Screw Destiny/Playing With

Basic Trope: The heroes decide to go against fate to Earn Their Happy Ending

• Straight: The Big Bad appears and tells the heroes that it is the world's fate to be destroyed, but the heroes somehow manage to save it anyway.
• Exaggerated: The Big Bad tells the heroes in precise detail how the world will end, what cities will fall first, and so on... so the heroes defy him point for point.
• Justified: The Big Bad is a fatalist working off of false prophecies written by a conman.
• Inverted: The heroes are actively working to fulfill a positive prophecy of a Utopia. Bonus points if it's Because Destiny Says So.
• Subverted: The heroes save the world, but it turns out they were only delaying the inevitable.
  • Alternately, the heroes save the world, only to be told by the prophet who originally told them that the world was doomed that he actually foresaw that they would save the world, but only if they were told a false prophecy saying that they couldn't.
• Double Subverted: It might be inevitable the world will end, but they just went from it ending in a week, to ending a few 1000 years from now.
  • The true prophecy was actually a Self-Defeating Prophecy with holes the prophet saw and exploited.
  • The heroes screw destiny -- but it turns out that it was fate for them to do it! So the Villain, in a true act of Screw Destiny, screws destiny for real by going Beyond the Impossible and defeating the heroes after they thought they'd won. Take that, ya destiny!
• Parodied: A fortuneteller tells Bob he will die in ten minutes. Bob fights off some Ninja Pirate Zombie Robots, then returns eleven minutes later demanding his money back.
• Deconstructed: Destiny turns out to be an asshole and predicted that they would do this and planned ahead. They're still following destiny. Erm...
  • Destiny gets mad about being screwed and decides to screw the heroes back by coming after them or someone they care about.
  • The heroes save the world from the threat described in the prophecy, only to be told that, in the process, they let in an even worse threat, and now that we're playing without a rulebook, there's also no guarantee that the heroes will defeat this new threat.
  • The heroes take the future into their own hands, but the path that they choose ends up becoming a worse future than what would have happened, either due to many unforeseen consequences, not having the power or force of will to successfully make a happy ending for everyone involved, or just not having all of the relevant information beforehand.
• Reconstructed: That being said, Destiny wouldn't have had to rewrite itself in the first place if the heroes hadn't sent the ordained path off the rails. So yes, they didn't defeat it, but they did force it make concessions.
  • They avert the doom on their loved ones, too. Destiny gets the hint and backs off.
  • However, despite the temporary damage done by the Screw Destiny, the fact that it granted mankind free will once and for all proves to be worth it in the end.
• Zig Zagged: The character attempt to Screw Destiny, and it looks like they'll succeed, until they found out You Can't Fight Fate. So they take advantage of a Prophecy Twist instead, but it turns out there was no Prophecy Twist. Except then they notice minor details in the prophecy have already failed to show up, so the prophecies might not be entirely accurate, so they go back to Screw Destiny...
• Averted: Characters accept their destiny without attempting to alter it.
• Enforced: "We've got this ancient prophecy we've been building up to, but it would mean The End of the World as We Know It, and we've just been guaranteed another season. I think we're gonna have to make the prophecy lose."
• Lampshaded: "Does anyone even bother to follow destiny these days?"
• Invoked: "You're saying that its our destiny to be destroyed? Well screw that!"
• Defied: The prophecies don't just foretell The End of the World as We Know It, but have already predicted the attempts of mortals to Screw Destiny, and their inevitable failure.
• Discussed: "Only idiots believe in destiny. A real man ignores mad oracles and false prophets, and forges his own destiny."
• Conversed: "In the ancient Greek and Norse myths, destiny was seen as sealed and inevitable. These days, however, characters who actively defy destiny are generally preferred and seen as more heroic."