Rupert Lowdermilk

Concept: Troll/Scriptkiddy

AKA: Rupert has a bewildering number of online guises. His favorite handle is Mechassassin and he tries to get people to call him that. It hasn’t really stuck yet,

Desc: Pale. Curly blond hair. A face that has had, and will have, the ravages of puberty-based acne likely for the rest of his life. Piggy little eyes. There’s some intelligence in there, but not nearly as much as he thinks. Heavy. He’d likely be a school bully but for two things. He gets winded really easily and he’s not very physically imposing at all.  His voice is pretty grating.

History: Rupert’s father decided to hit the bricks one night and left his mother Pam holding the bag. That’s pretty hard. Also, Rupert was just old enough to sort of know what was going on.  Also pretty hard.  Pam is kind of a dishrag. Tired all the time from work. Struggling to pay the bills. Doesn’t really make much of an effort to parent anymore. In fact, the only real interaction they have are screaming arguments about... Well, it doesn’t really matter.  The only time he’s ever nice to her is when he wants something. 

       Rupert is, to put it mildly, a real piece of work. He’s not smart enough to code. But he’s smart enough to use tools he’s bought online. He’s smart enough not to hack anything like a bank or a serious corporate target, but he does have enough ability to make a person’s life a living computational hell. 

   And he does. Drove a fellow classmate to suicide. Outed another one by editing the text of the school news blog. Makes enemies at school and online during his Call of Duty games. 

   It’s just barely possible that he’ll grow out of it. Maybe even feel sorry for the things he’s said and done. But that’s not the way to bet.

Attitude: “FUCK YOU SHITLORD! I’M GOING TO ANAL RAPE YOU TO DEATH AND THEN RUN YOUR IP ADDRESS, FIND OUT WHERE YOU LIVE AND DO THE SAME TO YOUR FUCKPIG MOM!”

Skills: He’s got a real gift for invective. That much is for sure. He has enough computer knowledge to be really dangerous to anyone who isn’t actually skilled. Mentally, he’s got some decent wits and Intelligence, but no resolve to speak of. Socially, he only has some manipulation to work with.  Physically the kid is a mess.

Gear: He’s got good gear. He’s stolen identities and used re-mailing services to commit mail fraud. He’s never really done it for cash, but for gear, oh yeah. Pam bought him the X-box but she has no idea where he got the money for the computer. She’s pretty sure she doesn’t want to know. She thinks he’s in a gang and is selling drugs or something.  Pam has never actually seen a gang member.  

Home: They have a small house in the lower middle-class burbs. Pam’s home-life is a constant struggle to take care of the place in the face of Rupert’s slobbish indifference. Her bedroom is her only real retreat. Rupert’s, by contrast, is bordering on biohazardous and a lot of the common areas of the house fluctuate between messy and clean. Rupert is firmly of the opinion that if you can still balance stuff on the pile, then the sink isn’t full.

Circle: To put it mildly, Rupert is a candidate for a future school shooting. He loathes most of his classmate, even the ones he secretly wants to fuck.  They, in turn, loathe him, when they can be bothered to think about him at all. The only social group that he actually wants to be a part of, The hacker community, want nothing to do with him.  They can see him coming from a mile off. He’s bad news and they don’t want to be anywhere near him when he goes off.

Story Uses:

“I think I'm just misunderstood.”

No. He’s not. He’s a venomous little toad. But maybe you’re a friend of Pam’s or maybe you see something of yourself in the little scumbag, and maybe if someone puts forth some effort, he might be saved... Hey, It’s not impossible.

“NO PAM, YOU FUCKING BITCH! I TOLD YOU THE BRAND OF CHOCOLATE MILK TO GET! NOT THIS SHIT!”

If you happen to be a Beast. Rupert Lowdermilk is an all you can eat buffet.

“Kiss your credit rating goodbye dickbag.”

I don’t know what might cause you to run afoul of him. Maybe you have a child or child friend that he’s causing problems. Maybe you’re an adult who jacks him up something fierce on social media or Call of Duty, by pointing out how his running commentary falls squarely under the rubric of terroristic threatening. The problem is, the little shit can actually cause you a host of problems before he can be rooted out and hopefully stopped.

Connections:

*Rika Martinez and he, attend the same school. You should probably understand, that any abuse I could heap on this little shithead pales in comparison to the cold, hard, fact that even Rika doesn't like him.

* T.C. Mitnick uses him as a beard for hacking jobs at the Donut Hut. He hands the kid the shit jobs that his skills can handle and has him pass the interesting work up to him.  T.C. also figures that anyone willing to put up with the kid is fairly desperate.  T.C is also the guy that has warned other hackers off of Rupert. Not because he has no skills, but because the kid can't keep his mouth shut. Rupert has never actually met T.C. in person. And if T.C. gets wind that Rupert's got himself in trouble, all the means that Rupert has to contact him will cease to exist in four minutes.