#// I intend to write up something similar for wriothesley some day

[garmgeyr]

Introduction & Interaction Notes

// Hello hello, Ree here with a second muse o/ I couldn't resist joining the HSR boom, but more importantly, I wanted to get elbow-deep in Penacony's history and worldbuilding. I've been in love with this planet and its cast since 2.0, but Penacony's founding figures are by and large my favorites.

To kick things off, as GH was first a Genshin RPC, I thought that it might be helpful to write some sort of brief (lmao) overview for interacting with Gallagher with Teyvat muses and muns who haven't played HSR in mind. This character is a little (a lot) complicated as of 2.2, but I have both a spoiler and spoiler-free summary. All of this is also written up on this blog's notes page.

Spoiler Free (if you haven’t played HSR’s story through 2.2)

You can find Gallagher just about anywhere in Penacony's dreamscape. He has the uncanny tendency to show up at just the right moment. However, all threads with him will need to take place in the dreamscape and/or within the Asdana system for story reasons. Fortunately, Penacony’s dreamscapes are massive. There’s plenty to do.

The impression he gives off is that of a tired, middle-aged man, but he’s generally friendly toward visitors. Inexplicably, characters will believe him to be reliable from the moment they meet him, and - unconsciously or not - will trust him as one of Penacony’s security officers. He’s also a drinksmith, which he clearly enjoys more.

I base my characterization mostly on his JP VA’s performance, who slurs his words more to sell the image of a drunk old man. Gallagher himself says that he’s been called a number of names, “drunk” included, so this trait is free game for any character to comment on. He also tends to lean more crass and blunt than the ENG loc.

There’s little else you need to know about him prior to an interaction. Let him make you a drink and spin you a few stories.

Spoiler Version (if you’re caught up with HSR as of 2.2 and/or just don’t care about spoilers)

FITTING GALLAGHER INTO GH

Gallagher is implied to disappear at the end of 2.2 because of the concept that a lie that’s been discovered as a lie can’t exist anymore, assuming that something must be perceived to be true in order to exist in the first place. While the loading screen explicitly says that “Gallagher” breathed his last, he talks in the story as if this isn’t necessarily certain and that it’s beyond his control, so I’m taking this as an excuse to give him an ambiguous period between his last scene in 2.2 and his actual end. He knows that his end is coming, but it hasn’t happened yet. (conversely, he could still exist in the minds of those who never discovered the truth, but “died” in the mind of the player/the Trailblazer, but that theory overly-complicates things so we’re leaving it at this).

Gallagher is a work of fiction, created by a History Fictionologist. As such, he doesn’t technically exist outside of the dreamscape. To get around this and allow him more freedom within GH, different “versions” of Gallagher will be created for different planets and nations in Teyvat. * I'm aware that Penacony itself is unique and the Fictionologist likely can't create different avatars outside of its dreamscape, but this is a compromise between consistency with the game's lore and allowing a recognizable canon character to leave Penacony for GH's purposes. His character stories point to a base personality that seems consistent with that of the Fictionologist’s, so these different versions will more or less have the same personality no matter where they are (I’m not interested in creating OCs, and this goes against GH’s rules anyway). They will also all be some sort of bartender or (retired) security officer. The difference between these versions and the original Gallagher is that they’ll 1) have different names and 2) have different false backstories to suit the environment.

As an Emanator of Enigmata, the fictionologist is capable of influencing an individual’s impression at a memory level, so all versions of Gallagher will appear to the locals like he’s been there all his life. For example, if he were to show up in Mondstadt one day, Mondstadt characters will believe that he’s more or less an unremarkable local, and may even think that they’ve had some meaningful interaction with him before even if this is technically the first time they’ve met. For this reason, I - as the mun - give explicit permission for my partners to use any non-italicized prose in my posts as information that their muse already knows. This would ordinarily go against metagaming etiquette, but this is an experiment I’d like to try.

Even though Gallagher himself is a kaleidoscope of traits gathered from 52 different Family members in Penacony, for the sake of this group, every version of him will retain a similar appearance. But more often than not, you can just imagine him as a “generic older brown-haired, brown-eyed NPC” from the region that the thread is taking place in.

To note, all of the above is specific ONLY to threads taking place outside of Penacony. For some special characters, like the Trailblazer, past memory may allow them to recognize and therefore see Gallagher with his canon appearance.

FOR TEYVAT SPECIFICALLY

History Fictionologists are said to travel the cosmos, altering the history of civilizations in order to change their trajectory into the future. Since Teyvat is hinted to be trapped in some sort of samsara, this gives the fictionologist behind Gallagher an easy reason to want to come check the place out. However, I’m leaving the plotting and scheme designs to the hoyo writers. There will be no underlying plan mentioned here.

NOTES ON WRITING

I’m approaching writing Gallagher as writing the fictionologist acting as Gallagher. Gallagher is a dreamscape avatar, and this can be equated to an online persona. Physically, they are not the same person, but they don’t exist independently of one another. In other words, Gallagher isn’t like the memetic entities in the dreamscape who can develop independent of their creators.

This is, as a result, something of a writing experiment for me. Most of the content in my thread posts will be objective. All details can be known and observed by all characters involved (in other words, no inner monologue or ramblings about Gallagher’s emotions/past that the other character can’t also access). However, I do intend to include occasional snippets from the fictionologist (in interactions where my partner doesn’t mind spoilers), written in italics. These parts cannot be referenced by other muses unless explicitly mentioned by Gallagher himself, in dialogue.

This concept may evolve and change if ever new information is released in canon.