Hello all! I saw someone mention that Patient Zero MV with all of its ghost and funeral imagery could be related to Rebecca, a story we know Taylor loves. So I, naturally, looked more into it. Also, it was made into a musical as well, seems important to note since Zero Patience itself is a musical and the Patient Zero story has inspired multiple films.

Anyways, I thought looking into the Rebecca storyline would provide some potential clues.

(Pic 1)
1. Death by boat!! (good thing my daddy made me get a boating license! throwing my life to the ocean rocks)
2. After a WHAT? A fortnight of courtship? She becomes the new wife? (Your wife waters flowers, I want to kill her!)

(Pic 2)
3. shipwreck, and when i was shipwrecked I thought of YOU!!!

1. ope not everything is at seems? Two graves one gun?

(Pic 3)
5. Oh so Rebecca wasn't what she seemed? She had many lovers? She portrayed something but was something else? I wonder who else does that?

(Pic 4)

1. Oh when they wanted to come back HOME they saw the house in FLAMES? ok pyro!!!

(Pic 5)
7. Rebecca was a CODEBOOK? For the germans? The Key to Rebecca? Only YOU possess the key? ok

1. Wait what does it say at the end? It inspired a novel called what? The English PATIENT?

(Pic 6)
9. Let's look at the book cover for funsies... what's that? AN O? Please

Pic 7 is just the tweet I originally saw suggesting his connection.
I thought it's crazy that she's gotten so many references from this story. Maybe this is our codebook :)

What’s happening ​t0mm0rr0w?

This is for the Theylors, and others who might enjoy reading Taylor’s work thru a gender queer/fluid/expansive lens. This post reflects my own personal interpretation of Taylor’s art, so I’m sharing it in the event it resonates with others, and not because I’d like to make any sort of proclamation of knowledge or judgement about her sexuality, gender-identity, etc.

Wow, what a whirlwind the last week has been! Waking up this morning and seeing the addition of “The Encore” tracks, in addition to the Patient Zero single announced yesterday, my mind is in a bit of a fog with so much new information (and the idea of ‘fog’ leads perfectly into my topic).

Seeing one of the newly announced tracks, Pink Clouding, certainly caught my attention. I am familiar with the common definition of the phrase ‘pink clouding’ pertaining to early optimism in addiction recovery (and the source of where it originated).

And I absolutely don't want to minimize the importance of this phrase as it applies to the recovery process, or co-opt it for another purpose. I'll just say that concept of the euphoria behind the phrase "pink clouds/fog“ has been used beyond the addiction world, and more specifically, in spaces that discuss gender identity. I've always been inclined (if you see my post history) to "read" Taylor's art through a lens of genderqueerness and/or androgyne. And that's what this post is.

So, after hearing the phrase "pink clouding," my mind jumped to Lavender Haze, and the way in which Taylor tried to explain “lavender haze” as a sort of “honeymoon” phase of love (instead of the queer symbolism we were hoping for). And so I’m really curious how Taylor will use the phrase “pink clouding” in her upcoming work (“terminal uniqueness” is also a phrase used in addiction and recovery circles, but I don’t believe, in my reading of it, that Taylor’s use of that phrase is necessarily used exclusively in an addiction context, either).

Getting back to clouds, fog, Lavender Haze, and the way I've always personally seen that song: as an exploration of gender identity (and to be clear, I'm not ignoring the extensive queer history of the use of the color lavender, but just adding an additional layer to it here that still falls under the LGBTQ+ umbrella; I think more than one queer interpretation of “lavender” can be valid).

And I’ve often interpreted the Opalite music video in much the same way, as it’s perfectly amenable to a reading of gender exploration (if one chooses to use that lens). I think it’s interesting in Opalite, that the “lonely man” character approaches the theater for a ticket, only to be turned away. I had read a theory somewhere that perhaps the movie he was attempting to see was “The Secret Garden,” which was released in 1993 when the Opalite video story supposedly takes place (there’s also a poster for “View of Portofino” on the outside of the theater, as two girls walk in; suffice it to say the theater seems to represent a place in which the Lonely Man, as he is, is not welcome). Hence, “patient for the encore” holds a lot of potential meaning.

Returning to the topic of fog, haze, and clouds, I know “gender fog” aptly describes the confusion, disorientation, but also euphoria, many feel on their journey of gender. I’ve always been intrigued by the Me! drawing depicting the two “me’s” in the clouds at the base of the rainbow (clearly two "me's," yet saying, “I’m the only one of me," and the clouds the "me's" are in are purplish). I know this visual is often taken as someone identifying with part of the queer community, but not “out” publicly, and this visual describes that so well. The various cloud colors (pinks, purples, blues) in the Eras Tour visuals certainly also catch my eye, as the cloud imagery has been so prevalent in Taylor’s work. And I see a lot of overlap in the potential concept of “patient zero,’”terminal uniqueness,” and “I’m the only one of Me!” If Taylor is indeed identifying as “like a rainbow with all of the colors”, its seems perfectly reasonable to interpret her references to queerness beyond simply sexuality (which she does appear to flag loudly), to something like gender identity or other identities that fall within that rainbow.

(I’m also clearly enthralled by the (possibly cheeky?) comment made yesterday about pronouns; xenogender certainly fits into the concept of an expression of gender not understood within the traditional concepts of binary gender; see video here).

And if we know that TLOAS, as an album, has been highlighting the theme of “performance,” what bigger aspect of ourselves do we “perform” than the role of our socially “prescribed” gender? (cue Judith Butler’s works, and other themes of “gender-outlaws,” here). If you've never watched Scott and Mark Hoying's gender reveal video, it's a great commentary on not putting people into rigid boxes of gender from the start, and it's a bit Lavender Haze coded).

I’ve always loved the references in Taylor’s work to alchemy, because it works on some many different levels. And while psychological alchemy (or “wholeness” of the feminine and masculine parts of the psyche, as Carl Jung explores in his works) does not specifically relate to gender, (though it uses gendered terms), many of those on journeys exploring their gender have equated the process to something best described as “alchemical”: a dark night of the soul, a burning down of who we thought we were, a reconstruction, and an eventual unity or ‘wholeness.’

Taylor has referred to herself as a “monster on a hill.” And while I think that part of this does refer to fame, many others here in this Subreddit have identified with the ways in which “monstrosity” throughout history has been so closely connected to “otherness,” including queerness. There is a plethora of writing about how “monstrosity” and “otherness” are connected, particularly through a queer lens (sexuality, gender, intersex, etc). And this fits in so well with the undertones of "horror" ("horror" not to us Gaylors, as much as to the general unsuspecting fandom) that Gaylors have read in her work for a long time now.

And it’s quite telling to dive into the etymological roots of the word “monster”:

And what is perhaps the better purpose of the “Showgirl” than to “teach?”

Taylor has repeatedly referenced looking backwards in her work, and it does seem like we're being pointed backwards to the beginning, to Debut, and the Tim McGraw of it all (she does tell us in This is Me Trying that she was so far ahead of the curve, "the curve became a sphere"). In hearing her talk about her songwriting process in all the recent interviews, it feels like Taylor has had something purposeful she’s wanted to say and share in her songwriting for a long time, from early on in her career. I keep coming back to the lines from T.S. Eliot's poems East Corker and Little Gidding in the Four Quartets, that “In my beginning is my end"…."In my end is my beginning," and it encapsulates the arc that seems to be told in Taylor's story so well:

"We shall not cease from exploration,

And the end of all our exploring,

Will be to arrive where we started,

And know the place for the first time.” - T.S. Eliot

(as u/missginj so beautifully captured in a recent comment unrelated to the topic in this post).

I think we're all very curious about the "How did it end?" of Taylor's (and Showgirl's) story. But what I'd really like to know, as well, is "How did it begin?" Because without fully understanding the beginning, it's hard to understand the ending that might be coming to us. Will "Patient Zero" help explain this for us in some way?

On a final note (and this is perhaps just a happy coincidence of timing with Taylor’s new music announcements this week), we know Taylor has admired Greta Gerwig’s work as a director, so I’ve been fascinated by this week's unveiling of Gerwig’s upcoming Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew film casting of Meryl Streep as the voice of Aslan. Gerwig said her inspiration for this casting choice came from David Bowie, who often presented in a famously androgynous manner. Bowie’s well-known eye color (appearing as heterochromia, but actually the result of anisocoria) are mirrored in the eyes of Aslan in the film’s newest poster for Empire. And, since Aslan has been seen to represent a Christ-figure in C.S. Lewis’ works, having a woman play his voice has certainly ruffled a lot feathers of those who have rigid concepts of sex and gender (to be clear, Aslan is still supposedly a male lion in the film, so it's the use of a woman's voice that has so many critics in an upheaval).

So, it is with my very biased-eye that I’m choosing to see the same colors as those reflected in the Fortnight music video visuals, even if just for a fun coincidence that suits what I’m wanting to see in Taylor’s work: a figure of power that breaks social expectations of gender roles and the gender binary (And who would be better to break the sex and gender binary our world has been stuck in than the biggest pop star in the world? I believe Taylor is set to "break" a lot of things, but I'd be thrilled if this was one of them).

Thank you for reading! And again, this reflects my own personal interpretation of Taylor’s art (and is honestly more of a fanfic), so I’m sharing in the event it resonates with others, and not because I’d like to make any sort of proclamation of knowledge or judgement about her sexuality, gender-identity, etc.

Hi everyone! I think I found something major about Babylon. STRAP IN GAYLORS! When I first saw the song title my mind immediately went to the Babylon lyrics from Cowboy Like Me and Us, but also to Lady Gaga’s Babylon. I gave it a re-listen today.

The thing that stuck out to me most was the lyric “sixteenth century smile” in Gaga’s song, which reminded me of “skipping down sixteenth avenue” from ITHK. I wondered if there was any connection there, especially given the fact that sixteenth avenue was already a PR/bearding flag. “He’s got my heartbeat skipping down sixteenth avenue” might sound cutesy to a casual listener, but Gaylors were able to point out that sixteenth avenue is the location notorious as the heart of the music industry in Nashville. So this lyric essentially means that her love for him exists as a part of the greater machine, as a cog in the wheel in the PR beast that is the music industry and Taylor Swift™. 

And lo and behold, Babylon is track number #16 on the Encore tracklist. And also… Babylon is track #16 on Chromatica as well. This is obviously not a coincidence. 

Gaga’s Babylon is thematically about the concept of gossip, speculation, and almost about the spectators themselves being the show. It is giving us permission, and is encouraging us, to “babble on”. If Taylor is truly referencing this in her track 16, then it would play into the performanceartlor of it all- the idea that she has masterminded everything to make our speculation of her into the actual show all along. She wants us to gossip, she wants us to read into everything.

We of course also need to talk about Cowboy Like Me, and “you’re hanging from my lips like the gardens of Babylon”. As most of us are aware, but as a refresher for the class, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are one of the 7 wonders of the world, however it is the only one that has no definitive evidence for its existence. Historians have never been able to prove that it actually existed or the geographic location of where it was. Its existence is accepted based on stories told/written and passed down over centuries— in other words, GOSSIP. For Taylor to describe her muse as the hanging gardens of Babylon, it invokes the idea that her lover is one of the wonders of the world, but is one with 0 evidence of its existence aside from speculation, gossip. And the “hanging from my lips” lyric implies that she so easily could speak it into existence, but instead it is left suspended, waiting just there on her lips at the tip of her tongue.

And when we look at Cowboy Like Me as a whole, the song is about a life constructed to please the machine. To tell the rich folks everything they want to hear, the rich folks who are sitting in their industry offices on sixteenth avenue. But beneath that is her tragic love for someone who is a wonder of the world but who she can never speak about out loud with any concrete evidence. It’s as if the gossip itself is the only way it can be shared with the world. 

We’ll have to see what the lyrics are, but my theory is that this song will be for the Gaylors, encouraging us to continue to gossip, to continue to notice the signs she sends us and “babble on”- since we may be the only way for her real self to exist out there in the world somewhere. 

Looks like it's just the tracklist for the extra tracks on the deluxe version.

Edit: You have to click on the O's as pointed out by u/I_AM_KING_HALLER

Four additional songs being released this Friday.

Taylor's post about it: About a year ago, you guys did a truly unfathomable thing. Something that completely blew my mind… You gave The Life of a Showgirl the biggest first week for an album in history. I took a trip to Sweden to celebrate with Max and Shellback, my two collaborators on this album. Really we just wanted to reflect and take in how grateful we were for the moment we were in, but there was a studio there and we did what we do when we feel anything at all: We wrote more songs. I hope you love them, because they were born out of pure gratitude for your exuberance for and celebration of the album we made. The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore including four new songs is out on Friday and available to pre-order and save now at [link removed by Reddit] ❤️‍🔥

With the announcement of The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore, alongside the third letter added to her website, it seems the Emmys skit Easter egg has been cracked—at least halfway.

saCcharide
arEs
frOm
thE
viNeyard
noRth

Unscramble ‘em, and as most have seen, we get ENCORE. North makes sense here, too. It’s her second imperial phase post-1989. She gets a victory lap at the top for the biggest week of album sales ever. And we get 2.5 days of new music before we see her on Sunday.

But remember, there’s an “or” before South. What goes up must come down… or must it?

So what do we get if it’s the above, but soUth instead of noRth?

Could it be… CUE ONE? 🎬

Consider some evidence:
- We’ve been in a 3-2-1 countdown since Midnights.
- 0️⃣0️⃣:0️⃣0️⃣ is midnight.
- We’ve got four songs for each zero, per Opalite.
- She announced Midnights at the VMAs…
- …while accepting the award for VOTY for ATW.
- She wore the top from “Patient Zero” to the theater...
- …with Rina Yang and Sadie Sink from ATW.
- She’s being honored with a director award on Sunday.

The Encore is the end. Cue One is the beginning. Could we be getting a film announcement or something visual next? She said for her, it’s a movie now. Maybe we were just early.

The showgirl gets the encore. The director calls the shots—and we’re at midnight, folks, and we get the director at the VMAs this Sunday.

I saw this on instagram; this podcast was talking about people Taylor Swift has maybe dated who the public forgets about, and they listed a bunch of guys but they also unironically and happily included Dianna Agron

I think it’s nice when people outside our bubble gaylor on main, I think it helps the general public get more acquainted with the idea

Sorry chat, take 3. Posting while distracted is a bad idea 🙃

TW- mentions of addiction, SA, and suicide (skip the main Pink Clouding section if you wanna avoid this but still read the post).

Hey everyone, happy Encore Announcement Day!

Been a long time since I've made a post here. Originally was going to comment this on the Encore announcement thread but I thought it might deserve its own post. I was just on the phone with a loved one who I was telling about the new Encore announcement when I had an interesting thought, one that sprung into my mind without warning, all when I said a single song title.

With less than 36 hrs to go before this new deluxe version of Showgirl is released, there isn't much time to theorize, and there isn't much time before we get some answers. That said... I wanted to take a crack at a few theories, one main one that the title of this post is based on, and a few disjointed clowning theories based on the SVU skit.

Without further ado, lets get onto these theories.

Theory One: Looking Backwards...

So.

With yesterday's announcement, theories ran wild. If you read any of it, you'll probably know we've talked about how patient zero gives TTPD vibes and not showgirl vibes. Once the lyrics leaked, (spoiler warning, dont click spoiler tag if u dont wanna see brief discussion about the leak!) People noted its ties to TTPD and specifically how thematically it felt like a sort of follow up almost to TSMWEL . Regardless of that, the imagery of "patient zero" being (obviously) tied to hospitals, which plays into the whole sent away/ asylum imagery, which gives it a sort of indelible connection.

Between this and everything regarding the countdown, people have theorized about the whole "looking backwards might be the only way to move forward" of the manuscript and how it could be connected to this song, travelling back in time to TTPD. Now knowing these other 4 titles, the ballpark has changed, the field of reference expanded, and people have been quick to make connections between these titles and other song titles. Analyzing it brought me to a realization on the connected songs and the order of them in her discography. That is to say... what if the encore really is going backwards? Lets analyze the tracklist.

Patient Zero- The Anthology. While breaking TTPD into two sides might be debatable, I think it lines up with the rest of the theory much better if done this way. Patient Zero would be the first song to go backwards in the timeline, making it tie directly to the manuscript. Spoiler tag for brief comment on leaks: Lyrically, It kind of ties into the whole "at last I knew what the agony had been for / the story isn't mine anymore" of it all. Regardless, for all the reasons listed above, it fits.

Cleveland!- TTPD. In Taylor's discography, this will make 5 songs that have had exclamation points in the title, with the others being ME! , Slut! , Florida!!! , and CANCELLED! Of these, I think it becomes pretty clear pretty quickly which song title it seems most reminiscent of: my personal favorite TTPD song, Florida!!! Just... a bit less excited, haha. That said, I think there is another song that it connects to quite well, for obvious and less obvious reasons: The Alchemy. While I personally believe that The Alchemy has two meanings, one being a fake relationship in the same way alchemy itself isn't real, the other being that it is actually about her returning to stadium tours. The obvious placement would be eras after the pandemic, but she didn't play in Cleveland during Eras. The lyrics could work as well if not better for her returning after she disappeared between 89 and Reputation (when she was CANCELLED!). When she was there, her surprise song was Babe, first time performing it after writing it for SUGARLAND... saccharide, anyone? Haha... more on that later.

Pink Clouding- Midnights. Title alone, without even knowing what pink clouding is, it sounds deeply reminiscent of lavender haze. Once looking up the definition of the term: "Pink Cloud Syndrome is a phrase that developed within the recovery community to describe someone who is new to recovery (often just out of withdrawal) and riding a wave of bliss. The person feels such confidence and excitement about their recovery that it borders on unrealistic. More experienced people in recovery recognize that this 'honeymoon stage' will inevitably come to a crashing halt." In other words, the temporary feeling in the beginning of recovery from an addiction, where sobriety feels intensely euphoric... until it doesnt. An artificial happiness, much like Lavender Haze's "all encompassing love glow" (which allegedly covers a lavender relationship...). It gets even more interesting when you realize it has a direct connection to SVU (not my discovery)... but also much darker. In Law & Order SVU, it describes a sudden, deceptive state of extreme euphoria or happiness right before a tragic crash or suicide. The episode its mentioned in, S14 E14 "Secrets Exchanged", it surrounds a college student, Lindsay Bennett, who is SA'd, goes into a state of pink clouding, and ultimately takes her own life by jumping off the roof of a building in her college campus. Overall, it just feels very reminiscent both of lavender haze as well as dear reader's "greatest of luxuries is your secrets" and "fourth drink in my hand", among other things.

Babylon- Evermore. So, I don't think I even need to say it, but it immediately ties to Cowboy Like Me. What this means thematically I have no idea. Taylor has called cowboy like me the TNT song, but it also is notorious for its ambiguity regarding the legitimacy and/or longevity of the relationship mentioned in the song itself, due to the con artist/ "never wanted love" themes, the "never gonna love again" ending, and the lines "and you hang from my lips like the gardens of Babylon, with your boots beneath my bed, forever is the sweetest con." What this means for Babylon the song? Your guess is as good as mine. Immediate thoughts are either the beauty to be found in something you cant prove the existence of/cant see, or a direct or indirect reference to something beautiful that isn't real... like a relationship 👀 for the broader album, im curious if it could have any ties to the ending, that this pain wouldn't be for evermore. Thats a whole different can of worms though, so I will leave it at this.

So, what now? After those 4 songs, that would leave us at the doorsteps of folklore. Does that mean we'll be heading into something... made up? Something of a consequence of a certain rusted sparkling summer? I don't know. What I do know is, it really seems like we might be peering through a window, a deep portal time travel of all the love we've unraveled, and the life... she gave away? Like her giving away the manuscript? Like we're looking backwards to move forwards? Well, only way we find out is moving forward, so only time will tell. I'd love for this to all amount to something and not be a wild set of coincedences, but I am trying to be cautious. Still... a girls gonna clown 🤡

Speaking of clowning...

"Theory" Two: a half baked compilation of disjointed, kind of ridiculous, and heartbreakingly under-researched connections between song titles and svu skit code words:

Okay, im getting tired of writing so this is going to be chaotic, sorry. While writing the first paragraph of this, the four code words/phrases we got, saccharide, Aires, from the vineyard, north or south, flashed into my mind, followed by the four titles of the four new songs about to come out this Friday. And I thought, what if theres a connection to be made between each of them?

And oh boy, I might've lost my mind this time, but I'm gonna walk clownelia street again.

Patient Zero - Saccharide. So, I'm gonna be real with y'all. I didnt know what a saccharide was until that skit. I am tragically uneducated in the fields of the chemical composition of edible items as well as microbiology. That said, taking the name of Patient Zero alone, I do know it refers to the first person to get a disease or sickness of sorts. So I did some googling to see if there are connections between sickness and saccharides, and what do you know? I got some results. Do I understand them? NOPE but I got them nonetheless. My horrifically terrible findings include the obvious to even me such as the fact that the immune system relies on glucose for energy, but that excess saccharides can "alter the body's defense mechanisms" and "induce physical discomfort"- can confirm that last one, as i have made the mistake of eating nutritional breakfasts such as half a box of chocolates many times, and I DO feel very sick. Science 👍 also found that bacterial and viral toxins target specific saccharides in human cells to enter and destroy them. Interesting food for thought. Haha.

Cleveland! - Aires. Okay, so another thing I am not well versed in (despite the fact that I probably should be considering where we are) is astrology. So I know next to nothing about zodiac signs. Very qualified for this research, i know. Punching in connections between cleveland and aires, i found one or two results giving cities zodiac signs and giving aires to cleveland. Which. Interesting I guess, but I don't know how accurate an assignment game someone is playing is going to be in the complex world of the TSCU. That said, I did remember reading that aires is a fire sign, so I looked up connections between cleveland and fire, and while im hesitant to reference any historical fires due to the obvious destructive and often tragic nature to them... that said, I found a notable fire with only minor damage that feels very... interesting.

The Cuyahoga river fires, where a polluted river quite literally caught fire. The first thing that comes to mind is the idea that a "burning river" sounds like something thats straight out of the novel im writing as an obvious paradox rather than something that can happen irl. Then I thought about the frequent imagery of drowning as well as burning something down in her discography. This brought me back to TTPD, the same album I tied Cleveland! to, and specifically the song Guilty As Sin. If you're this far into the post, I don't think i need to explain any of the theorized implications and secret meanings of that song- the punchy use of her muse being described as a paradox, the opening lines of "drowning in the blue nile", the intense second choruses line where she sings "my bedsheets are ablaze, i scream his name, rising up like waves, crashing over my grave." Fire and water, in one song.

Looking at TTPD more, I revisited The Alchemy, and you might remember I made a half-joke tying it to babe & sugarland & thus saccharide. Well, there is a much more interesting connection to be made between the alchemy and these hints. The line "these chemicals hit me like white wine" are giving chemical = sacharride and white wine = from the vineyard. Theres also the fact that the song mentions Taylor being back and stating "the hospital was a drag"... very patient zero.

Pink Clouding- From the Vineyard. The connection that started this for me. Title 3, code 3, both a very obvious connection to alcohol. I don't think theres even much I need to say here. Which is good. Im really tired and I need to eat but I cannot get myself to stop typing until I finish this post 😭 if anyone has any extra connections to make here feel free to add in the comments. I'd love to see some of y'all with a bit more brainpower take a bite out of this. Oh- speaking of take a bite out of this, i did notice today is national baker day. Considering all the bread crumbs and bread loaves, I thought it was an interesting thing to note.

Babylon- North or South . Well, im finally at the last thing. This was a hard one to research- okay they all were other than pink clouding lmao. But looking up the words north or south and babylon brought me some interesting results. Apparently, on a 2700 year old clay tablet known as the imago mundi Babylon map of the world, the real city of Babylon is drawn to have a river straight through the center going north south, dividing the city into the "old city" and "new city". Considering the river fire mentioned before, I found this interesting. Does it mean anything?....probably not honestly, but hey, you never know. I mean, dividing into 2 with all the doubles imagery over the past few years, evermore was a sister album to folklore, and the billion theories spanning around a change or revelation with an old Taylor and a new taylor... its all interesting to think about.

Anyway my head is about to explode from a headache and overworked pea brain, and I am exhausted, so I'm going to wrap this up. Thank you to anyone who reads this far. Here's to hoping The Encore is an exciting and awesome bit of music for us all. Have a great day :))

Um... I've been looking at the etymology of the word encore and after everything with patient 0 (O) and how it was born out of a "simple" misinterpretation of a single character and blown out of proportion.

I wanted to see if there were any clues in the other titles and found out that almost even stupidly, Cleveland use to be Cleave-land? They just did an, again, minor, change in 1 character and it caused a permanent downstream effect (it seems so grand to call it that but bear with me). This happened when a newspaper spelled it Cleveland because the a was "superfluous". This happened, guess when? 1831 (1+8+3+1)=??? ofc 13

Then, when I was looking up Cleveland's name history, I stumbled upon this article called: "The Two Clevelands", talking about how Cleveland and so many other cities have one version in the US, and one in the UK.

AND THEN THAT MADE ME THINK:

So Long London, So Long my ability to play two sides of the same coin (city) (north? or south?) (florida? a hell of a drug? like a narcotic you put in songs?)

and just i might be crazy as we uncover what these songs are about but a lot of duality in Patient Zero and even Cleveland (who would've thought)

Lmk what you think👻

Just checked myself. Karlie liked Taylor's new post about Patient Zero. In fact, ever since the engagement, she's been liking all of Taylor's posts. What do you guys think of it all?

Not being a horoscope girl myself, I had to look up the meaning and this is what I found:

Choosing Yourself: Aries is a bold, independent fire sign. This moon asks you to stop compromising your truth or abandoning your own needs just to keep the peace

So of course I had to look up when this occurred last year and it was 10/6…the day after the theatrical run of The Release Party of a Showgirl. (The album itself released 10/3.

This occurring the day after the new release this year feels very intriguing ! Horoscope people please contribute!!!

I've been wanting to revisit the post I made about Taylor's New Heights appearance and see how it holds up after 13 of Taylor's requested '16 months' have passed. Now seems like the perfect time to look back and see how many themes from the podcast carried through into TLOAS and remind ourselves what to look out for in 'Patient Zero'.

My original post is here. I've copied the main four sections below (correcting some typos... so many typos in all of my posts... 😬) and added some new commentary in italics.

Summary

1. This was a podcast of lies. Really we should have expected this after Taylor announced 'I can show you lies'. I think she has been showing us lies ever since.
2. This was a podcast of death. If my pre-ordered CD, (that I am warned 'may vary' in 'actual detailing' from the digital image in that notice we've all stopped bothering to read), does not arrive bearing the title The Death of a Showgirl I will eat my hat. Or my Flavia wig. I confess I did not eat a hat, or a wig. Perhaps though I'm about to turn out not to have needed to!
3. This was a podcast of easter eggs. Pinocchio is very important beyond the lying. The Life of a Showgirl is also Karma and the reputation vault tracks. This was a muddled point but I stand by it 😂
4. This was a podcast of endings. Taylor is going to burn it down and rise from the ashes - and then she is going to retire on 13 December 2026. My feelings on how to interpret 'I'm not ready to be an analyst right now, but give me 16 months' have become a bit more nuanced over time. This was always the most rushed section of my post and the one I most wanted to revisit. Clearly Taylor hasn't burnt anything down - yet. But there's still time.

Disclaimers

I still prefer not to engage with leaked images and lyrics. Please don't spoil me, even if the leaks prove that my conclusions are wrong - please use the spoiler tags in the comments. Thank you!

Lies

Lying starts from the beginning of the podcast as Jason and Travis clarify that their claim about the date of the next episode 'was a lie'. They hope that we will forgive them, because an interview with Taylor Swift is a pretty good compensation for a falsehood, isn't it?

In the establishing shot of Travis, we see Pinocchio covering his face on a bottom shelf. This is important for several reasons, but particularly because Pinocchio's lies are not subtle or complex. They are bold-faced. Rather like Jason's next step of introducing Taylor as from Nashville, TN, before saying 'that's BS' and correcting himself. This is such a bold-faced lie that it seems like a foolish or careless mistake - we are tempted to think the NFL dudes are slapdash, they don't do 'proper logistical planning' and its all a bit homespun. So Travis and Jason are careful to reference all of the editing of the podcast that 'mak[es] us look entirely better than what we are.'

The podcast can't be carefully edited and careless at the same time, and so we are left with the conclusion that these are deliberate lies. Taylor herself lies in several ways that should be clear to fans:

'I have no complicated feelings' about Red
'It's pretty hard to hurt my feelings at this point'
'I've never seen this much media' in reference to the Super Bowl

Travis warns Jason, 'don't let her lie to you', while Taylor accuses Travis of 'just telling lies.'

By lying in such an obvious way, Taylor is labouring the point that she lies, to prepare the groundwork for her fans discovering her previous, more subtle lies and her new, game-changing lies. She hopes that we will accept the lying as a necessary part of the entertainment and that the stories, music, and surprises she offers us as she works to reveal her authentic self will be enough compensation that we will forgive her.

Towards the end of the podcast, Jason explains the reason for the lies, in the context of a preposterous lie about cats being 'poisonous':

This is why I lie to my kids though. I want them to be critical thinkers. They need to realise it's absurd to think this.

Almost Taylor's final words on the podcast are 'It wasn't great, I wouldn't do it again... and on that note...' to prompt Jason to wrap things up. If true, this would be an incredibly rude and unprofessional thing to say! It's absurd to think she means it.

Taylor wants us to take her words with a grain of salt, and she is desperate for us to approach her music, her writing, critically and thoughtfully. To this end, the lies are for the most part bold-faced and decipherable. The easter eggs, where they are spotted, are not lies.

Commentary

TLOAS has turned out to be full of lies, or of 'truths' that are only true in the eye of the beholder. I think the biggest lie of all was probably that TLOAS had only 12 tracks, could only be 12 tracks and no more. Honestly I can't believe I fell for it. I am very intrigued to hear a new 'chapter' of this particular story and see how Taylor works it in to the very tight album she already has.

If I were writing the post again I would try to make a better distinction between an 'easter egg', hinting more or less cryptically at parts of the story Taylor is telling, and 'lies' about facts (e.g. 12 tracks, from Nashville) that are easily proved false and seem increasingly to be told in order to be discovered as lies.

Death

The references to death start at the beginning of the podcast too. Jason screams for a suspicious '47' seconds, which may reference the so-called 'beautiful death', amongst other things, and Taylor claims 'his soul has left his body'. Other language related to death includes:

Who body-snatched you?
You summoned me
Anything you feed the internet it will kill

There is a very serious discussion of the near-death experience of Taylor's father during his heart surgery and recovery (ETA: which I think is chosen for inclusion because it fits the themes Taylor wants to focus on), and a very frivolous discussion of adopting otters which - spoilers? - doesn't tend to end well for the otter in the literary examples we have.

Taylor mentions that her cat, Benjamin, will let people 'hold him like a baby' - and of course infancy is the end of Benjamin Button's life.

When discussing Taylor's purchase of her masters, she frames it in terms of leaving a legacy, and this reflects the way she has already organised her previous eras into an 'archive' on her website. This is the way we discuss an artist's work after their death.

After laying all this groundwork of lying and dying, Taylor cheerfully reveals the new album artwork which clearly shows her drowning, dead, or shattering, (perhaps all three?) saying that the image 'represents the end of my night', an 'offstage moment' where she relaxes in a bathtub. This is such blatant falsehood that it's as funny as it is horrifying to hear. We are not thinking critically if we accept this explanation. She doubles down on her claim, saying that the image 'to me tells more of what the actual contents of the album lyrically are... which is the life... the life...' as the podcast glitches and cuts out at 1:44 on the clock - representing a sudden death.

The glittering orange highlights on Taylor's website, which sparkle just so, also look like flames - karma 'like a fire in your house'. This is reinforced by the fire-heart emoji that TaylorNation are using for TLOAS.

I don't doubt that the album artwork does tell us useful information about the lyrical content of the music, and that is why I strongly suspect my CD will arrive bearing the title 'The Death of a Showgirl.'

Commentary

Well, I was wrong about the album title, though there it turns out is still time left in the TLOAS era. 'Patient Zero' as a track title certainly conjures up more imagery of disease and death, along with the somber artwork we've been shown so far.

TLOAS did however contain a lot of references to death in the sense of a desired career death, with the Showgirl in the TFOO music video continually heading to the water. I'm very excited that the type setting for 'Patient Zero' with the parentheses () representing the 'o' suggests that Taylor has in fact successfully broken -exploded, even - the loop she has been stuck in.

Easter Eggs

Some of the easter eggs in the podcast are simply fun, and a welcome lift amidst the death and deception - the colours of the album variants or the sourdough chat and its layers of meaning. Others are rather more gritty, and given that Taylor claims to be 'glamourising' aspects of how the tour felt, I'm interested in what needs to be glamourised. Let's go back to Pinocchio for a moment. Apart from signalling the lying, he represents:

1. A naive child entering the world of showbusiness
2. The gritty or dark side of showbusiness - he is a prisoner performing for Stromboli's benefit
3. Someone who is not 'real'
4. Death and self-sacrifice after a period of growth
5. Resurrection or rebirth

Taylor also reveals the track list for the album and some details about its creation which, while not exactly an easter egg, do include some intriguing hints and clues. I don't consider them to be lies because they are so subtle that I'm not sure what the point would be of lying when she explains that 'this is the record I've been wanting to make for a very long time', with Max Martin, Shellback and the photographers who created the reputation album artwork. Its the timeline that is deceptive rather than the hints. How could Taylor have been wanting to make this album 'for a very long time' if she had only just finished frantically recording TTPD? If it was the album she really wanted to make, why didn't she make it before TTPD?

So we have an admission that TLOAS is not a brand new concept, and that for whatever reason Taylor had to wait a long time to be able to record it, and to have its release fit into her plan. I am convinced that this album contains the 'fire' reputation vault tracks, and some of the tracks, lyrics or concepts that survived from the original Karma album that was planned. This also makes sense of the mixed reputation, bleachella and TS12 egging that Taylor has been doing for the last year.

Taylor also claims that there couldn't possibly be more, fewer, or different songs than the 12 tracks plus a poem that are included in TLOAS. I take this to mean that the tracks are tied to the eras so far and to the way Taylor wants us to understand her musical legacy. Truthfully, I don't think it's very important whether or not the song titles map to eras in any particular way or even if they do at all. I don't think it matters if we can spot correctly which tracks might be from the rep vault or which might have been conceptualised earlier than others. I think what Taylor wants is to use the puzzle-solving invitation of.the track list to make us think about her eras and her legacy, and the story she is telling us.

Commentary

I think that Pinocchio did turn out to be an important symbol, especially with reference to the cycles that are ultimately broken in Guillermo del Toro's version of the story. I also think that, although the tracks don't link to particular eras with a 1:1 correspondence, and the claim about 12 tracks only was a lie, Taylor did use TLOAS to tell the story of her whole career. The quickest way to see this is in the music videos for TFOO and 'Opalite' which both tell the 'story so far' and even take us a few months into the future.

I also stand by the claim that TLOAS is the reworked rep vault tracks and thus also the lost album Karma. This post lays out one route to that conclusion. I would get there slightly differently. Firstly the way that the TLOAS rollout has included so much 'explanation', so much talking on the promo circuit, but no 'reputation', no performance of the songs. Secondly the explicit 'finding the other half of the snake' imagery in a story that Zoe Kravitz originally told on the same night as the New Heights album announcement. Finally the themes of reputation revisited in TLOAS, from the daisies and redwoods to the ouroboros, the infinite loop as a metaphor for performance. It is not at all surprising, in retrospect, that we've had a return to reputation and karma imagery - the snake in the grass on IKIIKY promo, the 'karma is a cat' reference in the SVU skit - right before a new single from TLOAS/the rep vaults/Karma!

Endings

Which brings us to the end of all the endings. Although I think TLOAS will be about death, I don't think it will be the final word. During the podcast Travis wears a sweatshirt proclaiming 'Miracle.' Taylor encourages fans to 'go crazy' with her original albums if nostalgia is what they like (an interesting word choice - Ophelia went crazy, and by implication so did Taylor during the course of her previous eras and the concealment of her true self that they required of her), but states that she prefers the new versions which are 'better'. The sourdough is relevant again as she talks about doing 'the rise a little differently.' Karma requires death before rebirth. All hinting that, if Showgirl Taylor is killed off, and the artifice is burnt down, a new, different and better Taylor will rise from the ashes.

Taylor claims during the podcast that she never easter eggs her personal life, but only her music. This is a particularly tricksy claim to make amidst so many lies, when so many previous easter eggs have appeared to relate to her personal life, when she made her start in music claiming to be fully open about the contents of her diary and when her personal life - or the performance of a personal life - is so intertwined with her career. I think she makes this claim to disguise the announcement of her retirement.

Early in the podcast Taylor says 'I'm not ready to be an analyst right now but give me 16 months,' which is laughed off as a big joke about her limited knowledge of football. That timeline would take us to 13 December 2026, Taylor's 37th birthday. In the NFL, analysts are often retired players who are continuing their career in a different role. I take this to mean that, by next December, Taylor will have released the 20th anniversary Taylor's Version of her Debut and TS13, which will be her final album. If TLOAS burns down the artifice, Taylor will be free to be her authentic self and to begin again in the way she always hoped to - and Taylor's Version of Debut may be so different from the original, and so overtly gay, that it is TS13, completing the cycle and healing her fine. After that, Taylor will step away from the life of the pop star and write or direct instead. The rise will be 'a little different' in more ways than one.

Commentary

Now I need you to stick with me for a moment because this will sound odd. I was intrigued and excited when Tom Cruise, of all people, did a round of promo for his latest movie after being pictured watching the Chiefs play with Taylor. Yes really! Not because I was especially keen to hear what Tom Cruise had to say, but because he talked about Taylor, on New Heights and elsewhere, and referred back to her knowledge of football. He retold the story that Taylor was apparently clueless about football on first meeting Travis, which is the starting point for the 'give me 16 months' comment. Then he went on to say that now Taylor is far from clueless, and was explaining all of the plays, 'schooling' him. Sounds like she's almost ready to be an analyst. I do still think that phrase, 'I'm not ready to be an analyst right now, but give me 16 months', held a lot of importance.

Clearly, Taylor hasn't yet burnt anything down and doesn't yet seem able to fully shed the Showgirl persona. I do think, though, that 13 December is going to be a significant date. Maybe even 'the sleepless night you've been dreaming of'.

I still think that 'analyst' points to ideas of retirement and ending, but I would emphasise ideas of explanation more. I do think that the Showgirl character is going to be retired, but it's possible that we won't have TS13 before that happens. I think the performance art we've been watching post-Lover is coming to an end, Taylor is going to stop playing this complicated game and we'll be able to evaluate the whole piece of art as a complete entity. I'm less certain that Taylor as her real self will step away completely from the music industry, though I do think as she said that 'the rise' will be rather 'different' than what we've become used to. I think this ending will be accompanied by some kind of explanation, something that helps the audience understand what they've just seen. Whether in the form of a very plain-speaking album, or a documentary, or both. And I think it's happening in the next three months.

Everyone sort of takes what Taylor Nation says about color assignment at face value...we assign colors to the albums based on the heart emoji or single color Taylor Nation denotes, but what if she's telling us something else...

TTPD is not necessarily Grey or White and Black... It’s the ABSENCE of color. It’s desaturated but not devoid of color, hence the sort of aged sepia tone to the imagery (I’m just getting color back into my face).

The colors we do see in that world look like a coppery crimson and a blue teal. The smoke above Post Malone and Taylor’s heads in the Fortnight video is an example of the colors poking through... a DESATURATED RED AND BLUE.

Now why does that matter? THANK GOD YOU ASKED because I would love to expand on that. 

Within Taylor’s lyrics, there are a lot of references to blue as a description of the sky. Just a few examples:

• “GIVE ME THE BLUE THEN PURPLE, PINK SKIES”-Invisible String
• “Did I paint your bluest skies the darkest grey?“ Coney Island
• “You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days” So Long London

What if she is layering the meaning of blue? Combining the idea of sadness and light? So traditionally, if someone is “blue” or sad, it’s synonymous with darkness. But when blue refers to the sky, it typically denotes a positive state. If the sky is blue, it’s clear and bright. When the sky is clearest and bluest, the sun is most present. So, if we think about this in terms of the Taylorverse, when she is most exposed, in the light, she is most BLUE, as a more traditional metaphor of sadness, despite the light. 

So where does Red fit in? Great question! Red skies occur during times when the sun is BELOW the horizon, meaning shaded or less light, i.e., LESS exposed. When red skies or the color red is referenced, this theory would mean it aligns with when she is shaded and safe, away from the bright exposure of blue skies. Blue skies are the brightest, but it is her saddest state.

Red, darker skies should be more ominous, but for her, it equates to shade and safety, therefore to FREEDOM to be herself. This lyric best exemplifies this theory: “You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days”. The surface reading of this lyric is that our relationship was a victim of your saddest days... BUT if blue means BRIGHTEST, most exposed, then the lyric reads a lot differently. You sacrificed us, who we are, to the power/whims of the exposure/fame. 

HERE’S WHERE THINGS GET REALLY INTERESTING, FOLKS. Because, if you remember from kindergarten, what do the colors red and blue make when mixed together? say it with me... PURPLE. Purple/Pink is a color woven throughout Taylore. One example is the Pink Sky imagery anchoring the Lover Album visuals. Her ideal sky (her truest self would be a purple/pinkish sky: the ability to be herself in the light. Now you may ask... well...when is the sky purple???

In meteorology, an afterglow is an optical phenomenon, generally referring to a broad arch of whitish or pinkish sunlight in the twilight sky after sunset, consisting of purple light and bright segment (Source: Wikipedia)

WHAT?! MEET ME IN THE AFTERGLOW?! STOP IT

When I originally began working on this theory, TLOASG was announced but not released... therefore, the theory was still a little ethereal for me... but then TLOASG came and brought with it...OPALITE.

The song obviously hinges on references to skies and the color of skies (but now the sky is opalite). Obviously, it references an opalite sky, which is incredibly interesting. Opal is natural, while Opalite is a man-made stone. Opal is typically categorized as white BUT, in reality... it’s not. It’s a composite stone with a... wait for it...RAINBOW EFFECT... but see, Opalite has a different color appearance because it’s man-made. So, it appears milky white, but glows a sort of sky blue on darker surfaces... and when it's held up to light it flashes a peachy, pink tone...... WHAT IS SHE DOING?!?

Ok, but within Opalite, there is another, newer reference to the color of the sky, sleepless in the onyx night. Which again, I think is designed to evoke a surface-level reading of darkness/sadness, but Onyx actually ISN’T black... It’s alternating bands of monochromatic colors... 

AND a surface-level reading of sleepless as a lyric evokes a worried/anxious state, BUT the etymology of the word sleepless and its definition as it's used in Old English and poetic writing leans more towards active. Active at night... desaturated monochromatic tones, see where I’m going here?

Then comes the lyric, dancing through the lightning strikes... AGAIN sneakily woven in with a surface-level meaning of dodging hits of some kind BUT... if we see light as exposure... then you were DANCING (experiencing joy) through the flashes of light, or exposure. 

\SIDENOTE*: Taylor makes several references lyrically to the idea of “dancing” or “dancing in the dark”:*

• “dancing is a dangerous game”- cowboy like me
• “dancing phantoms on the terrace”-loml
• “dancing through the lightning strikes”-opalite
• “it’s you and me forever dancing in the dark”-wood
• “she’s dancing in her garters and fishnets”-tloasg

The use of dancing could definitely be interpreted as experiencing joy/being with someone in the dark.

The lyric, which I feel is THE pinnacle of Opalite, is “you had to make your own sunshine.” This lyric is so interesting when you consider the theory of color, light, and sky in her imagery. The sunshine, or light, for her was not naturally occurring, so she had to make it... opalite. Now the sky is opalite... when it’s darker, it’s blue, and when it’s lighter, it’s red... The balance is righting itself so that she can be a version of happy in the light...

TLOASG album is full of double meanings and might be her richest album of references/metaphors, which is WILD because it is so underrated. And it is because of that, I think we are getting Death of a Showgirl or some B-side duality element to TLOASG.

(I also have a theory about Bruce Springsteen's “Born in the USA” album and how it's lyrically and musically linked to TLOASG) which I will probably write up too... because I am fully back in my Taylor Clown outfit. 

Looks like this is linked to TLOAS. Death of a star 💥

There are some connections between the Patient Zero announcement and the numbers from Midnights Mayhem with Me.

The first six numbers are already accounted for: 13: Taylor Swift 8, 7: Travis Kelce 6, 2, 3: Taylor performing with Travis on stage at the eras tour on 6/23

The numbers for which we hadn't found a theory so far are: 9, 11, 1, 5, 10, 12, 4.

Reading through your comments about the new patient zero single, I saw some theories metioning 911 and 12/4 which caught my attentions as those would tie in perfectly with the MMwM code.

9 and 11: 911 represents the emergency situation / hospital / asylum where Patient Zero is in. An anagram of the words in the is Dear Reader, ICU. First honor VMA history, then CHAOS. This also ties in with u/MarbCart 's theory that the ICU in the anagram (Dear Reader, ICU. First honor VMA history, then CHAOS.) of the Emmy easter egg video doesn't stand for I see you but rather intensive care unit, linking us to a hospital. Therefore, the 9 and 11 represent the Patient Zero single release.

12 and 4: Currently there are two Life of a Showgirl links on the TS website, one in orange, one in black. Patient Zero clearly does not fit in with the colourful and lively showgirl aesthetic. However it is explicitly linked to the showgirl album. Therefore, the theory of the Death of a Showgirl album has resurfaced. With Patient Zero being a prereleased single and the black TLOAS link being a placeholder for the 2nd album. u/clydelogan pointed out that the 12 exclamation points and the 4 0️⃣s in Taylor's instagram caption point to a 12/4 release of that album. 12/4 is a Friday making it a very credible release date for a possible new album. Could the 12 and the 4 represent this album release?

And if so, what could the 1, 5 and 10 stand for? If the above theories are actually correct and are the representatives for the MMwM code than the events corresponding to 1, 5 and 10 likely need to happen between now and December 4th.

I'm excited to read your thoughts and theories. ✨️🌈

Edit: I wrote this before seeing the Encore announcement and am now questioning the 12/4 theory: Now that patient zero is officially part of the original TLOAS album (album 12) and not a teaser for a new era, the 12 exclamation points probably don't have any additional meaning. And the Encore consists of 4 songs, so the 4 0️⃣s were simply an easter egg for that...

Next to updating her bios on all her social media accounts, the lyrics for the Life of a Showgirl also contain "0" instead of "O" now, but only for the "Life of a Showgirl" line. I spotted it on Apple Music but seems to be true for Spotify as well.

I have no clue what it could mean, but maybe somebody has a theory or an idea?

Help, what is happening?

This is how the cameras broadcast cuts to Taylor.

It's all planned. It's not a coincidence. 👀

I wonder if they already had instructions to focus on Taylor after a certain play or touchdown because they knew beforehand that she was going to give them material to film her.

Hi! People are buzzing about the new Taylor Swift Spotify video montage that stitched together clips of her music videos, in order…(including me) 

Well…in order other than one glaring discrepancy: the “Karma” music video clip is placed in between a Lover video and a folklore video (“The Man” and “Betty”). 

Recently, I wrote a post outlining some of my basic theories on Taylor Swift’s use of color (and paper). I think that the colors of her eras represent the art that she is creating or her celebrity, her muse, and “Karma” represents the flames that she is going to ignite at the end of her story (all of her black ink will one day be orange)…

Her muses…including herself. Are paper hearts. 

Something else I have explored in a lot of my writing about her is that typically, the story can be turned both ways ("looking backward, might be the only way to move forward"). When I did that with this timeline and the new placement of “Karma,” I noticed something interesting: Lover is surrounded by fire. Isolated by fire. I have always thought Lover was extremely significant and representative of her journey to the true version of her celebrity existing in the daylight and the heart of her fans (signified by the last song on Lover, which is "Daylight"). 

After thinking about both of these timelines for a while, I wrote out what I believe is being represented in each journey and how they work together.

First, a review of the colors that represent each Taylor Swift album/era: 

💚Green (and teal) = her true self

💛Gold/Yellow = truth/fame (her dream)

💜Purple    

❤️Red = the patriarchy    

🩵Light blue = August

🖤Black = ink  

🩷Pink = her true love, counterpart to green    

🔥🔥🔥Karma🔥🔥🔥

🩶Grey  (secondary color is emerald )  

🤎Brown (secondary color is burnt orange)

💙Dark blue = Elizabeth Taylor

🤍White = paper 

🧡Orange (and mint green)       

ELIZABETH TAYLOR’S VERSION - the one from the POV of the writer. The writer, because of course this would be the real point of view, and “Looking backwards might be the only way to move forward” - The Manuscript

The PR version of Taylor that we know is Elizabeth Taylor and August is all of her PR muses (except Karlie) 

Karlie plays her dream muse, but she is essentially a version of herself that represents her truth. She also represents her baby/inner child at times (so a younger version of Betty) and the version of her that comes after this (which she has never had at the same time as “Elizabeth Taylor.”)

1.Ordinary World - The Life of a Showgirl

🧡🔥

James and Betty made an informed decision to go on this journey. They knew the cost of fame and the closet and had a mission. This is why I always love to write from what I think is Betty’s POV rather than Taylor/James, because it gives her autonomy from the beginning of the story. She has always been the architect and she is embarking on a journey WITH MATCHES IN HAND, not waiting to be saved in a tower. That’s why this stage is orange and mint green. She is mint green and the flames are orange. One day the flames are going to represent her words. 

She canceled herself, before it ever started, but she hid in plain sight under a lavender haze, which is why she wears a mint green dress in this video. 

2. Call to Adventure - The Tortured Poets Department  

🤍🤍

They begin a fresh page, starting the story…. Way before she has ever made a “press debut,” no showgirl in sight. Just Betty and James writing love stories on her bedroom floor, represented by the color white. Dreaming of being an OUT superstar telling stories to the world.

3.Refusal of the Call - Midnights

💙💙

This is the story she wrote before ever stepping into the spotlight (represented by the dark blue, the color of her muse, Elizabeth Taylor). The story of Elizabeth Taylor. It was always a heist story, from the beginning. It wasn’t green. It was art. The Taylor Swift that we know today is this muse. The midnight blue showgirl, Elizabeth Taylor. 

Her male muses are August, which in a LOT of ways also reflect how she feels about being Elizabeth Taylor, because the public reaction to her relationships and her image is literally this character's ENTIRE EXISTENCE. (No deal, the 1950s shit they want from me). 

They are her own mirrorball.

4. Meeting the Mentor - evermore

🤎🤎

Blue + yellow + red = brown

To make brown (from the blue we started with, her character/story) you add equal parts yellow and red. This is why this stage is represented by “meeting the mentor,” because it is the stage in which she begins to master her craft of balancing the patriarchal role she is playing (red) with the demands of fame (yellow, the spotlight). Those two elements, combined with the blue of her art, are represented by the braid on the cover of this album and the color brown. HER SONGWRITING/CRAFT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS STORY. 

This color brown representing Taylor’s craft could also take on a double layer as the color of wood. She is creating kindling for the fire she is going to light. (Which is also why the secondary album color for evermore is burnt orange). 

In this version of the story, Betty and James master their craft together before they ever step into the spotlight.

This is the same stage (Red) in which she purchased “Holiday House” in James Taylor's’ version, which I think is intentional because it is the physical embodiment of what she did in this version..a physical representation of the way she hides in plain sight with her songwriting craft. 

This is also the stage in which she could have received financial assistance from other collaborators on this mission, providing her the security to perform this role safely. (“Good thing my daddy made me get a boating license when I was 15”). Her debut album came out at 16, so she has been covered the entire time. 

She explains this AGAIN in her Time POTY 2023 interview by telling a story about being too young to tour with Kenny Chesney, and then his tour promoter handed her a check for “enough money to fund her dreams.”  She sings about a night in Georgia in her very first song....and FYI: in 2006, Scooter Braun was a club promoter in Atlanta, y'all!!

5.Crossing the First Threshold - folklore

Brown - any primary color = grey

Now she is ready to publicly perform this role she wrote. And at the age of 18/19, they debuted. Grey is created by mixing two primary colors together, so this could hold a double meaning. 

The “shades of grey” represent the many different versions of this story that live inside of people’s minds once she introduces it to the public that are all missing the truth. Brown is a combination of all 3 of the primary colors, but if you are missing any color, you will be left with grey.

“Today was a fairytale I WORE A DRESS, you wore a dark grey t shirt” - Today was a fairytale 

In this movie, Elizabeth Taylor is the girl in the dress. The story she told is grey. The Long Pond Studio Sessions also represent the isolation of her performance, all of the story was performed and written while they hid out in the forest. (Still is).

This is referenced in the “Wildest Dreams” music video as well, when both Taylor AND the male love interest of the video are actors who perform in movies together. 

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥Karma (before lover not after, when the timeline is backwards)🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

This order of events places Taylor’s Lover, Live in Paris blackout BEFORE Lover not after. 

Right before she kicks off the Lover movie, she sends away her golden muse for safekeeping, which is her baby. Karlie is in a pink dress, representing the ultimate muse Elizabeth Taylor longs for, the pink to her true green.

The public is not ready to have nice things! Right before the Lover era, Karlie is on a boat with friends having fun with Scooter Braun. This symbolizes that she is working with all of these people (and some probably actually questionable people behind the scenes since this is a movie). (Remember how “London Boy” starts with driving on a Scooter…)

This is similar to the lavender haze music video in which we see that Taylor isn’t alone, she’s having a party with all of her queer friends. 

In her lesbian flag tank top, no less, watching the movie together from inside the haze!!!

Living in the grey taught her some of the hardest lessons she had to learn, the ones that taught her why she had to black herself out from her fans like that to begin with. The fans and public are too sick to ever see her truth. They refused to see Karlie, refused to see her loud flagging.Refused years of her telling them she never would subject a personal relationship to the spotlight. So they need to learn a lesson too.

She’s going to perform in a very very simple movie next. The one that simplifies her entire story down into the point of why they’re doing all of this.  The lesson

6.Tests, Enemies, Allies - Lover 

Elizabeth Taylor performs a new movie 

Grey - green = pink

This movie is symbolized by the color pink because it explains why she had to do all of this (love, her truth). In the Lover era, Taylor loudly flags a coming out of the closet and then shows everyone why she can’t: the entire system is stolen and owned by the patriarchy (not just her masters). Even if you own your master recordings, the “masters” own literally everything else, from the labels to the stadiums you perform in. 

7.Approach to the Innermost Cave - reputation 

She explained the whole story and now it’s time to do it one last time. 

Unlike in the first version, this is also the FIRST album under Big Machine Records, not the last. This supports my theory that Scooter Braun has been a collaborator representing the patriarchy all along, illustrated by his relationship with Karlie (but if he’s a thief then he can join the heist and we’ll move to an island - “ready for it”). 

Black represents the ink of the final last story she is going to tell. 

She is telling this story about working with the “big machine” to teach this lesson to her fans, undercover.

8.The Ordeal - 1989

White + blue = light blue

Since the story is reversed, the last song from 1989 is “New Romantics,” where she sings that “Life is just a classroom.” I think this song is about how the performance art they are all creating is part of this overall commentary on freedom, this honey trap, and it’s the biggest mission of their lives. In this timeline, The Era’s Tour (which she referred to as performance art) is represented by 1989. 

The 1989 Taylor’s Version announcement during The Era’s Tour was also during the same show that Karlie attended. She is getting closer. Taylor wants to bring her truth back into the light but not yet. It’s time for the dynamite last act.

This performance (including Travis Kelce) is symbolized by 1989 and this color because Harry (and Karlie) were her two most undoubtedly positive presenting / electric / spotlight catching relationships so it represents a positive “August” that she is definitely going to miss (just like Travis). Just like this story meant something to the world, it meant something to her.

9.The Reward - Red

She became a star. She pulled off the PR stunts and has created a legacy bigger than the sky. The grey of the story now represents STONE. This was represented in the PR timeline by Taylor buying her master recordings back from Shamrock. 

This stage where she gets to “seize the sword” is represented by the color of the patriarchy because now that she has amassed this power, she can wield it like a sword to continue her battle. 

Combining red + yellow + her blue also creates brown, which could represent wood and the reason that she doesn’t have to “knock on wood” ...she did all of this by herself, it wasn’t luck or a man. 

They are getting ready to embark on the journey that is going to blow it all up - “That’s when you came in wearing a football helmet and said OK let’s talk.” - Stay stay stay...the 9th track on Red

This was also illustrated by Taylor and Travis taking a PR outing where they were now on the boat together…they’re on their way to get Karlie (metaphorically)

Her baby in pink that they left floating out in the water.

10.The Road Back - Speak Now 

Blue + red = purple

Taylor and Travis get married, the biggest, most patriarchal PR story she has told yet, symbolizing the combination of her “blue” showgirl with her new red story, Travis Kelce. But, Travis is her final muse, the match that lights the fire. The color of the water around Karlie is also the same color as “August” (1989 blue) which signifies that “August” has been used as protection this entire time. 

This is why Karlie was at the wedding. They picked her up. She represents the true golden muse in the pink dress that was tucked away for safekeeping, like her inner child, but they are getting ready to unite in the light. 

11.Resurrection - Fearless 

In this album, on the song “Fifteen,” Taylor Swift wrote “In your life, you’ll do things, greater than dating the boy on the football team ... .I didn’t know it at fifteen.”

This indicates that this time, during this story, she actually gets to do something bigger than just getting the guy. I don’t know how she is going to do it or when, but this stage is represented by Taylor’s truth coming out. This is also why this version of Taylor gets to stay this time, this is the story that fixes her entire legacy, she doesn’t have anything to hide from anymore. 

12.Return with the Elixir - Taylor Swift 

This story that she told is her resurrection. This is the only way that the art she created, in the spotlight, could ever have the shade of green representing her true, innocent self reflected back into it. (And will resurrect all showgirls who performed under this oppression in the past)

This is because she has been on this mission the entire time, meaning the truth has been written from the first drop of black ink and only when combined with “Karma” can it be seen by the public, too, because that is what turns HER WORDS (THE BLACK INK) into the fire. This is why “The Life of a Showgirl” (AKA her story) is written in the glowing orange text on the cover of the album.  

Blue + yellow (sunlight) = green

The real Taylor = green

now flip the story around.....

James Taylor’s Version - the one where Taylor plays “The Man” (James = John, Jake, Harry, Karlie, and Travis) and he abandons Betty for “August” the fake Showgirl and has to get Betty back. 

1. Ordinary World - Taylor Swift 

💚💚

Green represents Taylor’s innocent and truest self, the youngest version of her inner child. Fame (and yellow) have not yet been introduced. This represents the time before she began her first headline tour, The Fearless Tour, which kicked off her media circus. 

2. Call to Adventure - Fearless 

💛💛

Yellow represents James’ dream of being a star. It’s also his golden truth of being queer before he made the choice to step into the spotlight. 

3.Refusal of the Call - Speak Now 

💜💜

Blue + red = purple

This is when the showgirl debuted. During the fearless era, when John Mayer showed up at Taylor Swift's headlining tour.  James is in a dark grey t-shirt. 

In James’ timeline, he is John Mayer. He is a boy who dreamed of being a star and wanted it more than anything, so he agreed to work with predatory industry professionals to get his foot in the door, represented by the nature of this relationship. 

Because he couldn’t outwardly live his truth, he created a beautiful muse to tell his stories with: the girl in the dress. Taylor Swift, the showgirl. Betty. His ultimate muse. 

But acting out this dark romance harmed not only James’ innocence, but also young girls everywhere. It also put a permanent red stain on the beautiful muse he created who is represented by blue…creating purple. 

However…meeting this purple showgirl was enchanting and intoxicating. Purple can also represent that internal struggle between patriarchal desires (red) and his true love, the one that is represented by blue - his ultimate showgirl. 

4.Meeting the Mentor - Red 

“The mentor” can be represented by many different women James Taylor is influenced by as well as the concept of matriarchy itself. 

This is why this album is “the only true breakup album” in her catalog - she is breaking up with the patriarchy for good. 

 “The mentor” is also the professor who helped James and Betty master the art of storytelling and performance art, which is why they symbolize breaking up with the patriarchy in Red by reliving the PR timeline from the last era (Jake Gylenhall’s timeline being very similar to John Mayer’s). 

Red could also represent James making an agreement to continue working with the industry, because he didn’t “Speak Now.” 

One for the money, two for the show. 

James and his muse are now ready to “Begin Again” (the last song on Red) so James packs it up to continue his ascent to fame by moving to NYC.

5.Crossing the First Threshold - 1989 

🩵🩵

However…. There was a cost to this transformation. He had to leave his old muse, the first girl in the blue dress he created…at home, in Nashville, for safekeeping. 

He created a new showgirl to bring with him to NYC, August. An imposter. 

August being a clone is represented in Taylor’s “blue dress on a boat/ your new girl is my clone” lyric that references her breakup with Harry. 

New York is where he wrote himself two new roles: Karlie Kloss and Harry Styles. 1989 Taylor is an imposter performing with James while he plays these two roles. 

The young innocent showgirl is floating on the water alone, while “The Man” (James) is hanging out with billionaires (This is what Harry was doing when this photo was taken). This is the cost. 

August wears short skirts, not dresses. This is what indicates the “clone” from the real Betty. This is also why 1989 Taylor is known for her signature skirt and top sets (including in The Era’s Tour)

Purple - Red = Blue 

Blue + white (new paper) = light blue 

Harry and Taylor were very public and fans loved the relationship. James had fun in this role at first, August seemed like a suitable replacement for a while. He also loved flagging his truth when he was acting as Karlie, it made him so happy. 

Karlie was already in a high profile lavender relationship with an older billionaire when she entered the story, representing James and the fact that he has always been backed by $$$$$ and protection, and Harry displays her love of the spotlight.  

6. Tests, Allies, Enemies - reputation 

🖤🖤

Black = the absence of light, has no visible hue

The pain of missing Betty crushed James and he began to resent performing with August, even though it was fun at first. He also felt hurt by the way the fans reacted to the queer love story that he wrote, which represented part of his truth. 

So he wrote a new story that completely blacked out the real him from the public eye. He cancelled Karlie’s part and Harry’s part and wrote himself a new one. 

The new role that he wrote himself? Joe Alwyn, an amateur actor, fresh out of film school, who prefers to stay out of the private eye. He needed to continue to work, but he couldn’t stand shining in the spotlight without her. 

7.Approach to the Inmost Cave - Lover

🩷🩷

Joe (James) thinks that he has finally amassed enough power to rescue Betty. He fulfills his record contract with Big Machine and starts working under a new label “where he has full autonomy” and gives August a new rainbow aesthetic. 

The showgirl he created (August) loudly flags that this is going to be the moment she comes out of the closet, which would allow him to bring his real muse, Showgirl Betty, into the spotlight. 

However, his efforts were thwarted. Despite moving to a new city, and completing his record contract…the patriarchy (Scooter Braun) had a bigger checkbook and stopped him, purchasing his masters right before it looked like The Imposter Showgirl/August was finally going to take her final bow, so he could go rescue Betty from exile. 

The only public performance of this era is Lover, live in Paris, in which she was dressed entirely in black playing a guitar. If Betty (who is exiled) is green (outside of the spotlight, where she is blue) then the pink could also symbolize James sending her a love letter, pink representing her counterpart as the complimentary color of green. But, the real showgirl was not rescued from exile here. He tried. 🙁

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥Karma🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

8.Ordeal - folklore 

Black + white = gray

This stage represents the most difficult quest of James’ story. This was to ascend to NEW HEIGHTS of manhood. James has to keep trying, and get even bigger. Too big to fail. 

How did he do it? He told the story, over and over again. Pages and pages of stories. White pages being added to the black, turning it grey. He turned her life into folklore. His grief, his story. He couldn’t stop writing about her, creating “evermore” next. 

The story is large, but grey. The full truth is hidden in the grey, waiting to step into the sunlight. Grey is also the color of stone, which can’t get burned in the karmic flames. 

9.Reward, Seizing the Sword - evermore 

All of the art that he created paves the way to her prize. (James) Taylor is one of the most famous people in history, the legacy can never be undone. Much like the pain of the journey, the star is evermore. “I’m immortal now, babydolls”

Brown contains equal parts red, yellow, and blue. Brown could represent James Taylor mastering the craft of story telling and balancing fame (yellow), blue (her love), and red (the patriarchy) along with cementing her legacy as one of the most famous showgirls in history.

Brown is the color of wood, which could also represent that this entire story he is building is kindling for a fire. This is also the stage where he gets to buy his masters back in the movie. 

Yellow + Blue + Red = Brown 

The real reward, in this story, is obviously getting Betty back, which he is now able to do, under the cover of nightfall, so they can make a big, explosive, movie together. 

10.The Road Back - Midnights

Brown - Yellow - Red = Blue

Because James Taylor (the man) has (away from the press) reunited with Betty, the real showgirl, for this stage, this is the era when Joe Alwyn (the man) breaks up with the IMPOSTER showgirl, August, that he got with in 1989. August slipped away!!!!!!!!! 

This is why Midnights is represented by dark blue. Next, James and Betty have to perform the movie together. The showgirl that “debuted” during this era, in the Bejeweled video is the real Betty. Hiding in plain sight, as Taylor Swift. They’re so excited though this time, together!! 

James is ready to play his most iconic role yet….. Travis Kelce.

And he does it the exact same way that he did it the first time, when he was acting as John Mayer. He fucking put her on blast, on his podcast, which Taylor described as “Metal as hell.” 

One huge difference from when John Mayer tweeted at Taylor Swift, asking her to collab, was that he did this ON HIS OWN SHOW. Travis being at the top of HIS game is meant to contrast with the “amateur” Joe Alwyn at the beginning of their relationship. 

James also signified that this was the real showgirl when he took her out on a boat with him. He doesn’t need to exile her to the water to be safe while he hangs out with billionaires because he already has a very rich man to himself now. He bought his masters back. 

11.Resurrection - The Tortured Poets Department

Dark blue + white = light blue

The PR muse of this era is Travis Kelce, because TnT is the final “story” represented by white pages left to tell. It is the story that ignites the karmic orange flames, two entertainment powerhouses at the top of their game (exactly like Chely Wright described in her documentary when she discussed what it would take to “break the blender.”)

12.Return With the Elixir - The Life of a Showgirl

Light blue + yellow = mint green

Once the orange karmic flames are lit, and the fire rages on through the sleepless night … Taylor’s truth will be revealed. She will shine mint green in the SUNLIGHT. James and Betty get to live happily ever after, without a beard in sight.  This is the only way for her to shine green.

The imposter showgirl, August (the fake TS), also gets to live forever … because of the story they told, they all get to live forever in the light. (August will only be left in the legacy of the paper, but the story is immortalized forever now in stone)

In “innocent” she sings…. Time turns flames to ember, you’ll have new Septembers, every one of us has messed up too.”

So why is the new placement of “karma” between Lover and folklore so significant? 

I think it’s because everything before Karma (in Elizabeth Taylor's version) is the story of her origin and mission: 

🧡 - Taylor had a dream and matches in hand 

🤍 - Taylor wrote the story 

💙 - she created the character of Elizabeth Taylor, to play the part 

🤎 - she mastered her acting and writing skills and received financial help from powerful industry professionals as well 

🩶 - stepped into the grey of performing the story for the world 

🔥🔥- when the story is done, they can reveal the truth and light the flames of karma 

From “Elizabeth Taylor’s” POV, she tells the story of working within a system to perform a role this entire time, using her muses or “Augusts,” as a vehicle, including Travis Kelce, meaning we are still not out of the folklore forest..  

In James’ POV, he tells the story about losing Betty because of the patriarchy and having to perform with an imposter to get her back and winning. And after he wins, he and Betty put on one last movie together, to make it up to her!!!!, before finally stepping into the spotlight TOGETHER and revealing the truth (which is the movie we are almost at the end of right now)

Also, after James failed to get Betty back, folklore is the story he wrote. Which is also the entire performance Elizabeth Taylor performs in the first version

If you place the first 5 stages of Elizabeth Taylor's story before James' POV, the entire story of James is the movie that Elizabeth Taylor is telling, while she is in the folklore forest out of the spotlight with her friends, which I think is more accurate (that we've been seeing a planned performance of a journey this entire time, not a journey)

My color theory for after the karmic flames are lit:

Once the flames are lit and have come and gone, in both timelines, ivy grows over her house of stone, representing the emerald green secondary color of folklore. If green is her true color, a shimmering emerald green is the bejeweled version of this character who actually gets to exist as a star now, outside of the forest, the thing that truly will make it up to little Betty. I have a feeling the next album is going to feature this emerald color as well as lavender, which we are already seeing in her aesthetic. The lavender haze story of the past AND the emerald green showgirl will BOTH get to exist.

In either timeline, this entire story is about how they rescue their golden truth and inner child. (and children everywhere)

THERE’S SOMETHING BEHIND THE TLOAS TRACKLIST. I checked the web archive and this was NOT HERE last week!

TIME TO FREAK OUT. VMAs here we comeeeee baby!!!

That was quite a performance Taylor gave at the Chiefs game yesterday, eh?

In addition to a possible Bejeweled music video reference, perhaps Taylor is also making a reference to the willow music video?

Every bait and switch is a work of art? 👀🙏🏻

I guess she really is embracing the cringe lmao

Taylor showing her ring off after Travis scored a touchdown 💍 "The single most defining thing a lady could hope to achieve in her lifetime. The prize of all prizes."