a garden cultivated by hemel ( she / her ), though i also answer to the name this place carries : philia. a blog dedicated to love and deepspace and my most cherished character : shen xinghui. as a lore enthusiast & a casual gacha player, expect to find posts related to genshin impact, honkai : star rail and infinity nikki—among the multitude of petites choses that flourish in my days.
library of interests : animanga, video games, oriental poetry, manhwa, writing, editing, dramas ( cn, kr & jp ), flowers, the moon, and angel—coded characters.
moon and deepspace : a brief analysis of the importance of moon phases in xavier's narrative
recently, i have noticed quite a lot of people in the love and deepspace community pointing out that the nine phases of the lunar cycle shown in the 3.0 trailer could each represent a character, suggesting that we were supposed to get up to nine love interests in the game, and personally, i disagree.
a quick disclaimer before we begin : i've been playing love and deepspace for nearly two years now, and i'm not ashamed to admit i have a favorite, xavier. because of this, any deep dives, analyses, or headcanons i share will always be related to his character. the other protagonists' narratives are interesting and i read them on a regular basis, but i will never dissect them to the same extent i a do with xavier simply because i prefer to leave the deep dives on the other four love interests to their own dedicated mains. i would also like to clarify that nothing mentioned below is canon or officially confirmed by the developers and writers. this is merely a personal analysis based on my own research as a response to players who argue that the moon is not a core element of xavier's character. this is a brief overview, i don't have the time to write a ten-page essay on the subject unfortunately, but i hope you enjoy the insights.
let's start with the most obvious connection between xavier and the moon : lumière ( 光猎 )
while some claim the choice of the moon is purely aesthetic, i would counter that argument : if it were just for visuals, why not stick to sunlight ? after all, his identity as lumière ( literally lightchaser in chinese ) would naturally align with a clear, sunny sky. in fact, i even recall xavier mentioning that if we ever need him, we only have to call his name, preferably when the sky is clear ( if anyone remembers exactly where this dialogue occurs, please let me know !!! ) and yet, instead of a bright, sunlit sky, the creative team deliberately chose the moon, a silver, shimmering moon. if you look closely at the gifs above, you can see just how distinctly the moonlight shimmers.
in fact, the moon doesn't produce light of its own : the most fundamental rule of lunar physics is that the sun permanently illuminates exactly 50% of the moon's surface, and the changing phases are not a shift in the moon's actual light, but rather a shift in our own perspective as it orbits the earth. why focus specifically on the moon phases, then ?
let's take a look at xavier's chinese name, shen xinghui ( 沈星回 ). it is a beautiful name on its own, it literally translates to the return of the star or the answer from the stars. the character 星 ( star, celestial body ) is self-explanatory, but if we dive a little deeper, the character 回 has multiple layers of meaning. beyond meaning to return or to reply / to answer back as seen above, it can also refer to time in terms of occurrences, as well as chapter ( of a novel, for instance ).
that being said, he character 回 is a component of the term 回溯, which means to go back in time or, more literally, to retrace one's steps. in this stance, xavier's narrative is basically hidden / hinted in one single linguistic choice that, to me, seems pretty intentional. taking this a step further, the character 溯 is built from the water radical 氵 and the character 朔, which brings us to our original question : why is the moon so central to xavier's identity as a character ? 朔 means new moon, it explicitly refers to the exact moment that marks the first day of each lunar month, thus the start of the cycle.
note : the character itself is composed of the radical 月 which means moon.
anyone familiar with his narrative knows just how crucial the concepts of space and time are to his character. in chinese culture ( more extensively, in asian folklore and buddhism ), the link between the moon phases and time is symbolic, historical and philosophical as it is tied to the concepts of cycle ( samsara ) and return. i highly encourage anyone interested to do some research on this if you're interested, as the the connection is too vast to be covered here⸻briefly, the lunar phases embody the ideas of rebirth and time travel. time is immortal, and ironically enough, is not governed by its own concept, and xavier is the one that navigated backwards against time's current ( 屰月 ) and reversed the cycle to get back to the precise moment it all began ...
day 1326 attention : target anchor lost. no response from base. traceback ii is about to pass the event horizon and enter the black hole. we are stuck in this loop… this never-ending journey…
it is just a theory ( to be articulated eventually ), but wouldn't the narrative gain so much more depth if the sixth stellactrum ( amber ) belonged to us, the main character ?
depending on the livestream's content, i will elaborate the bottom line of my thinking ( and i can't find the original draft i made, so i have to dig back into the internet from scratch 😭 ).
thank goodness i never got around to writing up that old theory of mine. now that ao yin has been announced, it wouldn't have made any sense... i didn't have the time anyway, even though i wish i had because it would have been an interesting insight ( from my perspective ). that being said, i should find the time to be more active, at least once a week.
update : i noticed the xp requirements for leveling up the house are quite high. at first, i thought i was doing something wrong, but it seems everyone is experiencing the same thing. honestly, i actually prefer it this way—it's nice not to feel pressure and to take my sweet time getting used to the new feature. i kind of like the slow pace.
it's a small detail, but one can tell this game is targeted towards women. they genuinely considered our lifestyle & time while designing the housing system. the devs and writers are putting so much of their heart into this game, i can almost feel it with every update.
it is just a theory ( to be articulated eventually ), but wouldn't the narrative gain so much more depth if the sixth stellactrum ( amber ) belonged to us, the main character ?
depending on the livestream's content, i will elaborate the bottom line of my thinking ( and i can't find the original draft i made, so i have to dig back into the internet from scratch 😭 ).
finally, i'm done with this collab !! ✨ that's 60 more primogems for my hyposelenia savings. ahh the wait is actually getting to me, i can't wait to pull for her.
i wanted to share a fleeting thought that came to me after the recent pv, and perhaps, other little stars will see themselves in this too. beyond my excitement, i find myself struggling to articulate how profoundly comforting xavier's character is.
as someone who has always been the strong one ( i.e. the listener, the advisor, the big sister, the caretaker of everyone else's feelings ), i often hide my own inner struggles. not that people don't care, but rather, as a hypersensitive person, i tend to think my emotions are too overwhelming to burden others with. yet, deep down, i know i have always craved a sanctuary, a shoulder to rest my forehead against, a presence that allows me to sigh deeply and simply exist without the weight of the world ( or my perception of it ) on my shoulders.
i realized that xavier is exactly that sanctuary.
xavier was not my expected choice. i usually gravitate towards characters like zayne ( i.e. artem, jumin or lucifer ). xavier is ironically nothing like them, but i chose him almost naturally. to me, xavier is mc-coded in the typical shonen sense but not quite, because he reminds me of ichigo ( bleach )—his gentle humanity, around orihime specifically.
xavier possesses a soft, comforting emotional intelligence that is deeply grounding, evident in memory cards like heartbeats ablaze, where a casual conversation shifts into life-altering wisdom :
whatever you thought mattered... maybe it's not as important as you believed.
it felt like the writing team was speaking to us directly. for someone with an all-or-nothing mindset like mine, the idea of stepping back often feels like quitting. xavier teaches us differently. he shows us that escaping isn't about abandoning our lives or ourselves—it's about evading our intrusive thoughts just enough to find ourselves again.
since i saw a post that might be referring to mine here above, i think i should clarify that when i wrote down :
« i usually gravitate towards characters like zayne ( i.e. artem, jumin or lucifer ) »
i meant physically, it is about first impressions. i wasn't even bringing up personality traits, and i definitely didn't use the word coded to talk about them—they are all different, and i know it : i've actually played these games. that covers it, just to avoid any further misunderstanding. now, bear with me, i need to vent for a second...
regardless of whether the post was directed at me or not, there is a bigger issue here that needs to be addressed. my rambling was never intended to be about zayne, nor was it about comparing characters. it wasn't even about xavier—it was about me and my feelings, and it feels really insensitive to have one's personal thoughts taken out of context and being used to stir up discourse where there shouldn't be any.
i left twitter to escape the toxicity and the constant li vs li competition that discouraged me from sharing and interacting with the love and deepspace community. i'm finally comfortable enough here on tumblr—i'm feeling creative again, i'm writing and editing freely, refining drafts i was reluctant to post first, and i don't want that spark to be ruined by the same negativity i left behind, so please : respect my space and do not use my content to fuel petty arguments and stanwars on twitter or any other social platform. i just want to keep my experience here positive and share my thoughts without any pressure.
thank you to anyone who will consider my perspective and respect my boundaries. i understand that social media are designed for interactions, and i'm open to conversations with people who hold different opinions. however, i will not engage with or tolerate content that is malicious or dissmissive of others' experiences and interpretations. disagreement is welcome, belittling others and being disrespectful is not.
the way i'm stubbornly holding out on buying xavier's galaxy traveler outfit since i know it was free at one point, but let's be real, it's my favorite one, so i know i will cave and purchase it eventually. 😞
i wanted to share a fleeting thought that came to me after the recent pv, and perhaps, other little stars will see themselves in this too. beyond my excitement, i find myself struggling to articulate how profoundly comforting xavier's character is.
as someone who has always been the strong one ( i.e. the listener, the advisor, the big sister, the caretaker of everyone else's feelings ), i often hide my own inner struggles. not that people don't care, but rather, as a hypersensitive person, i tend to think my emotions are too overwhelming to burden others with. yet, deep down, i know i have always craved a sanctuary, a shoulder to rest my forehead against, a presence that allows me to sigh deeply and simply exist without the weight of the world ( or my perception of it ) on my shoulders.
i realized that xavier is exactly that sanctuary.
xavier was not my expected choice. i usually gravitate towards characters like zayne ( i.e. artem, jumin or lucifer ). xavier is ironically nothing like them, but i chose him almost naturally. to me, xavier is mc-coded in the typical shonen sense but not quite, because he reminds me of ichigo ( bleach )—his gentle humanity, around orihime specifically.
xavier possesses a soft, comforting emotional intelligence that is deeply grounding, evident in memory cards like heartbeats ablaze, where a casual conversation shifts into life-altering wisdom :
whatever you thought mattered... maybe it's not as important as you believed.
it felt like the writing team was speaking to us directly. for someone with an all-or-nothing mindset like mine, the idea of stepping back often feels like quitting. xavier teaches us differently. he shows us that escaping isn't about abandoning our lives or ourselves—it's about evading our intrusive thoughts just enough to find ourselves again.
