History Fanfic / TheCuttingEdge

* BigSisterInstinct: Laurel has this in spades for both Sara and Thea. One of her biggest desires is to get Sara out of the League early, and one of the first things she does after being sent back is try to reconnect with Thea and convince her to go clean. [[spoiler:She accomplishes both]].

* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: When Floyd Lawton attacks the Unidac auction, Laurel takes Oliver's gear and leaves him a message stating that she'll deal with the mercenary. A news anchor later reports that Lawton was subdued by the Black Canary and left him to apprehended by the police.

* BloodKnight: Laurel is a low-key example. While sparring with Oliver, he notes the spark in her eyes and can tell that she loves fighting.

* OtherMeAnnoysMe: [[invoked]]WordOfGod states in several times comment section that Sara and Oliver would be disgusted with how they treated Laurel in the previous timeline.

* KilledOffscreen: [[spoiler:Malcolm. He's last seen being taken away for questioning by Ra's, next mention of him is that his body has been found and Tommy identifying him in the morgue. Meaning the League took the time to return his corpse to Starling.]]

* NotSoSimilar: When [[spoiler:Oliver uses his Bratva contacts to call off their forces in the mob war, Helena initially compares it to Nudocerdo's deal with the mob, but Batman affirms that there's a difference between Oliver making a deal to save lives and minimize casualties and Nudocerdo's deal to just keep those casualities limited to areas he doesn't care about]].

* OtherMeAnnoysMe: [[invoked]]WordOfGod states in several comments that Sara and Oliver would be disgusted with how they treated Laurel in the previous timeline.

** The fic takes a shot at Felicity referring to herself, Oliver, and Diggle as the "original" Team Arrow despite not actually joining until months after John did through Laurel assuming Felicity was already with Oliver shortly after he returned to Starling, [[DramaticIrony not knowing that in this timeline, Oliver avoided approaching Felicity as his tech support entirely]].

* TakeThat: Laurel is outraged by the misogynistic nature of her death, and Novu outright says it wasn't supposed to happen.

''[[https://archiveofourown.org/series/2848168 The Cutting Edge]]'' is a series of ''Franchise/{{Arrowverse}}'' fan fics written by [[https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes Ray_Writes]] depicting a PeggySue AlternateUniverse where Laurel Lance is sent back in time by the Monitor, Mar Novu, to five years before her death to prepare the heroes of the world for the Series/{{Crisis|On Infinite Earths 2019}}.

* MeaningfulName: When [[spoiler:Naomi asks for input as to a code name for herself, Roy suggests "Firewall" and Naomi notes that she'll consider it]].

** She also bets on this for [[spoiler:Garfield Lyns, believing that she can get him to avoid murdering people by convincing him to instead help her file a lawsuit against those responsible for his injuries. She's right again, helped no doubt when he learns his team ''didn't'' abandon him like he thought.]]

''[[https://archiveofourown.org/series/2848168 The Cutting Edge]]'' is a series of ''Series/{{Arrowverse}}'' fan fics written by [[https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes Ray_Writes]] depicting a PeggySue AlternateUniverse where Laurel Lance is sent back in time by the Monitor, Mar Novu, to five years before her death to prepare the heroes of the world for the Series/{{Crisis|On Infinite Earths 2019}}.

** Thea blames herself [[spoiler:once Moira announces her refusal to follow up on the issues raised by the Restons' lawsuit, as the younger Queen recognises that there are many people in the Restons' position who ''didn't'' turn to crime and feels it's unfair that they should all suffer because of the Restons' actions]].

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Not outright stated, but [[spoiler:Bruce Wayne appears to be thinking this when he realises that Dick Grayson nearly killed himself to stop an arms shipment because he thought that was what Bruce would do, where Bruce never intended to make Dick feel as though he should go that far]].

* ShipTease: After [[spoiler:Naomi becomes an official part of the team, she starts to more openly fantasise about the possibility of a relationship with Thea, particularly when she attends Thea's eighteenth birthday party]].

* SpottingTheThread: Various parties have independently noticed clues that Laurel's actions aren't a "conventional" turn to vigilantism;

* ForWantOfANail:
** Laurel's subtle "rejection" inspires Oliver to adjust his planned cover persona once he returns home, such as setting up a soup kitchen rather than a nightclub as his cover as he wants to set up a place where Laurel will feel welcome and abandoning the idea of flirting with random women to show her that he can be committed, even if he still thinks he'll need to hide his activities as the Hood from her. This desire to be committed also leads to Oliver approaching someone else as a technical consultant, as he worries that Felicity would get the "wrong impression" from his interest, whereas his chosen "target" of Naomi Singh is a recent graduate around Thea's age who would be too young for him. This eventually leads to a series of events that culminates in [[spoiler:Felicity joining her father as a fellow cyber-criminal after she's fired from QC for trying to frame Naomi for corporate espionage]].
** [[spoiler:Stopping Malcolm Merlyn before Oliver even gets home has several ramifications]]:
*** [[spoiler:Laurel is able to use this to get Ra's to release Sara from the League immediately. This puts Sara in a slightly better mental state, and it allows her to tell Moira Queen about the island. She dispatches Global Rescue and brings Oliver home earlier than in canon.]]
*** According to an Author's Note, [[spoiler:Malcolm was killed before he went to Russia. This allowed Oliver to successfully kill Kovar in Russia, preventing the final showdown on Lian Yu ''and'' Oliver being injected with Red Death. As a result, Oliver's mental faculties after he returns home are overall clearer and less depressed since the drug never entered his system]].
*** [[spoiler:Malcolm's plans for the Undertaking never made it past the blueprints stage, so that has been averted entirely]].
** The Count and Sebastian Blood are both arrested before they can become major threats. Meanwhile, [[spoiler:Garfield Lynns is successfully talked out of his planned murder spree by Laurel when she persuades him to try legal action instead of murder]].

** Whatever chances of Olicity happening go down ''drastically'' after [[spoiler:Oliver (as the Hood/Green Arrow), busts Felicity for corporate espionage when she tries to frame Naomi for her crimes and gets the latter fired from her job at QC]].

* AndThereWasMuchRejoicing: Discussed. At [[spoiler:Malcolm's]] funeral, Laurel claims that she'd "be dancing a jig over his grave if I could get away with it."

* FiveSecondForeshadowing: Laurel notes that Elliot Estates is run by one of Gotham City's wealthiest families, referencing Batman/Batwoman villain Thomas "Tommy" Elliot, [=AKA=] Hush; Elliot appears in the next chapter.

** Much to Laurel's annoyance, [[spoiler:Oliver is likely to still have to deal with Carrie Cutter [=AKA=] "Cupid", after he saved her life during the vigilantes' battle with the mobs]].

* BadFuture: Novu convinces Laurel to go back by showing her flashes of the canon timeline after her death. This includes John and Thea leaving the team, Samantha Clayton's death, Quentin's death, Oliver being forced to leave a tearful Felicity to fulfill his own bargain with Novu, and Oliver's death after facing of against the army of Shadow Demons on Earth-38.

* AdaptationalEarlyAppearance: As a result of Thea's close call, Moira Queen hires John Diggle as ''Thea's'' bodyguard rather than Oliver's.

* SpecialPersonNormalName: Laurel runs into this problem when hunting for the Paragons she hasn't found yet, as "Clark Kent" and "John Jones" are far too common for her to be sure where to find the ones she's looking for (obviously finding Diana of Thermyscira has its own set of problems).

** Whatever chances of Olicity happening go down ''drastically'' after [[spoiler:Oliver (as the Hood/Green Arrow), busts Felicity for corporate espionage after she tries to frame Naomi for her crimes]].

* ShipSinking: Laurel admits she loves Tommy, but not romantically, as much as she had tried to convince both him and herself of that during their relationship, and intends not to have a relationship with him and to let him down gently after she goes back in time. The ship sunk even further after [[spoiler:Laurel turns in Malcolm to the League to be executed for his plans for the Undertaking]], after which she begins actively distancing herself from him, acknowledging that their relationship can never be the same after what she did.

* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Laurel's glimpse into the BadFuture includes seeing a nuke going off, John and Thea leaving the team, the deaths of Samantha, Quentin, and Oliver,... and Oliver walking away from Felicity.

* ShipSinking: Laurel admits she loves Tommy, but not romantically, as much as she had tried to convince both him and herself of that during their relationship, and intends not to have a relationship with him and to let him down gently after she goes back in time.

* SelfFulfullingProphecy: [[spoiler:Felicity frames Naomi for the corporate espionage she herself committed under duress so she won't get fired. When Oliver (as the Hood) brings her actions to light, she gets fired anyway, with Walter even flat-out telling her she only has herself to blame for what happened]].

* AwesomeByAnalysis: Laurel is able to deduce that Batman is Bruce Wayne, noting that only a billionaire could afford his toys, and Batman and Bruce Wayne being in Starling City the same night is unlikely to be a coincidence. Further, she and Sara both noted that Bruce had been casing the room earlier, already giving them cause to suspect something.
** This in turn, allows Batman to deduce ''her'' identity, as his being at C.N.R.I.'s fundraiser wouldn't have made the tabloids yet, so the Black Canary must have been there as well; and Laurel Lance is the right height, build, has the same shade of green eyes, and he muses that "while they had danced that she moved with a fighter’s grace".

* AscendedExtra: Laurel likely feels that she has become this, considering that she was just part of the Arrow's team in the original timeline but now the police department has identified her as the leader of the vigilantes as the only one to have been seen with ''every'' new vigilante that's emerged in Starling City over the past year, even if they haven't all appeared as a single team so far.

* {{Hypocrite}}: After one meeting with Batman, Laurel privately reflects to herself that Oliver can't really criticize the Gotham vigilante for making abrupt exits when he's done the same himself.