GaryThe Gadget Guy

Appearance

Gary is a blue penguin in an indestructible white lab coat, his favorite piece of clothing, with the sleeves rolled. Under it he wears a teal dress shirt and a brown tie. His glasses are large, round, and opaque, with zig-zag temples cut from high-density material. He carries nine spare pairs. Without them he squints. His eyes show pupils only, no sclera. Visual acuity is -11.5 in the left eye and -13.5 in the right.

From 2013 onward, the lab coat usually has scuffs, and the sleeves sit higher on his flippers. Club Penguin Times issue 377 shows a younger Gary with a curly brown wig, braces, and no lab coat.

Personality

Gary likes helping other penguins when a problem needs a machine. He drinks a lot of coffee so he can stay up inventing; Rookie once heard it was ten cups in one night. Decaf coffee scares him. Rotary phones scare him. Analog clocks scare him, and he calls that fear irrational. Ghosts scare him too, even though he knows they cannot hurt him.

Crowds wear him out. He would rather invent than attend a party, though he still shows up for some of them. He works in secret because too much activity around him wrecks his concentration. He explains things in long scientific sentences, then repeats himself in simpler words. He can solve 347 x 58253 in seconds and considers himself funny.

He collects pins, stamps, comic books, and insects. Medieval legends, dragons, and dinosaurs hold his attention. His first toy was a stuffed Tyrannosaurus rex named Lord Chompington. As a meetable mascot he asks penguins to help with experiments, examinations, potions, and data. If someone asks about secret agents, he pretends he has never heard of them.

Herbert froze him during Operation: Blackout. After that, Gary said his brain felt strange. Jet Pack Guy noticed. Gary grew more eccentric and started using the Time Trekker 3000, while still telling other penguins to be careful in other time periods.

Likes

Headcanons

I think Gary is aro-ace. I also like to believe he's trans.

I don't think he ever dated. I don't think he is even interested in romantic stuff. When he was young I imagine he did that thing where you think you have to be attracted to someone, because everyone else seems to be doing it, so it just looks Normal, and you have to Think about it instead of it coming to you, like it apparently does. I feel like he figured it out in his late teens or young adulthood that he just isn't romantically attracted to anyone, and he'd rather have friends more than anything. Dating would have been too awkward and uncomfortable to even try, so he just never did.

I also think he cannot get LASIK. His visual acuity is -11.5 in the left eye and -13.5 in the right, so eye surgery is out. He can wear contacts. He tried. Someone told him to put the glasses back on, because he just looked off without them.

After Blackout

I keep thinking about Operation: Blackout, because Herbert did not just put Gary in a normal freezer or something. Gary got trapped in one of those cryo-containment pods, using tech Herbert stole and warped from Gary's own work. So when Gary says his brain feels strange afterward, I don't think that is just a joke.

I think the freezing left him with mild brain damage, especially around memory, impulse control, and risk assessment. Like, he is still Gary. He's still brilliant. But the part of his brain that used to stop him and go "maybe do not test the dangerous prototype on yourself" got messed up. So after Blackout, ideas go from theory to prototype way faster than they should.

And then there is the trauma part of it. Herbert used Gary's own designs against the island. His friends got captured. The island went dark. Gary was stuck there, frozen, probably aware for at least a second that he could not do anything. I feel like he would come out of that and just keep working, because if he stops, he has to sit with what happened.

So his later-era weirdness makes sense to me as brain damage plus burnout plus guilt. He warns everyone else to be careful with time travel, and then he climbs into the Time Trekker anyway. He knows it is dangerous. He just does not have the same brakes anymore.

Sleep Inventing

Dude. He sometimes invents in his sleep. Once he woke up having built an Atomic Pizza Cutter 3000 Issue 366 . That is in Ask Gary, Club Penguin Times issue 366, October 25, 2012. Operation: Blackout is November 14 and 15. So he said this before Herbert froze him. He already woke up to inventions. The freeze did not create that.

If he always did it, I imagine little Gary waking everyone up at 3 AM because there is clinking under the floorboards, and he's just standing there asleep with crooked safety goggles on, attaching an alarm clock to a toaster. Not even sneaking into the workshop on purpose. Just mechanically drifting in there because his sleeping brain apparently has projects.

Blackout still could have made it worse. More dangerous, more frequent, or he remembers less of it in the morning. The pizza cutter was the cute version. After the freeze, that same habit starts looking like a warning sign. His body shuts down from exhaustion but his brain keeps running on emergency mode, so he sleepwalks to the workbench and has to inspect his own work like a crime scene.

Same column, he is making glasses that see through smoke because his prototypes blow up. He is poking at a rare mineral that messes with the spacetime continuum, and the data is still inconclusive. He is also still failing at a coffee-stain-proof tie.

I feel like Jet Pack Guy would find out once and immediately lock down every dangerous cabinet in the EPF. Then it would not even help, because Gary designed half the locks. Rookie would think it was a cool trick. Gary would just wake up holding a blowtorch and politely decide he should maybe drink less coffee before bed, which he basically will not do.

Humanization

In my human canon, Gary is Cree and First Nations. Because I said so. And besides, the game was created in Canada, so it's not out of the realm of possibility.

I think he would have top surgery scars, so he just has them. Although I don't think he would go out of his way to show them off or really go anywhere shirtless. He's shy.

Dude, he's like. in his mid-fourties, he's going to look his age. I Need him to have wrinkles and a bit of grey hair. Which, like... I imagine he would have a few laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, considering the guy smiles and laughs a lot. He is so joyful.

Regarding Darwin, I think Darwin would be some sort of huge dog, specifically a Tibetan Mastiff. Which I think is really funny, considering I believe that Gary, as a human, is about 5'6" feet tall and is pretty skinny, considering how he lives, so the thought of this massive dog believing to be a lap dog is fucking awesome. Gary gets smushed.

Gadgets

Gary builds most of the machines on the island. A project usually takes several weeks. He first said the "3000" suffix meant the third time was a charm. Later he admitted there were 2,999 versions that went wrong. He claims only one in five inventions explode, usually from too much jet fuel. He rarely asks for help while building, but he treats penguins using a finished machine as the real test.

His first school invention was the Fountain Pen 200, which covered a classroom in ink because he thought a fountain pen should work like a fountain. An early snow-cone flavoring machine leaked because he did not tighten the valve; he smelled like raspberries for a month. He sometimes invents in his sleep. In Club Penguin Times issue 366, October 25, 2012, he said he woke up having built an Atomic Pizza Cutter 3000.

He kept a workstation in the Sport Shop for small jobs, and used the Gadget Room and Secret Lab for bigger ones. Gary's Room sat above the Sport Shop until the Popcorn Explosion destroyed it. In 2014 his favorite invention was the EPF Spy Phone. By 2016 he had switched to the Time Trekker 3000, because it let him meet relatives across time and adopt Darwin.

Connections

Magazine

Club Penguin Magazine ran Gary from 2012 to 2015. Issues 1 through 10 give him Gadgets for Gary, a back page for player invention sketches. Issues 14 and 16 he comments on outfits in Gary's Gear. From issue 33 to 41 he runs Agent G Mail, taking Aunt Arctic's advice column.

Issue 3 (March 2012) is his Penguin Profile: inventor work, a top 10 list of machines, and extra facts. Issue 13 prints Gary's Dino Guide. Issue 28 interviews him about Darwin knocking things over in the lab.

Print extras

• Issue 11, Penguins Uncovered: He is trying to invent coffee-flavored pizza. If you meet Herbert, he says, blow raspberries at him.
• Issue 16, Robochef: Two inventors who want to be like him name their first robot "1" because they are number one. It goes rogue. Gary shuts it down and tells them 3000 means 2,999 versions that failed first. They are still exploding on version 1637.
• Issue 25, Penguins Uncovered: Joint interview with Rockhopper about moving Herbert's stolen coins by train. Rockhopper keeps calling it a snow ship. In the Santa comic that issue, Gary repairs the sleigh and adds popcorn-powered turbo cells.
• Issue 26, A Novel Invention: Aunt Arctic picks up a book in her igloo and falls through a chute into her office chair. Gary greets her as the Director and briefs her on a new transport system. She has nothing to say.
• Issue 35, Gary's Quest: The Magic Mirror 3000 answers every question with "spinach" until Garianna calls for help. Gary goes to the medieval era alone, then brings the Garys -- relatives from every time period, including Garugg and Gariwald -- to beat Scorn. Afterward he asks Garianna to teach him magic.
• Issue 40, Gary Fixes Everything: A reporter asks for tips. Gary says science's greatest problem is holes. Soccer balls, spacetime, donuts, buckets, socks. Socks especially. The reporter asks why he does not buy new ones. He likes them.

Comics

• Issue 3, Rookie's Holiday: Gary sends Rookie on Operation: Holiday to get him away from the photocopier. Rookie radios from Herbert's iceberg. Gary tells him to enjoy the cool breeze. Rookie turns the giant hairdryer to cool, then dumps Herbert in HQ. Gary and Jet Pack Guy get buried in the leftover copies.
• Issue 6, The Lost Demo: G Billy falls out of Jet Pack Guy's grip. Gary is already nearby. His Techno-Tracker 3000 reports a lot of laptop activity in the Plaza.
• Issue 9, The Pied Piper of Puffles: Gary's Beta Scanner 3000 finds the missing puffles on the Ski Hill. He calls the sound waves hypnosis, then unplugs Herbert's machine while Klutzy fires popcorn at the others. He high-fives Jet Pack Guy when the puffles carry Herbert off.
• Issue 10, Gary's New Gadget Tester: Rookie is on a trial week, already blistered. Gary offers Super-Sonic Turbo Rocket-Boots 2000 or a pen. Rookie picks the pen. A boxing glove punches him into the boots. Gary is thrilled both tests worked and asks if Rookie wants the job for good.
• Issue 11, Don't Look Now: Rookie tests Super Sunblock Sunglasses 1000 and cannot see anything. Gary notes he needs to increase the visibility.
• Issue 13, Crabzilla: Gary and Jet Pack Guy arrive in the unfinished Z12 Multi-Terrain Super-Armoured Hydro-Tank 1000. Rookie hits the windshield wipers instead of the cannon. Herbert gloats behind thick glass. Gary uses the loudspeaker to tell him nobody can hear, so Herbert rolls the window down. Twice. Then the tank turns into a submarine.
• Issue 19, Heatwave: While Rookie taunts Herbert, Gary sneaks over to the Super Thermo-Heater of Doom and reverses the polarity. The machine starts a snowstorm. The crowd cheers for him.
• Issue 20, Pack Napped: Jet Pack Guy cannot find his pack. Gary borrowed it to recalibrate the throttle. Jet Pack Guy flies off before Gary finishes talking. Gary says he once felt the same about a quantum demodulator.
• Issue 26, Lost in Time: Rookie and another agent get stuck 20,000 years back with the Time Trekker 3000. Gary uses a spare to pull them out and leaves Wheel-Bot serving coffee to prehistoric puffles.
• Issue 27, The Migrator 3000: Gary rebuilds Rockhopper's wrecked ship. Rockhopper wrecks that one too and demands the old Migrator back, plus a cream soda tap and a stinky cheese machine.
• Issue 32, Crack the Case: Jet Pack Guy is in a cell for a stolen Lume Egg. Gary watches the monitors while Rookie, wrecked from a month of overtime, sleepwalks through Jet Pack Guy's whole routine and eats the replacement egg. Jet Pack Guy makes Gary promise no more overtime for Rookie.
• Issue 33, Switcheroo: Gary swaps bodies with Rookie. His Brain-Swapper 3000 has only been tested on radishes. He ends the issue with Incredi-Glue 3000 in his feathers because Rookie poured it on Gary's head.
• Issue 36, Hairy Situation: Growth serum spills into Gary's coffee. He goes giant and purple, then werewolf because Rookie is on Full-Moon Fireballs. He still has an all-purpose antidote in his pocket. Same issue, he enters a jack o' lantern contest with a tentacle pumpkin and loses because PH walked by with cookies.
• Issue 37, Christmas Countdown: Rookie, dressed as Santa, gives Gary a Herbert plushie.
• Issue 39, Cute for a Cause: Rookie's last Coins for Change stop is Gary's igloo. Gary opens the door and disappears under puffles.
• Issue 40, The Tiny Mystery: Gary calls Operation Gnome-be-Gone a dark day. When the stolen Tour Guide brochures play Herbert Style, he says he loves it.
• Issue 41, The April Fish: Gary cannot tell what the fish are made of. One comes out of his coffee and fishes him. Later he reports they are harmless. Then Rookie gets fished too.

Archive log

• Before 2006: Gary starts inventing at school, joins the PSA, and uses the Sport Shop as cover. He loses a notebook at the Winter Luau in January 2006.
• August 18, 2006: First appearance in Case of the Missing Puffles. He introduces himself as G after an agent solves his sock riddle.
• Late 2006: Goes public with jetpacks. Mission 2, G's Secret Mission, strands an agent in the wilderness after the prototype sled breaks.
• 2007: Unveils the Pizzatron 3000 and the Clock Tower. Missions 3 through 5 pull him into missing coins, avalanches, and the first traces of polar bear fur.
• 2008: Builds the Aqua Grabber 3000 to salvage the Migrator. Halloween Party 2008 is his first meetable appearance. In Elite Penguin Force he goes missing in the mines while chasing rogue Test Robots, then Protobot kidnaps him.
• 2009: Lifts the island with the Island Lifter 3000 during Festival of Flight so the Underground Pool glass can be replaced.
• 2010: Opens the Recycling Plant with the Recycletron 3000. The Popcorn Explosion later destroys the Sport Shop and his room above it.
• 2011: Named EPF Tech Lead. Continues agency work after the PSA HQ is gone.
• 2012: Scorn's curse turns him into Wizard Gary. Herbert kidnaps him, freezes him, and uses his work on the Solar Laser. Operation: Blackout follows. After the thaw, Aunt Arctic reveals she is the Director.
• 2013: Finishes the Time Trekker 3000 and takes penguins to the Age of Dinosaurs.
• 2014: Adopts Darwin. Travels to the future to help Gary 3000 during the Future Party.
• 2015-2016: Leads Pi Day with Rookie, rebuilds PSA missions as EPF training, and hunts power fragments after Herbert steals a UFO power source.
• 2017: Appears as a meetable mascot at the Waddle On Party, Club Penguin's last party.

Paraphrased from Club Penguin canon notes in the local wiki archive. Gallery still pending.