To be fair, that's a lot of angst directed at the author over an assumption you made in the beginning.
Well, yes and no. It was rather a rant over an assumption, but not one I "made in the beginning" - it was one that I arrived at while listening to the bulk of the story. So more of a deduction than an assumption.
Conversely, as soon as there was talk about the beanbags scattering, I assumed there were many possibilities and that choice dictated which one came to fruition. Sure, it was never said that there was an option where Scott turned his head when Tony walked by, therefore Tony never saw him, therefore none of the rest followed; but then, given what we know about Scott's sixth sense, would we assume he would see ghosts of things that couldn't happen because they were killed in their inception?
Yes, we would. Because what we know of his sixth sense is precisely that he does see ghosts of things that can only happen if he acts a certain way, which is what your "turning his head" thing is. And so I spent the whole story looking for the reveal of why Tony completely breaks the established rule, and all I got was "oh well, it's kinda because of love, and it's like some sort of fate, and... well ya know?"
You know what this reminded me of? The movie "Next" with Nicolas Cage, where (spoiler) at the end you find out the ENTIRE movie is a vision of one possible future if he goes left or something. Thanks very much, I want my hour and a half back.
Not seen that but it sounds ghastly. It does remind me, though, of an episode of 'Space 1999' (for the perhaps half a dozen people here that have heard of that!) in which some aliens attack Moonbase Alpha, the battle is horribly one-sided, and all the humans die... then it gets revealed that this was all just a warning the aliens implanted in Koenig's mind to persuade him not to act in a certain way.