Why Love and Deep Space stays with me.
**LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD-READER BE WARNED**
On the surface, Love and Deep Space is a futuristic romance game. But underneath the sleek sci-fi setting is a story about something far more unsettling—and familiar.
The main character is not just dating in space. She is space. A cosmic entity, endlessly reborn, carrying immense power she didn’t ask for, can’t fully control, and is only just beginning to understand.
And she’s trying—very hard—to live a normal life anyway.
Loving while being dangerous
In the world of Love and Deep Space, the protagonist holds an Evol l or modern super power — along with a strange, immense, unpredictable power that can level entire cities. It’s part of her, but it’s also something that has been exploited, feared, and used against her.
For many trauma survivors, this feels achingly familiar.
There’s often a sense of being too much: too intense, too sensitive, too powerful, too destabilizing for others. Love becomes complicated when you’ve learned that parts of you are dangerous—or at least treated that way.
Attachment after exploitation
Before the story begins, the protagonist was held by an evil entity that forced her to use her repeatedly, killing and rebirthing her over and over. The result isn’t just physical harm—it’s fractured memory, loss of identity, and a self that no longer remembers who she was before survival took over.
Later we see her long after the trauma, she has only happy memories of a perfect childhood. Most of her gap in memory she explains away as being a part of the incident that killed her parents and gave her Protocore Syndrome- a condition that causes her chronic illness.
Trauma doesn’t always leave visible scars. Sometimes it leaves gaps. Missing years. A body that reacts faster than the mind can explain.
And yet—connection still happens.
The six men she meets throughout the game are bound to her in different ways: contracts, childhood ties, soul bonds, even a fallen sea god. These relationships aren’t neat or safe, but they are attuned. They recognize her power without trying to own it.
That matters.
The desire to live “normally”
What strikes me most is not the cosmic scale of the story—it’s the protagonist’s insistence on normalcy. She wants routines. Relationships. Ordinary moments. She wants to choose love, not because she’s eternal or powerful, but because she’s human enough to want it.
This is something I see often in therapy: people who have survived extraordinary things longing for ordinary lives. Safety. Predictability. A sense of self that isn’t defined by what they endured.
Love as regulation, not rescue
None of the relationships in Love and Deep Space erase what happened to her. Love doesn’t fix her condition, restore her memories, or remove the threat of exploitation.
Instead, love offers regulation. Witnessing. Choice.
In somatic terms, this is profound. Healing doesn’t come from being saved—it comes from being met while still powerful, still unpredictable, still learning.
Why this story resonates with me
As a somatic therapist, I’m drawn to narratives that honor complexity: power and vulnerability existing at the same time, love that doesn’t demand diminishment, and healing that isn’t linear or tidy.
Love and Deep Space isn’t just a romance. It’s a story about surviving being used, reclaiming agency, and learning how to be in relationship with others while still being something vast, strange, and evolving.
Which, honestly, feels like a pretty good metaphor for being human.
Stories like this remind me why I do this work: to help people who carry immense depth as they learn how to live, love, and choose from a place that’s truly their own.
Signed a fellow MC,
Sam