I had a random thought this morning, and I think it would make an excellent writing prompt, so, here you go.
Traditionally, in stories where people can foretell the future, or there are prophecies, it’s either impossible to change the future or next-to-impossible. After all, this results in some excellent fate-vs.-free-will themes, and those are wonderful to explore. It can also make for some very tragic, or wonderfully uplifting, stories.
But what if it didn’t work that way? What if it was really easy to change the foretold future? I mean sure, you still have to work out how the prophecy applies, track down the relevant details, and then work to change them. But once you do, ta-da! The future is changed. No problem.
The real problem is, it’s nearly impossible to determine what you’re changing the future into. It’s like a super-sensitive spinner with a thousand results. You set it spinning and odds are it’ll just spin right past the result you want, no matter how small a shove you give it. So you have to plan and plot and tweak and adjust and you STILL might screw it up.
I think it would make for some fantastic shenanigans!
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