Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandom:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:
2025-09-28
Completed:
2025-09-28
Words:
16,593
Chapters:
8/8
Comments:
10
Kudos:
46
Bookmarks:
10
Hits:
704

Love and Deepspace: cops, superheroes, worldbuilding, and why a story can’t just be ‘vibes’

Summary:

Abstract: Love and Deepspace entered the market in 2024, changing the landscape of otome games with its 3D models and hybrid gameplay. Despite its attempt at constructing a story catered towards women, though, they still seem to exhibit the pitfalls of any other company concerned with capital. Capitalism is anti-feminist.
This present essay thus dissects the presentation of Hunters as law enforcement, why the decision is so insidious, and what it means for the world-building. I examine the pervasive theme of crime and punishment and the unconscious biases of both the writers and the audience towards the criminal incitement to discourse, looking at the Tomorrow’s Catch-22 banner’s presentation of a racialised society and an unquestioned carceral system reminiscent of the CCP’s discriminatory policies.
The Love and Deepspace world is not concerned with itself, only what it can be for the central six characters. Plot holes are rife, antagonism is a spectacle, and Linkon society is a monolithic machine. Their politics revolve around which way the narrative can be bent into the shape needed to enhance the romance of the present couple, and the rest of the story is therefore lacking in any genuine care.

Chapter 1: Table of Contents

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Table of contents

1. Introduction

2. The Economic Benefits of an Apocalypse

    2.1 What are Hunters?

    2.2 Are Hunters cops?

3.The semantic field of the Hunters Association

4. Love and Deepspace is very weird about crime: Catch-22 and Necropolitics

    4.1 Why Tomorrow’s Catch-22?

    4.2 Extreme Dose: racism lite

    4.3 Immediate Disorder: oh god we’re doing necropolitics

    4.4 Fantasy Racism

5. The world is empty and biopower is sexy, I guess

    5.1 The power to dictate who is able to live

    5.2 The worldbuilding problem

6. Conclusion

7. Appendices

Notes:

I must preface that I honest to god tried my hand at HTML to put the footnotes in the notes section, but alas I am technologically inept and thus you will have to bear with my strange formatting, I swear I have a published and citable work in linguistics I just don't know how coding works outside of CLAN. Unfortunately, this means that reading this in Entire Work format messes up the directory so if you want a smooth experience then it would be best to read chapter by chapter :)

Thank you so much for being interested in this essay, I hope you enjoy reading <3