Eonsheath

Garen

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Garen goes to the gym six days a week and his seventh day is a "rest" day where he does pilates with the girls ("rest" in quotations because pilates kicks his ass more than lifting).

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Songs Garen would listen to #02

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So which are your favorite pairings for Garen, if I might ask? Love your blog!

Thank you for the question and for enjoying the blog! I usually ship Garen with Darius or Katarina, but I was planning to start a series of posts where I talk about some crack ships involving Garen (and by "planning to," I mean procrastinate). I suppose this post can be the first installment.

I love the idea of Garen x Yasuo. It feels like the League version of the stereotypical cowboy and samurai duo. I'd watch the hell out of a Garen Yasuo buddy cop situation. (Note: I don't like cops, but I tried to think of a synonym for the "buddy cop" genre but there really wasn't one, so...) They're both swordsmen but in different ways, first of all. They'd find each other's weapons ridiculous—Yasuo would think Garen's weapon is barbaric and Garen would call Yasuo's sword a toothpick or something like that. But when it's time to lock in, they'd make a great team. They complement each other's weaknesses in combat.

It's also a great contrast that, on a surface level, Yasuo is sardonic and grumpy, while Garen more of a optimistic, golden retriever-type. But when you get to know these characters, Yasuo is a laid-back, "I go where the wind takes me" wanderer, while Garen is bound by honor and code. They're essentially opposites on multiple levels.

But, intriguingly enough, it is when their innermost layers are revealed that they converge, in the sense that Yasuo's journey is, in reality, a path to atone for his past sins, while Garen's loyalty to the noble cause is wavering. In the later acts of their adventure together, once they've grown to trust each other and confessed to one another their deepest anxieties, they'd realize that they have more in common than they thought. There's real potential for some dense character writing here (that Riot will never tap into because they suck).

Some scenarios where they could cross paths/example adventures they could go on together:

Garen, to investigate the causes of Xin Zhao's death, sets off on a mission to Ionia, where he stumbles upon the masterless swordsman Yasuo. Mistaking one another for an enemy, they cross swords, but is convinced by the trueness of the swordplay amidst the battle that they are closer to brothers than foes. Yasuo accompanies Garen in his adventures as his guide, where the duo uncovers a sinister Noxian plot and is abruptly tasked with saving the nation of Ionia.

Yasuo, during his travels, takes a detour to Demacia due to an injury and is subsequently arrested for suspected magic use. Garen, instinctively sensing that Yasuo is an innocent man, orders the Mageseekers that he will detain Yasuo personally. Yasuo, to his frustration, has no choice but to keep it on the low in Garen's (admittedly very cozy) estate, and romantic hijinks ensue. However, his feelings towards Garen become complicated when he learns that Garen is willing to face tremendous consequences to illicitly set him free and return him to Ionia.

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Songs Garen would listen to #01

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I lowkey wish people would use the "ask me anything" feature to ask me stuff about Garen because I DO want to talk about Garen but sometimes I only feel motivated to do so when I have an excuse to/when I'm prompted to.

Like, ask me the most hyper-specific pedantic things about Garen and I promise you my response is out-pedantic it. No Garen thought is too intrusive in this blog. I mean, just look at the stuff I usually post.

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Garen's Pokémon team

Image generated using this website.

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Happy birthday Darius 🥹 I love you!!!

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This is so adorable 🥹

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Man, what am I even talking about in this fuckass blog. The other Garen stans probably think I'm weird as hell 😭

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25 posts!

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While we're at it, Garen would also never jaywalk, litter, or, like, I dunno, hit a vape or something. He'd be able to instinctively sense the duplicitous and malicious energy emanating from the strawberry kiwi Juul.

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The Enhanced Games

I'm seeing a lot of buzz on social media about the "Enhanced Games" (an Olympics-like athletics event where contestants are allowed to use performance-enhancing substances) and while I (obviously) have my own takes about it I'm also thinking about how Garen would absolutely despise the concept of something like that. I'm talking unadulterated, cold contempt. As much as I, accurately, imagine Garen as a kind and gentle guy, he IS also a bit of a party pooper about certain things. And in an "modern AU" that would manifest as a staunch opposition to steroids and PEDs (because there's really no way an "IRL" Garen wouldn't passionately engage in bodybuilding or some kind of team sports where drug use is quite commonplace).

He's frequently ACCUSED of steroid use because he has the muscles of, like, three bodybuilders put together, but no, the only needle that's even grazing his skin are vaccinations and MAYBE a tattoo pen writing Katarina's (or Darius's) name. He doesn't walk into the drug test room, he saunters. It's all hard work in the gym and lots of protein... Lots and lots and lots of protein. He'd also disapprove of the hyper-individualistic crypto/gambling/hustler-ification of athletics that the Enhanced Games epitomizes; he may lack the vocabulary to articulate that but he'd feel so. To Garen, sports is meant to bring people together.

(To clarify, my OWN opinion on steroid use is much less stringent than this. There are valid discussions to be had about steroid abuse side effects/body image complications/"zoo" culture/the general pursuit for the "peak" of masculinity, of course, but generally I have nothing against people who use steroids if that's the worst thing they're doing.)

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I never realized Garen was in this art and I actually really love how he looks here, even though it's like 14 pixels.

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I lowkey wish people would use the "ask me anything" feature to ask me stuff about Garen because I DO want to talk about Garen but sometimes I only feel motivated to do so when I have an excuse to/when I'm prompted to.

Like, ask me the most hyper-specific pedantic things about Garen and I promise you my response is out-pedantic it. No Garen thought is too intrusive in this blog. I mean, just look at the stuff I usually post.

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One of my pettiest pet peeves are those profession-specific Instagram influencer accounts with handles in the @[profession]by[name] format. Like, there would be a food/recipie account called @nutritionbynorman and a fitness account called @bodybybrad and, well, you get the idea. (Bonus infuriation points if there's an alliteration.)

Now, I'm not saying Garen would run a fitness account (because he wouldn't), but IF he did, his account handle would unfortunately be

@gainsbygaren

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The fact that Demacia is known to have a lot of bathhouses is kinda subtly homoerotic (according to my delulu mind). Like, Garen is for sure going to the bathhouse for a shower. Yeah, that's what he's doing there.

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I sometimes forget that Garen is canonically hot. Like, he's hot by the internal logic of the world and other characters perceive him as hot. It's truly a shame how sexless League lore is because we can almost certainly take things up a notch... It would explain a lot of things, actually. As in, how is Garen able to so effortlessly gain other people's loyalty and respect? Why did Katarina, a Noxian assassin otherwise unflinchingly devoted to her nation, fall for him at basically first sight? Why can't characters stop talking about how square his jawline is? Because he's a hunky himbo studmuffin that lifts heavy and lays pipe.

Duh.

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Mollymauk from the new Critical Role campaign, which I’m determined to stay up to date with!

Design by Taliesin Jaffe and Ariana Orner.