Jack hasn't come into the café in a few months, trying to avoid run-ins with— a certain person— but he chances it. New year, might as well take a risk instead of staying away out of fear.
He listens to the topic and puts up his hands. "Ohhh no, no no. I'm not telling. Especially if I was in the right universe and knew what was coming up, no. Spoilers. I'm not telling you anything that's coming up, assuming I do know anything. See, if I knew something and told you, you'd be influenced by it. It could change the timeline. A National Lottery number, for instance, that isn't harmless. Someone wins the lottery who wasn't supposed to win it, and I don't mean that in any kind of fate sense, don't believe in fate myself— but as far as the timeline's concerned, they hadn't won it. It gets changed. Maybe they go on to do things they never were going to do, or don't do the things they should have, and along comes a paradox. You get a paradox, paradox destabilises the timeline, and next thing we know, there's no more universe. Except we don't know it
because there's no more universe."Now, none of us is in our own universe, so what we might know about the future timelines in our own universes may or may not hold true here since— well, it's not our own universe. But we still should be very careful about revealing any definitive knowledge. And since predictions we make could be influenced by knowledge of future events... gotta be careful with those, too.
"So. That leaves some really out there, hopefully benign predictions. Let's see..." He shifts back more in his chair and ponders. "
Not the end of the world. I don't have any problem telling you that, because really, it's idiotic how people go standing around proclaiming the end is near. Not even close. If anything's coming up, though,
please let it be an end to this era's version of fake tanning. It looks ridiculous. Either get sun-damaged the old-fashioned way or go with your natural pigment level, but don't go
orange or look way darker than your skin's able to get. Some people just plain burn, no tanning, but then they go spraying brown stuff on them and it looks like what it is.
Fake. When someone comes up with the technology to pleasingly alter your skin tone,
then do it, but not yet. I'm not saying I don't think anyone should get any, shall we say, modifications. I thought about them myself before. Not any more, though."
Back when he was mortal and had to worry about aging, he'd wondered if he might get a little maintenance done. It wasn't something expensive or exotic or something to turn your nose at in that time, like it is in this century. Didn't really earn comments since it was widespread and didn't create unnatural looks like these hacking and injecting and implanting techniques.
"That's more wishful thinking than prediction. Go out like that Crazy Frog ringtone, please. Hmmm... I predict... Really amazing coffee will grow less niche. I don't mean
Starbucks coffee, I mean the fantastic organic brews that are prepared right without scalding, fair-trade produced, so awesome for everyone, workers and tastebuds. The coffee revolution will of course be spearheaded by King Ianto, long may he reign. And the food here at the Black Pot won't get any more edible if the cook remains in place. It'll continue to be the kind of thing you wouldn't feed a weevil." He raises his hands and waggles his fingers. "Oooo, diiiire waaaarnings. Gives you chills, doesn't it?"