Bliss Blank Tessa Finn – Ring of Kees Meg Aerin – Bun Li Naia Anderson – Dizzy Dollie Elle Lawson – Echo Doll Iris Vale – Swirls and Twirls Cael Yupp – Jericho Caine Hespa Apate – Syndi Rella Guest Stars Synthserv 3.0 – Valentina Vallay Ava – Kitten Azazel Mr. Mega – FFT Mr. Beefcake – Chavito Full Summary Call Naia records a private audio log from the garden nest. She’s afraid, and rightly so. FaceTrace is different from the Calibrex systems: it doesn’t require cooperation. It reads microexpressions, dwell time, the involuntary signals produced before conscious thought has finished forming. The holdfasts inside Vale Four have been trained to pass, but no training accounts for a system that reads the face before the actor knows what they’re about to perform. Naia names the stakes