Leah Bissard

Name: Leah Marguerite Bissard
Gender: Female
Age: 18
School: Whittree Secondary School
Hobbies and Interests: Creepypastas, music, chorus, surfing the Internet, video games, old-style cartoons

Appearance: Leah is fairly average in comparison to the girls in her class, standing at a height of 5'4" and weighing 152 lbs. While not fat, she is certainly chubby, with most of her fat going to her thighs, hips and breasts. Leah has curly, shoulder-length copper red hair that she tends to keep in two frontal pigtails. She has peach-colored skin and an oval-shaped face with prominent dimples, making her look a little childish. Leah has wide forest-green eyes and a wide, roundish nose. Her eyebrows are somewhat narrow and her lips are plump.

Leah's wardrobe varies too wildly to pin down a certain fashion, though most of her clothes are blue, yellow or pink. In addition, she has shown a liking of striped clothing. Leah is also fond of jewelry, specifically earrings and necklaces. Outside of that, she tends to wear a signature pair of black headphones around her neck as an accessory. Most of the time Leah wears makeup, though it usually consists of eyeliner and blush. On occasion she will put on lipstick. On the day she was chosen, Leah was wearing a blue and white striped tank top and yellow capri pants, along with her headphones and a pink hoodie tied around her waist. In addition, she was wearing her customary makeup and a pair of silver stud earrings.

Biography: Leah Marguerite Bissard was born in Whittree, Oaklahoma on January 22nd, 2002. She is the second child to Raoul (a businessman) and Paula Bissard nee Wagner (a middle school English teacher), her older brother Karl being three years older. A younger sister, Catherine, would be born five years later. As of now, Karl is attending Langston University and Catherine is a 6th grader at Whittree's local middle school.

From birth she was surrounded by family. Her maternal grandmother Diane had been living with the family for a while before Leah's birth, and she often cared for her when her parents were unavailable. In addition, Paula had a German Shepherd named Mitzi that she had owned prior to her marriage, and he lived with the newly founded family. For the course of her life, Leah's relationship to her family could be described as close. While the typical family drama pulled strain on their relationships, they all still like each other. An exception to that rule was Karl. Since Paula and Raoul had few friends with kids Leah's age, she didn't have any social experience with her own age group prior to entering Kindergarten. Combined with the fact that Leah did not attend preschool and was taught by her grandmother, her older brother was her only available playmate for the first six years of her life. While not very bright, Karl was rambunctious and he often led his younger sister on misadventures in their backyard after school. They'd play pretend and he would tell Leah stories about elementary school. Their parents were surprised and thankful that their kids got along well, and even after Leah entered school with him they were on good terms with each other.

One of Leah's earliest passions was old-style cartoons. To keep her entertained on weekdays when her parents were at work and Karl was at school, her grandmother would play old VHS tapes of cartoons she remembered watching herself: Mickey Mouse, Tom & Jerry, Looney Toons and others. Even at a young age Leah seemed heavily arrested by them, and they soon became one of her favorite things to watch. Even when she grew up and moved on to more mature hobbies she still held that affinity near, and even now she'll watch some old-style Tom & Jerry now and then.

Eventually she enrolled in Kindergarten at one of Whittree's elementary schools at the age of six. With no prior socialization experience, she was quite shy and hesitant to open up to her fellow classmates. It didn't help that her detachment from the rest of her classmates singled her out to a group of boys who began to pick on her. She grew to resent school and even refused to go halfway through the year. After some parent-teacher conferences and talks with Leah herself, she was able to make a small group of friends.

During this time, however, she became enamored with music. Since her father's commune to work coincided with her commune to elementary school, he was able to drive Leah on his way to work. Raoul was always one to leave the radio on as he drove to work, and Leah was quick to enjoy the songs that they played, even going so far as to sing them on the way. In addition, she found that she had a knack for music during their weekly music classes at school and took to humming whenever she could. Encouraged by both her music teacher and her mother, Leah decided to take her interest in music further and joined her elementary school's chorus. She continued on with elementary school, and that period of her life was generally uneventful. She stuck with the small group of friends, furthered her interest in music class and worked hard on her grades.

Disaster struck the family, though, when she was in the 3rd grade. Mitzi was roughly four years old when Leah was born, and over the course of her childhood she had gotten old and quite lethargic. While Leah didn't think about her dog's age much, her parents were worried about how she'd react to Mitzi's imminent passing. Before they could do anything to prepare her beforehand, though, Mitzi passed away shortly before Leah's ninth birthday. She was anguished, and all the while her parents were trying to explain to her the concept of death and how it happened. Not particularly religious, they decided to tell her that Mitzi was 'somewhere else', decidedly being ambiguous to their daughter about it. Nonetheless, they assured that she was okay somewhere. While it wasn't the best thing to do, and in fact it frustrated Leah that they weren't treating her like an adult, she still accepted it and eventually moved on after a long period of grief that ended sometime before the beginning of 5th grade.

In hopes of taking her mind off of it, Karl decided to introduce his younger sister to video games. The family owned a Nintendo Wii, and her older brother was already spending copious amounts of time playing it. While Leah was disinterested, Karl practically forced her to play a round with him and she began to warm up to video games in general. Leah liked the friendly tone of them and how they had quests where the journey itself was just as enjoyable as the goal itself. Video games soon became a major interest of hers, and after asking for a 3DS for Christmas, spent a lot of time playing. In general Leah prefers more light-hearted and childish RPGs and sidescrolling platformers, and while she doesn't consider herself a gamer, her playing is a little more than casual.

She also discovered the Internet sometime around this point in her life, also by Karl's influence. After getting a new laptop for both work and recreational purposes, Raoul decided to give Leah his old laptop for her eleventh birthday. It was formerly used for Raoul's work, but it was still up-to-date and he didn't want to waste a perfectly good computer. While initially Leah didn't use the laptop much, Karl pestered her into putting it to good use, after he himself was denied one as punishment for a streak of bad grades. He pointed her towards YouTube first, showing her let's plays by gamers and recommending her good ones. Leah came to enjoy it greatly and eventually began to explore other parts of the internet with curiosity and awe. One thing she found in particular was creepypasta and internet horror stories. While she was initially terrified, after calming herself down Leah found herself interested in a morbid sort of way. After digging a little deeper she found a plethora of urban legends that tickled her fancy and broadened her interest from creepypastas alone to mysterious disappearances, local legends and other paranormal phenomena.

Leah started middle school off on both a good and bad note. She adjusted to the changes of middle school quite well and joined the middle school's chorus, broadening her social horizon a little bit and made her a few friends. However, with two hobbies that involved sitting in front of a screen indoors, Leah wasn't getting much sunlight or exercise, for that matter. Including the fact that she had gained a little weight over the summer, her appearance was changed enough for bullies to target and pick on her. She didn't react well. Leah had managed to avoid bullies in elementary school by sticking to her friends, but with various classes, hallways and the lunch room as places for people to get to her, they were inescapable. Being kids, they were also very cruel. Leah hadn't dealt with being bullied before, and their sudden and inexplicable animosity caught her off guard. They poked fun at her weight and appearance, calling her by various rude names. Not wanting to be a snitch, she silently suffered it and tried to cope.

It took horrendous tolls on both her mentally and socially. Her self-esteem was lowered by her peers, under the assumption that she wasn't good enough for her age group, and thus her whole world in general. In addition, Leah developed some social paranoia after the bullying itself became more widespread. She became suspicious of what people said behind her back, and couldn't tell if people were genuinely trying to befriend her or messing with her. She lost several friends in the process, though it helped her narrow down her friends to the ones that could support her. In fact, one of them pushed her towards talking to the principal and her parents about it. Even if she was reluctant to do it, she trusted the friend well enough to go through with it. After some talks with the bullies and help from her friends and family, the bullying eventually faded away. However, the social paranoia stayed with her forever, and hindered her social life for the rest of middle school.

High school rolled along in the aftermath, and Leah adjusted in the same way she did to middle school. She auditioned for chorus, was subsequently accepted and worked on her classes. With a scarce social life, she became quite introverted and spending most of her time on the internet, playing video games, singing or working on schoolwork. It was a pleasant and quite stress-free existence for her, and Leah didn't complain. She still kept her friendships, but she rarely talked to them outside of school except for the occasional text or email.

The pleasant routine, however, was shattered halfway through her sophomore year. Her grandmother had gotten ill about a month ago an was bedridden for a while. Even though her parents were trying hard to cure her, and Leah was worried and helping the best she could, everyone in the household knew that it was her time to go. Diane Wagner died on February 10th, 2018. Her funeral was held a week later. Leah was devastated. Her grandmother had been close to her and present her whole life, and her sudden passing made it worse. She reacted strongly to her death and spent quite a while grieving. Her grades fell and she stopped going to choir practice. She even skipped school for roughly three days without her parents noticing. Worried, her parents signed her up for extra help and she saw the school counselor weekly to cope with the death. It helped somewhat, and Leah managed to collect herself before she entered her junior year of high school, with help from summer school.

Since then she's been doing quite well in terms of academics. Her grades themselves tend towards As and Bs due to her sudden academic concentration upon entering high school, though a few Cs manage to sneak in here and there. Her skill level per subject is evenly divided among them, with an exception for music class, which she is excelling in. It is worth mentioning that her Mathematics scores are usually her lowest, and that they were the hardest hit when she was grieving. In the future, she aspires to either be a singer or a video game designer if that doesn't work out. She has college applications pending approval to Langston University and other universities in Oklahoma.

Leah is not a fan of SOTF. Since she spends a lot of time on the internet and a fanbase is well established among her peers, she was bound to find out about it somehow. She's watched a few clips of it online and was repulsed and terrified by the concept of teens being taken and murdered against their own will. It has become a worst-case scenario in her head that she'll be chosen for SOTF, though she keeps reminding herself that it isn't statistically plausible. She's not vocal about her opinions, though, as she tends to keep to herself and doesn't bring the topic up with her friends.

Advantages: In terms of looks, Leah looks rather harmless and doesn't pose a threat to people, which may help with deception. Anyone who manages to win her trust will find themselves an excellent, trustworthy and loyal ally.
Disadvantages: Leah's social paranoia certainly won't help her in this situation, and would drive a wedge between her and her classmates. Not to mention that she's not exactly healthy and isn't very strong. Death is still fresh in Leah's mind, and she copes with it poorly.

Designated Number: Ebony Whales 2 (EW2).

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Designated Weapon: Zastava M70AB2

Mentor Comment: "A loner with a big gun. That should speak for itself, but I feel she'll start clinging to others as this goes on. Productivity will be temperamental at best."

Evaluations

Handled By: leAloha

Kills: Damion Castillo

Killed By: Lucia del Pirlo

Collected Weapons: Zastava M70AB2 (designated weapon)

Allies:

Enemies: Damion Castillo, Isabel Santana

Mid-game Evaluation:

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes:

Other/Trivia

• Leah, along with Paisley and Tucker Hopkins, had costumes thematically tied to Toy Story. Leah's astronaut outfit was based on Buzz, while Tucker was Woody and Paisley was Bullseye.
• This is why Leah's thread titles are space-themed.

Threads

Below is a list of threads that contain Leah, in chronological order

The Past:

• The Little Chick in the Big Hen House

SOTF-TV:

• Countdown
• Lifdoff
• Gravity

Your Thoughts

Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Leah. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!

• Leah's arc is interesting to me in that she's a character who seems to be veering towards player status but is cut short. She starts out fairly normal, a scared girl trying to stay safe in SOTF, but an early negative encounter culminates in her discovering a more vicious side, killing Damion Castillo and pondering the abandonment of her own morality. It's a solidly handled progression, if a little speedy at a point or two, and there are always signs that Leah is still trying to hold true to herself while at the same time mulling over just what she'll need to do to get back home.
  
  It's sort of funny, in a way, that Lucia ended up doing Leah in, because in many ways I see Lucia as a quicker burn of the trajectory I expected Leah to take. I think it'd've been quite interesting in the long run to see how Leah came out with more time to grow, but as it is she fills a role we don't get to see that often in SOTF. Frequently, handlers are very reluctant to let killers die early, especially ones coming off scenes with good momentum, but having Leah fall where she does shows that there's more to playing than just being able to pull the trigger, that sometimes all it takes to spell doom is a small miscalculation. - MurderWeasel