Line #59 Fanfic/VigilantesDawn


1	''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/14164845 Vigilantes' Dawn]]'' ([[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12887327/1/Vigilantes-Dawn FFN Link]]) by Kylia is an ''Series/{{Arrow}}'' WhatIf FanFic. The premise is simple: what if it was Laurel, not Sara, that went on the ''Queen's Gambit'' with Oliver?
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3	'''Official Summary''': What if Oliver Queen hadn't let his commitment issues sabotage things with Laurel? What if he'd invited Laurel onto the Queen's Gambit, instead of Sara? And what happens in Starling City when, five years later, The Arrow and the Black Canary, together, go after the List and the rest of the City's criminals? And what happens when Detective Sara Lance finds out her sister is one of the two Vigilantes that are bringing on the dawn of a new age?
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5	Has a sequel called ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/31200245 The Siege of Starling City]]'' ([[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13878556/1/The-Siege-of-Starling-City FFN Link]]).
6	----
7	!!Tropes:
8	* AbusiveParents: Ra's al Ghul has yet to actually appear, but Laurel repeatedly states he's an awful father.
9	* ActOfTrueLove: Rather than quit and find work elsewhere like the rest of her coworkers, Joanna de la Vega opts to keep working for Merlyn Global [[spoiler:even after the Undertaking is exposed and Malcolm Merlyn is killed]]. When Tommy wonders why, Sara flat-out tells him it's because Joanna loves him and wants to support him.
10	* AdaptationRelationshipOverhaul:
11	** Oliver choosing to take Laurel on the ''Gambit'' with him means they more-or-less never break up. Their trials over their five years away, in fact, strengthen their relationship to the point that they effectively have no romantic interest in anyone else besides each other. In addition, Laurel is well aware of all the secrets Oliver originally kept from her in canon, since she's now his most trustworthy confidant.
12	** While the Lances still get divorced, the overall dynamics of the Lance family are much healthier because Sara never betrayed Laurel by going on the ''Gambit'' with Oliver. Laurel and Sara are as tight as ever, and Quentin isn't verbally abusive and has more control over his alcoholism. As a consequence, however, Dinah and Sara's relationship is strained because Dinah felt Sara becoming a cop was siding with her father during the couple's divorce.
13	** In relation to that, Quentin softens up much faster on Oliver since he A) didn't cheat on Laurel, and B) brought Laurel back with him. He even states that if Oliver is the reason Laurel made it back home, then he's more than happy to eat crow about every bad thing he ever said about the younger man.
14	** Oliver and Sara are still close friends, but never become romantically involved since Oliver chose not to blow up his relationship with Laurel and took her on the ''Gambit'' instead of Sara. That decision effectively ends the chances of relationships with his other love interests as well, including [=McKenna=] Hall, Isabel Rochev and Felicity Smoak.
15	* AdaptationalAngstDowngrade: Sara. Since she never went on the ''Gambit'', the only angst she had to deal with was mourning her older sister and another close friend, in addition to her parents' divorce.
16	* AdaptationalAngstUpgrade: Not to say Laurel had it all that easy in canon, but this Laurel has it far worse, due to having (essentially) canon Sara's backstory. At the same time, her angst is a tad lighter than canon Sara because Laurel managed to reunite with Oliver and get out of the League earlier than her sister did.
17	* AdaptationalBadass: Laurel is far better trained than her canon counterpart due to having more time and more teachers. Accordingly, she's a overall better hand-to-hand combatant than Oliver is right now (and much better than Diggle is and could ever hope to be); Oliver, however, is the superior marksman. [[spoiler:She later gets the Canary Cry thanks to the Particle Accelerator Explosion, something her canon counterpart never had]].
18	* AdaptationalContextChange: [[spoiler:Laurel's reaction to William's existence is remarkably different from canon. In canon, while she held nothing against William himself, she was understandably unhappy with Oliver for keeping his affair with Samantha a secret for so long. Here, because Laurel was already aware of the affair (and had already forgiven Oliver and Samantha for it) and found out about William on her own before Oliver did, she's not angry at him at all and instead angry at Samantha for keeping William a secret from him. She's also worried about how Oliver would take the news, knowing that he's not going to react well to learning he had a son without knowing it]].
19	* AdaptationalEarlyAppearance:
20	** Sara, technically. Sara did not make an in-person appearance (beyond flashbacks) until Season Two. However, since it was Laurel that went on the ''Gambit'', she's present from the beginning.
21	** [[spoiler:Nyssa also makes an early appearance, due to Laurel exposing her survival earlier than Sara did with hers in canon]].
22	* AdaptationalJobChange: Laurel never took the LSAT or went to law school, and thanks to being too busy with her vigilante activities, she has no inclination to deal with all that work when she gets back. She goes into charity work instead, figuring that if she can't help the world as a lawyer, then she'll help the world like this.
23	* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Quentin is far less emotionally abusive, since he can't blame Sara for Laurel's death the same way he implicitly blamed Laurel for Sara's like he did in canon, since she wasn't the one dating Oliver. He also gives up his grudge against Oliver much faster since he brought Laurel home back with him, and while he still thinks Oliver isn't good enough for Laurel, it's for the standard reason that he doesn't think ''anyone'' is good enough for either of his daughters.
24	* AdaptationalWimp: Sara is still a badass as a rising detective, but she's much weaker than her canon counterpart.
25	* BetaCouple:
26	** Nyssa/Sara is the main secondary couple of the series, and they have a serious amount of ShipTease whenever they interact.
27	** Tommy/Joanna is a more minor example.
28	* BerserkButton: Don't threaten Sara in Laurel's range of hearing.
29	* BigSisterInstinct:
30	** When Laurel hears that Vanch intends to kill Sara, she's so enraged that she is willing to drop her no-killing policy.
31	** Also inverted; upon hearing the implications that Ivo raped Laurel, Sara wishes that he was still alive so she could kill him herself.
32	* BrainBleach: When Thea learns the true identities of the Arrow and Black Canary, she notes that she's going to have to block several people on Twitter if she wants to have peace of mind so that she doesn't have to read about them talking about what they want to do to her brother.
33	* BrandishmentBluff: Vanch [[spoiler:is able to blackmail Sara into helping him for a time by claiming he has evidence of the vigilantes' true identities, but after he is attacked and most of his forces killed, even when he blames Oliver and Laurel for what happened Sara realises that he actually has ''no'' evidence because he would have released it by now if it was real]].
34	* CantCatchUp: The inability of {{mooks}} to catch up to superheroes is lampshaded in one of the epigraphs of the sequel, where the author comments on the various ways supervillains tried to level up their forces.
35	-->"When I started out in the game, every villain was handing out guns to their henchmen like candy, figuring the more bullets you fired, the faster you killed the hero. By the time I was on my third boss, they'd decided it was down to who had the best karate moves or some BS like that. By my tenth, it was all about taking crazy drugs and hoping you got superpowers out of the deal."
36	* TheChessmaster: Observed and {{deconstructed\|CharacterArchetype}} in the future epigraphs regarding Malcolm Merlyn; while he was a dangerous foe who planned for various contingencies, once his plans faced a significant derailment in the form of Oliver and Laurel's costumed identities, he had trouble properly compensating for their presence and thus compromised his own plans.
37	* ClosestThingWeGot: When Felicity asks Sara to get Barry's help in treating Oliver's poisoning, the two women both agree that Barry's not a great choice but he's "safer" than taking Oliver to a hospital.
38	* DeathByAdaptation: [[spoiler:Malcolm is killed at the end of ''Vigilantes' Dawn'', the equivalent of Season One, rather than surviving to continue plaguing Team Arrow for the years to come]].
39	* DemotedToExtra: [[spoiler:Barton Mathis is taken out before he can mount his more elaborate plan for revenge against Quentin, as he tries to abduct Laurel and she knocks him out in a manner that she can pass off as a lucky shot rather than expose her training as the Black Canary]].
40	* DidntThinkThisThrough: Laurel fakes her own death in Russia to escape the League -- but then blows the ruse sky high when she very publicly returns from the dead by being rescued from Lian Yu alongside Oliver Queen. Her internal monologues both before and immediately after the arrival of [[spoiler:Nyssa]] make it clear that she really didn't have any sort of plan to deal with the League, instead hoping that her very public return from the dead would make going after her too risky, for the sake of their anonymity. [[spoiler:It doesn't work. Thankfully, however, between Nyssa's desire to see Laurel alive and happy, and fortunate timing, Laurel manages to strike a deal for an official release from her oath]].
41	* DiesDifferentlyInAdaptation: Frank Bertinelli dies at the Hood's hand a season earlier than he canonically did.
42	* DramaticIrony: After [[spoiler:Nyssa]] gives Laurel some limited information about the Dark Archer, Oliver and Laurel try to use that to narrow his identity down. Oliver complains that the criteria is so vague that Malcolm Merlyn comes up as a hit -- something that Oliver and Laurel both appear to find absurd.
43	* EncyclopediaExposita:
44	** Every chapter starts with an {{Epigraph}} from a fictional work of history called ''Age of Superheroes: The Dawn of the Vigilante'', written by Diana Queen, one of Oliver and Laurel's descendants. The epigraphs explain that many of the more personal details discussed in the book come from the unfinished memoirs of Laurel Lance.
45	** In the sequel, the chapters begin with excerpts from various other sources, including news transcripts, other books that are written in the future, and even a Buzzfeed article.
46	* EveryoneCanSeeIt: Despite Laurel and Oliver's attempts at keeping their relationship hidden while in their vigilante guises, a few characters have commented that the reason the Arrow and the Black Canary are often seen together is that they're dating.
47	* EveryoneHasStandards: Witnessing the Savior's choice of victims, Sara is better able to acknowledge the difference between him and Oliver and Laurel, as not only does Laurel not kill but Oliver gives his victims a chance to change and only goes after the genuinely deserving, whereas the Savior targeted an attorney whose only 'crime' was not pursuing a case hard enough when nobody else involved was giving it sufficient notice.
48	* EvilCannotComprehendGood: Ultimately [[spoiler:Vanch is killed because he assumed that Sara was too "good" to kill an unarmed man in cold blood no matter what he threatened to do to her sister and Oliver, even as his words ultimately push Sara to accept that she has to kill him now to stop him from threatening the people she loves later]].
49	* FakingTheDead: Laurel faked her death to escape the League with Oliver. The ruse is blown to hell after she and Oliver are rescued from Lian Yu.
50	* ForegoneConclusion: The epigraphs at the beginning of the chapter reveal some information about the future, making some things inevitable.
51	** Oliver and Laurel will be exposed as Green Arrow and Black Canary. Whether it is before or after their deaths has yet to be clarified.
52	** Oliver will be taken to trial three times on suspicions of his vigilante identity. He'll barely evade another two trials as well.
53	** The League of Assassins will become a publicly-known entity within the next hundred years.
54	** A vigilante called "Frostbite" is mentioned, suggesting that Caitlin Snow will become Killer Frost (or a heroic version of her, at least).
55	** Felicity Smoak, while employed at Queen Consolidated, will at some point develop revolutionary programs for data analysis that give her some small fame in the field of computer science.
56	** Sara will leave the SCPD over her association with Green Arrow and Black Canary.
57	** Moira Queen will somehow survive long enough to become Mayor of Star(ling) City.
58	* GroinAttack[=/=]PayEvilUntoEvil: Sara muses that the Black Canary leaves rapists with injuries so severe that they may ''never'' have fully functioning genitals again.
59	* INeedAFreakingDrink: [[spoiler:Tommy needs to drink a bottle of Scotch -- his typical drink when dealing with bad news -- when he finds Malcolm’s video message revealing that Thea is Malcolm’s daughter]].
60	* InSpiteOfANail:
61	** The Lances still get divorced, despite Dinah not having the angst of allowing Sara to go on the ''Gambit'' with Oliver and not telling anyone. Laurel even wonders at some point if there was something wrong in her parents' marriage that she didn't notice before she left. More likely, it is because even without the guilt of letting Sara go, Dinah wasn't able to deal with Quentin's alcoholism.
62	** Season One is mostly following StationsOfTheCanon, though there are noticeable differences that are beginning to build into bigger changes.
63	** Felicity Smoak still gets recruited into Team Arrow, and is ultimately interested in working with them for the same reason -- find Walter.
64	** Though Thea ends up doing her community service at an animal shelter in the Glades, and isn't with Laurel when it happens, Roy still tries to steal her purse, Thea gets him caught and then ends up not wanting him charged because of his sob story. They still end up dating, more or less as they did in canon.
65	** Though the circumstances are very different, Team Arrow still breaks into Merlyn Global to get Felicity access to Merlyn's servers.
66	** One of the two Markov devices is disarmed, and the other still goes off, though the circumstances are different.
67	* IneffectualDeathThreat: When [[spoiler:the Dodger tries to use his explosive collars to make Oliver his current patsy, Oliver manages to turn the tables on the Dodger by threatening to march them both out into the main hall, pointing out that the Dodger currently can't use the collar without blowing ''himself'' up as well as Oliver]].
68	* InsecureLoveInterest: Oliver, as per canon. Laurel actually deconstructs the idea, calling it toxic; according to her, love isn't a "prize" to be "won" for being virtuous.
69	* InternalReveal:
70	** Sara learns that Oliver and Laurel are Green Arrow and Black Canary about two-thirds of the way through the story.
71	** Late into the story, Moira learns that Sara is working with Green Arrow and Black Canary and that they all know about the Undertaking. In turn, Sara finds out that it was Moira that hired the Triad to murder Malcolm.
72	** [[spoiler:Tommy figures out that Laurel is the Black Canary and Oliver is the Hood when he realizes that Sara trusts the Black Canary implicitly -- and there's a very small pool of people that Sara would trust like that.]]
73	** After the Undertaking, [[spoiler:Tommy discovers a video message from Malcolm that reveals that Thea is Malcolm’s daughter and thus his half-sister. He shares this information with Sara, but the two agree to keep it between themselves as it might compromise Moira’s current trial]].
74	* LetsYouAndHimFight:
75	** [[spoiler:Once Ra's al Ghul learns that Malcolm Merlyn/The Dark Archer is violating the ideals of the League, he tells Laurel via Nyssa that he knows the identity of the Dark Archer, but that he won't tell them -- the implication being that he wants to see who will emerge victorious from the conflict.]]
76	** Discussed in concept regarding [[spoiler:Vanch blackmailing Sara with his knowledge of Oliver and Laurel's identities; Laurel expresses concern that Vanch may be sending them into a trap when he provides a lead on the man in the skull mask, but Sara confirms that Vanch's ego means he wouldn't betray them like that when he still thinks he's basically in control of the situation]].
77	* LivingEmotionalCrutch: Oliver and Laurel are borderline codependent on each other. After all the hardship they've gone through, including believing each other to be dead ''twice'', they hate being apart for too long. It's easier in Starling because they can at least call each other there, but even so, they spend most of their time together. It's obvious that if one of them were to die for real, the other would most likely break for good.
78	* LoveAtFirstSight: Downplayed. [[spoiler:Sara gets an instant, massive crush on Nyssa the very moment she gets a good look at her. Laurel is mortified when she finds out]].
79	* MistakenForRomance: In the backstory, Quentin assumed Tommy and Sara were shagging (or in some sort of romantic/sexual liaison) to cope with their grief, and seeing the similarities between Tommy and Oliver, the latter of whom he blamed for Laurel's "death", threatened the former to stay away from his remaining daughter. According to Tommy, however, all they ever did was commiserate and get drunk together; while Tommy ''did'' recognize Sara's attractiveness, she wasn't his "type".
80	* MookHorrorShow: The ineffectiveness of ZergRush against superheroes is commented on in one of the epigraphs of the sequel, from a book written in 2063 by a former professional henchman for supervillains.
81	* MortonsFork: As time goes on, [[spoiler:Tommy and Sara each adopt a particular view on whether or not to tell Thea that Malcolm Merlyn is her biological father, Tommy in favour of keeping it secret while Sara wants to tell Thea to stop someone else telling her first; each of them recognise that the other perspective is valid, but agree to keep the secret until they can both agree telling Thea is necessary]].
82	* MuggingTheMonster: Barton Mathis attempts to kidnap and kill Laurel as revenge for Quentin arresting him. She breaks his nose for his troubles.
83	* MySisterIsOffLimits: Sara thinks Laurel's attempt to dissuade her from pursuing [[spoiler:Nyssa]] is this. As the readers know, Laurel has ''very'' legitimate reasons for wanting to nip Sara's interest in the bud.
84	* NiceJobFixingItVillain: [[spoiler:The Count abducting DA Donner actually helped Moira's defence, as Donner was careful to just insinuate that Merlyn wasn't solely responsible for the sinking of the ''Queen's Gambit'' while his replacement in the case outright accuses Moira of trying to kill her own son, which meets with contempt from those in attendance]].
85	* NonIndicativeName: Laurel notes the League of Assassins isn't a proper name for the organization, as they are essentially vigilantes rather than hired killers.
86	* NotSoStoic: When [[spoiler:watching a video where Malcolm admits his affair with Moira and expresses hope that Tommy won’t think less of him for it, Sara is struck by the notion that Malcolm seems to genuinely regret what he did and truly hopes that this won't impact Tommy's own feelings about him (although she also muses that by this point, Malcolm’s done too many other things Tommy would hate him for that an affair with Moira Queen barely registers)]].
87	* OfficialCouple: Oliver and Laurel. All of their friends and family, even Quentin, regard their eventual marriage as an inevitability.
88	* {{Omniglot}}: Laurel can speak multiple languages like Oliver. Thus far, it's confirmed she knows Russian and Arabic. As she's had the same training as canon Sara, she may know Cantonese as well.
89	* PlatonicLifePartners:
90	** Laurel describes her relationship with Nyssa as this, equating it to her sisterly relationship with Sara. Presumably, the reason why it never went further than friendship is due to IncompatibleOrientation. [[spoiler:Thus, when Laurel's deception was revealed, Nyssa took it almost as bad as she did Sara's departure in canon]].
91	** Tommy and Sara have shades of this as well. They have a strong friendship that developed due to the shared grief over Oliver and Laurel's supposed deaths, but (despite what Quentin believed) no romantic or sexual interest in one another. Sara knows him so well that [[spoiler:Tommy pulling out Scotch to drink is enough for her to realize that whatever he's about to tell her is going to suck]].
92	* PointOfDivergence: Switching Laurel with Sara initially seems to have caused only some minor changes, but the ripples eventually begin to snowball into greater changes.
93	** The most obvious change is that Laurel, not Sara, is the one who received training from the League of Assassins and becomes the first bearer of the Canary mantle. In exchange, Sara is the one to "run to the law", by becoming a detective like their father. Tommy also never develops feelings for Laurel, only seeing her as a good friend.
94	*** As a result of this, Dinah and Sara's relationship is heavily strained because Dinah believes Sara's decision to stay in Starling and become a detective is her choosing to "side" with her father. In exchange, it's Laurel that Dinah wants to reconnect with since she's the daughter Dinah lost. [[spoiler:This eventually culminates in Laurel visiting Central City the week of the Particle Accelerator Explosion to reconnect with her mother, which not only leads to her gaining the Canary Cry, but also learning about William, Oliver's son. And because their relationship is much better and they have no secrets between them, that means Oliver is set to learn about William two seasons early.]]
95	** The switch seems to imply that Laurel was given different missions from the League than Sara, leading to her last mission in Russia. During that mission she spotted Oliver, which prompted her to fake her death and ditch the League for him. Together, they easily managed to kill Kovar and then spent the rest of their time on Lian Yu while Anatoly arranged their "rescue".
96	** Since Laurel returned with Oliver, his relationships with his friends and family are considerably warmer since she is better able to act as his conscience and is not an ElephantInTheLivingRoom like Sara was. This especially applies to Quentin, who, in canon, took years to really soften on Oliver.
97	** Another vigilante means that Oliver is better able to balance between his civilian life and his vigilante life. For example, after Helena's assassination of Paul Copani, Oliver stays with Moira instead foisting the responsibility on Thea, thanks to Laurel taking care of the investigation for him.
98	** Since Laurel takes care of Helena, Oliver never meets nor becomes romantically involved with her, and kills off Frank Bertinelli a season prior to his canonical death. Helena also never receives any vigilante training, and the Triad remains untouched.
99	** A minor example: as Laurel never went to law school, she never met Joanna De La Vega. As a result, Joanna works at Merlyn Global and is better acquainted with Tommy (who she may or may not be romantically involved with).
100	** [[spoiler:Because Laurel came home with Oliver, the League gets involved with the affairs of Starling City in Season 1 rather than Season 2, with Nyssa making an AdaptationalEarlyAppearance]].
101	** Laurel and the Dark Archer immediately recognize each other as former members of the League, which gives Oliver and Laurel an early lead on his identity [[spoiler:after Nyssa enters the scene]].
102	** Laurel is there to provide backup for Oliver when he goes to interrogate his mother as the Hood, and thus after he is shot, Oliver escapes thanks to her help, not Felicity's.
103	** Rather than glomming onto the Hood for rescuing him from the Savior, Roy finds himself inspired by the Black Canary and wishes he could help her.
104	** Because of the changes to how the characters learn the details of the undertaking - mostly stemming from the good guys finding out that Merlyn is the Dark Archer early thanks to [[spoiler:Nyssa]] and the heroes' actions as a result - the Undertaking kills only [[spoiler:318 people all told]] instead of the canon 503.
105	** Tommy never goes into the Glades during the Undertaking, and [[SparedByTheAdaptation thus lives on past his Arrowverse death]].
106	*** This gives him control of Merlyn Global, [[spoiler:which leads to him discovering the truth of Thea's parentage. And because he can control this information, it means it's not an accidental leak to break Thea.]]
107	** [[spoiler:After discovering her sonic scream power (i.e. the Canary Cry), Laurel decides to call in a favor from Nyssa in order to train this ability through control of her body. Nyssa assigns Lady Shiva (who never appeared in the Arrowverse proper) as her teacher.]]
108	** With the shuffled relationships, greater openness and more emotional intelligence from the both of them, at the halfway point of Season 2, Ollie and Laurel bring [[spoiler:Roy ''and'' Thea]] in on the secret. And because they want to protect the people who idolize them so much, they also aim for direct training under them to bring them up to snuff.
109	* RapeAsBackstory: Just like with Sara in canon, heavily {{implied\|Rape}} with Laurel.
110	* RoleSwapAU: One where Laurel is the one Oliver took on the ''Queen's Gambit'', and not Sara.
111	* RulesLawyer: Laurel reflects at one point that Nyssa will not directly defy her father, but she is willing to creatively interpret his orders, such as making contact with Laurel to get help on an assignment since she wasn't explicitly ordered ''not'' to do so.
112	* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: After Sara [[spoiler:kills Vanch, she was willing to accept an official reprimand for killing an unarmed man (albeit a criminal who she knew was willing to expose Oliver and Laurel's secret), but when the Internal Affairs investigation tried to edit the report to claim that Vanch had a knife in his hands when Sara killed him, Sara resigns from the police in disgust at how they're more concerned with looking good than seriously doing their jobs]].
113	* ShipTease:
114	** Despite Oliver/Laurel being set in stone at this point, there are some implications that Tommy felt something deeper for Laurel prior to the ''Gambit''. It seems, however, that he's given up on those feelings by the time his friends return home, and has a more serious amount with Joanna de la Vega, who works for Merlyn Global in this adaptation.
115	** Nyssa/Sara, basically every time Nyssa shows up. Even after learning Nyssa is an assassin that was sent to kill her sister if she didn't return to the League, Sara still can't help being attracted to her.
116	* ShootTheBullet: In their confrontation with the Mayor, Oliver counters the Mayor's use of a grenade launcher by shooting an arrow so that the grenade explodes between them, giving Oliver and Laurel a chance to get the drop on him.
117	* ShoutOut: When training Roy in using swords, Laurel mentions that most people can use a sword on a basic level so long as they remember the rules such as "pointy end goes into the other man", and [[PopCulturalOsmosisFailure expresses surprise that Roy hasn't seen]] [[Film/TheMaskOfZorro that movie]].
118	* SingleTargetSexuality: After everything they've gone through the last five years, neither Oliver nor Laurel have any interest in being with anyone else.
119	* SkewedPriorities:
120	** After the Undertaking, Captain Pike in particular has shown an attempt to focus on capturing the vigilantes rather than the outright criminals when the police intercept them, even if the criminals are [[spoiler:stealing medicine intended for the Glades]].
121	** On a more light-hearted note, when Barry confirms that Oliver trained in a jungle environment, his immediate reaction is to mock one of the other internet fanboys he was debating with about Oliver's tactics online, even if he obviously won't share that information with anyone outside the team.
122	* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler:Tommy Merlyn survives the Undertaking, although he is publicly condemned for his relationship to Malcolm even if he genuinely knew nothing about the Undertaking until after the fact]].
123	* SuperMobBoss: Commented on by one of the epigraphs of the sequel, a [=YouTube=] video created in 2078. Apparently, normal organized crime such as TheMafia doesn't survive the rise of superheroes. While organized crime does still exist, it's been taken over entirely by supervillains and their "rotating casts of minions".
124	* TokenGoodTeammate: Laurel reflects at one point that she trusts Nyssa because Nyssa is one of the few people in the League of Assassins who truly believes in its mission to do good, whereas the majority use its mission as basically an excuse to be bullies.
125	* TooCleverByHalf: As the opening quote of one chapter notes, this applies to criminals who learn a superhero's identity to target their loved ones.
126	-->"Do you do what criminals with just enough brains to get themselves into just a bit too much trouble do, and kidnap and threaten their loved ones?"
127	* TrainingFromHell: After Laurel [[spoiler:gains her Canary Cry, Nyssa arranges for her to receive extensive training from Lady Shiva to gain the self-control necessary to avoid using her Cry by accident or using it at too powerful a blast]].
128	* UnresolvedSexualTension: Tommy describes his relationship with Joanna as this. While they are close friends and recognize the romantic tension between them, they've yet to take the next step due to how Joanna's friends and coworkers would perceive the hypothetical relationship.
129	* UnskilledButStrong: When Oliver faces the first Mirakuru warrior, he notes that where Slade was a trained soldier before he got the serum, this man just relies on brute force rather than any kind of combat strategy.
130	* WatchingTheSunset: [[spoiler:After releasing Laurel from the League in exchange for her and Oliver bringing Merlyn to justice, Nyssa and Laurel watch the sunset for a moment while talking, Laurel's obligation to the League finally ended]].
131	* WhamEpisode: Revelations. After several arcs of Sara building tolerance to the Hood and the Black Canary, trying to figure out who they were and coming to a dark conclusion that they might be Laurel and Ollie, [[spoiler:Cyrus Vanch made a revenge play against the Sara for being the one to arrest him; he ended up kidnapping Laurel as a way to get to Sara and lure her into a trap. But Sara, in her anger and desperation, decided to try to put her suspicions into action, and directly reached out to Ollie, revealing that she knows his identity. They rescue Laurel without problem, but this was the push that brought Sara into Team Arrow, and her tearing down her wall of evidence.]]
132	* WhamLine: [[spoiler:After saving Malcolm's life from the Triad's assassins, Laurel, Oliver and Sara return to the Foundry to find Nyssa waiting there. She points to the news broadcast saying the vigilantes saved Merlyn's life, and says this]]:
133	-->"Because that man, Laurel, is [[spoiler:Al-Saher]]."
134	* WhatTheHellHero: [[spoiler:The Lances are understandably furious with Oliver after learning he cheated on Laurel with her roommate and had a child with said roommate, even though Laurel has long since forgiven him for the affair. Ironically, Laurel herself has no anger towards Oliver at all, instead being offended on his behalf because he was denied the choice to be a father to his son]].
135	* YoureNotMyFather: A variation features when [[spoiler: Sara and Tommy find evidence that Malcolm is Thea’s father. Despite the DNA test results confirming the biological link, both agree that Robert Queen was Thea’s true father in every way that matters, and telling her about her relationship with Malcolm will accomplish nothing.]]

Context Fanfic / VigilantesDawn