BM: “If you could change your fate, would you?” -Merida, Brave’s ad campaign

“To what? And, from what? I don’t know what my fate is. I’ll only know once it happens, at which point it’ll be history, not fate. How do you know what you’re changing from?

“Tell you what: I’m changing your fate.

“Just then, it changed. Did you feel it? Of course you can’t, because fate’s what happens, so it feels like everything else. What did I swap it to? You don’t know, because it’s the future. Unless you can see the future, you don’t know it’s changing.

“Maybe you were fated to get hit by a car tomorrow. Maybe now you’re fated to win the lottery instead. You can’t just say, ‘Oh my life is terrible, I’m going to sign an arcane pact to change my fate now.’ You want your present to change. You want your future to be better than you think it will be.

“Well, guess what? Everybody’s frickin' working for an easier tomorrow. That’s not changing fate. That’s getting a job. Shut up and do something.”