History

The Mighty Quinn

Quinn was born on January 6, 1972, in Lakewood. He entered the world with an estimable, if hyper-local pedigree. The Maddoxes were among Lakewood’s founding families, and Quinn’s forebears were among the first white men to settle the land around Wren Lake a century and a half earlier. Quinn’s own father, Robert Maddox, was a respected jurist. His great-grandfather, Ellis Maddox, was one of the most notable elected officials in town history, having governed as mayor for two terms at the turn of the century, transforming the town into an economic powerhouse in the years before the world wars.

Generational wealth saw that Quinn had the best of everything growing up: free rein of his family’s sprawling lakeside estate, access to the posh Lake Club, and a seat at the best schools in the area. Like his father and grandfather before him, Quinn studied at St. George Preparatory School, where he forged lifelong friendships. His best friend during this time was Fitz Ulick Kasper Smith, heir to the Smith’s Sweeties candy company. At school, Quinn also forged friendships with scholarship kid Sam Henderson, flaxen-haired crew champ Jason Murray, and square-jawed BMOC Kirk Devlin.

Quinn graduated with the Class of 1990 and studied business and politics at Georgetown, completing his bachelor’s study in the spring of 1994. He returned to Lakewood and entered what former president Richard Nixon would’ve called “the arena”, running for a vacant seat on the town council.

The relatively mundane election season was overturned days before polls opened, when Brandon James, a student at the local public high school, went on a violent rampage, killing five of his peers and badly injuring a sixth before being shot by police on the Wren Lake jetty. The murders sent shockwaves through the town, inciting local hysteria.

Quinn, young and charismatic, had been campaigning about the fecundity of Lakewood’s current elected officials, and had argued for more robust measures to modernize the town and quash crime before it could begin. The Brandon James killings were a bright red underline to his pitch and he won in a landslide, beginning a 22 year political career that would rival Ellis Maddox’s for longevity and scope.¹

Hizzoner

Quinn was married to a glamorous fashion model in 1998. He and Monica shortly after welcomed a daughter, Brooke. Neither Quinn nor Monica were natural parents, with Quinn dedicating more and more of his time to his various city council committees. Brooke was offloaded, first, to a posh day school and, eventually, to the care of Adeline Belmont, a farmwife whose husband maintained a sizable tract in the country north of town.

Brooke proceeded to spend almost all of her childhood on the Belmont farm, becoming close friends with Adeline’s son Will and Jake Fitzgerald, the son of Monica’s friend Carmen, who she’d recommended the farm to. Having their daughter out of the house didn’t do much to revitalize the Maddoxes’ fraying marriage. Monica had begun taking pain killers in the early 2000s, and became increasingly dependent as the years passed until she was ultimately checked into rehab several states away.

Out of sight, out of mind. Quinn was gearing up for a mayoral run, and couldn’t afford to have any scandals darkening the family name.

He announced his candidacy for the 2012 election season. Brooke was initially unimpressed with this move, recognizing her mother’s banishment for what it was, but she eventually came around, and even joined her father on the campaign trail. Quinn had lost none of political acumen in the 18 years since his first election. Aided by an aggressive campaign machine (funded largely by Fitz Smith), he won a resounding victory and assumed the mayorship in 2013.

October Surprise

On the evening of October 18th, 2015, Quinn was reluctantly made to preside over a city council meeting. Unbeknownst to him, this was Brooke’s doing. His daughter had bribed the council to meet on a Sunday so she could have the Maddox manse to herself for a grand house party she’d dubbed Brooke’s Big Beautiful Bash.²

This would prove to be the least of Quinn’s problems for the evening. The same night as the party, murder returned to Lakewood. Stacy Winters and Brock Carmichael, two freshmen at George Washington High, were killed outside Stacy’s home. Shortly afterward, Stacy’s parents Robert and Gina were found dead in their car, of unknown causes.³

The ensuing circus, suffice to say, was not politically expedient. In the first 24 hours after the murders, Quinn scrambled to project an air of calm, confident control, to reassure his terrified and grieving constituents. Sheriff’s deputies were stationed around GW High and an effort was made to search student lockers, under Sheriff Clark Hudson’s belief that Stacy and Brock’s killer had been among their peers. This initiative was promptly shot down by Principal Ed Teague, who insisted Clark come back with a warrant.

Clark explained this much to a furious Quinn, who delayed a press conference on the murders in the hopes the sheriff would’ve had something tangible for him to share. Quinn, bristling, admitted his own fears: 21 years ago, he’d used the community’s fear and anger over a bunch of dead kids to ride to election; how long would it be until some new young pretender tried the same trick?⁴

The press conference commenced, however late, and Quinn found himself delivering the very fluffy pablum he’d feared. It wouldn’t be long before some movement manifested in the case, though…for better or worse.⁵

Appearance

Quinn was a tall, solidly built man of middle-age. He had brown eyes and kept his salt-and-pepper hair severely trimmed. Dapper by default, he dressed well, as befitting a man of his wealth and station, never being spotted around town without a suit. Among other things, he accessorized with a set of fleur-de-lis cufflinks gifted him by Monica, an American flag lapel pin, a gold tie clip, and an Armani belt.⁶

Personality

Quinn was a slick, fast-talking operator innately suited for the glad-handing cutthroat world of politics. He was unafraid of bombast, and didn’t shy away from campaigning on his pedigree. Used to getting his own way, he was frequently harsh and exacting in his expectations, regularly browbeating underlings and associates into delivering on his terms.

Development

Quinn was part of Scream the TV Series’ ensemble from the first season. Despite this, he had a vanishingly small footprint in the SRU’s precursor roleplay forums. The character never appeared in the 2015 Season 1 AU, despite being claimed by ZacTy, who portrayed his daughter, Brooke. Quinn was one of three canon characters in the forum who, despite being claimed, never appeared in a post, the other two being Howard Jensen (claimed by TellatrixForever) and Lorraine Brock (claimed by ThePlotMurderer).

ZacTy didn’t return for the May 2016 Season 2 AU, where Quinn was portrayed for one scene by newcomer Snafu Guru. The murder of Quinn’s canon equivalent in the penultimate episode of Season 2 was accepted as canon in the October 2016 Season 3 AU and, afterward, in the SRU proper in 2019.

The first two volumes of The Story so Far adapted a greatly expanded version of Quinn’s canonical subplot, culminating in a unique version of his demise in the 11th hour of Volume II. In 2021, Quinn reentered the game as a playable character for the first time in five years, appearing as 16-year-old in Big Trouble in Little Lakewood: 1988, where he was again portrayed by Snafu Guru.

Other Interpretations

Scream the TV Series

In the pilot episode, Brooke casually tells Emma that Quinn is having an affair with an anonymous “lady friend”, which keeps him out of the house so she can throw her “Irish wake” in honor of Nina. This tidbit is never followed up afterward and is likely a relic of the pilot that didn’t map out to the full series order. The image-obsessed Quinn of the SRU makes various off-color comments, but doesn’t step out of the bounds of his (admittedly strained) marriage until his tryst with erstwhile accomplice Tina Hudson in Volume II of The Story so Far.

Trivia

Quinn shares his faceclaim, Bryan Batt, with his Maddox forebears: tyrannical plantation master Delwyn Maddox in Big Trouble in Little Lakewood: 1846, and bombastic Mayor Ellis Maddox in Big Trouble in Little Lakewood: 1896.

Quotes

You think there’s a judge in the county that’d put up with this Libertarian circle jerking? Two kids are dead!

Quinn insists Clark press for a search warrant to search the lockers at GW High.

There is nothing…nothing…that gins people up like dead kids. It doesn’t matter how hard you think you’re working, how responsibly you conduct your investigation…to the common citizenry, all that matters is some fresh-faced flowers had their stems snipped prematurely and you’re the sorry putz who happened to be in charge when it happened. They’ll want to clean house.

Quinn cynically recognizes that the Lakewood Slashings are a threat to his career.

Gallery

1. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 23 ↩︎
2. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 5 ↩︎
3. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 8 ↩︎
4. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 23 ↩︎
5. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 30 ↩︎
6. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 23 ↩︎