BIRTHDAY: December 31st, 1988
FACE CLAIM: Danielle Savre
JOB: Detective for the LAPD, Guest Lecturer in Criminology @ PSU (part time)
(tw: mentions of suicide, parental death, references to child abuse/neglect, and gun death)
Laurel was born as the result of a fling Bryan had with a fan during the early years of his career, Katie electing to keep the baby despite Bryan’s protests and insistence that despite refusing to pay child support, his name would go on the birth certificate and he got to name her “Mayan” because it rhymed with his surname just like his own name. Katie thought it was a stupid name, but that’s why she always just called her by her middle name, Laurel. She lived with mom until she passed away very suddenly when Laurel was 8, and because he hadn’t been able to legally adopt her, unfortunately she wasn't allowed to remain with her stepfather Chris but instead sent to live with Bryan and Terri despite never having met him before now.
Life became a spectacle for the camera from the second she arrived on his doorstep, every private moment televised for the masses including her “reunion” with Bryan and her new stepmom, and from then on she was constantly pitted against the other Ryan kids and the kids at Bryan's acting school, as well as the Schuester kids, despite hating performing and not having a lick of talent for singing or acting. Laurel could dance however and Bryan capitalised on it, training and pushing her to the point of exhaustion constantly, pushing her through injuries etc even when she should have been resting, even when her feet were bleeding and raw. It left Laurel with a host of mental health issues, including a near crippling amount of anxiety, severe panic attacks, and a constant feeling of never being good enough.
Eventually, she couldn't take it anymore, and at 15 ran away back to her stepfather who she had tried desperately to keep in touch with over the last 7 years despite her “father’s” best efforts to stop her, and when Bryan showed to take her back, Laurel told him in no uncertain terms that if he made her go back she'd run away again, and if he kept bringing her back then she'd kill herself. Her words landed Laurel an involuntary hold for a week while they assessed her danger to herself and others, but it turned out to work completely against Bryan despite him being the one to force to go, as Laurel finally got the help she so badly needed having never seen any kind of mental health specialist, and the psychologist stepped and said that she needed to be removed from the Ryan household for her own sake. Chris quickly got approved as an emergency foster parent, and Laurel was finally allowed to live with him. It was just what she needed, quickly giving up all the "hobbies" Bryan and Terri had forced on her and now only dancing when she felt like it.
Laurel also started going by her middle name exclusively having always hated "Mayan" and was soon doing a lot better, despite still struggling with her anxiety and feelings of inadequacy but thankfully Chris made sure she was getting the help she needed, and loved her in a way that she hadn’t been at any point in the last seven years without him. She had always admired Chris and his long-decorated career as an NYPD detective, and so when she went to PSU she chose Criminology as her major, ready to return to NYC after graduation, wanting to make him proud and follow in his footsteps (despite Chris insisting that he’d always be proud of her no matter what she chose to do with her life). However Chris was shot and eventually succumbed to his injuries two years into her degree and just before winter break, reports stating that he saved the life of a mother and her infant daughter in the process.
Laurel was devastated, truly lost and broken now without either of the parents that had actually cared for her, and spiralled into a self-destructive black hole in her junior year, landing herself back in a psychiatric ward eventually for several weeks. Since then, and after a lot of help, Laurel started to build herself back up, ignoring all attempts from Bryan and Terri to worm their way back in (because it would simply be to capitalise on her grief) and finishing up her degree. She published a tell all book after Bryan's relentless harassment of her still continued, debunking the rumours of her succumbing to a drug habit and that’s why she disappeared from the show, revealing Bryan’s abhorrent treatment of her behind the scenes (with her hospital records and photos of her injuries included)
She has felt freer than she ever has since doing so, despite his multiple (failed) attempts to sue her libel (because it has to be lies in order for it to be ruled libel). Laurel never wanted to go back to NYC, there was nothing left for her there, so she remained in LA to join the police department there, working her way through to detective and returning to PSU from time to time as a guest lecturer, hoping that Chris and her mom would be proud of the life she's built for herself. She regrets not taking his last name when she had the chance, and still struggles a lot with the aftermath of her tell all and the long lasting damage Bryan inflicted on her mental health.
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