APPEARANCE

HAIR: Light salmon red, slightly wavy & soft 
EYES: Right eye is pink, left is blue
EYELASHES: Long and dark
NOSE: Small, sloped and pointy 
LIPS: Light and thin
BODY TYPE: Ectomorph, lean & androgynous 
CONSTITUTION: Friendly, timid
OTHER: Two small horns on head, stockings are part of his body

His hair reaches his mid back when opened but Laurel usually keeps it on a low ponytail or little braids. He enjoys varying his hairstyle a lot for his own amusement. 

Like all dainties Laurel also has stockings: primarily milky white, they have frilly ends with red ribbons and lace, and the sides of his stockings have 6 cross marks on both sides. He is also seen wearing a white garter, usually on his left leg but it can be seen on his right one as well.

Although he is very expressive and often gestures wildly and dramatically on stage, Laurel is surprisingly restrained and often downright meek in his civilian life.

SKILLS & ABILITIES

• As a dainty, Laurel’s vocal chords are naturally very sophisticated and flexible and so his vocal range tends to be much wider than your average cis man’s. He’s an excellent singer and uses his range at its full advantage.
  
  
• Likewise he’s a very skilled dancer, especially now that dancing has become an even larger part of his life through his job. He has a flexible body and smooth movements, despite what his hooved feet might indicate.
  
  
• Laurel is by no means a masterful criminal, but his poverty situation after being mugged forced him to learn how to pickpocket. He gets the job done, but hates it and shows little grace while doing so.
  
  
• Good at improvising, especially when he’s either in a very good mood and begins to sing and dance or when he’s in trouble and needs to get out.
  
  
• His stockings are part of his body. As a child they were blank white but as he matured they grew to how they are now. This is part of the species lore.
  
  
• His saliva tastes like a cherry flavored soda. 

PERSONALITY

Friendly and kind, Laurel is exactly as soft and gentle as one would expect just by looking at him. He’s very sensitive to the feelings of others and dislikes conflict, often so afraid of negativity that he may freeze or become detached from the situation. While it’s true he has gotten more used to this ever since coming in contact with the notoriously drama-loving Bambi, Laurel would still much rather just avoid problems altogether. He can be something of a doormat at times, but when push really comes to shove he will show a more assertive side of himself - even if he often apologizes for it afterwards. 

Despite his rather timid personality, Laurel is a very confident actor: when he walks on the stage and the lights focus on him, he’s able to capture a wide array of emotions and personalities in order to portray the character he’s playing as. It’s easy for Laurel to pretend to be someone else: under the pretense it becomes easier for him to express thoughts and emotions he otherwise struggles with, making acting both a passion and a catharsis for him. He takes a lot pride in his acting abilities, but usually prefers not to use them off-stage: he wants to be honest and sincere, acting hardly what he would consider either of those two things. 

Laurel is very social and tends to make friends rather easily. However, because of the trauma of his mother leaving him, Laurel fears he will become detached and fickle like her. As a result he often clings to other people and has trouble letting go, potentially even staying in an abusive relationship to avoid severing ties. He has a habit of thinking too highly of other people, assumes they have good intentions by default and is unrealistically hopeful in situations where he shouldn’t. However, Laurel is still very much an adult man who understands how the world works: even if he loves keeping an overly optimistic attitude and enjoys self indulgent daydreams, he’s not a stranger to the horrors of the world — after all, he has had to experience many first hand. Everyone has their limits,, and Laurel will not hold back when you reach his.

HISTORY

Summary: Raised by his single father, Laurel had a loving childhood despite his mother not being around. He loved performing for an audience, singing in the local choir and dreamed of becoming an actor once he was older and wealthy enough to apply to a theater school. However, his father would die of an illness and place Laurel in a financially tough spot, and when he finally had enough money to start his life he got robbed in the new city. Forced to steal at first to make a meet’s end, Laurel eventually found his safe haven in a cabaret that offered him a place to stay. Currently he’s still working there, though hoping someone would notice him and make him a star.

EARLY LIFE

Born to a dainty mother and a human father, Laurel’s mother left him before he could even form memories of her. While his father was not very knowledgeable of dainty children and how to take in account their species’ specific needs and wants, he had a dainty friend who he could turn to whenever he was having trouble with his son. 

Loved and cherished by the people of his neighborhood, Laurel was known as a happy, friendly child who delighted in putting up performances for the people living nearby. Growing up with a musical loving father, it was hardly a surprise that Laurel would fall in love with music and then acting. Laurel performed in every school play he just possibly could and attended the local church choir despite not being particularly religious himself. Though often timid and rather submissive towards his peers, whenever Laurel set his hooves on the stage he would be like a different person: confident, loud and eager to be seen. 

While he did feel bad about his mother leaving him and fearing there was something fundamentally wrong with him (or that he would turn out to be like her), Laurel had a rather ordinary and safe childhood, even if he was one of the only non-humans around. 

FATHER PASSES AWAY 

Sadly things wouldn’t go as well when he entered his adolescence: first his father’s dainty friend moved away after finding a partner (Laurel had gotten so close to the man that he often called the fellow dainty his uncle) and not soon after Laurel’s father fell ill. Laurel tried his best at helping his father and being there for him, but as time passed his condition only got worse until a persistent case of pneumonia finally became fatal to his immunocompromised body. Laurel was only a year away from turning 18 and until his legal adulthood he would remain living in his childhood home, though found it gradually harder and harder to live in there: everything in it reminded him of his now deceased father. 

Laurel had to sell most of what he owned upon discovering his father was in a deep debt (something he had been forced into in order to feed both himself and Laurel) until he only had the rented apartment to stay in and his own personal belongings. Funeral services and all the arrangements with his father’s loans sucked him out of any spare change, but Laurel was able to keep enough cash saved for his dream: to apply to a theater school in the capital city. 

Selling the house and getting a distant relative to store his personal belongings for the time being, Laurel set off to a new life in the capital, hoping to get accepted into his dream school. 

BIG CITY BLUES

On his way there, however, Laurel was mugged and all his money (which he had foolishly kept as physical cash) and personal belongings were stolen . With no phone or money, Laurel found himself all alone in the city that didn’t care or even see those who didn’t have the money to ask for help. It was nothing like his tight knit community back home and Laurel felt helpless and scared about what to do next. The police didn’t offer much help: treating the clearly gender non-confirming Laurel like a second rate citizen, he didn’t feel comfortable demanding any more help in the fear of getting backslash. 

Laurel found himself on the streets, forced to steal to get by and trespass to have a place to sleep in until he would find a place that would hire him and give him a new start. But finding work was harder than he had expected and even applying to his dream school was now impossible without the money, and so Laurel continued stealing to get by. He even considered sex work, but concluded he wasn’t comfortable with doing it. 

CABARET WORK

A month later Laurel was suddenly approached by a woman who ran a cabaret and offered him a deal: if Laurel came to work for her cabaret as a dancer and a singer, she would pay for his work and provide him housing. Though she was mostly asking Laurel for his appearance and nature as a dainty (which were something of a rarity as a species in the country), Laurel impressed her with his dancing and singing skills and was immediately taken in. 

In the cabaret’s housing area upstairs he became acquainted with the young women living there, mostly orphans, runaways, and ex-criminals. The only other man there was a deer called Bambi, who despite his small size was a year older than Laurel. Bambi was highly competitive, however, and didn’t like to lose his title as the only man of the group to Laurel. He would often act cruel towards Laurel and sabotage his attempts but eventually — after realizing Laurel simply wouldn’t leave the cabarate — decided to start tolerating him after all. 

Not soon after moving in Laurel also met Ivan, a fellow dainty he would later discover to be someone he had met as a child during his choir joint practice with another choir. Despite their vastly different personalities the two would hit off well and become very close. Thanks to the connections Laurel began forming through the cabaret and new acquaintances he also got plenty more friends like Quinn and Cas. 

CURRENTLY 

Laurel is still working at the cabaret on evenings and nights while helping with cleaning, shopping and other small things during the days. Although his routine is often more monotonous than one could imagine, his days are far from boring: Laurel delights entertaining people and performing for them, even if he’s not necessarily the most fond of the striptease nights or all the customers he has to deal with. Nevertheless, each nightly performance is a new chance for Laurel to prove himself, hoping someone will notice his talent and let him finally advance on his career. 

He is very liked by the regulars of the bar and considered one of the biggest stars among the performers, but — according to Bambi at least — his discomfort with bedroom matters with strangers prevents him from getting both a partner and a place in the big circles. Despite these claims, Laurel stays true to his own feelings, preferring to work his way to fame in his own way.

Who knows, perhaps this time he will get lucky?

TRIVIA

• For a long time he owned a very broken secondhand smartphone which didn’t function well at all. He was given a new phone by Ivan and has since been able to contact his extended family. However, Laurel still works in the cabaret since he’s too embarrassed to return home and he really wants to pay his debt, collect money for the theater school and then try to apply again - unless he gets scouted before that, of course.
  
  
• Despite not really having much money for it, Laurel enjoys dressing up and more than happily wears second hand or even borrowed clothes.
  
  
• Since most of the clothes he owns are borrowed or second hand from the girls of the cabaret, Laurel has gotten very comfortable wearing women’s clothes. He does get mistaken for a woman as a result, but it doesn’t bother him and he will simply politely correct people if it comes down to it.
  
  
• Laurel’s character was created back when the dainty lore was vastly different and considerably more sexual in tone and many parts of his characters were tied around those pieces of lore. However, with the lore having gone through very dramatic changes I have also adjusted Laurel’s character to fit it better. As such this iteration of him may be slightly different from the profile people you have read before my revamp.