Frank

"I want to hear him say it."

Casting: Paul Rudd
Gender:
Date of Birth: ♊ June 1, 1969
Age: 42
Place of Birth: Altadena, CA
Occupation: Investigative reporter
Ability: Blending
Power Grade: n/a
Registration Status: ☒ UN ☐ REG
Theme Song: "Dirty Laundry" by Don Henley
Hooks:The Speaker ✔ Scandals ✔ Politics ✔ Celebrities
frank2.jpg

The Speaker's star field reporter (or at least its oldest one), Frank McGaffigan has a wardrobe made for radio.


Background

When Frank was growing up, his dad tried to get him involved in typical activities for boys - basketball at the Y, that sort of thing - but he was never all that good or all that interested in it, so it didn't get pushed for very long. He was more strongly influenced by his three older sisters, soaking up a few things over the years and eventually reflecting them back. Navigating and surviving the cliques in high school, for one thing. Fashion sense, for another; he clashed on purpose to get a rise out of people, except for a handful who actually gave him credit for bucking standards. (Hey, the easiest way to survive the cliques is to join one, right?)

Another thing that stuck with Frank from an early age was the Watergate scandal. He heard about it a lot on TV, but at that point, it was just a lot of names without any context; that only came along in his teens, when All the President's Men was included in his required reading at school. Taken with the story, he decided to major in journalism in college. (He could manage the skills and the nerve to break the major scandal of his own era, couldn't he?)

Upon graduation, Frank landed a spot with the Pasadena Star-News and established a decade-and-change career there. While he had a hand in following some big stories, though - Rodney King and the riots were the high point - he never managed to blow the whistle on anything, and eventually he saw his workload being shifted away from gang violence and toward celebrity fluff pieces. With boneheaded decisions like that, surely they'd run themselves right out of business, like the Herald-Examiner back when he was just getting started. Time to jump ship before he went down with it.

At the same time, blogs were getting to be more and more of a big deal— while even the top newspapers were trying to run their online presence the same way they'd run their print business for decades, which anyone with half a brain could tell you was doomed to failure. The upward and downward trends hadn't crossed yet, but they were headed that way; Frank needed an outfit that could take advantage of both. And when he overheard a hidebound colleague dismiss The Speaker at great length, he suspected he'd found one.

While he still didn't achieve national fame, he did at least start uncovering some local scandals— and as local markets go, Los Angeles is one of the biggest. He attributed this success mostly to his own talent, and partly to The Speaker understanding how to take proper advantage (if he's chasing a celebrity, they'd better at least have bet on a lethal dogfight or something) and keeping track of all the computer stuff that goes over his head.

What Frank didn't credit - because he didn't know he had it - was his newly manifested ability, allowing him to unconsciously blend into the crowd (despite his clothes sense, which had only gotten worse since his teens) until he could approach his target and catch them off guard. Accordingly, he hasn't seen any need to get tested— and even if he did, he's well aware that anyone who registers as A-P is handing his enemies a golden opportunity for slander, or worse. And he's equally well aware that he does have enemies.

Logs


2011-08-30 — Take a CardFrank's not the only one keeping an eye on the ACRU.

Quotes

  • "Memorable quotes!"

Trivia

  • Frank is loosely adapted from a LARP character (not my own) whose gimmick allowed him to OOCly follow the GMs around. (Private conversation in a back room? Frank had a hunch and shimmied up a drainpipe to peek in. Or something.)

Gallery

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