Oliver is the one who cheated on his faithful and loving girlfriend, and yet Laurel is the one who’s blamed for the failure of their relationship.
Sara is the one who betrayed her sister in the worst way possible, but Laurel is the one who’s called a manipulative bitch because she supposedly sabotaged her sister’s chance at having a relationship with Oliver (even thought he literally said that he has been in love with her for half his life so I’m not sure what diference it would have made?)
Laurel was shown to have dedicated her life to helping and saving the people of Starling years before Oliver even came back from the Island, and yet she’s the only one who had to “earn” the tittle of hero.
Oliver, Lance, Dinah…. practically all the characters have lied to her at least once and not one of them has decided to come clean about their lies on their own free will. They were “protecting her” so they were right. Laurel lies to her father about Sara’s death because she’s terrified of what that news would do to him, recognizes that she was wrong to do that and has the guts to reveal the truth herself but she’s just a useless moron who should be ashamed of herself.
Oliver dealt with his tragic past and traumatic experiences by killing people but somehow he’s still lovable. Laurel dealt with her tragic past and traumatic experiences by destroying herself in alcohol but she’s just whinny and annoying and, God, “could she just die already?”
Felicity sleeps with Oliver after breaking up with Ray and the fandom celebrates because, finally!, those two finally declared their undying love for each other! Laurel slept with Oliver after Tommy broke up with her and, ughh, how could she do that to Tommy? What a slut!
Felicity takes down a member of the LoA, is able to fly in the Atom suit with absolutely no problem whatsoever and she’s a freaking badass. Laurel manages to hold her own against members of the League after years of self defense classes and months of hardcore training with a former vigilante who was shown to be at least as strong as Oliver and the Princess Assassin herself and yet her fighting skills are forced and not believable.
Oliver uses the Lazarus Pit on a dead Thea because there’s nothing more important than his little sister and he’s called a “loving brother”. Laurel wants to use the LP to revive Sara and she’s a “selfish and disrespectful monster who doesn’t care about her dead sister’s wishes”
Oliver decides to leave Thea for five long months so that he can have his happy ending with Felicity, knowing that the Lazarus Pit could have some pretty bad effects on his sister, comes back, sees that those effects are in fact real and believes that yelling at her and forcing her to fight against him is the way to deal with the problem. But he’s a “concerned big brother”. Laurel offered Thea a home after it became clear that the girl couldn’t put a foot into her apartment anymore after what Ra’s did to her, looked after her for months (hell, she’s been looking after Thea for years and it started way before Oliver even came back), calmy talks to her to understand what’s going on with her, and offers an efficient and productive solution : to deal with Thea’s condition, they have to go back to the source of the problem. But she’s a manipulative bitch who uses Thea’s mental condition for her own benefit and doesn’t care for her at allllll. (Never mind that Thea is more than capable of making her own decisions and that she clearly agrees with Laurel’s plan)
And the list goes on and on…
Honestly, it’s exhausting. This fandom is exhausting. The hypocrisy and the misogyny of the fandom are exhausting. Nothings she ever does, nothing she ever says is good enough for you. She could kill herself because you asked her to and you would still find a way to hate her for it. She could breath and you would still accuse her of stealing somebody’s air.
Laurel Lance isn’t as hated as you once thought, deal with it.
Laurel Lance is THE Black Canary, deal with it and fucking move on.
copper-peace