Leila was born in VA and grew up there with her family, who are her favorite people in the entire world.
She was big time shy and awkward as a kid and was 10000% picked on all through school for being the weird nerd girl. So she kinda hated school and did her own thing most of the time instead.
Got into mechanics and big kid building things instead of just playing with legos and that became her ~thing.
death tw; After her dad died, she kind of spiraled a bit and ended up having to finish school out from home, where she ended up graduating early. Thought about going to college, but decided to just work on her own stuff instead.
Struggled for a few years until she finally was able to patent and sell some of her inventions. Now she runs her own workshop now where she creates things that she finds fun or does consulting work for a few engineering firms.
Moved to Providence about four years ago, following her sister because she was sad and lonely and highly clingy with her fam.
The last few years she’s been consulting with a few different competitive reality TV shows (Survivor, Big Brother, The Challenge) with their challenge department and has gone out on set to help build puzzles and design the cool challenges you see.
She’s big shy, but will fall in love with anyone that smiles at her and is nice. She’s a weak lil soft gay.
Has never really been the type to do things or make friends, but she’s having a quarter? life crisis and wants to experience the world now.
&& the wanted connections
best friend; Leila doesn’t have a ton of friends because she’s a big ole shy shut-in, but someone that she met when she moved to town and bonded with. They’re like family to her and she clings to them a lot.
crushes; Literally she will fall in love at the drop of a hat. If someone is nice to her in even the smallest capacity she’s probably already in love with them. She gets all tongue tied and shy and will never breathe a word about it, buT she’s a pro at pining from afar.
bad influence; Definitely someone that will help pull her out of her shell and get her into trouble. She’s ready to see the world, so please corrupt and ruin her xoxo.
anything else; She’s been in town for four years now, so there’s room for ideas, so hit me up for literally anything.
As he watched the Leila rotate the blade away from her, Foster realized the advice maybe wasn't so misplaced... He understood now why Phoebe felt so protective of her — for as smart as she clearly was, it appeared her curiosity could come at the expense of common sense. "Yeah, it is pretty dumb, now that you mention it," he agreed. And for as much as he worried about Leila, he thought Phoebe might be even more of a risk. He looked over to where the brunette was still chatting with CJ. "You think- I mean... should we trust Phoebe with this kind of activity?" He very much liked her with all her limbs attached...
Dumb as it may have been, Leila was glad that the activity was there anyway. It was something new to do and try and that was good enough for her. Whatever danger there may have been to worry about could be worried about if something bad actually happened. "A little dumb, but it's okay. No one's died from axe throwing probably," she waved off, not actually all that confident of that fact. "But, of course we should trust her. It's fun, so like, why would we not trust her?" If the guys running the place were willing to hand them the axes, they were the experts and she was all in. "I'd be more worried about us when she throws it, so maybe just like, duck y'know."
Unsure how to answer Leila’s question without flat-out lying, which he was super against, or without sounding like he was a dick towards Foster, CJ just shrugged noncommittally. Her not picking up on the vibe was a blessing, he guessed. That meant she wouldn’t tell Phoebe, and then Phoebe wouldn’t have any reason to give Seb shit. It helped that she seemed more interested in the smashing shit conversation anyway.
“Dude,” He drawled, a grin almost impish playing on his lips. “I love paintball. We need to do it sometime.” Granted, he hadn’t played it in a while, but he was still awesome at it, probably. “Yeah, it took me a moment to get the aim just right but I’m like, the upmost sickest shooter now.” He wasn’t going to embellish the fact he was bad when he started, most people were at new things. The operator gestured to the back office, the only entrance to the yard most his colleagues used for smoke breaks. “Shall we, then?”
The fact that CJ didn't give a real answer bothered Leila for all of ten seconds before a smile came across his face and the conversation turned to paintball. As brilliant as she could be in a lot of ways, it didn't take much to distract her with something else. "Yeah? It was kind of fun, I would do it again! Is there a good place to go around here for it?" she chirped in agreement, more than willing to give the sport a second chance. She hadn't technically made it into an actual game the first and last time she'd attempted paintball, but sitting on the side modifying the paintball gun had been plenty of fun. Perhaps the second time she'd actually get in there and play a round instead of just shooting paintballs idly at a target after missing the match.
"You'll have to teach me everything, then." If CJ was as sick a shooter as he claimed, she figured there was a dozen things to learn from the guy that would help make her just as sick. Which, she assumed, was a good thing. Hopping to, Leila fell into step behind CJ, letting him lead the way back through the office and into the small yard area. There was something about the fact that she wasn't really supposed to be there that made it all the more exciting and she was buzzing by the time they were out there. "So, how's this work? We just set stuff up and like shoot at it?"
CJ recalled Leila being here not too long ago; her and Phoebe did 'random shit' together, as Seb aptly described, but the involvement of Foster in the two-some's plans had left the rage room operator confused. Especially since the chef seemed to walk away without an axe wounds when the session was over. Not that CJ had a chance to talk to the guy, Phoebe had intercepted any potential interaction early on, blabbering on about Seb's birthday in a way that she was impyling something he couldn't quite follow.
Still, CJ tried to push all thoughts of Foster from his mind. "Yeah I saw, shame Foster seemed to walk out with all limbs intact though." Look, the key-word being 'tried' here. "Smashing shit up is like the most fun ever!" He agreed, because it was true, not just because it was his job to boost enthusiasm. "Ooh!" A sudden idea popping into his head. "My co-worker confiscated a BB gun from some kid the other day who never came for it back, we've been shooting old beer bottles out back like cowboys, if you wanna do that instead?"
The man's words brought a pause from Leila's excited bouncing about, head cocking to the side in confusion as she tried to puzzle out why it was a bad thing that Foster had all his limbs still together. "Is it...are you not supposed to come out of the axe throwing with all your limbs?" she asked, not concerned that she'd missed part of the game and how to win. Her brows were now narrowed deeply, thinking back through the day in which she didn't recall a single person leaving with a missing limb. Unless, perhaps, she was just missing the whole point of what CJ was saying entirely.
The concern faded quickly, though, when CJ confirmed that smashing things was the most fun ever. His enthusiasm was easy to get caught up with and Leila found herself bobbing her head at all of his suggestions. "Okay! Yeah, we can try that. I've shot a paintball gun before, so like, probably the same." She hadn't been great at that, but that was besides the point. What really mattered was that it was a special activity that not everyone got to do, making it quite special. "Are you pretty good at it?" Leila assumed that since he'd been doing it now for at least a few days, he was probably an expert at shooting the thing.
Her explanation comforted him a little bit, knowing it wasn't just misplaced confidence and she actually had some experience. Unlike him, who had been spurred on in his carnival game failure solely by the desire to prove Phoebe wrong. All of his pointers seemed stupid in light of that, though, as his expertise in sharp objects was limited to slicing and dicing and ended long before they became airborne. His initial thought of 'chill out when you've got that shit in your hands' seemed more likely to damper Leila's mood, and the last thing he wanted was Phoebe thinking he couldn't get along with her friends. Seb and CJ were one thing, but Leila was easy to like... He decided instead to play it off as a joke. "Well, I find that, generally speaking, it's better to keep the sharp parts pointed away from you," he said, trying to make it exaggeratedly clear he was pointing out the obvious. "And your internal organs — you're gonna wanna try to keep them that way..."
Leila, who had already turned the axe towards her to look at it, shot another sheepish smile towards Foster as his first tip was to keep the sharper part pointed in the other direction. Slowly, she twisted the axe handle around to face it the other direction, giving a firm nod in response. "Sharp parts pointed away, that's easy enough," she agreed, taking the advice far more seriously than Foster was intending it to be taken. "No danger in my organs coming out either. Probably. I don't think these are all that sharp." Leila poked a bit at the axe, a small chuckle leaving her lips when she realized that it was actually a good bit sharper than she would have expected for an activity like this. "Kind of wild that they just trust people with sharp stuff like this," she mused, not counting herself in the group of people that shouldn't be trusted with them.
CJ figured today was a bust already. The rage room was surprisingly dead, no prior bookings save a birthday party later that evening, so for the most part he was twiddling his thumbs and making sure no one died in the ax-throwing room. However, he perked up when his owl-accomplice walked in through the door, waving Leila over with a while and a wave of his hand. “Yo, what brings you here? Gonna smash some shit up?” He asked, thinking if the woman in question was strange enough to stare at almost-dead owls in alley-ways, her answer for being here might be completely unexpected.
After visiting the break room for axe throwing with Foster recently, Leila had opted for a return visit to check out the rest of the activities. While she wasn't sure that she agreed with the idea of busting up old things when they could very easily be repurposed and used for something better, she supposed it was worth checking into. "Hey! Owl guy!" she chirped out in greeting as she bounced inside. "I think that's why I'm here. I threw axes the other day and that was fun, so I figured, maybe smashing stuff could be fun too. Unless there's something more fun, then...maybe that instead." If he worked here, maybe he had some other secret, fun, only people in the know could be a part of it type of activity.
carissa wasn't one to say no to plans with any of her friends, even if the girl decided to bring her dog along. she brought her diet coke up to her lips and took a sip, attempting to bite back a smile as the other asked how her date went. "it went really well." she breathed out and tucked some of her hair behind her ear as she set her drink back down on the table. "actually, i'm going to be seeing him again soon. do you know mei's cousin, jacob? that's actually who she set me up with."
The news that the date had gone over well brought an immediate smile to Leila's face, even Brock getting in on the excitement even if he didn't know what for. "That's awesome! I'm glad it went well," she hummed back with a nod before grabbing another slice of pizza to her plate. Taking the pepperonis off, she tossed one down to Brock, keeping the rest set aside for further treats. "I don't think I know him! But, if it went well, I'd guess he's probably pretty cool. Where do you think you guys are going for your next date?"
Jessica tended to keep a variety of snacks around when they were working, tending to munch on things rather than having a whole meals. 'A grazier' their mother called it. While Jess always made sure to have a proper dinner, lunch was definitely hit or miss most days, the redhead rather keeping something in her pocket to grab and throw in her mouth between tasks. This week she was spoiling herself with something sweet to have on hand, and of course the Sugar Shack was the perfect place to get something. Apparently Leila had the same idea, though the other woman's focus seemed to be on one candy and one only. A laugh rose in their throat at the question that Leila seemed rather reluctant to actually ask. "No, you're good, add it to your stash." A wink at the brunette. @leilabarak
There was a visible relief that flooded through Leila when Jessica waved off the offer. As much as Leila could be a generous person, she also wasn't the best at sharing when she wanted something either. "Oh! Good, I wasn't sure if this was going to be enough," she admitted, looking back down at her basket. Even still she wasn't sure it would be enough to last until the next shipment of gummy bears came in to the store. Her hand patted at the packages of bears, hoping she could manage to ration them enough to get her and Brock through the week. "What are you lookin' for?" She knew her way around the store better perhaps than even some of the employees and figured she at least could help Jess find something if there was something specific they were looking for.
Once he found out the truth about Brock, it became readily apparent his proposal for a double date would have to shift a little. And with Misty currently going through her transitional territorial phase, he and Phoebe had decided it was best not to come home smelling of another animal just yet. The Break Room seemed like a good compromise, though now that he saw the glee with which Leila was wielding her axe, he started to second guess that opinion. "Uh, kinda," he tried to agree, though what he was really thinking was that carnival games didn't usually involve deadly weapons. And from what Phoebe had told him about the baseball game, he also wasn't sure he believed Leila's assessment.
He tried to look around for Phoebe, who had claimed she needed to check something with CJ at the front desk, hoping she could come to save him so he wouldn't have to be the one to put a stop to this. "Can't say I'm too good at those games-" his winning of Teddy not withstanding "-but I'm pretty familiar with sharp blade, if you want any pointers." Not jumping with them seemed like a good place to start...
Much like the baseball game she'd managed to spin out spectacularly from, Leila had a complete and utter sense of confidence that she would have no problem with throwing the axe. This time, at least, she had some basis for her confidence. She was good at carnival games, which felt at least a little similar to this. "One of the jobs I have I help build carnival game type challenges for a show, so I've gotten a lot of practice," she explained, trying to at least a little bit put Foster at ease. She could sense a bit of nerves from Foster and given her track record she couldn't blame him. This time, though, she was absolutely certain that he had no reason for concern.
"That'd be good, though, I could use the pointers," she agreed, posting up in front of the target to start figuring out a position to throw from. It was definitely different from throwing a bean bag or a dart and clearly a step up on the danger meter. "I think I probably just need a few times to try it and see how the weight travels." While she wasn't necessarily ever doing math in her head to figure things like this out, her brain processed information differently. Rather than just throwing a dart, her brain saw the path things took, the arc it left her hand at from a specific angle, little details that made her surprisingly good at games like this.
She felt bad that her sister was pushing the stroller with her daughter in it. But, there was also no convincing her sister not to push the stroller. Dilan was grateful for the break, however, walking alongside the two of them, following Leila's weaves through the aquarium. It was one of her favorite places to take her daughter, "I think she likes seeing them swim over like that," she told her sister, "her eyes get so wide and she's so curious about it." @leilabarak
Leaning over the stroller a bit to peek down at Selvi, Leila could see the young baby looking up already in wonder as the fish started swimming around in the waters above them. "That's so cool," she mused, more enraptured with watching her niece than she was with watching the fish around them. "Maybe she'll be a marine biologist or like...she could raise fish or something." It was something she loved to think about, the many paths in life that Selvi had ahead of her.
closed starter for @jessica-nichols at the sugar shack
When Leila found something that she liked, it was pretty typical for her to go overboard with it. In this case, gummy bears had been her most recent snack obsession. Knowing that she would need enough to get her through the week, just in case, Leila was piling giant bags of them into her basket at the Sugar Shack, not even a bit concerned by the fact that she probably looked mildly insane with how many she had in there. Pulling the last bag from the shelf into her cart, Leila gave a slight pout when she saw it was the final one available. Her head shifted to the side, a sheepish smile offered towards Jessica as they came down the aisle. "Did you...want gummy bears?" she asked, though there was a large part of her that hoped that wasn't the case.
Any time she was out with Dilan and Selvi, Leila was the first to volunteer for stroller duty. Part of it was just to give her sister a break, but part of it was because it was entirely more fun to weave through the crowds of people with something on wheels. Taking a tight turn around a corner, Leila could hear the giggling of her niece as they swerved into a glass tunnel with fish all around them. "D'you think she likes sharks?" Leila asked over her shoulder, looking back at Dilan just as a rather large nurse shark came swimming over top of them.
It was an entirely biased opinion, but Leila was confident that no one could ever turn down hanging out with Brock. When she'd made plans with Carissa to catch up after the spring festival was through, she'd made sure to pick a place that Brock could tag along. The weather was nice and the dog loved pizza, making the pizza place a perfect spot to grab a bite to eat. Sitting at one of the tables outside, Brock curled up underneath, there was a massive pizza in front of them waiting to be eaten. "So, catch me up! How was your big date?"
closed starter for @foster-notmatty at the break room
There was not a world in which it made sense to allow Leila Barak into the Break Room. The already chaotic activity of busting things apart and throwing axes around was a recipe for disaster with a normal person, let alone with Leila. Yet, there she was bouncing around the axe throwing area with a sharp one in hand, grinning over at Foster as they got set up with a lane. "I've never done this before. I'm really good at carnival games, though, and this is like, kind of the same." She could throw darts or baseballs or rings, so why not also an axe?
carissa wasn't going to make something work that wouldn't work but she had high hopes for the date regardless and all of her friends seemed pretty encouraging. "what? fiji? i'm so jealous. that's like top five on my potential honeymoon list. you'll have to tell me how it is or have you already been before? you know, my dream vacation, honeymoon or not, is greece. i've heard it's beautiful and i'd love nothing more than to go," she paused and looked up at the waitress as she approached their table just long enough to give her the proper attention so that the two could order their food. once both of them had ordered, she gave her attention back to leila, "what are you going to work on?"
"Oh! I go all the time! It's absolutely the best," she chirped with a nod. It was one destination that Leila found herself on a yearly basis for her work and it was somewhere that she would always recommend for anyone that liked the beach. "Greece I've not been to before, though. I've seen pictures, though, and yeah, it looks pretty there." Generally Leila only ever travelled when it was for work, so Greece wasn't on her list of places to be any time soon, but the pictures definitely did make a case for it. "Mmm, I help design and build big puzzles for a TV show that films there. I've got a few different ones planned, so I get to go out there and help see the challenges get built, make sure they work right and all that. I've been doing it for a long time now, it's always fun to get out there for awhile."
Aarti smiled as the friendly dog bounded up to her, his paw raised in greeting. She chuckled and crouched down to pet the dog, ruffling his fur affectionately. "Well hello there, handsome!" She glanced up at Leila with a grin. "I actually just had a cheeseburger for lunch, so he might be smelling that on me. But I'll take the flirting, too." Aarti winked playfully. As she continued petting Brock, she noticed Leila hanging back a bit. "I love how friendly he is." Despite not having a pet herself, this was why she volunteered. She loved being around them. Animals, unlike humans, were pure. Standing up again, she greeted her friend. “How have you been, Leila?”
Brock was immediately smiling when the attention was given back, his body scooting in closer at the greeting. "For a cheeseburger, he's definitely flirting then. He loves a cheeseburger," Leila grinned, shooting an affectionate glance down towards the dog. He was, without a doubt, the light of her life, and she couldn't help but feel a swell of pride whenever he brought that same joy to other people. "It's the best. I'm glad he ended up being this friendly with everyone." It made things easier for Leila, who otherwise would probably never approach people in the way that Brock did. "Good, though. Good. Busy with work, mostly. Um, hanging out with Brock. Went to the movie thing with Dilan and Selvi the other night, so that was good. What about you, anything new at all with you?"
"You know that I will." Dilan smiled at her sister. She was grateful for them being close and wondered if she would be able to give Selvi a sibling or simply being close to those that had children her age would suffice. "Let's hope your auntie Leila is right," Dilan chimed in with another small before her smile fell from her lips. "We are close now," Dilan was happy to have her family in her corner as much as she did, "even if getting here was a bit tough, huh?" She gave her sister a smile, "I suppose that's what family is all about." Dilan partly teased, "Oh - uh, Erol and I said I love you," she sheepishly slipped in with reddened cheeks in the dark. @leilabarak
Leila hoped that she was right and that Selvi was just as perfect in the future as a teenager as she was now as a baby. With Dilan guiding her through life, though, she didn't doubt for a moment that she would be raised right. "Yeah, it was. I probably don't talk to mom as much as I should. I should probably call her sometime soon," Leila mused. It was something she'd always been bad at. Keeping in touch with people when they weren't right there in front of her was something she rarely did. Even with her own family, it wasn't uncommon for her to go weeks, if not longer, without remembering to reach out or return calls. "Oh! That's...that's really good! Maybe that wedding isn't as far off as you said."
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