For as long as I can remember, I've considered video games like something infinitely bigger than just a way to pass time and entertain people. To me, they seemed to mean way more. All these fictional worlds showing up on screen, each with their own stories and adventures...They felt incredibly real. It was like there were all these little universes parallel to ours, with lives of their own, and I was somehow lucky enough to be able to interact with them with the simple press of a button! It fascinated me, right from the start.

I was first introduced to video games when my dad got me a Gamecube for Christmas. I was about nine. As the young child I was, I was fiercely convinced that when I closed the console, life in my games' universes kept going on, only waiting for me to resume the story next time I would play. Of course, as years passed, I matured and grew out of that silly idea. But somewhere, deep inside of my heart, a little doubt remained. I had this feeling that there had to be more to it. All those games I loved, all these adventures I had experienced because of them, they couldn't be just codes and animation on a cd or in a cartridge... There had to be something more. And that idea was what made me love video games so much, to a point where they became not only the my biggest passion, but also, the center point of my life and ambitions.

My real passion, though, first took off when my big sister got me a brand new gaming PC for my birthday, and introduced me to a new game I would end up adoring: Minecraft. I had always like sandbox games that allowed you to build and do whatever you want to, so I immediately loved the game. In a few weeks, I became completely addicted. When I wasn't spending my whole day playing for hours in a row, I was watching Youtubers play. I had a few series I followed very closely, and a few youtubers I really liked. One of them was CaptainSparklez. His real name was Jordan Maron. I loved his videos, but what really got me addicted to his channel was a particular series he joined that was called Mianite.

Mianite was a series of livestreams taking place every day, on a private server created by two other awesome youtubers I watched a lot: xXJerichoX, a guy from Los Angeles named Tucker who usually mostly played FPS games, and his friend SynHD, who was a british cutie named Tom. They had founded the server to have fun, play with their friends, and mostly, prank each other. But there was also a little bit of story in the series. Basically, they had started off with two clans, ruled by two gods: Mianite, the good god who ruled the overworld, and the evil Dianite, who ruled over the Nether. Tom and Tucker had both chosen their side: Tucker had chose to worship Mianite, while Tom had chosen the path of evil. Then, Tucker's girlfriend,Sonya, had joined team Mianite. Finally, Jordan had joined. Not wanting to choose a side, he had decided to create a new team, thus bringing to the server a third divinity: Ianite, the neutral goddess of the end. The team's goals were to please their god, mess with the other teams and have a good time! It was super fun to watch. Each of them streamed and then turned the streams to videos on their youtube channel. I personnally followed the series on Jordan's channel.

Watching Mianite led me to try and make my own Minecraft videos. I was good in front of a camera, I could be funny, and I loved to play, so I told myself: Why not? I was about 20 when I posted my first video on Youtube. It was pretty lame, a simple showcase of a castle I had build, recorded with a bad software, a shitty mic and a terrible camera. I was pretty sure it would get completely ignored. But, against everything I could have expected, it got pretty popular! So I kept posting more and more videos, and my subscriber count started rising at an incredible speed. My videos' popularity skyrocketed, and I quickly made a name for myself. My channel name, StrawberryPanda, slowly but surely started to be known in the Minecraft Youtube community. Barely a year after my first video came out, I reached a count of ten thousand people subscribed to my channel. Around the same time, I was invited to speak about Minecraft with a few of my colleagues at a small Youtube convention in Toronto. I was from Montreal, and so to be invited to a convention so far from my hometown was INCREDIBLE! I mean, I was still in the same country, but it still was a two-hours flight to get there. It was insane.

To make this all even better, I wasn't the only girl from Canada who had been invited to talk on the pannel about Minecraft... It just so happened that Sonya, being from Canada like me, had been invited too, and she was bringing Tucker with her to talk about Mianite. I learned that fact barely an hour after I had landed in Toronto, and I completely freaked out. I was gonna meet two of my biggest inspirations, after all! I was incredibly excited but also very nervous. I didn't know how they would react to me, if they would know my channel at all. I didn't expect them to, I was still a pretty small channel. I was happily surprised! When I got backstage for the pannell, Sonya immediately recognised me. Not only did she knew my channel, but she had watched my videos with Tucker! I was overjoyed. After the panel, we talked a lot. I told em how much I loved Mianite, and how I had been inspired by them to start doing videos. They were super sweet. We spent a lot of time together, and found out that we actually had a lot in common. I enjoyed the rest of the convention in their company. We got along so well, that when the day ended, we all exchanged our Skypes and promised to stay in touch.

It only took us two weeks to become complete best friends. Me and Sonya would talk for hours, and I would spend whole days playing FPS games with Tucker. I didn't like them quite as much as I loved Minecraft, but it was quite fun. After those two weeks, Sonya decided it was time that she actually introduced me to the whole crew of Mianite. I had been telling her all about what I thought about each stream, giving her my advice and going completely crazy at each episode. I got especially excited when they introduced the wizards. They were builders from a channel called FyreUk, but on of them had caught my eye: A british guy that went by the minecraft name of Waglington. His actual name was James, and he quickly became a main character along with Sonya and the others... Mostly because I kept asking Sonya to talk to him more. So, she decided it was time I met him, along with the rest of the crew! She planned a group called, and introduced me as: "The cutest French Canadian you'll have ever seen". Each of their reaction to me surprised me. Tom was immediately flirting, which made me laugh a lot. I had watched mostly his vlogs and found him absolutely adorable. He had a bubbly, impulsive personnality that matched mine a lot. I got really star-struck when Jordan joined the call, almost crying. He was so calm and chill though, that I immediately got embarassed for acting so childishly. He was such a nice guy, and we quickly became good friends. But the one I got along the best with was definitely James. He had seen my castle video, and joined the call by immediately giving me building advice to make it better. A two hours-long argument about roof styles ensued, and a week after, we were best buds.

I got very, very close to the Mianite crew, especially James and Jordan. We were an inseparable trio! It also showed on my channel: I started making collabs with everyone. I played "Never have I ever" with Sonya, played the Survival Games with Jordan, made FPS videos with Tucker, played CSGO Lotto with Tom and challenged James' building skills in a few building battles. In addition to being very fun to film, these videos with my new friends gave me a new visibility. After all, I was playing with famous Youtubers who had millions of subscribers now! It greatly helped my channel. My subscriber count completely exploded, so much that barely six months after my convention appearance, I was hitting 500 thousand subscribers. And another six months after that, I was offered a booth at Vidcon. Tom was also gonna be there with his clothing line, and the whole Mianite crew had been invited to stream Mianite live on stage.

It was the perfect occasion to all meet! So, in our common excitement, we came up with a plan to spend the most time together. A week before the convention, I flew to Los Angeles and met Jordan at the airport. He was a lot smaller than I had expected! I stayed a whole week with him in his newly bought condo. It was the craziest week ever. We ate weird food for videos, played weird minecraft maps together, I even ended up having my blonde hair dyed a hot pink after a charity stream! Obviously, I was sitting right next to him on every Mianite stream, helping him notice all those things I used to scream at the screen when he missed them, and I was even allowed on the server for a stream! It was so cool. I ended up accidentally burning down Jordan's house (and blaming it on Tom). It was the best week ever. We were so present on each other's channel than for a moment, the fans thought we were dating, and the hashtag #SparklyPanda was born, which then became our official team name on every Survival Games video.

Once that wonderful week was over, we left the comfort of Jordan's condo and met up with the Mianite crew in Tucker's house. On the two first days, we all went crazy on partying. James wasn't there though, and I was a bit disappointed since he had been the one I had been the most eager to meet in person. All of my friends were insisting on telling me that he couldn't be there, to a point where I found it annoying. But on the third day, I was woken up by a knock on the door, and, surprise, James was standing behind it, with the biggest smile ever. I jumped in his arms when I saw him! I had never been so happy. On the next three days leading to the convention week-end, we did everything together, all six of us. We partied together, we got completely drunk together, we passed out together, and every day, I woke everyone up with bacon and pancakes. (Except the third day. Tom had eaten all the pancakes while we were passed out.) Then the convention came. I was allowed to finally meet my audience, sign some autographs, and get a taste of what the youtuber life was like. Until that moment, all that had been a hobby,something that I loved to do. But on that first day, in my booth, I realised that was what I wanted to do with my whole life. And just to add to that, on their live on stage stream, Tucker and Sonya brought me on stage, and James and Jordan asked me something that changed my life: To join them for Mianite season two.

Barely a month later, I was quitting my little miserable day job in a Walmart to become a full-time, dedicated Youtuber. The new season of Mianite was starting up soon, and I had made my choice. I didn't wanna miss any single stream. I didn't care if I was making a silly decision, I had found my passion: Minecraft, and Mianite. The season started, and I made another big decision: I was too far away from my best friends. So I packed up, said goodbye to my mom's basement where I was living, and got myself an appartment in L.A. I was ready to start a new life in the city. I was finally making my dream of playing video games for a living come true!

So here we are. It all comes back to this: I'vealways considered video games as something far bigger than, well, games. And Iwas right. At first, they were my passion. Then, they were my dreams andambitions. Then they became my job, and the center point of my life. But never,in my whole life, could I have imagine that the world on one of those videogames would become my world. That their fiction...would become my reality.