In Lantern’s Day, In Canary’s Night
by Ray_Writes is an Arrowverse/Green Lantern crossover, where Laurel is made a Green Lantern while healing from her stab wound from Damien Darhk in Season Four. This leads to a dramatically different (if somewhat happier) ending to Team Arrow's conflict with H.I.V.E.
Official Summary: In Sector 2814, Damien Darhk mortally wounds Laurel Lance. At the same time, a vacancy in the Green Lantern Corps is created, and the Black Canary fits the bill.
Tropes:
- Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: Laurel being Spared by the Adaptation kills any chance of Oliver and Felicity getting back together. Not just because of how Oliver is still in love with Laurel, but also because without any grief to cloud their minds, the former couple is able to reflect upon their prior relationship far more objectively and acknowledge how much an ill-fit they are for each other.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Ruve breaks down and begs the Lanterns not to kill her husband after it becomes clear H.I.V.E. has lost.
- Badass in Distress: The story starts off with Hal being captured by the Dominators, which is what causes him to give up his ring and allows it to find its way to Laurel. He escapes when Oliver, Thea, Diggle, Sara, and Ray all join him in the illusion the Dominators trapped him with.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Lampshaded by Chase, who notes that his five-year plan of revenge has just been completely ruined by the Lanterns, and instead of any sense of triumph or relief, Team Arrow is treating the entire situation as a complete joke, as if he barely warrants an inch of their attention. This only serves to infuriate him further, but in the end, he can do nothing about it.
- Call-Back: When Prometheus is unmasked, Laurel comments that he's not the first "masked killer all in black at Christmas" the team have had to deal with, or the first villain who tried to infiltrate Oliver's life by posing as his friend.
- Character Development: Discussed and deconstructed. Felicity comes to realize that her time as a vigilante has made her a worse person than she was before, and it's been forever since she's actually been happy as a member of the team. She thus comes to the conclusion she's not cut out for this life any longer, and decides to leave Team Arrow for good.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Malcolm is in fine form as always. The very moment he realizes Laurel's current abilities are more powerful than Darhk's, he opts to start playing both sides in hopes of winning favor with Team Arrow again.
- Contrived Coincidence: When the heroes trapped in the Dominators' simulation have come together, Thea just asked how long it would take for them to be rescued when the simulation shuts down.
- Dead Sparks: Since this is the last quarter or so of Season Four, Oliver and Felicity. Oliver can't even remember whether or not he knew Felicity liked sci-fi (which is a basic thing someone should know about their significant other), her snarky comments on the comms are beginning to grate on him again, and she never hesitates to make her opinions on his many drawbacks and flaws plenty clear. All of this together with the memories of the numerous fights they had during their relationship forces Oliver to recognize that whatever they had has completely burned out and there's no hope of them getting back together anymorenote . Something that is only cemented when Oliver realizes that he still loves Laurel, who has already confessed her own love to him."Whatever they had been together, it had burned hot and fast and gone out, leaving only a smoky haze of what once had been. And with that flame banked, a different light stood out to him. Distant and dimmer, perhaps. But still burning. Like the stars he kept turning towards every night."
- Demoted to Extra: Adrian Chase is basically relegated to this from the beginning, as with Laurel still in Oliver's life he has less need to talk with Chase about political and legal issues, culminating in Laurel and Hal helping to capture and unmask Prometheus at Christmas before he can do anything significant.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Oliver and Felicity both come to realize they didn't seriously think through their decision to start a relationship with each other at all. On top of barely knowing anything about each other despite working on a team together for almost three years and having very little in common, neither of them seriously addressed the issue of whether or not Oliver was really over Laurel. As it turns out, he wasn't and part of the reason why he even dated Felicity is because he thought he ruined his chances with Laurel. Once that becomes clear, Felicity admits she should've never dated him in the first place, and Oliver can only agree."She'd thought she'd been happy with Oliver, but that had all been built on lies and a fool's hope that a man who'd carried a single woman's picture in his pocket to keep him going through five years of torture would simply just get over her and be able to move on with someone else no problem."
- Adrian Chase still goes after Oliver and Team Arrow despite knowing about Laurel's new abilities, banking on timing her long absences with the openings he needs to make his plan work. He never accounts for the possibility she might show up out of the blue and off schedule, since she, you know, doesn't know nor care about his timetable. Naturally, this ends with Laurel and Hal randomly showing up during his first serious confrontation with Oliver, capturing him with relative ease, and sending him off to jail.
- Oliver and Felicity both come to realize they didn't seriously think through their decision to start a relationship with each other at all. On top of barely knowing anything about each other despite working on a team together for almost three years and having very little in common, neither of them seriously addressed the issue of whether or not Oliver was really over Laurel. As it turns out, he wasn't and part of the reason why he even dated Felicity is because he thought he ruined his chances with Laurel. Once that becomes clear, Felicity admits she should've never dated him in the first place, and Oliver can only agree.
- End of an Era: Felicity's describes Malcolm and Darhk being permanently imprisoned in Oa, never to cause any of Team Arrow trouble again, as this. Especially in the case of the former, due to his constant shenanigans causing them more than their fair share of pain over the years.
- Fate Worse than Death: For their many crimes, Malcolm and Darhk are imprisoned in the impenetrable Sciencells on Oa, never to see their home planet or loved ones ever again.
- First Contact: Discussed. After Laurel is publicly recorded on tape stopping a nuke from hitting Monument Point as a Green Lantern, Oliver asks Kilowog if the potential abrupt exposure of the Green Lantern Corps will cause any problems. Kilowog says that the Corps always prioritizes a planet's safety over their own secrecy, and Laurel notes that if they only recorded her and not the other Lanterns (who are quite obviously aliens), then they can just make up some kind of cover story to delay The Reveal for as long as possible.
- Fourth-Date Marriage: Brutally deconstructed. Months after their break up and the benefit of hindsight force Oliver and Felicity to recognize that their whirlwind relationship was ill-thought out and wasn't going to last. They barely knew each other, were fighting all the time, and as proven recently, Oliver still wasn't over Laurel. Oliver is noticeably regretful upon this realization, while Felicity is bitter about how she wasted so much time with a guy that was never going to love her the way she wanted him to.
- Humans Are Special: Hal reflects that his ring choosing Laurel is basically proof that humans are worthy to be part of the Corps and the wider galactic community, rather than him being a fluke.
- Inspired by…: The author explicitly mentions in the pre-story notes that this story was inspired by DCeased, where the comics Black Canary became a Green Lantern after being forced to kill a zombified Hal Jordan.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Malcolm finally faces justice for his many crimes after he's captured by the Green Lantern Corps and sped off to Oa to be imprisoned there for the rest of his life.
- Lighter and Softer: Compared to the storyline this story is based on. In DCeased, Dinah Lance became a Green Lantern after Hal Jordan was infected by the Anti-Life Equation and became a zombie, forcing her to kill him to protect both Green Arrow and herself. Here, Laurel simply inherits Hal's ring after he's captured by the Dominators, forcing him to send it away so they don't get the chance to study it for their own use.
- Longing Look: Malcolm describes one of the looks Oliver gives Laurel as "sickeningly besotted".
- Love Revelation Epiphany: Laurel admitting she still loves Oliver is what prompts Oliver to realize that he still loves her, and always has. The decaying state of his relationship with Felicity only enforces it.
- Mythology Gag:
- Many, for those familiar with Green Lantern lore:
- Almost all the Lanterns mentioned during Laurel's training on Oa are actual Lanterns from the comics. This includes Kilowog, Arisia Rrab, Soranik Natu, Tomar-Re, and Salakk.
- Tomar-Re's failure to save Krypton is referenced, and is implied to be one of the reasons why the Guardians put him on Laurel's team when they go to save Earth from Darhk's plans.
- After learning about Darhk's plan, Soranik Natu utters an alien curse word that causes the other Lanterns to wince. It's implied that this is because Darhk's God Complex reminds her of her father Thaal Sinestro, who is the Green Lantern Corps' Arch-Enemy in the comics.
- Malcolm and Darhk assuming that Laurel's new powers come from magic could be a reference to how the original Green Lantern (Alan Scott) received his powers from a magical lantern rather than alien technology.
- In the Dominator illusion, it's revealed John quickly realized the world he was in wasn't real, due to still remembering Andy's horrible betrayal. Hal comments it takes a strong will to do such a thing, which is an allusion to how John is the Arrowverse version of John Stewart, another Green Lantern in the comics.
- Many, for those familiar with Green Lantern lore:
- On the Rebound: Felicity comes to the conclusion that any relationship Oliver has with another woman who isn't Laurel is this. Whether she's right or not is debatable, but at the very least her own relationship with Oliver was this.
- Outside-Context Problem: Naturally Darhk and Malcolm have no idea what to do when faced with the Green Lanterns; the two even initially speculate that they're dealing with a new kind of magic rather than alien technology.
- Point of Divergence: In canon, Laurel's death destroyed the team, with Thea outright retiring while John left to rejoin the army for a fourth tour and Quentin left Starling entirely. Only Felicity stayed with Oliver. Here, Laurel's survival means the team stays intact, and instead is what drives Felicity to quit Team Arrow and finally leave the vigilante life behind her for good.
- Power Misidentification: Due to Green Lanterns not being known to Earth yet, many people misinterpret the source of Laurel's new powers. Darhk and Malcolm think it's magic, and while Barry quickly figures out it's really advanced technology, he initially assumes it's from the future instead of from space.
- Ship Sinking: Oliver/Felicity effectively dies after Oliver's magic-tutoring session with Esrin Fortuna reveals that Laurel is the light in his life who brings him hope. When Oliver and Felicity both realize this, it kills whatever little chance they had of renewing their relationship, with Felicity (understandably bitter) flatly telling Oliver that he shouldn't bother to date anyone else besides Laurel, since they'll always come second to her.
- Spared By Adaptation: Kilowog's intervention ensures that Laurel never receives the embolism that killed her in canon.
- Story-Breaker Power: Having a Green Lantern on the team effectively makes Team Arrow unbeatable. When Laurel returns from her training on Oa, she manages to redirect the nuke aimed at Monument Point with the help of her fellow Lanterns and make sure it detonates far out in space without killing anyone. Later on, she manages to deal with Darhk and Malcolm easily and send them off to Oa to be imprisoned in the Sciencells for the rest of their lives.
- Stranger in a Familiar Land: Despite having only been gone for a few weeks, Felicity feels out of place when she temporarily rejoins the team to ensure Darhk's downfall. Compare this to Laurel, who easily slots herself back in despite being gone from the team for months. That's one of the reasons why she opts to leave the team permanently after Laurel returns from Oa, as she feels she no longer has a place there.
- Take a Third Option: When Hal is rescued and returned to full health, he and Laurel assume that one of them will have to resign as a Lantern, but instead the Guardians officially appoint both to remain as the Lanterns of Sector 2814, with Laurel staying on Earth to help guide it into the wider galactic community while Hal deals with threats in the rest of Sector 2814.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: This is the only reason why Oliver is reluctant to deal with Malcolm. He's willing to acknowledge that Malcolm was never trustworthy and is never going to change, even for Thea, but doesn't know of an effective way of getting rid of him besides killing him, since there isn't a prison on Earth that can hold him. Luckily, Oa is a different matter.
