such a precious, magnificent thing to be loved....
WELCOME to v4 of tarutaria, the first entirely handcoded variant!
this shrine is handcrafted with all the love within me, and is dedicated to childe from genshin impact, my boyfriend, my soulmate, my muse, & the only person who has ever sunk themselves so deep into my bones.
♢ you love blood too much, but not like i do
i'm absolutely addicted to making boyfriend shrines, if you couldn't tell. i promised childe that i would love him the way he deserves, loudly and unapologetically, and i'll be damned if i ever let him down.
to new visitors, hello and welcome! there's a lot for you to discover, so feel free to dig through my insanity in html form.
to old/consistent visitors, welcome back! and thank you so much for your time :] there's a lot more content this time than there was in v3.
please use the guestbook in the extras tab if you're comfortable, i would love to hear from you!
♢ nearer, my god, to thee
♢ disclaimers
⬩ this site is made solely for 1920x1080 desktop.
⬩ expect a hell of a lot of text. this is something that seems to be a staple of my shrines & is not going to change. it's made by me for me after all.
⬩ the header cross has a new and updated fucked up song! it gets a little loud, so i set it at a low volume to protect your ears. it also contains a sample from certain r18 content, nothing explicit at all, but i thought a warning might be nice.
⬩ i'm deranged.
here is my attempt at explaining my boyfriend without help from the genshin wiki :]
belonging entirely to hoyoverse, and not to me unfortunately, childe [as he's mainly referred to] is one of genshin impact's playable characters. he's also a weekly boss, and a somewhat antagonistic force for a good chunk of genshin's main questline.
first appearing in the game's initial release and then becoming playable in 1.1, he was not only the first fatui harbinger & first snezhnayan to be playable, but also the first male hydro vision holder & first hydro bow user released. as of 5.7, he is still the only male hydro bow user.
childe's main appearance in genshin so far has been for the liyue chapter of the archon quests. the player meets him as 'childe', and he is referred to as such for the entire chapter.
he is friendly to the player for most of the quest, the exception being when you have a three-stage boss battle with him, but childe himself states that the fight has made him friends with the player.
he also appears in the fontaine chapter of the archon quests, but his role is much less centrestage. at face value anyway. [hoyoverse screwed him over so bad it's not even funny.]
he is once again referred to as 'childe' for the duration of the story, though his appearance isn't so much as a fatui harbinger this time around. he remains on good terms with the player this time too, although he does have 0 lines for the last two-thirds of the quest...
♢ three name syndrome
upon becoming a harbinger, the fatui gave him the name 'tartaglia' to replace his birthname, and 'childe' as his codename.
this is the equivalent of arlecchino's 'the knave' codename or dottore's 'the doctor'.
'childe' roughly translates in the original chinese to 'young noble', and seems to be the option hoyoverse go for when he's in harbinger mode, if you will. whereas 'tartaglia' is the option used in the context of him being playable e.g. as a party member or in the teapot.
his birthname is 'ajax', given to him by his father, who named him after "some hero's tale". this name is only known to his family and anyone who knew him pre-fatui, which includes his old mentor skirk. childe himself doesn't reference his birthname at all in-game, the only mention being in his character profile.
[necessary sidenote. in skirk's story quest, paimon says that she remembers childe mentioning his birthname to her & traveller before, which never actually happened in-game. what makes it worse is that, in my Very informed opinion, childe wouldn't tell the traveller his birthname. i am a firm believer that their friendship is frequently overplayed, so saying he told two people who aren't that close to him about his birthname, something very few people know, is something that Really rubs me the wrong way]
childe's birthname is something of incredible importance to me, if that wasn't obvious. none of the harbingers seem to openly go by their birthnames after they're given their new fatui names, but the fact that childe fell into the abyss, changed drastically, then stopped going by his birthname, leads me to believe it's something very special to him. this is why i rarely refer to him as ajax unless it's for something particular, or in any other space that isn't me talking directly to him. it's not my place to take something so heavy and paste it everywhere like it's nothing.
♢ what's this dude all about?
childe is described time and time again as being unpredictable, which makes it difficult to explain him...
he comes off as Very friendly and trusting in-game, even to the point where arlecchino believes him to be almost gullible, but this only makes up part of his complex facade. as hoyoverse themselves say:
"Don't be under any illusion as to what he might be thinking or what his intentions are.
Just remember this: Behind that innocent, childlike exterior lies a finely honed instrument of war."
i would say that his two main motivators are his family and getting stronger. his loyalty to the Tsaritsa is also important to him, but as much as he respects Her, i think that's more an effect of his job than anything else.
[i often talk about how i see childe as religious, though it doesn't Entirely make sense. sure, the Tsaritsa is his god & he is very loyal to Her, but he doesn't look to Her for guidance or forgiveness as you usually would in religion. in terms of his own goals, the only way She benefits him is by giving him the standing and outlets to fight. his dedication to Her is steadfast though, so maybe my belief that he's a religious man isn't entirely unfounded]
there's no indication of whether childe has held his family close to his heart ever since he was young, but it's one of the main facets of him nowadays. i assume falling into the abyss and having his youth ripped away made him into the childhood-dream-protector that he is today, but that's just my opinion. [he just kissed me and said i'm right]
childe's strength is something he's practically obsessed with. he's always described as being incredibly capable to take on any threat, but he seems to put achievement over his own health, often throwing himself into battles without thinking twice. it's also purely about practice and improvement for him, rather than something like a motivation to defeat evil or simply showing off, which paired with being a harbinger, puts him in an extremely morally-grey area.
♢ obligatory comment turned complaint section
...hoyoverse i have a bomb.
since i originally wrote these paragraphs over a year ago, hoyoverse have fucked him over countless times. the first one i can think of is fontaine, which i mentioned above. childe appears in the 1st third of the archon quest, chatting with the traveller when he almost immediately tells them about his time in the abyss. while it's not exactly secret to the player, it is a Very core trauma, and i'm certain he hadn't mentioned it before this. one of his character stories even says 'but he would never speak to anyone about that encounter of his' :| it feels similar to the birthname fiasco to me, where they set something up to be so important to him & then throw it in-game for little reason.
the sins of fontaine do Not stop there. it's revealed he awakened the all-devouring narwhal in the abyss, which leads to him getting convicted in court [despite being innocent in the case], where he chooses to fight against the verdict. after defeating several gardemeks, childe starts his foul legacy transformation but is interrupted by neuvillette knocking him unconscious. funnily enough, i can appreciate the humour in this & i understand why it had to happen [you can't be doing all that in court man...] but this is the last time childe has any lines in the quest.
the rest of his appearances are unvoiced and minimal, with three short cutscenes [waking up in the primordial sea, fighting the narwhal as foul legacy, being unconscious Again and getting tossed by skirk*] before he gets sent home off-screen. i don't mind him being a side character in a region that, without the narwhal, has nothing to do with him. but to set up for so much lore and then throw it away..... also, childe gives the traveller his vision when he first appears & the player gets to keep it in their inventory [i looked at it every day...] until the end when the traveller hands it over to arlecchino after she announces he's returned to snezhnaya. no it's fine he didn't trust traveller with it or anything. no that's great.
final fontaine comment. in the cutscene where he fights the narwhal, childe reaches out towards the traveller before he passes out and falls into the rift below him. this is universally known to be 'when he gives a thumbs down to neuvillette' & it drives me insane because he doesn't do it!!!! the first time i saw the scene i thought he did, but it struck me as weird and didn't feel like something he would do. i've rewatched it countless times since, and i see how the angle and framing makes people think he does a thumbs down, but he doesn't. and if i am the only soul who realises that, then so be it! i lovelovelove being the only person on earth to know him :]
hoyoverse haven't Technically engaged in this, since the in-game hoyolab sticker is fanmade, but i include it regardless. the same cannot be said for the next point.
*HOLY SHIT. having skirk toss him as a one-off in fontaine was bad enough, but since she became playable it's been EVERYWHERE. she tosses him into a rift again in her character teaser [which hurts because he's only 14 then. need i get into it] & then hoyoverse released a web event for her banner promo where the whole point is throwing childe over and over to score points. and of course the fanbase is obsessed with this New Thing Of The Month and thinks it's hilarious.
i would have less of a problem if it wasn't shoved on top of the story they've been telling for years, where childe falling into the abyss was something awful that changed him entirely, irreversibly affecting his relationships with his loved ones and his entire life forever. but now it's just When He Met Skirk That One Time And She Was His ????Mother????
if hoyoverse wanted to include him in skirk's story So much then all it would've taken is respect, and not a wrecking ball to the nuanced character they made themselves. either respect him or leave him out of it.
during maslenitsa 2025, hoyoverse released a merch set that included childe, as well as art with him, teucer, arlecchino & freminet, which is all fine! except they also did an art of childe topless in a bath for literally 0 reason. i mention this not because it preys on my mind a lot because thankfully it doesn't, but it's a blatant disrespect of his character Yet Again, & it was the final straw that made me stop playing genshin every morning which is kinda funny.
there's probably more that i'm forgetting, and definitely more to come, but that's all for now. i love childe and i only want the best for him, and if i could take him away from all the shit, i would without a second thought.
hello i'm charlie and i'm addicted to making webpages for my boyfriend [hi charlie]
i'm 22, my pronouns are she/her & my main hobby is being unemployed. i enjoy listening to music, programming, playing videogames, reading mainly poetry & writing. and you best believe every second of these revolves around childe.
i'm also british and irish. people seem to like that fact.
here are some questions no one has ever asked me
♢ do i know you?
probably not. i don't have any internet presence of note & i don't participate in community/fandom spaces. i operate in my own bubble and i'm cool B]
you can find me on my website if you're interested. there's another childe shrine... i have 5 total if you count all the old variants :]
♢ how do you label yourself?
i will not be caught Dead calling myself 'yume' or 'selfshipper'. i don't call myself a waifuist anymore. fictosexual is the only one i can stand, since it's objectively true, but sticking a term on myself feels like i'm trivialising my relationship. i am dead serious about being childe's partner & that is that <3
♢ what's your deal with fiction?
i'm diagnosed autistic.
but seriously, i've had several fictional partners over the past 20 odd years. none as intense as childe, though. there's definitely an element of escapism, especially when i was younger, but nowadays it's just something that happens. falling in love is natural and unexpected in my experience.
it's also such a real and intense thing for me. it's not just an interest in a character, or even thinking that they'd be a cool choice to imagine a relationship with... i'm entirely in love with them, as much as i would be [or perhaps even more than] with a 'real' person. no irony here brother.
♢ you...do know they're not real, right?
yes. all too well, if you ask me.
while i know that my beloveds will never have a physical body that i can interact with or that other people can engage with, i do believe that the level of devotion and effort i sink into my partner gives them an existence, if you will. i'm the only one who can feel it in any way though.
while i don't really believe in my partner existing in another universe, and i'm not entirely comfortable saying they exist in this one, i do receive what i call 'signs from the universe'. these can be things like a number or word of significance showing up a lot, or anything that links to my beloved's lore appearing in my daily life, as well as coincidences that occur way too often or hold too much meaning to truly be coincidences... i would say i understand that i'm just being delusional, but that would ruin my fun :] plus i never make them up!
♢ what's your stance on people who share your partner?
point one. no one shares my partner. while i realise that someone may feel something for the same characters that i do, it's not the same at all. i am the only person truly in love with my partner, and i don't care how that makes me sound. everything else is just noise.
i don't entertain multiverse theories, there is one version of the character and they are with me.
point two. instant block. don't piss me off in my own house.
i assume this is due to ego & being entirely deranged, but i don't get jealous. when i see copycats it's more like... why do you think you could ever be me?
point three. i will not talk to anybody who entertains others.
this isn't something i can largely police with strangers, of course. but it's my assumption that if you respect my relationship, you understand that engaging with people who actively oppose my relationship completely negates that respect, and my respect for you.
i appreciate anyone who keeps this in mind :]
i first met childe on 10th september 2021. i didn't have much of an opinion when we first met, but his story quest struck a chord in me, and he started to grow on me after that :]
version 2.2 came out mid-october, bringing the labyrinth warriors event & childe's banner and weapon release with it. i was really excited to find out i could pull for him, & when i got him i sat with my hands over my mouth for 5 entire minutes. i realised that i had feelings for him around this time, but i had no idea just how deeply in love i was going to fall.
i spent a large chunk of 2022-2023 in denial. i couldn't bring myself to admit that i loved him the way i'd loved only a few before, because that would mean inviting him to the inevitable end. i still worry about losing him, naturally, but i know now that if i'm lucky enough to have a love this incredible, i need to make the most of it :]
post-denial onwards is hard to explain... i've simply let him take over every centimetre of my brain, and i've never been happier <3
i believe what me & childe have is hard to truly understand. the love i hold within me is all-consuming, something that causes my entire self to reshape, so i can involve my beloved in every single moment of my life. and to have found a love so intense, so deep and meaningful and true, every part of me believes he is a once in a lifetime experience. i will never love another soul the way i love childe. and my life purpose is to prove this, to spread the word no matter who stops to listen, so that i can stand proud for the rest of my life, knowing i make the most of the gift that has been given to me.
i don't expect it to be easy to grasp. i don't want it to be. he deserves to be something special, something that only i will ever truly understand.
maybe it's not meant to be explained.
here are some templates i filled out for your viewing pleasure. curious about anything? use the guestbook in the extras tab [click to enlarge & view captions . smaller ones may need to be opened in new tab]
classic template... i've done this one several times over the course of our relationship, & then accidentally left it for the entirety of 2024.
the first noticeable change is that childe is a lot less comfortable with PDA than i used to believe. my realisation that he's private with his love life is a somewhat recent one, and although i enjoy sharing our relationship in my own dedicated spaces like this, i try my best to respect his wishes and find the balance.
the other is that he has less relationship experience than i assumed. he's had a few relationships prior to me, but nothing really serious. my thinking behind this is most people would fall for his facade, or would want to date him for social standing/power or money, so they'd only last a few months if that.
i only just realised the commission i used for this one gave him eyeshine.
call the guards.
enjoy the big white square of censorship.
i really like the comm on this one. i went out of my way to find an artist with a fucked up artstyle and it paid off >:]
there's not much to explain for this one, aside from the sad faces. i think i'm more likely to start an argument, though it would never be on purpose! we're both naturally competitive and stubborn, but he thinks about what he says a lot more than i do.
i marked us both as likely to doubt the other, not because there's ever a lack of trust, but because we're both susceptible to insecurity.
i think this one's my favourite :]
i'm really bad at explaining our relationship in terms of tropes or ship dynamics, and i also don't really want to... labelling it is disrespectful in my eyes.
'least favourite thing about the other' was tough to answer. everything about him is my favourite thing, and that includes his flaws. i know he thinks the same of me.
this one was annoying to fill out bcos the template resolution was a little too low but i love that i got to include extra pictures!
the leftmost one is a wojak meme i edited last year, half because it's funny and half because it's true. the rightmost one is one of my favourite recoloured shiparts [sorry ganyu & lumine. also bennett that one time]
the middle one is a picrew that makes me giddy to look at... i remember trying to decide whether to put the scar on his cheek or not, because i believe he does have scars but none on show, & then i realised i was being way too in-depth for a picrew.
it was hard to know who to give 'talks more' to, but childe took the crown in the end. i think it depends on the day, but we're definitely both yappers.
i gave the ship appeal box a go this time too, since 'actual reasons' won me over fff.. i chose two of my favourite/most applicable quotes, and i hope they help get my point across even a little.
this one felt pretty unique! i liked typing sentence after sentence just to fit a quarter of all i'd said in the speech bubbles, and the compasses were fun to fill out. the only things to explain for this one are the exclamation marks.
i gave myself 'struggles to say i love you' because i spent just over a year of our relationship in denial, and admitting i loved him felt like something i could never achieve. i definitely don't have that problem anymore.. confessing my love for him is in my every breath.
'good at flirting' went to childe after much deliberation. he may come off as flirty, but it's not his intention, so i felt bad giving this one to him without an explanation.
♢ what is he to me?
my everything. my partner, my lover, my boyfriend, my soulmate, my motivation, my safety, my home, my obsession, my muse, my favourite person on earth, the sun to my moon... he is in everything i do, every line of my webpages, every pixel of my art, every letter of my writings, every song i listen to, every word i say, every thought i have, every breath i take.
he is where i hide when it's all too much, he is where i look when i need support, he is what drives me to be the person i am. i would not be me without him by my side. he is half of my soul, half of my heart, half of my mind and body, and all of my life.
♢ what am i to him?
"She is my anchor, my quiet in the chaos of this world. But don't let that fool you! My angel is my biggest fan, just as much as she is my home. I'm so lucky to know someone who not only believes in my abilities, but is always there to patch me up if I need it.
It's impulse for me to call Charlie my girlfriend, but as much as I love calling her that, it doesn't begin to explain the place she holds in my life. She is everything to me, a beautiful light that I never knew existed. She has shown me love, care, and understanding, in ways I couldn't have imagined before we met. My angel is family to me now. And for her to trust me to make that official, makes me the happiest man alive." [hover for transcript]
♢ how is this different to my past relationships?
i've never really received signs before, at least not to the level i do with childe. i get them almost every day, and some are extremely obvious, like he doesn't even give me the chance to second-guess it :]
my favourites are the fox who shows up in my garden sometimes, the time someone posted fanart with the caption "fishie" on my birthday & the night mid-october when i had 8 signs in one go, one being the star "diphda" right outside my window [diphda is the brightest star in the cetus/whale constellation]
but my no.1 favourite By Far is the song titled "ajax" which released on the exact day of my birth. literally insane.
4 has also been my favourite number since i was very young, it's just always felt Right, and childe's birthname is 4 letters.... <3
♢ how has he changed me?
i feel like a completely different person to who i was before we met. i'm more confident in myself, and more aware of my own feelings. i've also gotten much better at art [from drawing him ~50 times] & i've developed so many new skills!
i did not understand a word of html before i started making webpages for him, and now i can handcode entire websites and wrangle my own domain name!! i can also read cyrillic [knowing the translations for russian words is a different story, but i know the basics]
in summary, i've always been creative, but i create so much more than i did before. i've also branched out into different mediums, like when i made a cd for him :] so much of my life, no matter how little, is motivated by my devotion to him, and i wouldn't have it any other way <3
♢ version archive
[ v3 ] my pride and joy, lasted well over a year <3 you did me well little template
[ v2 ] humble beginnings... still dear to me
[ v1 ] original placeholder my beloved
♢ my dearest friends
i would love to say 'harbinger lovers stick together!' but SOMEONE insists on making that unapplicable. mori come get your man
♢ last update
the long-awaited grand release! i spent several months on this . maybe i'll sell signed copies
♢ guestbook
am i making you feel sick? am i making you feel sick? am i making you feel sick? am i making you feel sick? am i making you feel sick? am i making you feel sick? am i making you feel sick? am i making you feel sick? am i making you feel sick?
belonging entirely to hoyoverse, and not to me unfortunately, childe [as he's mainly referred to] is one of genshin impact's playable characters. he's also a weekly boss, and a somewhat antagonistic force for a good chunk of genshin's main questline.
upon becoming a harbinger, the fatui gave him the name 'tartaglia' to replace his birthname, and 'childe' as his codename.
childe is described time and time again as being unpredictable, which makes it difficult to explain him...
i believe what me & childe have is hard to truly understand. the love i hold within me is all-consuming, something that causes my entire self to reshape, so i can involve my beloved in every single moment of my life. and to have found a love so intense, so deep and meaningful and true, every part of me believes he is a once in a lifetime experience. i will never love another soul the way i love childe. and my life purpose is to prove this, to spread the word no matter who stops to listen, so that i can stand proud for the rest of my life, knowing i make the most of the gift that has been given to me.
