Int. bedroom, afternoon. White overhead lights illuminate a red room. Falling rain is heard and seen through the open curtains of a window.
RED sits on a loveseat with a wireless keyboard and mouse, browsing the internet on the large television opposite him.
 
    [RED]
Fucking Christ.
    (sighs)
No one's online. The only movies hitting streaming services are fucking holiday shit. YouTube –
    (snorts, shakes head)
YouTube hasn't successfully suggested a video I wanted to watch in at least a week.
    (looks outside)
And this weather's like a fucking prison sentence.
 
RED takes a deep breath. He stares blankly at the wall for several moments until, eventually, his right hand moves back to the wireless mouse.

Yeah, welcome to my November 24th.

I am RED.

(This is a repost of something I originally wrote for the Fediverse. original)

Running a new Fediverse instance is pretty wild, right? You own a social media site! You own it! You can invite your friends away from poorly-run corporate sites and try to give them an experience that's warmer, that's more fun, that isn't clogged with ads. It can be a pretty excellent feeling – and I know! I ran an instance for five years, and I loved so much about it.

There were parts I didn't love. Let's – [shakes head] let's talk about them for a second, because they're coming. There's always something out there, ready to pop a tire on the shiny new car you and your friends are packed inside, and I – we – want you to know how to fix a flat. We all benefit when you're aware of these things and know how to handle them.

Oh, I'm probably gonna swear. Fortify y'self. 🤷

I check out the news every other day or so. It's good to know what's happening.

Welp, lately it's been failing businesses; non-US nations paying a bunch of money to influence US government, so they can continue being our friends while being utter shits to their own people and neighboring nations; destruction as infrastructure crumbles and extreme weather systems continue getting worse.

Ever played Chrononauts? It's a card game where one uses their cards to change Linchpin events on a timeline, making a few events after just not happen (Paradox). Players then attempt to Patch the Paradoxes with alternate versions of events (or flip the Linchpins back to save the "original" timeline.)