Patron Spotlight: Mouse Taylor!

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For this month’s Patron feature, I’m excited to introduce you to Mouse! This YouTuber and Twitch streamer lives near London and has been making videos and streaming for many years. These days, she streams five times a week, mostly playing character- and story-based games. One of her ongoing YouTube projects is a series of reviews of every book in the Discworld series — that’s 41 books, for those following along at home, which makes the fact that she’s three quarters of the way through particularly impressive.

When I asked what got Mouse interested in the world of geekery, she pinpoints Buffy the Vampire Slayer as square one. “I started watching in season five, and it's the first time I remember somewhat defining myself by a thing that I liked,” she said. But while Buffy opened the floodgates, many other series have captured her attention in the years since. She gives me a list: “Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Discworld, Peaky Blinders, Merlin, Critical Role, Chihayafuru, Haikyuu!!, K-pop… oh dear.”

“I make mainly vlogs, craft videos, and reviews at the moment,” she explained when I asked her about her wide variety of creative outlets. “I’ve always had lots of interests and have struggled to balance my time between them.” Thankfully, she says that YouTube and Twitch have helped her focus her creative work by combining her interests. “For the last year or so, I’ve been able to support myself partly through my creative pursuits, with a part-time job on the side,” she said. Streaming at the same time every week and releasing YouTube videos on a schedule has given her a routine, something that she recognizes can be difficult to maintain when working in a creative field.

Mouse first got interested in vlogging after discovering the Vlogbrothers through their series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. “When I first started YouTube, I tried to emulate what other people were doing,” she explains, “but over time I’ve grown into my channel and I feel like I’m much more myself.” She even says it’s difficult to watch some of her earlier work. These days, while of course she wants to grow her channel, she says her top priority is making the content she wants to make and wants to see — not just making what’s trendy.

As for streaming, Mouse uses it to play through games that capture her imagination with exceptional storytelling and character building. “My favourites so far are Horizon Zero Dawn and Detroit: Become Human,” she says. “They’re both beautiful games to play, in entirely different ways.” In the coming weeks, she’s excited to start playing The Last of Us Part II on her Thursday Twitch streams.

When Mouse isn’t making videos or streaming, she also enjoys dabbling in cosplay. Her first cosplay that she made by herself was Rey from The Force Awakens. “It’s always going to be one of my favourites because I was so proud of being able to do it,” she said. As for more recent favorites, she loves cosplaying Jester from Critical Role. She made Jester’s original design for the cast’s first European appearance at MCM London in 2018, and has since also created a Goth Jester variation for Halloween. “I’m hoping to do my first proper photoshoot soon, as at the moment all I have are convention photos,” she says. “I can’t wait to go back to MCM as Jester in the future!”

If you want to follow along with Mouse’s myriad of creative projects, make sure to follow her on YouTube and Twitch!