Marcus Soft

Marcus Soft

## Description

Marcus "Softy" Soft is a mild mannered retired software engineer. He's generally friendly and optimistic. Despite being mild mannered Marcus can get rather sassy with close friends, especially Coach Daniels.

Marcus generally spends his time among friends going wherever they go. At times Marcus will wander off on his own typically driving around outside city limits to go explore random dirt roads and wilderness. He also tends to prefer spending time in places high up and away from major roads where he can enjoy scenic views without the constant sound of cars going by.

Marcus is easily recognized by his iconic cashmere-cotton blend grey scarf, grey beret, and almost always wearing something orange to yellow-orange. While Marcus will wear other attire when necessary, he will always wear his scarf.

## Friends

Friends listed here are people Marcus has stated are his friend. (either to that friend or 3rd parties) Not being listed here doesn't mean Marcus doesn't consider someone a friend, just that it's not been formalized.

* Brooke Fair (Formalized June 25th 2021)
* Coach Daniels (Formalized June 25th 2021)
* Elle Smith (Formalized July 18th 2021)
* April Vonkeaton (Formalized July 18th 2021)
* Mary Lamb (Formalized July 30th 2021)
* Gale Truesdale (Formalized August 6th 2021)
* Candi Kaine (Formalized August 13th 2021)
* Sadie Star (Formalized August 13th 2021)
* Goldie Diggins (Formalized August 22nd 2021)

Marcus considers Elle Smith his closest friend, a big part of this is the similarities in their backstories and personalities lead to deep connection between them. This is one of the reasons Marcus opened up more to Elle than other people.

## Relationships

* Elle Smith Marcus showed romantic interest in Elle, eventually admitting to it, but never pursued it farther.
* Sadie Star Marcus officially started dating on August 15th 2021.

## Vehicles

* ~~Aesa purchased on June 26th 2021~~ Donated to Little Duck Touring Co. September 10th 2021
* Dukes purchased on July 10th 2021
* Tri Bike 3 purchased on July 30th 2021
* Gargoyle purchased on July 30th 2021
* ~~Wolf's bane won via raffle September 3rd 2021~~ Donated to Little Duck Touring Co. September 10th 2021
* Exemplar purchased on September 10th 2021

## List of Major Events

* June 25th 2021 Arrives at Los Santos
* June 26th 2021 Hired by The Scene as a writer
* June 26th 2021 purchased an Asea
* July 1st 2021 Published his first article on The Scene
* July 4th 2021 Was mugged at gun point along with Brooke Fair
* July 4th 2021 Published his first interview (Luxanna Mills) launching The Scene's "People of Los Santos"
* July 10th 2021 purchased a Dukes
* July 22nd 2021 purchased his first home, located in Grapeseed
* July 25th 2021 witnessed his close friend Elle Smith get gunned down
* July 28th 2021 had his first therapy session with Dr Jarred Mcklunky
* July 30th 2021 purchased a Gargoyle
* August 5th 2021 threw his and Melissa's wedding bands into the ocean as a way of finally saying goodbye
* August 5th 2021 Marcus was promoted to Manager of Video and Audio content for The Scene
* August 15th 2021 Marcus starts dating Sadie Star
* August 15th 2021 Marcus hosts a birthday party for Sadie Star
* August 15th 2021 Marcus's close friend Coach Daniels is left comatose from a hunting accident
* August 21st 2021 Marcus gets his first Tattoo (colorful tropical scene across his shoulders)
* August 23rd - 31st 2021 Marcus and Sadie Star visit to Portland, Oregon together (This occurred while "the city's lights were off")
* September 1st 2021 Sadie Star is attacked by a local prompting Marcus to defend Sadie. (This is the only time Marcus has resorted to violence)
* September 3rd 2021 Marcus wins a Wolf's bane motorcycle at the PDM Car auction
* September 9th 2021 Marcus and Sadie Star sold their homes in Grapeseed and bought a home in Mirror Park.
* September 10th 2021 Marcus purchased an Exemplar and donated his Wolf's Bane and Aesa to Little Duck Touring Co.
* September 12th 2021 Marcus acted as announcer for the first Saturday Night Fight event.
* September 12th 2021 Marcus gets two additional tattoos, both colorful tropical scenes one on his shoulder the other on his calf.
* September 12th 2021 Sadie Star bought Marcus a white scarf as a sign of her feelings.

## Background (including within Los Santos)

#### Time In Portland, Oregon

Marcus left Portland, Oregon after the passing of his wife. Marcus has countless happy memories of their time together through out the city, and couldn't cope with them. Marcus also fell into bankruptcy at the time of his departure due to medical debt related to the passing of his wife.

#### Arriving in Los Santos

Marcus arrived on June 25th 2021. Despite being an experienced software engineer he showed up with almost nothing to his name.

### Joining The Scene

On his first day in Los Santos, Marcus noticed an ad for The Scene on twitter and decided to apply that day since he really needed a job and felt capable of writing thanks to experience technical writing as a software engineer. He would be interviewed then hired by April Vonkeaton the next day after proposing he could work on interviewing various business owners, civil servants, etc. around Los Santos and publishing those interviews for the magazine. As of August 5th 2021 Marcus Soft was promoted to Manager of Video and Audio content.

### The Grey Scarf

Marcus is known to **always** wear his grey scarf. It is one of his only two remaining possessions from Melissa. To date the one and only time Marcus took off his scarf since arriving in Los Santos was at Pillbox at the bed side of Elle Smith when she was left comatose after being shot multiple times.

### The White Scarf

After asking Marcus if it was something he'd like, Sadie Star bought Marcus a new white scarf as a way of showing him how she felt about him since she knew his Grey Scarf was very important to him. Marcus has been wearing the white scarf ever since.

### The Rings

The only other possession Marcus had from Melissa was their wedding bands. When Marcus first arrived in the city he was wearing a silver necklace with the wedding bands on them, once Marcus purchased his house he hid the rings along the bottom of his bed, and later behind his alarm clock when he switched beds. On August 5th 2021 Marcus took the rings from their hiding place traveled to a high bluff, finally said his goodbye to Melissa, and threw the rings into the ocean.

### The Passing of Melissa Soft

Early on Marcus only discussed the passing of his wife with Brooke Fair and April Vonkeaton. Later mentioned losing his wife to Elle Smith, she would ask questions that would lead Marcus into revaluating how he was handling his loss. After that point Marcus would gradually become more open about things discussing it to greater detail with Elle Smith, Brooke Fair, Gale Truesdale, Sadie Star, Candi Kaine, and Coach Daniels.

On August 22nd 2018, Melissa Soft was critically injured during her commute home from work after an intoxicated driver struck the driver's side door of her car on the expressway. She was rushed to Providence Portland Medical Center where she was stabilized. Unfortunately while she "survived" the crash, she was left catatonic requiring life support and constant care by hospital staff to survive. She remained on life support for a long period of time before, against Marcus's will, she was taken off life support and passed away.

### Bankruptcy

Marcus had a lucrative job as a software engineer, and his wife Melissa was a also well employed zoologist, however; Marcus lost his job shortly after Melissa's car accident. Keeping Melissa on life support was financially draining resulting in Marcus selling off just about everything he owned and going deeper and deeper into debt, until eventually he could no longer afford to keep up with Melissa's medical expenses and she was taken off life support. Marcus would file bankruptcy eliminating most of the debt, the remaining debt he sorted out after moving to Los Santos.

## Criminal Record

### In Los Santos

* No criminal history to date, just one parking ticket.

Marcus unintentionally revealed his criminal record to Elle Smith during her police training. She had mentioned familiarizing herself with looking up police records and had mentioned looking at Marcus's record. Marcus assumed this included his charge from before he was in the city and wanted to explain what had lead to the charge out of concern it would make Elle think differently of him as a person. This upset Elle greatly as she felt she'd breached Marcus's privacy causing Marcus to quickly shift from trying to justify what had happened to letting her know he'd intended to tell her once he know she was joining Los Santos Police Department, but hadn't had a chance yet so it was perfectly fine that she knew.

Assault Charge - Shortly after Melissa's car accident Marcus confronted his boss to ask for more time away to be at the hospital with Melissa. Marcus's boss denied this request, this lead to an argument where Marcus's boss made several dismissive comments about Marcus's emotional well being as well as Melissa's health, this eventually lead Marcus to punching his boss in the face once. His boss pressed charges which Marcus plead guilty for, the judge was sympathetic to Marcus's situation and gave him the minimum sentence of a small fine with no jail time.

## Health

### Downed

* Marcus has never been "downed", and has only visited Pillbox for himself from minor injuries.

### Injuries

* July 10th 2021 - Marcus sprained his right ankle when he slipped off a ladder climbing down from a party on Bahama Mama's roof. (Marcus drove himself to Pillbox on his injured ankle because he was too embarrassed to ask for a ride.)
* August 7th 2021 - Marcus gashed his head just above his left eye brow due to a car accident where he collided with a concrete structure and banged his head against his driver side window shattering it. Marcus drove himself to Pillbox where a few glass fragments were cleaned from the cut and it was stitched up.

### Mental health incidents

* July 16th 2021 - Marcus suffered an emotional breakdown due to getting stuck in a self destructive feedback loop that continued until Marcus passed out from drinking multiple Unicorn slushies.
* July 28th 2021 - Marcus checks himself in for therapy with Dr Jarred Mcklunky after witnessing his close friend Elle Smith gunned down directly in front of him only a few days prior. This event lead to Marcus feeling unsafe and becoming somewhat paranoid where he started taking all sorts of precautions, not all of which really made sense.

### Mental / Emotional well being:

As Marcus has seen a number of his friends form loving relationships around him and being present at the funeral of Dylan Jacobs in support of his friends he became more withdrawn either going off on his own without saying anything, being more likely to sit back and listen in conversations, and burying himself in his work. Though he's made time specifically for Brooke Fair and Willow Pierce when he felt they each needed a distraction.

Marcus's state of mind continued to decline until reaching it's worse point on July 16th 2021 when a particularly long rainy day put Marcus into a feedback loop where he'd feel alone, causing him to further distance himself from friends, which made him feel lonelier, etc. Marcus drew and destroyed numerous sketches of his wife before ultimately burning his sketchbook, and drinking until he blacked out.

Marcus and Elle Smith discussed quite a bit of their struggles, emotional state, etc. While it didn't resolved Marcus's problems, it was the first time Marcus was able to recognize he has a problem, Elle's support has helped Marcus tremendously in at least breaking from dealing with his problems in a self destructive way. This includes reaching out to his close friends he'd been distancing himself from such as Coach Daniels and Brooke Fair to fill them in on what he'd been going through.

In the moment Marcus tends to remain seemingly calm and collected through extremely stressful situations some of which should have been at least mildly traumatizing for him. The first major exception being witnessing his close friend Elle Smith gunned down only a few feet away from him. Unlike times past, Marcus was very visibly struggling with what was happening, when people asked if he was okay, all he could say was "I don't know" and eventually "I'm not okay" which has lead to Marcus agreeing to get professional help.

On July 28th 2021 Marcus had a therapy session with Dr Jarred Mcklunky where Marcus discussed feeling unsafe for himself and Elle Smith after witnessing Elle being gunned down only a few feet away. He also explained that seeing Elle stable but unconscious at Pillbox reminded him of his wife when she was catatonic. Then went into detail about what had happened to Melissa, and how she was taken off life support against his will after he'd gone deep into debt trying to continue to pay for her hospitalization. Dr Mcklunky advised Marcus to find someplace quiet to relax to help him start to feel safe again, and suggested instead of Marcus retreating from the happy memories that he found so painful to try and deliberately approach those memories.

On August 5th 2021 Marcus asked Elle Smith to support him on an errand that'd "help him get closure". They stopped first by Marcus's house where he collected his and Melissa's wedding bands that he'd been keeping there. They then went to a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean. Marcus lamented Melissa would have been both upset and disappointed with how long he'd gone on miserable before Elle helped him. Then finally said goodbye to Melissa before throwing the rings out to sea. When asked, he felt he could finally move on now.

On August 15th 2021 Marcus's close friend Coach Daniels was left comatose after a hunting accident. While waiting for Coach to awaken Marcus continued to nervously wring is wrists to the point of them becoming raw. He only pausing when Dr Brooke Fair gave him her hand to comfort, when he got up to see if Coach would react to having his hand squeezed after it had twitched, and when Sadie Star comforted him, until Marcus finally stopped upon Coach entering the Pillbox lobby. He remained in the room with Coach until doctors required everyone to leave as Coach began to wake.

August 23 to 31st 2021 Marcus finally decided to face his happy but painful memories per Dr Jarred Mcklunky's recommendation, he and his girlfriend Sadie Star traveled to Portland, Oregon while the city's lights were out. This vacation involved seeing many of the sights and was generally a fun time with someone special to Marcus. The overall experience was fun and positive with Marcus occasionally being vulnerable as he faced his memories past. Returning to Los Santos his outlook on things had significantly improved.

## Publications

* July 1st 2021 Published an article on a Premium Deluxe Motorsport protest
* July 4th 2021 Published his interview with Luxanna Mills
* July 11th 2021 Published his interview with Walker Runner
* July 15th 2021 Publish an article on a second Premium Deluxe Motorsport protest
* July 16th 2021 Published his interview with Chad Spitter
* July 17th 2021 Published his interview with Veronica Viotto
* July 25th 2021 Published his interview with Kara Rose
* September 3rd 2021 Published an article on the grand reopening of Tequi-La-La

## Trivia

* Marcus's favorite color is orange
* Marcus's favorite movie is Titan AE
* Marcus's favorite music genre is Rock / Alt Rock / Indie Rock (Except when he's cooking then he prefers electro swing)
* Marcus's favorite animal is a pangolin
* Marcus carries around a flashlight that is "fueled by his rage", however; because Marcus doesn't even have so much of a temper let alone "rage" so he can only walk slowly when using it because he has to really concentrate to have the necessary unhappy thoughts.
* Marcus always wears his scarf, including when swimming, and at black tie events. (Marcus was going to wear a tie, but none of them fit him right)
* Marcus's first known character break occurred when Leslie Manley complimented his scarf via emotes mid sentence causing Marcus's player to laugh momentarily when Marcus would not have laughed.
* Up until July 25th 2021 the background of Marcus's phone was a photo of his wife Melissa Soft, at which point he changed the background to the moon setting over Mt Chiliad.
* On August 15th 2021 Marcus changed the background of his phone to a picture of himself and Sadie dancing. (Because FiveM was a punk and ate the old background)