F1nn5ter: A thousand streams later

Chapter 1

What would you say truly remains of the people we once were?

Memories reignite at the sight of those objects and things that lie around us, and which were once truly part of us, old witnesses and suggestions of a long lost past crystallized in our minds; dead until our thought steps into it, then sparks fire up, each memory gripping to another, and another again, image after image, a web of interconnected impressions, linked by emotions; we are the spider, supplied with never ending silk to continuously weave new memories.

The sparks that fired inside Jude's mind that day would have been enough to set his house on fire if they were to be real. A large white rectangular box, weighting enough for Jude to struggle a bit when picking it up from the dark closet it had been sitting in for years. The only visible mark the box had was a large sticker placed on its longer side, depicting a rose, but over time the original bright red of the flower and vivid green of the stem had faded, the colors had become cloudier and less impactful. Jude put the box down and observed it silently for some seconds, then proceeded to blow off the dust accumulated on top.

Finally, upon opening what felt like an ancient treasure, Jude fell into a sea storm of nostalgic memories: a rainbow of colors flashed into his eyes, stemming from the numerous clothes and wears that once constituted his wardrobe, or more precisely, Rose's wardrobe.

He hadn't forgotten, as if he could forget about one of the happiest times of his life: back then, many young guys tried their luck with the youtuber's career, driven by the hope of achieving success by doing something they loved, perhaps becoming like their idols, those famous before them. Jude started the same: with the nickname "F1nn5ter" for five years he brought forward a gaming youtube channel focused on the popular videogame Minecraft; someone used to call it the immortal game, but right now most people wouldn't even know its name, it faded away like everything else, time kept accelerating and many things have been left behind, Jude and those around his age knew this way too well.

At the time, Jude didn't hold a much high hope of becoming notably famous, but then, during the terrible year of the corona virus pandemic outburst, he had the intuition of starting a live streaming channel on the then-popular site called Twitch, the main platform for this kind of thing, but this wasn't going to be like any other channel: you see, when he was young, Jude possessed a certain beauty, one of feminine grace, he had the kind of body and appearance a Renaissance artist would have profusely paid to use as a model for oil paintings, because it conveyed a pure, simple, yet wonderful, beauty.

And, indeed, Jude got abundantly paid for the show he built upon his feminine alter-ego. He would dress himself as a girl, apply makeup, do nails, and everything else people expected from a woman, except he was a man, that was the catch that enthralled thousands, and thus the character of Rose was born, by which Jude made way more money than he could ever imagine; his followers were at times ecstatic, and surely he encountered his fair share of inappropriate interactions, however, even after all the times his fans had jokingly annoyed him with the famous egg joke, he still wouldn't have changed anything about that life.

Time passed, "Finn", as everyone on the internet got used to call him, continued to grow in popularity, alongside Rose and her "e-girl" live streams. In roughly one year of being Rose, Jude had already achieved so much, including moving in together with his good friend Meowriza, and unknown to him, so many more events would fill his life for the years to come. At last however, enough years had passed so that time had took its toll, and Jude's internet personalities, Finn and Rose, had faded away, still alive only in the memories of those who witnessed them, and most importantly, still alive in Jude's heart.