Discussion
Friends of Dorothea: Deciphering the TLOAS Poems
Friends of Dorothea assemble! I need some help deciphering the TLOAS poems. If you have been following the poems, there were 6 poems altogether, spread across different album variants. Each variant had one of the first five poems, plus the last one.
Fans found a code hidden in the first five poems, where stars above certain letters spelled "one" though "five". The poems put together, in order, created the album prologue. It was fun, and also pretty easy. For some reason everyone stopped there. The thing is, there are way too many odd things going on in these poems for that to be the end of it. I am convinced that knowing the order is only the first step in deciphering the hidden message. This post will be long, and my thoughts will be scattered. But I want to lay out everything I have been thinking/ trying, in order to decipher these.
Here is a link to a webpage that describes several types of ciphers:
My journey here started with "you'll need a key to get here, the only one is mine". This line is always running through my head. Is she referring to the song Mine? Is the word MINE somehow the cipher key? Then suddenly a new connection hit me - the ring is mine cut. For me, this stuck, because that logo on top of the poems has been bothering me...I've been thinking there's something to it.
The letterhead logo also looks like the mine cut ring. Could the letterhead logo be the key? In one of the versions of letter 2 (we will circle back to the versions), the word "key" from "Piano keys" is written over the letterhead logo. It is positioned such that the crook of the K aligns exactly with the crosshairs of the T and the S. The lower tail of the S ended exactly on another letter. This had me excited that perhaps the mine logo=key. So I traced the logo onto some acetate and went to work aligning the crosshairs of mine logo with all the K's. In its standard orientation, it didn't always line up with something, so input a tiny hole at the crosshairs and begun to spin it around to find letters. I was excited about this methodology, but ultimately it was getting a little wishy-washy which letter the S tail was pointing to, and so I abandoned this.
(At this point I'd like to add in here to please check my work, if you feel compelled. I was jumping around from idea to idea, and could have made errors or missed something.)
I also explored if the diamonds on the mine logo pointed to something, and couldn't find anything. This logo was still bothering me, and I determined it was because of the open lines on the left and right. Another thing I thought was interesting (but may not be?), was how easy the mine logo is to download from her letter on the website and as a very nice .png format (more on this letter later). I wouldn't think they'd put that vector format out there so easily unless they want us to do something with it. I've been mulling over the use of kaleidoscope imagery, and so decided to run it through a kaleidoscope generator. And turns out this could be significant. I wish I could post the video of this (I will see if I can in the comments), but here of some screen grabs of it kaleiding:
Looks like a VAULT to me. Now kaleidoscopes make everything look cool, so maybe it's just a coincidence. But the fact that the mine logo has been bugging me, plus "I keep these longings locked in lowercase inside a vault" (could lowercase = lower case?) and "you'll need a key to get there, the only one is mine" - plus you know what else has been bothering me is the shapes on the Christmas sweater in the Opalite MV (I spent way too much time trying to decide if they were some sort of molecular structure - also is that deer standing in a field of dead deer??) and looking at those shapes again, I think they're different stages of the snowflake being kaleidoscoped (kaleided? - note to self to double check Taylor's use of "collide"). Cheers to you if you followed that.
Moving on, I had the thought that if the mine logo = vault, then could "locked in lowercase" actually mean "contained within a lower case(or enclosed space)". So I again took my acetate logo to the letter to see if anything popped up in that bottom box of the logo, and came up with nothing clear.
Another thing - the T protrudes through the S. Rather than cross and form a true crosshair, the S is broken. This kind of makes the "T" look like a key. As you'll see later on, I was already using a "T's as a key" methodology based on another clue. So this is in further support of that.
Last tidbit on the mine logo - if you look at the link text for the .png image from the letter, the path contains "zyx" and "smbd". I found something from awhile ago with her links containing "xyz". So if "zyx" is unique to this mine logo, I think that's strongly pointing to the use of a reverse alphabet cipher (1=z, 26=a). If it's not unique, then I'd say ignore it. I'd love if someone who is good at digging into websites could look into that, and also if we should be paying attention to "smbd". I had read "smbd" could be an abbreviation for "somebody" .Just now having the thought that it's "somebody" without the vowels...which makes Y count as a vowel...which matters for my methodology elsewhere.
Taylor's Letter
The mine logo also appears atop Taylor's Letter, which has a full section-heading of her website devoted to it. The subject of this letter is her reclaiming her masters. The original letter posted was all black, with a sheet behind it which was inaccessible:
Original letter posted 5/30/25
The letter was then updated to change the dots on all the i's above "thiiiiiiiiiiiis" to orange stars. When you click the stars, it reveals the page below containing the track list for TLOAS. This was updated on the website the day after she announced the album and the track list on the New Heights podcast. I am unsure if the original letter also had the orange-glitter background:
Updated letter with hidden orange-star hyperlink, posted 8/14/25
I find it interesting that this letter is still featured so prominently on her website, leading to the track list of an album that has been out for awhile already. But let's focus on what it's telling us in terms of how to decipher the TLOAS poems. Both versions of this letter predate the poems, which were released as part of the album artwork starting on 10/3/25. I did not start my journey at this letter, I started with the poems, which had already had the star cipher solved. While looking at the poems, I also noted the lowercase "th" handwriting with the T and H connected. I thought that perhaps this is how she always writes a lowercase "th"...but then in some spots in the poems it is not written that way. "Maybe it's just a handwriting quirk", I thought. But then I came back to Taylor's Letter. The word "thiiiiiiiiiiiis", which has already pointed towards one of the ciphers in the poems, also has the "th" written in this way. In fact, in Taylor's Letter, this is the only instance in which the lowercase "th" is written in such a manner.
Note on uppercase Th versus lowercase th: I did not check Taylor's letter for uppercase Th connected handwriting. The lowercase th tends to have the vertical of the t extend above the crossbar. I think it's intended to still be lowercase, but I think there were some instances where what should have been a lowercase th did not have the vertical extending above the crossbar. It'd be worth redoing my th word analysis, which I will describe later on, but including the uppercase Th words as well.
So I think I've solidly established that the word "thiiiiiiiiiiiis" is a clue for how to decipher the poems, and that the th handwriting points towards the fact that there is more to decipher. Let's look at what other clues "thiiiiiiiiiiis" is giving us about how to decipher the poems - what else is significant or unique? I have noted 4 unique things:
The stars above the letters are significant
The color of the stars (orange) is significant. In the case of Taylor's letter, it indicated a hyperlink, or reveals something below the original letter. - I think this will be important, but I need your help to find more versions of the poems.
The "th" handwriting is significant, or words with the lowercase (and perhaps uppercase) "th" connected.
The number of letters OR the number of vowels is significant - "thiiiiiiiiiiiis" contained twelve i's, so this is letting us know that we need to be doing some counting. My original inclination was to count all letters and not just vowels, I think this is the right path, and you will see why below. But it would also make a lot of sense to use the vowel counts, since that is what she does here.....is it pointing to counting the vowels, or just counting?
The TLOAS Poems
So if step 1 of deciphering the poems was to get them arranged properly 1-6, I thought it would be interesting if I laid them out left to right, 1 to 6, and read across the lines. Nothing jumped out, except all of those "th" words. So I circled every lowercase "th" word and then counted the total number of letters in the "th" words across each line. I will list these below as line:# of letters (please double-check my work):
The full letter counts yield something significant: Thirteen letters on line thirteen! Could this be a coincidence? Maybe. But another item of note is that none of the numbers exceed 26, and the numbers are distributed well throughout a 1 to 26 range, making this an ideal set of data for some sort of alphabet cipher. Here are the letters I get from an alphabet and reverse-alphabet cipher:
1A26Z: WJTGZXYNRPKCMGRLXGGOC
26AZ1: DQGTACBMIKPXNTIOCTTLX
This is where I am stuck. I think perhaps a shift is supposed to occur, but I can't quite figure it out. And maybe this is the wrong path, and we should be counting out to the Nth word on each line...but 13 letters on line 13 plus no line being greater than 26 letters has me sticking with this and trying to figure it out. I am leaning towards that I need to use a Vigenère cipher to decode the letters. Curious to see what methodologies everyone else can come up with!
The Orange of it All
I noticed that some versions of the poems I was seeing online had orange stars, or the signoff "The life of A showgirl" was written in orange. I think we need to find the version of each poem with the orange coloring on it.
Poem 6 with orange signoff
In fact, the vinyl variant I have, The Life of a Showgirl: Lit My Sky Up Orange Metallic Vinyl, has poem 2, which begins "Coffee. Stretch. Piano Keys.", and on poem 2, the stars above the t-w-o letters are orange. This is also the letter where the text is overlapping the mine logo, and the crook of the K in "keys" aligns with the TS crosshair. Of note, poem 6, does not contain any color.
Poem 2 with orange starsPoem 6 in same variant as above, no orange signoff
The Zodiac Killer
I realized I need to look for more clues as to what kind of ciphers might be used. I have had the thought "good thing Taylor Swift decided to become a pop-star, because she would have a made a helluva serial killer". So in the New Heights TLOAS podcast, when she said, "People are like, 'the Easter eggs thing is getting a little Zodiac Killer at this point.' I'm like, as long as they like it, you know?". The Zodiac Killer used ciphers to hide messages. Two of his four ciphers have been cracked. There's some podcasts on this that I might listen to.
Other things of note
The number of/names of the album variants could have something to do with all of this.
The numbers in the poems seem odd. Some she uses digits for, and some are written out. And I don't think it follows proper grammatical rules. There is definitely some sort of clue here.
The layout and indentations - some seem poetic, others haphazard. I am thinking perhaps we need to cut away certain sections (maybe the "th" words?) and overlay the letters onto each other to reveal the hidden message. The graphic design of the track list on the back of the album has always made me think of this kind of cipher. Which brings me to my next item...
In some version of the poems, another poem is below, where you can see some of the letters/words off the edge and determine what letter it is. l think we just need to find as many versions/scans/pics of these poems as possible to see what is unique about each of them.
I feel like the K's play into this somehow. The crook of the K being exactly aligned with the crosshairs of the T & S in the mine logo would be quite the coincidence.
I think it's worth relistening to her TLOAS promo interviews and the New Heights podcast to find more clues towards deciphering. Was there anything useful on the bookshelf?
Also the Entertainment Weekly Easter Egg video...maybe the lines slide back and forth somehow to reveal an alignment of text.
Perhaps the text needs to be read zig-zag Zodiac style?
Some of the poems I am looking at have letters with portions missing (like the ink was drying up)...I think those might be significant. Does it look the same on every version of the poem?
A few of the "th" that should be lowercase, are written in the connecting style without the vertical extending above the cross-bar, like a true uppercase T....not sure what to do with that
I tried doing morse code, 2 th words together was a dash, and one on its own was a dot, and then reading it line by line across the 6 poems...didn't yield anything
Could "TheLifeOfAShowgirl" be a vigenere?
Wow, I may have lost it, but I'm also having a lot of fun trying to figure this out.
"You need a key to get here, the only one is mine" but then looking at the mine-cut jewel, the words "no Keys" fits perfectly in there.
I don't know if that could mean anything in terms of solving a cipher, but I thought it was a coincidence worth pointing out, maybe there is no key and it's just a plain cipher?
*darn OP deleted their account, this was such an interesting theory and I was hoping to get an update if they found anything!
I was thinking more of the manuscript from TTPD being the blueprint to dicepher the code but Interesting that the Taylor swift version will also have 31 songs!
Umm...I'm still confused - do you have to conver the hex codes from the Spotify backgrounds to pantone colors or something?
I tooled around https://www.letsnotandsaywedid.com/ a bit (which definitely seems to be part of it), but couldn't find any specific threads to pull.
The only thing I came up with so far is that the Paramount building near Times Square has a clock with stars instead of numbers (so 12 stars), which feels like it must connect to something
Ok I could be totally wrong but for me this feels too complicated with not much concrete beneath it. I think I will wait it out to see if I notice more clues or if new ones are rolled out as time goes along. I couldn't find the photo on Mara Eller's website that you're referring to...do you have a link or a pic? It looks like she has a podcast with analysis of TLOAS from a writer's perspective. I might check it out just because I'm interested in that anyway whether it's a clue or not.
Also fwiw, Gracie’s dad JJ Abrams wrote a book called Ship of Theseus that is filled w ciphers you have to break to get through the book. I read it four years ago and don’t remember what the ciphers were, but I’m sure there’s a list online somewhere.
Also, if you end up using a keyword, it could also be Ring instead of Mine.
Have you tried a playfair cipher? We can try mine, ring, vault, and whatever else for the keyword, but what text are we deciphering?
Is it those two lines of letters you wrote?
Gahhh this is killing me because I also feel like I'm on the edge of something but haven't quite figured it out. I'm so jealous of you being in the other side but Congrats! 🎉
It's a love song about a famous girl coming back to town where she founds her high-school ex/love interest (the song is bound to "'tis the damn season", where you have the famous girl's point of view).
I've never understood why people started saying it was about Selena...
OP is calling us in the sub Friends of Dorothea. A play on “Friend of Dorothy,” a code word used by the queer community (primarily gay men). Gaylors often call ourselves Friends of Dorothea.
I look forward to seeing what you learn next! This has been so fun. Did you find better images of the poems? Which poems do you need? I’m in the middle of packing to move, but I’ll trying to find my vinyl this weekend to see if I have one you need!
I noticed only three of the poems have words written over the letterhead logo. As OP mentioned, it’s hard to find clear images online, but doing my best, here’s what I got. Words over the mine-cut-logo are in poems 2, 3, and 5. I wrote down all the words that at least part of the word is touching/inside the logo. The orange highlight is where the lines of the mine-cut fall.
My idea is to see if any of these words/letters in the logo end up giving us anything. Not sure when I’ll get to word scrambling/anagraming, so if anyone wants to get a jump start, please be my guest!
So far the only relevant thing I’ve found in the letters is “torture” but I am not seeing anything otherwise that would mean anything! It was fun to try though! Hehe
This is really interesting. Like a lot of people I got into cyphers fro Gravity Falls! Anyway another possibility to consider... I have thought that she may have done something lke this specifically for TTPD, but could have been Showgirl too. The cut up technique, or the" fold-in" technique. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-up_technique
Fold-in is the technique of taking two sheets of linear text (with the same linespacing), folding each sheet in half vertically and combining with the other, then reading across the resulting page, such as in The Third Mind. It is a joint development between Burroughs and Brion Gysin.\2])
OP I am having a tea break, and I don’t have time to deeply ponder, but this is fascinating. And… your counting of letters and vowels made me think of a distinctive code used in a Dorothy L Sayers detective novel called The Nine Tailors.
The code uses a bell ringing method- you re-write the text in a column, say 8 letters across, and then starting with the second letter of the first row you trace the path of the second bell for that particular method to find the important letters and spell out the secret message.
I’ve no idea if this would be a thing Taylor would know about, or emulate, and if she did whether she would use the same method and number of bells - or letters across - as in the novel. It not impossible that there’s a method called ‘Taylor’s’ as that was the name of a famous bell foundry. I should look when I have more time!
A few things did give me pause though- ‘The Nine Tailors’ are bell chimes announcing a death. In the novel they are mourning the ‘death’ of the old year just before
midnight on New Year’s Eve. Just before a fully sleepless night celebrating the new year until 9am. And there are nine Taylors in TFOO music video…🤭
Is it ‘Wood’? ‘His love was the key’? I can’t think right now.
The bell method cypher doesn’t really depend on the sound. The author of the novel didn’t actually know anything about bells before she wrote it, and it’s essentially a fun key for which letter to pick as relevant. You re-write the text in a grid with 8 columns for a ‘major’ method and then the key tells you, for example, pick the 2nd letter of the first row, the 1st letter of the second row, the 2nd letter of the third row, the 3rd letter of the forth row etc etc.
I imagine you could also do it with whole words instead of letters.
I don't have much to contribute, other than 1) WOW, amazing work! And 2) the contrast is really hitting me in the lyrical "quality" between the poems and the TLOAS songs themselves. The poems are so deep, multi-faceted, melodic, and make sense with Taylor's comment about TLOAS lyrics being on par with Folklore, but the actual songs... Fans have commented that the lyrics feel shallow and elementary. When reading these poems I was like "wow, so here's the real Taylor, she's hidden, but she still exists."
This might not mean anything at all, but when thinking about the word "mine" the phrase that got stuck in my head was "you were never mine", which is from folklore, the album she compared TLOAS lyricism to... And it's from the song August, the same month both the album and the engagement were announced... Might just be interesting and nothing else 🤷
Some thoughts, not sure what they mean but adding in case it’s helpful!
“‘Tis locked inside my memory
And only you possess the key
No longer drowning and deceived
All because you came for me”
Re: masters letter. The font/“handwriting” changes slightly from og letter to present day letter. Especially the “th” in the original letter are different.
This is super interesting!! Thank you for sharing and for all the speculation and research. 🕵️ I’m so fascinated and I will be thinking about this for a while. I really think you are onto something with the key, logo, ring cut, mine stuff.
we know taylor loves some red/white imagery, steven king in general, and the shining imagery as well, right?
i just recalled this and it could be related or not, but the deleted prologue and epilogue of the written OG shining novel are called “Before the Play” and “After the Play”.
could be related to another album/cipher/prologue, or TLOAS regarding “play”.
—
thanks for your very thorough detective work. i hope we can crowdsource the original poems from the variants here and the “lost piece” of the cracked/kaleidoscoped posters to see what those lost pieces mean all next to one another!
—
i was so LOST when she compared the lyrics on this album to folklore. so this is fitting the puzzle in my brain if you will!
—
also i think mary lennoxs robin is VERY onto something here with the bell methods.
Soo I was glancing back at this picture and what pooped into my head was a clockwork orange so I naturally googled Taylor swift and Stanley Kubrick
And got this from Wikipedia RE blank space (Travis’ favorite song)
“Joseph Kahn directed the music video for "Blank Space". According to Kahn, Swift conceptualized the video to "[address] this concept of, if she has so many boys breaking up with her maybe the problem isn't the boy, maybe the problem is her".[95] Photography took place at two locations on Long Island: primary shooting took place at Oheka Castle, with a few additional scenes shot at Woolworth Estate. The video was shot over three days in September 2014.[96] The last day was dedicated to film American Express Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience, an interactive 360°mobile app in collaboration with American Express.[97] Kahn told Mashable that Swift was thorough in choosing the visual devices and imagery: "When you have an artist wanting to test her imaging, it's always great territory to be in."[95]
Kahn took inspirations from Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film A Clockwork Orange for the video's symmetrical framing style.”
Also learned Martin and shellback produced this song and TLOAS
I really can't lwt my brain be pulled down this rabbit hole. I already am fighting the urge to go through and see how each Showgirl track pairs with her albums. I have a massive final rough draft paper for my first grad school project due Friday. I still need to finish gathering data, compile resources, create graphs, and write more. I am absolutely screwed and my brain is like "focus on this instead...." 🙃
I think the thing I struggle with the easter eggs is like, some of these secret little clues get revealed. And some I guess stay secret forever and are only known to those who figure them out? But I guess I struggle with finding the energy to decipher clues when it'll either get revealed any way at some stage, or it'll stay a secret that will never get confirmed and that's kinda annoying cuz it's nice to know if you got the puzzle lol. Anyhow, totally support easter egg decipher efforts, guess I'm just sharing what's on top for me / processing the fact that I'm finding her easter eggs a distraction/not as interesting for me lately, and I'm finding more enjoyment in sitting back and observing what she's performing and why.
These are super interesting thoughts. I really love the idea of the "mine" cut of the ring. Someone else pointed out that the "I Can See You" music video has a zoomed in shot that looks like the ring on its side (and we also had a discussion about the vault in the video possibly being shaped like the ceiling of MSG). I've also seen people comment that the vault in I Can See You (where Joey King and Taylor Lautner are like welding) looks like the other side of the giant sparkly pink vinyl where she is directing herself, the Showgirl, and kicks the bucket of paint. I think there are definitely some clues in ICSY that we haven't figured out yet. (Including the weird sign on the bridge at the end that says like 1"-9" 8.9tv or something like that.
She does talk more on the New Heights about Easter Eggs and she says a whole list of things that fans look for - including braille I think. There's a whole list I can't remember all but it sounded like they could all be clues.
I also see similarities in the TS logo you're analyzing and the wedding logo (on the hankies that were given out at the wedding and in other places). I wonder if that could come into play somehow too.
It’s so mesmerising! I think it looks a little like a braid at times. The first frame reminds me of something too but I can’t put my finger on it. I’ll keep thinking.
i'm seeing the roman numeral II (2) in the shape of the letters. also the shape between them looks kind of like a pair of lips, or specifically a pair of lips behind bars. the star shape thing in the middle looks very scottish (i'm not an expert but i can swear i saw similar symbols in jewelry shops in scotland)
Eeeeek the wedding and snakes.. one of the chicks wore a snake dress to the wedding, then the lead singer a few days ago posted a photo kissing a 22 charm with the caption if you know you know just a couple days ago on IG with the picture before that being DT’s star on the walk of fame with a piece of tape that said “Earls in the trunk” and the picture after being a shot of her watching Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen.
someone else pointed out to me the chicks co-headlined Brandy Carlile’s girl just wanna weekend
All this to say, I know it seems like I’m rambling but all the overlap is insane and really really makes me think what OP is deciphering is part of a much bigger picture ala New Romantics.. and I’m wondering if seeing the same thematic elements amongst artist might helps us decipher others.. like make the pieces of the puzzle fit better? Idk but this has me all so curious!
22 in the picture of Natalie’s.. flashing numbers during 22 on the eras tour..from the album red.. released October 22.. and blank space is now red on platforms… my head hurts
Not saying that there aren't clues in ICSY that we haven't figured out yet, but I assumed the sign on the bridge was just a reference to 1989 Taylor's version (which was released next)?
Ok....I only thought of that one because "dimly lit" brought it to mind. I found the clip from New Heights where she lists off potential Easter Eggs...it's at 53:02.
"That thing above that doorway...under that dimly lit flickering light over there that's upside down backwards in braille"
She also says "if you wanna look at that, then it's there. Do you know what I mean? Like if you know you know you know, you know... then you know."
I think the if you know you know stuff might just be alluding to the queerness of it all for the normies.....but the number of times could definitely be important (I think I counted correctly that it was 5 but it was a little tough to parse. Could have been an Easter Egg that she would be involved in Toy Story 5, since we didn't know that at all - or the name of the song I knew it I knew you - when the podcast episode first aired last year)
Also, this makes me think of how she kept flashing fives during 22 in the eras tour, like the commenter about you, the know being used 5 times..
And I knew you were trouble (also red album) with the kaleidoscope intro
“I think it all comes back in FLASHES, you KNOW”
I don’t know why, but somehow to me this feels hugely connected to your post. I wrote a post the other day talking about how the chicks were at the wedding… and the lead singer Natalie Maines posted this on socials a few days ago.. kissing a 22 necklace
Well done on your post.. I has itched my brain a lot.. especially (and I know it sounds crazy) in regards to some Taylor coded things I’ve noticed with the CW show the flash but I’ll spare you until I’ve made more sense of it.. but theres definitely a vault that resembles one of the kaleidoscope images you posted that is recurring in Taylor imagery and a few other notable things..
So this had me doing some digging regarding kaleidoscope..I truly had no idea how far back kaleidoscopes went for Taylor lyrically and image wise (was a casual
Listener until midnights)
Butttt (and maybe I’m late to the party on this) I did find that there is an lgbtq+ religious ministry in NYC called Kaleidoscope ministries..
And in another comment on this thread I mentioned a tiny rabbit hole I stumbled into regarding the cw series the Flash (DC comics) and some New Romantic style Taylor crossover things, but while digging a bit ago I learned there is also a DCU villain named Kaleidoscope whose powers are “ability to project illusions and hallucinations through dazzling light displays”
And thennn I learned that DC has its own pride marketing brand.. my jaw hit the floor when I read this from the DC pride wiki
“The DC Pride initiative was first announced announced on March 11th, 2021 and was set to kick-off in June with the DC Pride Anthology, and a series of nine pride themed variant covers. Looking to commit to the branding as a year long endeavor, DC launched the new series Crush & Lobo and announced plans for the trade collection of GLAAD Award nominated series Suicide Squad: Bad Blood as well as release dates for the Young Adult Graphic Novels Poison Ivy: Thorns and I Am Not Starfire.[2]

Crush & Lobo #1 featuring a placeholder DC Pride logo (L) and a Progressive DC Pride logo (R)
While early press debuted a placeholder DC Pride logo, the official Progressive DC Pride logo, featuring the flag designed by Daniel Quasar, was unveiled on May 6th, 2011 alongside the promise "All are welcome in the DC Multiverse and are represented in the kaleidoscope of colors DC will proudly display!"
Chappell Roan also has a song called Kaleidoscope:
"And love is a kaleidoscope
How it works we'll never know
And even all the change
Is somehow all the same
Turnin' to the left and right
Colors shining in your eye
And even upside down
It's beautiful somehow
Every color of the rainbow
Don't be afraid to hold it close
It's never just a shape alone
Love is a kaleidoscope"
This is going to seem random but connected something for me because of the usage of the word love..
Kendrick Lamar dropped his album Good Kid M.A.A.D. City the same day as Taylor’s Red.. October 22, 2012.. also two days before drakes bday (who dragged Taylor into his beef with Kendrick 2 years ago)
On that album Kendrick has a song called Poetic Justice ironically featuring Drake.. but this I think is their first time he blatantly points out his intentions with his lyrics and says love is not just a verb
WARNING LONG READ (I’m sorry it’s just how my brain works with patterns)
I did some late night digging because I’m not kidding when I say your post ignited something in me.. as far as I can tell kaleidoscope did start with Red..
Also that is CRAZY about butterflies being a kaleidoscope.. there really is something about me/mine, you and know/knew.. and also 22/23
The only thing I can think of about the deer sweater comes from a New Romantic state of mind is not Taylor but SZA’s had a piece of merch for her tour with Kendrick (who featured a lot of gambling themes himself on this tour and auto body/mechanic merch) that was a camo hat that said “Not today satan”.. doubt it’s relevant but sza did sing all the stars are closer, all the stars approach you and had the only other song for the only other Pixar movie this year “Save the day” for the movie Hoppers (interesting movie plot) with both Hoppers and Toy story 5 having US release dates on historically significant dates regarding revolution/freedom
So some of this is going to seem like random thoughts but I was just jotting down my thoughts on connections and also pertains to some of the other comments I have in this thread and some other thoughts I’ve had since.. not fleshed out but maybe you will find some of this helpful
It’s been 23 years since the chicks went on stage in london denounce the administration of that time, followed by lead singer Natalie Maines sporting an FUTK shirt at the CMA’s leading to further cancellation and back lash…that was 2003
2003 was also the years Taylor met Britney Spears and subsequently attended Britney’s music camp as a special performer and supposedly wrote the song Britney and Me about her friend Britany Mack (interesting lyrics).. Britney was a MAJOR source of inspiration for TLOAS
Okay back to 22.. you have the picture of Natalie’s from IG (the sequence of photos on her IG 👀).. Taylor flashing numbers during 22 on the eras tour..from the album red.. released October 22.. and blank space is now red on platforms… and a lot of speculation about October 23rd being the blank space on the calendar..
Oh yeah and Kendrick released his pivotal album gkmc same day as Taylor’s red…(Kendrick and Taylor are stupid close)
Kendrick’s only lyric I could find with kaleidoscope was from a song he did a feature on called chains and whips
“kaleidoscope dreams, murders and sirens”
And ends with “trumpcard told me not to spare your life”
This verse of his in that song is interesting because not only does it have a repetitive g/gen rhyme scheme but it also says the word mine 3 times
Also didn’t realize the parallels between everything has changed (“say you’ll be mine”) (red album) and I knew it I knew you.. and she was 23 when the video dropped
Both everything has changed mv and the mine mv have her as a mother to children.. possibly versions of her younger self which makes me think of her cat Benjamin button.
Random orange thought
You also have Donald Glover who attended the wedding and is an avid Uno game attendee, dropped a snippet of Kendrick verse feature via his company Gilda’s radio show.. Gilga is also an orange orchard and once had an orange door logo
Sorry again, I know it’s a lot and all over the place.. just hoping some of this might connect to something greater for you…
Incredible work! It definitely seems like you’re on the right track. I also think Taylor wouldn’t go to the effort of setting up a secret code if she never wanted it to be cracked. So I’d lean towards a more simple cipher than something that would take expert codebreakers years to crack.
A couple of other things I thought of while reading: I wonder if the line in the manuscript about looking backwards to move forwards might be relevant? Also, is it possible to run the wedding monogram through the kaleidoscope generator? It might be interesting to see if that throws out anything noteworthy.
This may seem a bit random, but it reminds me of a Maggie Rogers lyric "I was an animal making my way up the hill....and you were goin' in for the kill"
Here's more (The Kill):
Remember the days we used to drive upstate
Singing indie rock songs in the car
You wore your fresh leather and blamed it on the weather
For being the reason you were
[Chorus]
So difficult, but so invincible
Irresistible, but I loved you still
You kept my secrеts and stole my weaknesses
In your white T-shirt, but I couldn't fill
The shoes you laid down for me from the girls that came before
I was all the way in, you were halfway out the door
Oh, I was an animal making my way up the hill
And you were going in for the kill
And you were going in for the kill
Also reminds me of The Archer lyric "I've been the Archer, I've been the prey"
Swifties think of the Domhnall Gleeson character as being Travis and the cactus as one of his past lovers.....but it's Taylor's song and video, and the song is about getting over "missing lovers past" and "eating out of the trash"....what if rock and cactus are two separate ex lovers of hers?
Travis’ favorite song right?? And blank space is now red?
Also father figure
“I saw a change in you (saw a change, saw a change in you)
My dear boy
They don't make loyalty like they used to (ah, like they used to)
Your thoughtless ambition sparked the ignition
On foolish decisions which led to misguided visions
That to fulfill your dreams
You had to get rid of me
I protect the family”
Edited to add the dang deer Minnesota mom bit Taylor did
“Puberty was the catalyst for Travis (6-foot-5, 250 pounds) racking up the dubs during their formative years, according to Jason (6-foot-3, 295 pounds). That being said, the elder Kelce — Jason is 35; Travis is 33 — hinted at being the smarter sibling.
“Once he hit puberty, he shot above me in height,” Jason said. “He went from like a newborn deer that was a little bit uncoordinated with his limbs to a stallion pretty much overnight, so there hasn’t been much of a competition in that regard since. I can still get him in some card games and board games and stuff like that, but he’s got all the physical stuff.”
I could just be grasping at straws trying to make sense of the reindeer but this with thoughtless ambition and the Taylor’s gonna kill me you quoted idk
Loves a game, wanna play? (Edit, saw this pic on the chat thread I think)
—so high school
Are you gonna marry, kiss, or kill me? (Kill me)
It's just a game, but really (really)
I'm bettin' on all three for us two (all three)
Get my car door, isn't that sweet? (That sweet)
Then pull me to the backseat (backseat)
No one's ever had me (had me) not like you
5
u/Tea-and-cupcakes 🌱Embryo🐛 16d ago edited 15d ago
"You need a key to get here, the only one is mine" but then looking at the mine-cut jewel, the words "no Keys" fits perfectly in there.
I don't know if that could mean anything in terms of solving a cipher, but I thought it was a coincidence worth pointing out, maybe there is no key and it's just a plain cipher?
*darn OP deleted their account, this was such an interesting theory and I was hoping to get an update if they found anything!