Derek Thomson is a character role-played by Skiliyo.
Background[]
Derek is a man without a plan, he just goes with the flow. He spent most of his life in the UK and ran a casino in Birmingham before the police caught on to his illegal doings and forced him to move to Los Santos for a fresh start. He speaks in cockney and generally confuses people he speaks to as they have no idea what he is saying half the time.
Overview[]
Derek is incredibly loyal, smart at times and tries to be as fair as possible to anyone he comes across. He is also S+ max rank at boosting and a good mix between hacker and driver. He likes to keep things interesting by doing plans and activities that seem fun and keeping things light hearted.
Derek has a lot of connections in the city and likes to avoid making enemies - after all, Los Santos is a city of opportunities. Derek is has a great friendship with Raymond Romanov and have done numerous jobs such as bank robberies, VAR, car boosts, drug sales and more. Ray and Derek have a lot in common such as driving bikes, woman and money, hence why Ray asked Derek to join his R.U.S.T crew. Another close friend of Derek is Harry Brown and they normally are found boosting if they are hanging out, as well as Mickey S.
Derek is an OG founding member of R.U.S.T, a powerful southside gang alongside Ray, La Flare Davis, "The Chemist", Wren Draider and Tane "Kiwi" Mahuta.
Derek has proven him self as a key member in R.U.S.T by trying to be level headed and making sure the crew prevails no matter what. He is normally the one that tries to reason if there is a conflict among the crew. He's also a capable getaway driver, using a Cybertruck or BMW R1100 Streetfighter, and a heist artist for jobs.
History[]
Early in their relationship Derek took the fall for Ray on a large drug related charge to ensure the safety of his drug company, Betta Life Pharmaceuticals. After saving Ray from this serious charge, Derek went to jail for 210 months. Upon release Ray picked up Derek from jail with Speedy and Dean. Shortly after meeting them they tried to get Derek to steal from the Rooster's Reef, but Derek was hesitant as he is good friends with Harry, Eve and Bruno. Due to this hesitation Dean and Speedy made Ray drive to an island and ocean dump Derek.
Jet Pack Jesus Arc[]
During the events of the huge storm that swept through the city, gangs all around were getting added to the dark web app. At first no one knew what that meant, until a figure resembling Jesus flew across the city, on a jet pack, delivering gang flags. While rumours of this man spread like wildfire, the members of R.U.S.T were curious on why they haven't been invited to the app and received their flag. Derek changed in that moment as if it was a sign to become a disciple of Jetpack Jesus and steer R.U.S.T from Jetpack Satan's path.
Derek created a shrine inside the Roger's building with candles surrounding one of the many R.U.S.T tags. Derek, along with Connell MacGregor, Chem, and David Jackson (Benz,) went around the city talking to random people about their lord and savior Jetpack Jesus. Derek then decided to grab more members of R.U.S.T and take them to the canals by the Scrapyard in which he would baptize them in hopes that they will convert and believe in the god. This however did not end well as people such as Chem were starting to no longer believe in the deity with the help from Kaiba and Cydney Lune, in which they tried to stop Derek from kidnaping innocent civilians. This has continued on for a while until Flare decided to counter Derek by dressing up as a demon. News spread to Derek, in which resulted with Derek handcuffing Flare at apartments to convert him into the jetpack religion, however plans did not go well as officers from the Unified Police Department showed up and thought Flare was being held hostage. Derek, MacGregor, Kiwi and Flare thus went on a police chase which resulted in all four of them being cuffed and detained after getting stuck at home turf.
News of this event was leaked to Chem and he ended up calling Trooper Snow to explain the whole situation that this was all jokes and giggles within the gang and that the police involved were acting a bit to harsh for their liking as they were trying to charge everyone the same even though they did nothing wrong. Snow informed Lt. Casterman that Chem was gonna go down to explain to him what has let up to this situation. At the end Kiwi, MacGregor, and Flare were let go free while Derek was sent to jail. It was offered to R.U.S.T if they wanted to 50-51 Derek as it appeared to the cops that he just lost his mind. From then on Jet Pack Jesus was dead.....or so we thought
Moving Up the Ranks[]
A few months has passed and R.U.S.T had officially became a gang. All the full members were added and life was good. The war with Seaside was finally over and Padawans Cyd and MacGregor, along with R.U.S.T adjacent (now known as Scraplings) Eleanor West had proved their worth in the gang. All members came together and discussed that all three should move up in rank. MacGregor was first to be promoted to full member in which he showed gratitude to Raymond in a rather interesting way, then Cydney was second to be promoted to full member. Ray however was a bit hesitant to promote Eleanor, but decided to promote her anyways to Padawan status. Derek then decided to bring back his JetPack Jesus phase and proceeded to baptized all three new members of R.U.S.T. for some odd reason. That was the last time we saw him and hopefully it will stay like that, please no more JetPack Jesus.
Trivia[]
- Derek has had one testicle left after a horror boat trip with Whitley Booth, Eve Summers and Albert Intelligence, which a tiger shark leapt on the boat and chose Derek as its prey. Derek survived the ordeal barely but he is now commonly called "One Ball".
- Was the first owner of the BMW R1100 Streetfighter and Camaro ZL1
- Derek used to be a cuff-breaking god but is now in fact washed.
- Derek met Mickey S on the February 26, 2022 and became BFF's, bonding over their mutual love for stealing ambulances.
- The inspiration for this character came from Only Fools and Horses character - Del Boy. Skiliyo loves the TV show and can relate to a lot of what Del Boy has been through and speaks the same lingo. (the show is a classic and you should watch it)