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swearingcactus · 1 year

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Far Cry 3's Rook Islands - how based on Indonesia is it actually is

according to an Indonesian who is not exactly qualified to write this post but by god will i make that everyone else's problem. Long post under the cut in case you'd like to know the fun facts and insights about the game and Rook and how much they got right and wrong.

Here's what I will discuss:

Locations, Flora & Fauna

The Rakyat and what they preach and practice

Citra, Dennis and Vaas

I would like to preface by saying Indonesia is a big ass archipelago, literally the biggest archipelagic state in the world, and we have many cultures, sub-languages, and various indigenous tribes of which I'm not part of. So there could be a possibility that the FC3 game devs were basing Rook especially the Rakyat on certain tribes I'm not familiar with or with an actual cultural rep who knows more than I do, but somehow I doubt that too, considering how they seem to just base Rook vaguely on various Polynesian areas.

1. Locations, Flora & Fauna

The Rook Islands page in the Far Cry 3 Wiki does a great job of explaining this in more depth than I do, but to TL;DR it: the flora & fauna in Rook makes it seem like Rook's most likely in the eastern side of Indonesia (sharing the same fauna and flora as Papua New Guinea and Australia). This is especially evident since Rook has komodo dragons and they're only available in Nusa Tenggara Timur.

However, the vastly different animals in the North and South Islands of Rook indicates the possibility of Rook running through the Wallace Line, which irl happens between Bali and Lombok, two very close islands which have vastly different faunas.

So actually to squash down the locations into two tiny islands and grab all the crazy animals into two distinct parts like this actually happens irl, which is cool!

I got nothing much to add about plants cus they all seem to be pretty straightforward and all are available in Indonesia from what I see... with the exception that I previously had believed that the white plant that Jason can pick to craft immunity effects are jasmines, but it seems that officially they're tiares which are more commonly known as being used as leis by the Polynesian people. Either way, both Jasmines and Tiares are small, worn traditionally by women, smells nice and have some spooky connotations, so same difference to me :^)

The only location in-game with an Indonesian name is Beras Town. Beras means 'uncooked rice', so there's a little fun fact to note since when you get there the first time to see Hoyt shooting at the natives it was fittingly in a rice paddy field.

2. The Rakyat and what they preach and practice

The Rakyat is a dead giveaway that Rook is based on Indonesia or Malaysia. Rakyat means 'people' in both languages, and is pronounced correctly in-game. However, most of the Rakyat weren't speaking Indonesian and spoke with a New Zealand accent so are they like. Samoan? Maori?? God knows.

Indonesia has certain tribes who have tattooing as part of their history and culture, but the tatau seems to be based more on the Samoan tatau, at least from the name itself. Tattoos are called tato in Indonesian and not tatau. The design is also not like any known designs from tribes that have tattooing culture in Indonesia. With how Dennis explains each animal on Jason's tatau had meaning in the Rakyat's history for warriors, it seems like the entire thing was a creative liberty.

Other than the tataus, there's not much we know of about The Rakyat other than they're natives of the island. There's a side mission where you have to spy on a cheating husband, this one stuck out to me for a couple reasons. One being it's funny as hell, and also because the name of the guy the husband is cheating with is Jalak. Jalak is the Indonesian name for a Starling, there's a specific sub-species of the bird that is endemic to Bali, Indonesia. It's extra-funny if it's implied that the man the husband is cheating with is named after a bird because the word bird in Indonesia (burung) is a euphemism for dick.

Another side mission also has a minor character you have to find called 'Senin' which was pronounced wrong but it's an Indonesian word that means 'Monday'.

Those are all I remember, I'll edit if I remember more!

3. Citra, Dennis and Vaas

Citra - let's start with the most glaring thing. Citra is not supposed to be said with a 'S' sound but a 'Ch' sound. (if you go to google translate and type in Citra in Indonesia and listen to it, that's the right pronunciation). If they wanted to pronounce it like they did in-game, they should've just named her Sitra which would still sound pretty natural as an Indonesian name.

Other than her name pronunciation error, the name itself is actually pretty solid. Citra means image, like 'made in the image of god' kind of image. Considering she is the Rakyat's leader and is obsessed with cultivating an image of strength and traditional values, it's a fitting name.

Citra is also the only character to speak proper Bahasa Indonesia. She actually pronounces the words correctly and speaks clearly, which I was pleasantly surprised with! Just ignore the way the Indonesian is written in subtitles cus they are completely wrong. She only says a few lines so I'll discuss them here:

Senapan ke bawah - said when Jason first shows up with Dennis at her temple and she asks her men to stand down. Translates to 'Lower your guns.'

Berikan saya herbal - said when she asks for the first potion that Jason has to drink to get the vision that led him to hallucinate where to find Willis. Translates to: 'Give me the potion/herbs'.

Cinta untuk anak-anak kami - you can miss this if you didn't pick her ending. This is the only correctly subtitled Indonesian line, and it translates to 'love for our children'. Not child. Children. Plural. Miss ma'am... what in the everliving fuck are you trying to do hoping to have children with a guy who's shooting blanks at this point and who you proceed to kill immediately after? Let's move on.

Dennis speaks Bahasa Melayu, which is quite interesting to note, considering he is a foreigner who tries very hard to fit in. Bahasa Melayu and Bahasa Indonesia are very similar to each other, hence why we can understand each other, but there is still a distinct difference between them. Since we're overanalyzing, it could be said that Dennis and Citra has never been 100% on the same page with how they speak slightly different languages.

Vaas never once speaks Bahasa Indonesia or Melayu, which considering how he has thrown away his Rakyat roots, makes some sense. And I love Michael Mando but I think he would definitely butcher the language lmao so it's great that they didn't make him say any native lines. Vaas is also not an Indonesian name, though we do have vas as a word, since vaas is Dutch for 'vase' and we picked up a few words when Netherlands colonized Indonesia. but i doubt they used the word vase for a villain name but hell, who knows. If we wanna get funky I guess we could say that Vaas was always colonized/under someone's control even down to his name.

Conclusion

Far Cry 3's Rook personally for me didn't do a good job at being Indonesian enough, from how villages look, to location names, to little things like the lack of food stalls that you would 100% be able to find if you just walk down the road in any location here. Though to be fair, it was 2012 and as such, a different time with different standards that they have since then set higher for themselves. Ubisoft did a much better job at adapting Kyrat into a believable country that was based off Nepal with rich world-building from NPC notes, locations in map, to the little items you can loot from the enemies that included Bagh-chal pieces! FC5 was also very true to Montana from what I'm led to believe from the countless praises in Reddit, and FC6 had a lot of great representation too.

At the end of the day, FC3's a great game with a solid map based vaguely off a location I just happen to be familiar with, and that is still pretty fucking cool.

#far cry 3 #far cry #far cry analysis

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smkkbert · 1 year

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Time for a story - Muse of Fire

Central City had always been way to sunny for him. While Oliver liked to take vacations in Bali or other sunny places now, he couldn’t imagine living there. He needed to go through all four seasons a year, and he wouldn’t want to miss out on all the memories had had made of enjoying a day in the snow with the kids for anything.

Tommy, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy the sun a lot more. He had put on his sunglasses the moment the plane had landed and looked rather relaxed now during their drive to S.T.A.R. Labs.

“You do remember that we have come here for work, yes?”

Chuckling, Tommy stretched out his legs as much as the car allowed him to and turned his head to look at Oliver. In some way, it reminded Oliver on the times before the island when they had been driving around in one of their cabrios. It felt like it had been a lifetime ago.

“Don’t worry. I texted Caitlin, and she informed me about everything important.”

Oliver perked up his eyebrows, surprised that Tommy had probably more information of exactly what was going on in Central City than he did. When Barry had called, Oliver had just agreed to come. He hadn’t asked any questions because he never did. If he was needed, he came – no matter whether or not the timing was good.

The thought must have shown on his face because Tommy suddenly took the sunglasses off and looked at Oliver compassionately.

“It sucks that Barry needed your help the night Mia finally came home from the hospital, wasn’t it?”

Oliver sighed but shrugged his shoulders. “We can’t choose when the villains decide to turn up.”

“Unfortunately,” Tommy agreed, “but it still sucks, doesn’t it.”

“More than I could express with words.”

After spending several days and nights at the hospital with Mia, Oliver had been looking forward to a quiet night with his family. They had wanted to watch a couple of movies together, and he had planned on making sure Felicity knew exactly how much he had missed her. Barry’s phone call had made him leave within five minutes after his arrival.

When they had landed in Central City, Oliver had received a text from Felicity. She and the kids were well. Everything was alright, and she just hoped that he would come home soon. He way probably the only person that wished to come home soon even more.

He didn’t want to think about that right now though, not more than he would think about it the entire time he was here in Central City.

“What did Caitlin tell you about the villain we are trying to catch here?”

“The Time Trapper has unbelievable powers. He was able to manipulate time once, but he had made some kind of deal with who- or whatever. Now he can create pocket universes.”

Oliver perked up his eyebrows. “What kind of universes?”

“Pocket Universes.” Tommy made a face, indicating that he wasn’t entirely sure what those were either, and that he wasn’t really sure if he should even believe in whatever that was. “Apparently, he creates entire universes that are so small that they fit into the pocket.”

Oliver missed the kind of crimes he had to face in Starling City already. He had had his own experience with parallel universes and such things by now. He still felt like things were getting crazier with each time that he went to Central City for whatever reason.

“So the Time Trapper is able to create whole universes?”

“It seems so, yes.”

So they were faced with someone with unbelievable powers, Oliver thought to himself. That wouldn’t be easy.

“What problem exactly does Central City and Barry’s team have with him?”

“He uses his powers to let people disappear. He traps them into a pocket universe and they are just gone. That way some high-ranking politicians have disappeared already. When they come back – if they come back at all – they are completely confused and at the verge of going insane.”

That reminded Oliver of the many people that had used the powers of Vertigo to drive people into insanity. They used the hopes and dreams or the worst fears of people, brought them into what seemed like reality and left the people confused and out of their minds at the end. Those people needed to be stopped.

“Are there any hints on where he is now?”

“Some other earth. Don’t ask me which one. I still have to wrap my head around the fact that there is more than one earth.”

Oliver nodded his head. Tommy wasn’t alone with that.

→ → → → →

Oliver had found that the places they had on their earth existed on others earths too multiple times already, but it astonished him again each time. Just a moment ago, they had been standing in one of the laboratories at S.T.A.R. Labs, the next they had stepped through a portal and an almost exact replica of it. The only difference was that this place wasn’t as neatly set up. Indeed, it rather looked like there had been a fight here.

“We should check if anyone’s here,” Oliver said with lowered voice and lifted his bow, “just to make sure.”

He, Barry and Tommy spread into different directions. While Tommy took a closer look at the northern side of the room, Oliver checked the southern side. With a flash of light, Barry was gone to probably check the rest of the building as well as the closer environment.

Focusing on his part of the lab, Oliver took in everything he could. Scattered glass was under his boots. The smell of chemicals was in the air. Furniture had been overthrown and scientific devices had been tossed to the floor and broken. There had been a physical fight here.

Oliver knew he wasn’t alone before he saw or heard anything. He could just sense it in the way his heckles rose. He had time to tighten his hold on his bow and turn around before the attack came. A drone stopped just a few inches in front of his face. If Oliver hadn’t ducked away soon enough, the small explosion that came from it would have probably taken his face or at least burned the stubble that Felicity liked so much from his cheeks and chin.

When Oliver straightened back up and lifted his gaze, he saw a slim figure in a leather coat hurry down a hallway. He made two quick steps, already pulling the right arrow out of his quiver. When the cords spread and were about to wrap around his target’s legs, the person jumped aside and disappeared into a different hallway.

Oliver lost no time and followed after her. Tommy, who had been alerted by the explosion, was close behind him. Running through a doorway, Oliver saw a movement in the corner of his eye. He turned around just in time for the masked person to come right at him.

She was good, Oliver realized within seconds. From her build and the outlines of her face, Oliver could tell that he was fighting against a woman. Besides, the purple color of her leather coat gave her away.

Although she was good, the fight didn’t last long. Soon enough Oliver realized that she seemed to be able to predict his next movement before he had decided on it. Knowing that he wouldn’t be able to surprise her and take her down by using his favored moves. He needed to outsmart her and outsmart himself.

When she lunged at him the next time, instead of blocking the hit with his forearm, Oliver ducked down under her arm. It obviously surprised him that he avoided the hit rather than blocking it. She almost lost her balance, and Oliver used that brief moment that she needed to recover to flip her off the floor and pin her down. With a quick movement, he pulled her hood down, revealing dark brown hair, and tossed her mask aside.

Oliver had been so deep into his fighting mode that he had temporarily ignored everything else he knew. His entire body and mind had needed to be focused on the fight at hand. There had been no room for distractions. That was different now that he had pinned her down and was able to take his time and look at her closely.

The blues eyes looking back at him showed the same surprise that Oliver was feeling. He hurried to push himself off the floor and away from her. She got up from the floor, straightened back up and just stared back at Oliver without saying a word.

“I have heard that this whole doppelgänger thing is crazy, but I didn’t know how crazy exactly it was.”

Tommy hadn’t had that much experience with doppelgänger’s yet, so the sight of this version of Felicity standing there visibly stunned him.

“What earth are you from?”

Although this version of Felicity undeniably spoke with the same voice as his Felicity, she used her voice differently. The usual warmth was missing from it. She sounded cool and calculated.

“Earth One.”

Felicity perked up her eyebrows and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “The original earth as some might call it. Impressive.”

Something in the tone of her voice proved that she didn’t think of it being that impressive.

“What are you doing here?” Oliver asked, knowing it was best to blend out the similarities there were to his wife and just focusing on his task here instead. “Were you involved in the fight hat happened here.”

“I was.” Felicity shrugged her shoulders. “And I guess I am doing the same thing you are doing. I am looking for the Time Trapper.”

A flash of light and a gust of wind appeared. Neither Tommy and Oliver, nor Felicity even batted an eye.

“Everything’s safe,” Barry explained and eyes Felicity, “well, maybe except for her.”

“There is no danger coming from me.”

Barry shot Oliver a brief look in a silent way of asking for his opinion. He was the one who knew Felicity the best and could possibly tell whether this Felicity was saying the truth or lying to them.

“We should team up,” Oliver suggested, deciding to trust her for now, “to increase our chances at catching him. Are you okay with that?”

Felicity looked Oliver up and down thoroughly. She puckered her lips for a moment before she shrugged a shoulder.

“Since teaming up probably is our best chance, why not?” She looked from Oliver to Barry to Tommy and back at Oliver. “He’s probably at the abandoned elephant house of the old zoo. He likes that place. He has been there a couple of times before.”

“Are you sure?” Tommy asked. “If he thinks that someone knows about the place, he might find some new place.”

“He can create whole universes,” Felicity reminded him, “so I guess he feels like a god. Gods don’t care if someone knows where they are.”

“She’s right,” Oliver agreed, “so we will get him out of the building and with that out of his comfort zone. Felicity and I will chase him in Southern direction. Tommy, Barry, you get in position at the river pier in Chubbuck, so he will run right into your arms.”

It wasn’t a really concrete plan, but it would be enough to manage, Oliver guessed. Operating in parallel worlds with metahumans was not his usual business, but he knew that you needed to be prepared for everything. Making plans didn’t help you when everything could happen.

While Barry disappeared in a second, Tommy shook his head and followed in human speed. He hadn’t reached the door yet when another flash of light appeared and he was gone. Barry had probably remembered that it would be smarter to give Tommy a ride or whatever to call it.

Oliver and Felicity made their way towards the old zoo through the shadows of the Central City. The city was a lot darker than Oliver was used to. It almost reminded him of the Glades as they had been years ago. Suspicious shapes moved through the darkness. Felicity didn’t pay notice to any of it. She seemed to be used to this.

Neither of them spoke a word while they were walking through the shadows. Oliver tried to keep his eyes on his surroundings, just in case someone would attack them. Nobody seemed to care about seeing vigilantes though. They avoided looking at them, staring at the ground the moment Oliver looked at them. Just some rare creatures were staring at them unashamedly. They looked lost though, probably so filled with drugged that they didn’t even know what they were seeing.

Unable to keep his eyes on all this hopelessness around him, Oliver caught himself watching Felicity again and again. She seemed entirely focused on their task. Although she was calm and unagitated, her face looked tense.

A part of Oliver wanted to know more about her. She wasn’t his Felicity, but he felt some kind of connection to her anyway. How could he not? She looked like his Felicity. She sounded like his Felicity. She shared the same DNA.

He knew that getting to know about her story would make him feel for her though. He’d carry that thought with him. He had experienced it when he had learned that there was a version of Felicity that was caught in a world where the Nazis had won. He had experienced when he had learned there was a version of Felicity that had been killed while being pregnant. He would experience it again now, and he wasn’t sure if he could take it.

Before he could make up his mind, Felicity stopped and turned around to him though. Her eyes were narrowed down on him.

“What?” she asked with strident voice. “We have a job to do here, but it’s hard to focus on that with you looking at me like that all the time, so what is it?”

Oliver felt the right corner of his lip tug into a smile, but he managed to get a hold on himself before it could show on his lips. He was sure that Felicity wouldn’t like him to smile in a situation like that. He didn’t even know why he was about to smile, and he guessed that would only anger Felicity all the more.

“Felicity on Earth One and I are married. It’s… interesting… to see other earth’s version of her and-“

“I am not some version of someone else. I am my own person.”

“Of course,” Oliver whispered, indeed feeling sorry for what he had said, “I’m sorry.”

He wondered if people on other earths felt that way often. Hearing that there was an Earth One indeed made it sound like the other earths were just some kind of cheap copy. It had to be a terrible feeling to live thinking that you weren’t your own person.

“I guess your Felicity does not mask up and get out in the field?”

“Not when I can avoid it.” Oliver shook his head. “She likes to be safe behind her computers although she does go into the field if she feels like she has to. I can’t say that I like it.”

Felicity snorted. “Yeah, didn’t think you would. Oliver here never liked it either.”

Something in her voice told Oliver there was more to the story. He wanted to ask, but he wasn’t sure if this was the right time or place. Besides, he had only known Felicity for a couple of minutes. Maybe she didn’t want to share such things with him. Since she didn’t continue, Oliver guessed that she didn’t want to tell him more. That had to be okay. It was her decision.

They continued their way in silence that was only broken when they arrived at the abandoned zoo area. Oliver had never been here, not even on his own earth. The are was eerie. Not a single soul was visible. The only movement came from some rats and mice that was skittering around.

“The elephant house is the one back there. You can only see the tip of the roof,” Felicity explained and gestured towards a metal trunk that could be seen behind some treetops, “over there. We should get into the tropics towers and get into the elephant house from there.”

Oliver nodded his head. This was her realm, so he should leave those decisions to her. She knew what she was doing. Or at least Oliver hoped so.

While they were crossing the distance to the tropics tower, they kept their eyes open for some sign of the Time Trapper. The zoo appeared to be empty though. It was almost suspiciously empty really because a deserted place like this usually attracted a lot of criminals.

“Why is nobody here?” Oliver asked with whispered voice the moment that the door to the tropes house closed behind them. “This place is the perfect place for criminals.”

“It was until the Time Trapper took over,” Felicity explained, already taking the stairs to the top of the tower, “and since everyone is scared of him, nobody comes near this place.”

That made sense, and it added to the picture of an almighty villain they had to take down here. Oliver didn’t like that thought. Metahumans were already out of his comfort zone. Almighty villains were even beyond that.

They took up position at the topmost floor of the tower. They made sure to stay out of the bit of moonlight that came into the darkness, but they leaned against the wall close to the window, so they had a perfect view on the elephant house that seemed to be empty.

Without a word of explanation, Oliver pulled an arrow from his quiver and already aimed to shoot it right through one of the open windows of the elephant house. Before he could release the arrow, Felicity gestured for him to stop though.

“We will use one of my drones,” she told him, pulling one out of the pocket of her coat, “because that way he won’t know that I haven’t come alone tonight. He would get suspicious if he notices the arrow.”

Oliver watched her throw the drone out of the window. It sunk quickly almost like it was falling and only caught itself when it was like two feet over the ground. It jumped up mid-air like a superball and flew right through the open window of the elephant house. On a small display at the sleeve of her glove, Felicity watched the pictures that she got of the inside of the abandoned building.

“He’s down there,” Felicity told him, gesturing to a window that was covered with wooden boards, “and just walking up and down. I guess he knows that he’s being watched.”

“We should go in and-“

“Not yet.” Felicity moved the drone back, let it land in her open hand and stuffed it back into the pocket of her coat. “We let him make the first move. That way we are maybe a little bit more prepared for what he wants to do than we will be if we just head in there.”

This wasn’t how Oliver usually acted, but, again, he decided to just trust Felicity’s judgement on this. He knew that if it was any other doppelgänger, he wouldn’t be convinced to just trust them with the decision-making. He was so used to listen to what Felicity suggested that he couldn’t turn it off easily though, even knowing that she wasn’t his Felicity.

He kept his eyes on the boarded-up window, but he watched Felicity from the corner of his eye. She seemed to observe the movements in the elephant house too, but he noticed that she was distracted. The expression on her face told him so because it was the same that he had seen on Felicity’s face thousands of times before when her head hadn’t been where it should be.

Whatever was bothering her, Oliver wished that he could help her. Meeting doppelgängers was just terribly confusing.

Oliver had trouble not to ask her about what was on her mind, even more than before now. He really wanted to ask.

Instead, he bit the inside of her cheek and just continued watching her. She was playing with something in the pocket of her coat. It took a moment for him to notice, but he did eventually.

“He tried to trap me once,” Felicity said all of a sudden, still not looking at him, “but I managed to flee. When I did, I took my pocket universe with me.”

She pulled a little device out of the pocket of her coat. It almost looked like a button battery. That must have been what she had been playing with.

It was ridiculous that an entire universe was supposed to fit into that thing. Or maybe it was just the gate to it. Either way, it was just the Central City-kind of crazy.

Stealing that thing and keeping it with oneself was another kind of crazy, Oliver guessed. It had to be so hard to carry this universe with you and know that living there was your dream come true, but not go there. Oliver knew that people in Starling City had trouble with staying away from Vertigo sometimes. The versions that bring you to your perfect worlds made addictive, not physically but emotionally. You grew addicted to living in this dream world of yours.

“Do you know what it looks like?” Oliver asked, cocking his head. “Your pocket universe?”

Felicity’s jaws tightened as she sucked in a deep breath. Her eyes stayed down on the window, but her eyelids fluttered like she was blinking away tears. Her bottom lip trembled slightly, but she bit down on it to hide it.

“Everyone’s alive there. Digg and Lyla, Roy, Thea, Laurel,… Oliver.” Her voice broke slightly when she said that last name, and tears welled in her eyes now. “They were all killed by Damian Darhk here. That is why I had to mask up. I was the only one left.”

Oliver wished that she hadn’t told him about it. All night, he had wondered what had happened to her and what had happened to her that had made her take on a mask. Now that he knew, he wished he didn’t. It wasn’t his life. He didn’t have any reason to be sad, but like he had said before, meeting doppelgängers was a crazy thing.

“They are alive there,” Felicity repeated in a whisper, “and I could be with them.”

There was something in her voice, a desire, that made goosebumps spread all over Oliver’s back. She wanted to go back there. Carrying that little device with her made her dance on the edge between this life and the life that she could have. Every day she was considering whether she should take that step into the other world. Every day she made that decision again. So far, she had always decided against it.

“It’s not real,” Oliver reminded her, “it’s more than a hallucination, but it is something that is made up. This universe was created to give you what you want.”

“So?” Felicity frowned, looking at him. “Every universe was made up in some way. Someone or something – some God, some power, some anything – created this universe. The Time Trapper created this universe. So-“

Felicity’s drone suddenly started beeping, interrupting her. She took a glance of her display on the sleeve of her glove and frowned.

“He just took the East Exit that we can’t see from here. We need to get to him now.”

Without waiting for his answer, Felicity jumped out of the window. Oliver held his breath, watching her letting two of her spherical drones drop. They placed themselves under her feet and allowed her to land on the ground safely.

Oliver followed her quickly, using one of his zipline arrows to get to ground. They both ran into the direction that Felicity’s drone told them to run. They could see the Time Trapper in the distance. He was running further into Eastern direction, but that was not where they wanted him. They needed to change his course to send him right into Barry and Tommy’s direction.

Without interrupting his run, Oliver grabbed one of the exploding arrows and aimed it right into the Time Trappers path. A small explosion occurred just two feet ahead of him. Instead of just turning into a different direction, the Time Trapper stopped for a moment. When he turned, he turned around to Oliver and Felicity slowly. Some shrubbery that had caught fire spend enough light for Oliver to see the grin on the guy’s face.

He could just shoot him right here, Oliver thought. It would put an end to this, or at least Oliver hoped that it would do so. That was the problem. He hoped it would end this, but he couldn’t know. With metahumans, you never knew.

The Time Trapper pulled something out of his pocket and threw it in Oliver and Felicity’s direction. A loud flash of light blinded Oliver for a moment. He lifted his arm in front of his eyes to protect them.

When he dared to look again, a portal like the one that had taken him here had opened right in his and Felicity’s path. Oliver hurried to reach out his hand and pull Felicity back at her coat before she could run through the portal. They both came to a stop only a couple of feet before they would have stepped through the portal.

In the distance, he saw the Time Trapper continuing his run in Southern direction, right where they wanted him.

“He’s heading in your direction,” Oliver said into the comms, “but you could meet him halfway just in case.”

“Copy and/or roger whatever.”

Oliver shook his head, trying not to roll his eyes. He missed hearing Felicity over the comms already. She was-

“Looks like the Time Trapper made you a gift.”

Frowning, Oliver looked at Felicity’s face. She was looking at what was waiting behind the sill of the portal. Oliver followed her gaze. Only then he understood what exactly she meant. At the other side of the sill, his family was waiting for him. It wasn’t only Felicity and the kids though. They were accompanied by his parents. There were all sitting together in what looked like the living room of the mansion.

Just three steps, Oliver thought, and he could be there. He could live in a world where he had Felicity and the kids, but where he also had his parents. It would be a real world with real people, not something that his brain was making him believe. It was-

When the gate suddenly disappeared, Oliver was ripped out of his thoughts. Felicity had picked up the little device that had created the gate, the one that looked like a button battery. She was turning it in her hands before she held it out for him.

“We should destroy it,” Oliver suggested.

“That’s your decision,” Felicity replied, “since it’s yours.”

Oliver glanced at the device and found his name engraved in it. A Roman One was added under it, probably to make clear that it was for Earth One-Oliver Queen.

So that was it – the universe where he could have it all. He could be with Felicity, have his children and still get to spend time with his parents. They would be there when he got married. They would be there when their grandchildren were born. They would be there to watch them grow up.

All he had to do was reach out his hand and go there.

Taking a step back, Oliver shook his head. “Not interested.”

Felicity perked up her eyebrows. “You don’t even want to go there and try?”

Oliver shook his head. “No, because it might be real in some terms, but the people that are waiting there are not the people that I have grown to know. Those are not my parents. That is not my Felicity.”

“You don’t understand how this works.” Felicity shook her head. “The Time Trapper basically used like a backup copy of your earth to create this. Everything will feel exactly the same. You will have made the same memories with Felicity as you did. You could even take your Felicity there, and safety-copy-Felicity would be deleted. They can’t come to our world, but we can go to theirs. It’s-“

“We got him,” Barry told them over the comms, “neatly wrapped up like a gift that we will bring to A.R.G.U.S., so Lyla can do whatever she wants to do with him.”

Oliver guessed he shouldn’t be surprised that A.R.G.U.S. was interested in adding someone like the Time Trapper to their prisoners. He wasn’t sure how smart it was to keep him captivated instead of taking him out for real, but he was glad that he didn’t have to make the decision.

“Alright. We will meet you at S.T.A.R. Labs, and then we can go back.”

“I could just pick you up and-“

“I’m coming.”

The tone of Oliver’s voice seemed to be determined enough for Barry to know that he wouldn’t be able to make up Oliver’s mind. The line stayed silent.

“Here.” Felicity stepped forward, put the gate into Oliver’s hand and closed his fist around it. “It’s your decision what to do with it. I have made mine, and I will finally follow it now. I could use your help with that though.”

Oliver frowned. “How?”

“I want you to destroy the gate once I am on the other side.”

“Because you are scared that you will change your mind and want to come back when you know that there is an exit?”

Felicity smiled softly. “No, there is no way that I will ever go back. But if this falls into the wrong hands, who knows who will come after us in that world. I want to make sure there will be no collisions with other universes, no villains to come over and just have that be my life. So please.”

Oliver hesitated. He still wasn’t entirely sure if disappearing into a pocket universe was really something that she should do. It felt like she was killing herself. After all, she was leaving this world to go to what she thought was a better place. It felt an awful lot like committing suicide, didn’t it?

But Oliver guessed it was her decision. If she believed that the world that was waiting for her was real – and he knew that going there wouldn’t kill her since she had been there and come back from it – then he needed to let her go. Destroying the device offered her some safety, so it was the least he could do for her.

“I promise.”

Felicity smiled with relief. “Thank you.”

She opened the gate and Oliver dared to take a look at what was waiting for her behind the sill of it. He saw himself, leaning against the kitchen counter of what looked like a cozy suburban house while he was cooking.

Oliver turned his eyes to look at Felicity, whose smile was now longing. Tears were glistening in her eyes when she took the first step.

“Hey.”

She stopped and turned her head to look at him. “I need to go.”

“I know.” Oliver cleared his throat. “I know and I don’t want to hold you back. I was just wondering… does he know what kind of universe he is in?”

Oliver nodded towards the Oliver behind the sill of gate. If the world was indeed real, he guessed it wouldn’t just stop while one person was gone.

“That earth started turning the moment I went there the first time,” Felicity explained, “and it hasn’t stopped since. When I was there the first time, I told him about it, and I told him that I would be back with him. I just had to get a few things done, and I would be back with him.”

Nodding his head closely, Oliver swallowed against the lump in his throat. “I guess he’s waiting for you then.”

Felicity smiled. “I am sure he does, just like I have been waiting to go home to him.”

With that, she crossed the sill and disappeared in that universe. Oliver could see her standing in that kitchen, still wearing her suit and her mask. The Oliver that had been waiting for her froze for a moment before he crossed the distance towards her with three large steps, wrapped his arms around her tightly and kissed her.

It was fascinating watching them like that. Oliver could see how much they loved each other, and he instinctively wondered if people could see it when they watched him and Felicity too. He guessed they did if they weren’t blind.

Taking in a deep breath, he pulled another explosive arrow from his quiver and aimed it at the little device that was resting in the grass barely three feet in front of him.

“It was what she wanted,” he told himself, “and you promised it.”

With that, he let go of the arrow. The explosion was small, but it was sufficient for the device to be completely destroyed. All that was left of it was little bit of ashes.

Felicity had wanted to be there, and she had deserved the right to choose so, Oliver guessed. He knew that if he had lost everyone, he would definitely escape into a universe where they were all alive too. Just with how it was, he thought that he owed it to the living to stay with them. He didn’t want to be anywhere else but with them.

Oliver pushed the device Felicity had given him, his gate to his own pocket universe, into the pocket of his suit jacket and turned around. It was time to leave this earth behind and go back to his own.

Just like someone had been waiting for Felicity, he knew people were waiting for him to return to them too.

* * *

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