Most people alive today are aware of Taylor Swift. She’s one of the biggest stars of the 21st century and has made a career out of her highly autobiographical confessionals. She is currently in promoting her new album Midnights, set to release on the 21st, which has caused some drama to begin to collect. There’s plenty of drama one could talk about with Taylor Swift, but a particularly small niche of Swifties (the term for Taylor fans) have produced consistent drama, the Gaylors.
For those who don’t know, despite her high profile relationships with various men, a large subset of her fan base strongly believe that she is either bi or gay and that most or all of her male partners were beards. The two primary female partners that Gaylors believe Taylor was with are Glee Star Dianna Agron and model Karlie Kloss. Let me offer some background first.

Background: The Creation of the Mastermind

The Lover Era

This great post by u/OrdinaryEra outlines a lot of the Gaylor drama, but it is pretty long so I'll try to summarize some important details. Basically, prior to 2019 and her seventh album, Lover, Taylor Swift was famously apolitical, saying literally nothing about politics in the fear that it would cause the same ire towards her that her heroes, The Dixie Chicks, faced after their denouncement of The Iraq War (remember: Taylor Swift used to be a country artist). Eventually, Taylor ceased this political silence with an instagram post denouncing Marsha Blackburn and publicly claiming her support for both Democrats, LGBT rights, and anti racism.
This would basically become the kicking off point for the promotional cycle for the aforementioned Lover. The promotions featured bright pastels and rainbows as a contrast to her previous album, Reputation, it also doubled as a doubling down on her allyship for the LGBT community. Her political beliefs were also a key part of the promotion, with her claiming Lover to be her political album (it barely qualifies as a political album and about a fourth is outwardly political).
A few important products came out during her new activist streak. First, is the (pretty awful) song, You Need To Calm Down. The song (like Mean, Shake It Off, and Look What You Made Me Do before it) goes after her critics, but also attacks homophobes and other online trolls. There is an entirely different post you could make about how performative allyship, white feminism, and how Taylor conflates the personal struggles of a rich white pop star with homophobia, but I will try to stay on topic. The song and video for the You Need To Calm Down featured a huge amount of LGBT personalities (Hayley Kiyoko, The Fab Five, Todrick Hall, etc) and a ton of references to the gay community, such as referencing LGBT support organization, GLAAD. It also features Swift and Katy Perry dressed as a burger and fries hugging as a way of publicly ending their feud.
The second key product of this time is the documentary, Miss Americana. Basically, the doc is mostly about her decision to become outspoken and political as well as tracking her career through the drama that preceded Reputation and up through Lover's release. There's a lot of cool behind the scenes footage but the documentary mostly focuses on Taylors relationship with the public eye and how that affected her relationships and political voice (this will be relevant later). One scene that should be singled out is when Brendan Urie and Taylor are planning out the ME! music video, Taylor talks about things associated with both of them and mentions "gay pride" in her list. This can be generally understood to be in reference to her trying to position herself as an ally, but others will perceive it differently.
One final important note, is that the Lover era saw Taylor Swift begin to plant "easter eggs" in her promotions and music. The clues were to get the fanbase involved, but while they were never that difficult to figure out, it created a fanbase obsessed with these clues. An example of Taylor's clues is the ME! music video including a massive billboard with the word Lover on it, teasing the album title. If it sounds unsubtle thats because it is. An example of how Swifties became very obsessive and very wrong was them heavily reading into their being 5 holes in a fence in one of her instagram posts. The holes meant nothing because obviously they didn't. Moving on.
The Girl Squad and Karlie Kloss
The Lover era promotion mostly added fuel to the fire of a theory that had been growing basically since 1989's release back in 2014, which had led to the creation of the "Girl Squad." In essence, Taylor created a "clique" of high profile women and female celebrities with model-good looks (a few were indeed models). This included Karlie Kloss, Cara Delevigne, Selena Gomez, Gigi Hadid, and for some time Lorde (who felt that it was like being with someone with an allergy due to how restrictive it was).
There is also a whole drama post you could write about how feminists interacted with the Girl Squad being entirely rich, attractive, oft blond, women, but we'll stick to the important stuff. Moving on, Karlie Kloss quickly became the clear forerunner for Taylor's new "best friend" and they were seen everywhere together. There were many instagram posts, tweets, and paparazzi shots linking them as great friends. It wasn't long before a contingent of Swifties started to suspect they may be something more.
This would grow in to the epicenter of the Gaylor conspiracy: Taylor Swift and Karlie Kloss were (and potentially still are) in a relationship and Taylor Swift is a queer woman. There was one issue. Both had boyfriends. Taylor Swift was in relationships with Harry Styles, Calvin Harris, Tom Hiddleston, and eventually Joe Alwyn and Kloss would eventually marry Josh Kushner. The solution? All these men were beards to hide the relationship.
NOTE: a huge percentage of Gaylors are queer women, which does in many ways explain the desire to view Taylor as queer. I will discuss this a little more near the end.
The idea that Karlie and Taylor are still together is generally no longer popular, with most Gaylors believing they broke up either during the 2017 Kanye West drama (where I think that Karlie somehow aligned herself with Kanye but don't quote me) or during the buyout of Taylor's masters (where I think Karlie somehow aligned herself with Scooter Braun, the man who bought Taylors music, but don't quote me). The point is, Taylor no longer mentions Karlie and they don't appear to be friends anymore.
There have been other women linked to Taylor (mainly Diana Agron) but Karlie Kloss is the key "girlfriend" that Gaylors believe Taylor was with. Armed with a stalker level of precision when it came to analyzing Taylors every move and post, the Gaylors steadily grew in their belief and their numbers. However, the Gaylors had one thing many weird celebrity worshippers don't. A catalog of highly auto-biographical songs and a "mastermind" at their center.
How The Rumors Are Taylors Fault, Actually
Gaylors, like most Swifties, are generally fans of Taylor Swift's music. That means they fall in love with the lyrics, and like your garden variety obsessive Swiftie, like to link the lyrics to real life. For regular Swifties this meant connecting the song Dear John to John Mayer (shocking) or Style to Harry Styles (even crazier). Theories did get more complex for the Swifties who believed she was straight (called Hetlors), such as a pretty detailed timeline of how Taylor met Joe Alwyn at a dive bar after the Met Gala and left Tom Hiddleston for him (as speculated to be outlined in the songs Getaway Car and Cruel Summer). The theories can become excessive, but often they do align with known information about her relationship status.
On the other hand, Gaylors use the lyrics as a way to confirm Taylor's sexuality. For example, much of Reputation talks about a "forbidden love" and the ilk. This could be generic, "dangerous love" that everyone from Lady Gaga to Ariana Grande has done. For most Swifties, it was a reference to either 1) how the media heavily picked apart her relationships and she wanted to hide the relationship to treasure it (this is generally the major theme of Reputation, ie how to have a relationship despite a bad reputation) or 2) how she may have cheated when getting with Joe Alwyn and/or been friends with benefits with him. Already it can range from pretty obvious thematic throughlines to pretty invasive, but Gaylors had a much different interpretation. They, as one could guess, saw the references to hidden, forbidden love as a reference to a queer romance, which would be forbidden for obvious reasons (homophobia). Gaylors generally believe most of Reputation is indeed about her hidden queerness.
The biggest other lyrical point for Gaylors is the existence of the song Betty on her eighth album Folklore. As the name suggests, Folklore was unique for Taylor in that it was mostly fictional stories from a variety of non-Taylor perspectives, such as three teens in a love triangle, the friend of a kid with abusive parents, or a song about her war-veteran grandfather and frontline workers during COVID. The love triangle I mentioned includes Betty, a song from perspective of the teen boy, James, who saw his girlfriend, Betty, dancing with a guy at a party, so he cheated with a girl, named Augustine, and is now coming back to Betty begging for forgiveness. For a while, there were no pronouns assigned to the song, so many viewed James as a girl in a queer relationship with Betty. This "headcannon" (its weird that there is a swiftie cannon but whatever) was proven patently untrue on a radio show where Taylor explained that James was a guy, and then proven untrue again during the Long Pond Sessions (a cool concert film type thing for the Folklore songs).
There are many loose lyrics, like Seven referencing hiding in closets, that Gaylors latch on to, but Reputation and Betty are generally the big sticking points. People also believe that Folklore and its sister album Evermore being quiet, indie and folk records makes them "Cottagecore" which is an exclusively lesbian aesthetic in their minds. With that, we should have most of, if not all, the necessary context to dive into the Midnights promo cycle and #LavenderGate.

Midnights: In the Shroud of a Lavender Haze

Midnight Is Coming
On the 29th of August, were the MTV Video Music Awards. Taylor Swift attended (wearing an ... interesting dress) as she had been heavily campaigning for the video of the ten minute version of All Too Well (hot take: I think the original has a more strongly identified climax and more emotionally resonant instrumental but that's not relevant). In case you didn't know, for a lot of these events artists know whether they've won in advance, so Taylor attending at all (despite being famous enough to not really bother to show up) was an obvious signal to what happened: Taylor won video of the year. What many did not expect was that Taylor would use her acceptance speech to announce the release of her ninth album, Midnights, on October 21st.
Of course, social media was buzzing at the prospect of a new Taylor Swift album. Within just a few hours, an edited version of the album cover without track titles appeared on her instagram (yes that's the real cover) alongside a blurb about the album. Here's the gist: 13 tracks for 13 sleepless nights. Each song is about one of those nights. Oh also 13 is her lucky number because she was born on the 13th, so it appears everywhere in the Taylor-verse.
This already set off Gaylors, who believed that this was the album that Taylor would come out. In an eerily similar fashion to Q-Anon, Gaylors treat Taylor's coming out like Trump retaking office, ie "its coming on this specific date because of these specific clues" and when it doesn't come, they quickly assign a new date. Thus, its par for the course that Gaylors believe that Midnights is the coming out album, but Gaylors believe pretty strongly in this one. Why? Well, the easy answer is: why would a Taylor Swift who is rich and white and pretty ever have a bad night, UNLESS she had a secret struggle. The struggle of being gay.
Midnights Mayhem
While Gaylor theories mounted, Swifties at large waited with bated breath for elaboration on the bombshell Taylor had dropped. Eventually, things started to move. On September 20th, Taylor told Swifties to check out her TikTok and the official TikTok account said something would happen at midnight. At midnight on the dot, Taylor went live sitting near a bingo style ball revealer. This would kick of "Midnights Mayhem," which is basically her way of revealing the tracklist.
Basically, the number that came out of the ball machine was the track title she would reveal. The first ball was 13 (which some Swifties don't think was scripted somehow). She said the track title and ended the video. She did also reference her easter eggs, which only emboldened theorists in both the Hetlor and Gaylor camps. This would happen a few more times. If it seems pretty boring after the novelty wears off, thats because it was. The only two songs with anything unique to them, outside of having an awful name like Vigilante Shit or Question...?, were Snow On The Beach (which will have a Lana Del Rey feature) and Karma (which was the rumored title of a scrapped pop-rock album, which most believe just became Reputation).
This didn't stop regular Swifties from making tracklist rankings and wild speculation (many believe Taylor will make a "dream pop" album despite never having heard of The Cocteau Twins). Gaylors looked a little deeper. The track titles were interesting, but mostly seemed to harp on existing theories (that Reputation was about a forbidden queer romance, that Midnights would be her coming out album, that she was staying awake because of queer suffering). What was far more interesting to Gaylors, was believe it or not: the colors of the environment and her clothing.
(Note: I am color blind so if i misidentify a color, I'm sorry). Most Swifties believe the color scheme of the Midnights Mayhem title cards and environments to be a 70s pastiche (hinting at a potential album aesthetic and sound) or a mockery of old-school infomercials. Gaylors instead noticed "lesbian colors." Basically they noticed that the environment matched up with the colors in the lesbian flag because of the prominent orange and brown. If this is sounding a lot like Swiftie Q Anon, its because it is. People would also latch on to the titles Maroon and Lavender Haze (especially Lavender Haze) because the colors were supposedly "lesbian colors." Now they may have ALMOST had a point with Lavender Haze, as many Gaylors do correctly point out that the Lavender Effect is the name of an early LGBT organization. Examples of theories occurring at the time: Pointing out the "gay ass" lavender color on the back of some vinyl sleeves (this was before the Lavender Haze title announcement), claiming that lying awake in love and fear is how Taylor expresses "queer love" because being awake and in love is exclusively queer I guess, and plenty more.
Bombshell The First: Rolling Stone
So at this point, Gaylors are buzzing. While Lavender hasn't been specifically linked to the track list, its heavy in the promotional material and vinyl variants (because of course it is in the track list), her clothing and sets feature gay colors, and the prologue blurb suggests she is queer to the Gaylors. However, Gaylors would go from somewhat hopeful to VERY hopeful after Rolling Stone released this article about the Gaylor theory (the article is fairly neutral in tone but the subheading of "they won't give up" with nothing else made me laugh).
For context: Taylor Swift has long been lauded by Rolling Stone and seems to have a very good relationship with her team. RS has written posts ranking all her songs and called the Reputation Tour the heralding of a new legend, and their writer Rob Sheffield (who didn't write the gaylor article) is famously a huge a fan of her work. This creates a fairly reasonable train of thought: if Rolling Stone is good with Taylor's team then they probably run articles about her by Taylor's team right? And if Taylor Swift isn't gay and doesn't want people speculating about her then she could probably stop the article from being published, even if it all it does it roughly summarize the theory.
Honestly, as a person who doesn't believe in Gaylor, their point is arguably believable. However, it is far from confirmed. At any point the chain could be broken and a communication might not have occurred. What many Gaylors would painfully come to realize in just a short time is also that Taylor might have allowed it to be posted, knowing full well it would drive theorizing, which would drive record sales (Taylor Swift is a very good buisnesswoman and the cultivation of an obsessive fanbase is evidence enough of that).
While the Rolling Stone article was certainly a huge mobilizing force for Gaylors who believed that Midnights would be the rumored coming out album, it wouldn't ultimately pan out as a massive deal. It got Gaylors excited and sparked the usual response from people who felt the theorizing was either wrong and invasive. Ultimately, this was no massively different than any other big "OMG GAYLOR IS COMING" moment that had occured prior. However, it did lead to some of the strongest unity the Gaylor community ever had. But the biggest castles always come tumbling down.
Bombshell The Second: The Lavender Reel
By Friday October 7th (two weeks prior to the album), the tracklist had been revealed in its entirely, including the track Lavender Haze. There was still no lead single, but hype remained high among Swifties. To get some more hype going, Taylor began to elaborate on some of the songs. This started five days earlier (the 2nd) when she gave some deeper explanation on the concept and themes behind Antihero in an instagram reel (honestly this video is the most candid and likeable she's presented herself in the entire album cycle).
On the 7th, she made a second video explaining Lavender Haze. Of course, the Gaylors would be quite intrigued, seeing as there was a pretty strong link between Lavender and queerness. Instead they would be met with something worse than they could ever imagine. The video first explains the title, referencing a common phrase from the 50s that she heard in Mad Men. Apparently, Lavender Haze is a term referring to two people being in love and that was her inspiration (she found the all encompassing "love glow" to be beautiful). Of course Gaylors can work with that. They've been saying Taylor has been trying to appeal to both the masses and the Gaylors (who really "get" her) for years now.
The biggest blow came in the second half of the reel. Taylor explained how people in the Lavender Haze would want to do anything to stay in the Lavender Haze. She furthers, noting that in the age of social media anyone can weigh in on your relationship and that she's had to work very hard to protect her relationship of 6 years from "weird theories." Two main things freaked out the Gaylors. First, we know her relationship with Joe Alwyn has been going on for six years so now the Gaylors need to find a different woman who can be linked to Taylor for exactly six years (which also rules out the small vestiges of the Kloss supporters). Second, Taylor has now explicitly stated that she doesn't like "weird theories" going on about her relationship.
To quickly summarize the rumors about her relationship with Joe Alwyn: 1. She is Engaged 2. She and Alwyn have 1 or more children 3. She is gay and Alwyn is a beard. Many Gaylors felt that Taylor wouldn't find the first of the three that weird and the second was fairly niche. That meant only 1 thing: Taylor thought Gaylor theorists were "weird." Suddenly Gaylors were faced with a rush of emotions: sadness, betrayal, anger, and everything in between. Also, many Gaylors are calling the event LavenderGate (I didn't make this up). The responses basically fall into four camps:
1. How could you Taylor you have emboldened Hetlors to attack us
One tiktok user compared Gaylors to Ukraine and the reel to giving Russia nuclear bombs (yeah this is real). Another Gaylor felt "Thrown to the wolves." Gaylor users felt that the "she basically hit the big red homophobia button" and the sub has recently gone private in the wake of the Reel.
2. If you really are straight, then you've been queerbaiting
One tiktoker cancelled her preorders (the horror). Another tiktok user believes that Taylor has been monetizing a marginalized community for her own capitalistic benefit (something that only makes sense if you believe that Taylor HAS been leaving an extensive trail of clues). Somebody calls her a bad ally for mentioning the color Lavender and another claims she is the "worst ally to the LGBT community" and that "half of her fanbase is being absolutely abused online" (presumptuous to assume you are 50% of Swifties or that most people are making very calm, valid points about how invasive your theorizing is).
3. Guys this doesn't mean anything, she's still gay just tricking the Hetlors
One user believed that the reel is vague enough to not be condemning the Gaylors. Another believes its a PR scheme that sells records, which feels startling accurate ... until they claims that Taylor Swift will be remembered as one of the greatest queer artists ever (sorry Bowie). We also have people hanging onto the word "theoretically" while another
4. She is Bi and You Are All Being Biphobic
This is less prevalent but a good number of Gaylors believe she is bi or pan, not gay, and that much of Gaylor rhetoric insisting all her boyfriends are beards is biphobic (which is like true and if she was queer, her being bi is a lot more likely than some of the Gaylor theories). One user calls LavenderGate reactions "Bi-erasury" and that Taylor has already come out and is in a queer but hetero-presenting relationship (not getting into that drama right now).
There was a Gawker article that came out in the wake of the drama that nicely summarizes some of the internal meltdowns going on.
The Arrival of Midnights
The album was fine and Taylor Swift did not come out. There wasn't a ton of Gaylor specific drama but the Swiftie community was generally shook to find out that the album wasn't perfect. Some critics loved it (10/10 from Rolling Stone, The Independent, and The Guardian) and others were more whelmed (5/10 from TheNeedleDrop, 5/10 from NYT, Pitchfork'ssecond lowest Taylor Score) but the on the whole the reception was much more ... mixed than compared to Folklore and Evermore (I personally would put it in her bottom three records but whatever). The aggregate critical reception was very positive, but the responses from actual listeners was a little more varied. However, this post isn't about the album's quality, its about the Gaylors.
There are a few takeaways and minor Gaylor events post album release.

1. Taylor Swift did not come out. Gaylors were once again convinced she would come out and she didn't. The QAnon comparisons continue as yet another date passes where Taylor Swift remains a heterosexual woman and Donald Trump doesn't retake the American Presidency.
2. There are a few moments where Gaylors will believe more "evidence" was given to them. For one, the record features a big return to the style and lyricism of Reputation, which means plenty of lyrics about dodging rumors and such (although Lavender Haze's actual lyrics are explicitly about marriage rumors and the like). No major Gaylor revelations like Betty but such is life.
3. The lyrics do mention self awareness quite a bit such as Anti Hero (who's very clunky lyrics have caused widespread Swiftie drama) which talks about her personal failings. Some Gaylors interpreted this as her struggles with her queerness, but again, there is nothing specific because the lyrics are obviously not specifically about being gay.
4. The Bejeweled music video drew more Gaylor attention than any of the actual songs. The video features a famous Burlesque singer, Dita Von Teese, in an extended sequence where they dance around in large cups in fairly minimal clothing. While its not explicitly gay or anything, people have pointed out the imagery of two women dancing around and getting wet while not wearing too many clothes is at least a little gay.

Ultimately though, the drama was localized around the Rolling Stone Article and the Lavender Haze reel and the album release is otherwise just standard Gaylor fanfare.

The Midnight Rain Came and Went

The Consequences
The overall fallout of the album cycle ultimately ended up being kind of a wash in the end. The Rolling Stone article and the use of specific colors got the Gaylors more active than ever, which generated a lot of backlash. When the community kind of self imploded, the anti-Gaylors basically went full attack mode (especially emboldened by the more extreme reactions from Gaylors). These things basically balanced out, although the damage leans a bit more on the Gaylor end. For example, the Gaylor sub went private, there are still posts on TaylorSwift talking about the "queerbaiting" (mostly saying she didn't) and a few major Gaylor posters on TikTok privated their accounts. Still, the damage wasn't huge and with the album out and only more video scheduled, things have pretty much returned to the status quo.
The larger impact of the entire ordeal was simply that it launched a conversation that already been happening into a larger sphere. The Gaylor - Hetlor feud has been having similar back and forths for years and ultimately Midnights mainly stands out because (other than Vogue 2019), this was the main time that Gaylors felt acknowledged (both positively via Rolling Stone and negatively via the Reel). This caused way more attention to hit Gaylors than what would occur regularly.
Now I'm going to use the next section to dive into aspects of that conversation and I'll sprinkle in some personal interpretations because many of these conversations are built on anecdotes so having some helps.
Are Gaylors Just Weird or Actively Harmful?
So in the wake of LavenderGate and the album drop, the question we should all be asking ourselves is not if Taylor is gay, but if we should even be asking? Many Gaylors believe that the Hetlor attacks on them are homophobic and come from a position of straight privilege and queer erasure. Meanwhile, Hetlor's believe that the Gaylors are being super invasive and some even point out that by publicly posting their analysis of Taylor's clues, they are basically outing her.
Now from my perspective (that of a nonwhite, gay man who has liked and disliked Taylor Swift the persona and Taylor Swift the musical product) who is "right" can be a mixed bag. I do strongly believe that Taylor Swift is NOT gay and many gay fans are trying to find queerness in her music. That idea, finding queerness in non queer art, is perfectly acceptable (I still feel that Broken Social Scene's Lover's Spit is as much about gay men as the track that follows it who's name I can't say). Art is meant to be interpreted to fit the eye of the beholder, especially Pop music, which has the explicit goal of being universalizable. The bigger issue comes in the fact that Gaylors are going far beyond relating to the music.
The issues with Gaylors generally boil down to six main points:

1. This is the same issue I have with swiftie theorists in general and that is that there is a line between art and reality. Taylor Swift's lyrics may be based on events in her life, but that doesn't mean that they are completely accurate. A song that is just "we dated for three months and then drifted apart and mutually decided to separate" is boring, so of course any artist would embellish to make the art more interesting and evocative. Also, no one person has perfect memory and sometimes people add details without rhyme or reason. Taking the lyrics in the songs as some kind of bible without error is just generally weird. Its weird seeing people still quoting Dear John in John Mayers comment section (instead attack him for stuff we know he did like that Rolling Stone interview) or attacking Jake Gyllenhall over a three month relationship ten years ago. Same goes with Gaylors.
2. Point 2 is connected and that is to get a life. Parasocial relationships aren't healthy and people put way too much of their life into a rich celebrity who likely doesn't know they exist. There's a difference between liking Taylor Swift's music and dedicating ones existence to her. Many Hetlors are as obsessed as Gaylors and some people in both camps are more adjusted. The discussion around para social relationships is very common with Swift specifically because of how her autobiographical lyrics made people feel they knew her personally. This is a big component of why Gaylors formed in the first place, but the point stands that Parasocial relationships are generally unhealthy.
3. Also connected to Point 1, but I do also feel that there is room to interpret music however you want, but that doesn't mean you should impose your personal headcannon onto real people. For example, I can relate heavily to Lovers Spit by Broken Social Scene as a gay guy (especially due to its placement right before a song called I'm Still Your F*g which is explicitly queer) but I recognize that the man behind the band is married to a woman and I don't think he's secretly gay. Alternatively, Tommy's Party by Peach Pit is a song about a man watching as his former best friend hangs out with a new girl and mourns the space put between them by time. The whole thing feels very gay, so much so that the band even came out and said that they welcome the personal interpretation but they wrote it from a friendship perspective and they are all straight. Peach Pit pretty much hit the nail on the head: you can headcannon art to be whatever you want because good art is often relatable, but that doesn't mean you can use that as justification to change immutable aspects of someone's personhood.
4. Four, speculating on someone's sexuality is invasive. I could bring up all of the hetlor videos and posts, but I'm going to instead talk about my personal experience with this topic. When I was first figuring out my sexuality, I had very recently made friends with some girls. There was nobody out at my school, so I was immediately buried under the weight of people calling me gay to my face. They also did what Gaylors do with Kloss and told me to face that I was either in love with my female friends or gay and in love with my male ones. I basically had no agency over my own life, because even if I did know I was gay (which I was still unsure about), that experience definitely didn't make me want to come out. It was honestly really awful and made coming out way harder and my takeaway is that even if Taylor Swift is gay, it sucks having people constantly speculate and decide who you are despite what you say or do otherwise. So yes, I do think that Gaylors' speculation is rude and invasive and that they should stop, but also of course the situation differs when we're talking about a celebrity.
5. Next point is the idea that Gaylors are "outing her." The general idea within the Gaylor community is that Taylor is intentionally communicating her queerness in a way that her die hard fans will interpret and pick up on and her passive fans won't. I honestly don't think Taylor Swift easter eggs are that complex (flashback to Lover billboard) but I do generally think that if Taylor is trying to only tell a certain group of people, then she probably doesn't want to tell the whole world. If Taylor Swift was gay and did want the world to know, she'd explicitly come out (and no her saying she identifies with gay pride does not mean she's gay, it means she wanted to brand herself as an ally quickly and easily) instead of sending weird messages. She's a pop artist not the Zodiac Killer.
6. Lastly, there are a billion queer artists out there so its pretty weird that instead of raising them up, Gaylors instead try to push queerness onto Taylor. There are major pop artists (Lady Gaga, Doja Cat, Lil Nas X), indie artists (Car Seat Headrest, Phoebe Bridgers, Girl In Red, 12 Rods), experimental artists (Rina Sawayama and the whole hyperpop scene for example), rock and metal artists (Judas Priest, Queen, David Bowie) and artists everywhere else who are queer and make music about being queer. I understand wanting representation but forcing it onto a person with feelings and thoughts and relationships is wrong, especially when there are plenty of queer artists making amazing music.

So yeah that is my piece on the Gaylor situation. All in all, the rollout to the album was plagued with many of the same Gaylor talking points as ever, but as usual they remain a small, vocal minority. They are slightly boosted by the huge increase in fanbase Taylor got due to the acclaim of Folklore and Evermore (which also theoretically led to a collab with notable queer artist, Phoebe Bridgers, on the recording of Red) and the success of the re records but thats more of a general Swiftie increase rather than any specific Gaylor related deal.
Anyways hope this was interesting to you all and thanks for reading!
*note* much of this post was written before the album actually released, so excuse some weird tense cases, but it has been over 14 days since the Bejewled MV drop and far longer since the gaylor drama

This post is also available on my wordpress blog, asongoficeandtootles, HERE, where it will probably be much easier to read on-screen than it is on reddit.
Note: This writing is an Appendix (of sorts) to a two-part post about Young Aegon's/"fAegon's"/Young Griff's lineage. You can find Part 1 HERE on reddit and HERE on my wordpress blog. You can find Part 2 HERE on reddit and HERE on my wordpress blog. This post literally picks up where Part 2 "concluded", so if you haven't read Parts 1 and 2, it won't make any sense.

Illyrio + Rhaella = "Young Griff"/Aegon/"fAegon": An Appendix of Sorts

In this "appendix of sorts" to my argument that "Young Griff"/Aegon/fAegon is the son of Illyrio Mopatis and Rhaella Targaryen, I'll sketch some more of the textual, "rhyming" allusions I found regarding the idea that Illyrio impregnated Rhaella and sired Young Griff on Aerys's sister-queen. This post doesn't lay out anything like a systematic argument, but I think it contains some super fun, almost mind-bending stuff. But I'm a strange sort.
But before we get to that…
Since posting "A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand", I've made a number of small edits, mostly thanks to the valuable feedback of IllyrioMoParties, who loves when I tag him as much as possible while noting his contributions. I also just hit upon a "major" find upon re-read, which I likewise edited into the originals. If you read the posts during the first 24 hours they were posted, these will all be new to you.
Here's whats been added to the original posts:
First: Remember when I argued that Cersei fucking Jaime right under the passed-out drunk Robert's nose provides precedent and a rhyme to the idea of Illyrio rogering Rhaella under the nose of the passed-out Aerys?
Well, IllyrioMoParties reminded me that this cuckolding of King Robert by Jaime-the-Kingsguard and Robert's Queen takes place in Raymun Darry's bedchamber, and thus "rhymes" all the more perfectly with Illyrio fucking Queen Rhaella under the noses of not only her passed-out King, but also those of his Kingsguards, Jaime and Jon Darry (to whom Jaime appeals when it sounds like Rhaella is being raped.)
Second: Remember when I was talking about the "rhyme" between Illyrio's sexualized beard prongs, the merman statue's "broken off" prong, and the "prong" of the grappling hook that tears a "gash" in Vermax's belly? Well, IllyrioMoParties pointed out that the belly wound may augur that Rhaella gave birth via Caesarian section, perhaps having her life thereby saved. This could be consistent with Rhaella giving birth to twins, just like Tormund's she-bear.
Third: When I was talking about Theon's water snake, and the way its slithering up the steps to bite people in the night was reminiscent of the idea of Illyrio climbing the steps from the sewers to bang Rhaella, I mentioned that when the verbiage "thick as your leg" is used to describe the snake, this evokes Illyrio, whose custom-made "throne" has "thick sturdy legs to bear his weight". (DWD I) IllyrioMoParties points out that the "bear" language looks auspicious in light of the Illyrio's parallel with Tormund of she-bear fame.
Fourth: This one regards the description of the merman statue, "twenty feet tall" with the "broken off" prong. IllyrioMoParties pointed out that a "broken off prong" sounds a helluva lot like what happened to Illyrio-analogue Tormund's cock when he fucked the she-bear in a story I believe presages Illyrio boffing Rhaella:

All ripped and torn I was, and half me member bit right off, and there on me floor was a she-bear's pelt. (SOS Jon II)

Broken-off prong, indeed.
And finally, the big one, which I ran smack-dab into last night, during my ninth complete read of ASOS. I made it its own section in the original posts, inserted right after the discussion of Illyrio being described using language which lines up incredibly well with the very vivid description of the dead direwolf mother in AGOT B I, thus hinting that he is a "savage beast", just like direwolves are.
Here's that new section, in its entirety:

Illyrio the Nightfire: Nightfires are (verbatim) "Beasts", Too.

Earlier, I pointed out that Illyrio's clothing—

loose garments of flame-colored silk (GOT D I)

—makes him a kind of figurative Red Priest of R'hllor, like Melisandre, and thus associates him with glamors and hints that he could have glamored himself to appear as Aerys.
But the description also does the same thing the Illyrio-direwolf "rhyme" does: it suggests Illyrio was the "beast" who fucked Rhaella was Jaime stood guard.
How so? Simple. His clothing makes him sound (a) R'hllorian, and (b) like a fire. Now, what is R'hllorian and a fire? A "nightfire", right? You know, like this one—

The nightfire burned against the gathering dark, a great bright beast whose shifting orange light threw shadows twenty feet tall across the yard. (SOS Dav VI)

—which just so happens to also be a verbatim "beast".
Why did I highlight the fact that the beastly nightfire "threw shadows twenty feet tall"? Because it so happens that the same language, scrambled into "rhyming" motifs, attends Illyrio when he first appears in AGOT Arya III:

From somewhere far below her, [Arya] heard noises. The scrape of boots, the distant sound of [Illyrio and Varys's] voices. A flickering light brushed the wall ever so faintly, and she saw that she stood at the top of a great black well, a shaft twenty feet across plunging deep into the earth. …
Far below, [Arya] saw the light of a single torch, small as the flame of a candle. Two men, she made out. Their shadows writhed against the sides of the well, tall as giants. …
The tall shadows were almost on top of her…

It's impossible for me to believe the foregoing passages aren't contrived so as to textually code Illyrio as a nightfire like the one that is explicitly a "beast", thereby coding Illyrio once again as a "beast" like the one that savaged Rhaella.
OK, that concludes the run-down of the additions I've made to the main posts since they were "published".

The "Appendix of Sorts", Proper

Illyrio and the Red Temple, Casterly Rock, and the Merchant's House

In the two posts comprising my main argument, I discussed how Illyrio is coded as a red priest, which suggests he can cast a glamor. In fact, even the temple of R'hllor in Volantis sounds like Illyrio in his "flame-colored silk" robes:

Three blocks later the street opened up before them onto a huge torchlit plaza, and there it stood. Seven save me, that's got to be three times the size of the Great Sept of Baelor. An enormity of pillars, steps, buttresses, bridges, domes, and towers flowing into one another as if they had all been chiseled from one colossal rock, the Temple of the Lord of Light loomed like Aegon's High Hill. A hundred hues of red, yellow, gold, and orange met and melded in the temple walls, dissolving one into the other like clouds at sunset. Its slender towers twisted ever upward, frozen flames dancing as they reached for the sky. Fire turned to stone. (DWD Ty VII)

A few things stand out. The temple is an "enormity"; the same could be said of Illyrio. (Later, I'll run down a tight parallel between Illyrio and the Yellow Whale of Yunkai, who is likewise called an "enormity".)
The temple is "Fire turned to stone." If Illyrio is a Targaryen and if a Targaryen is a "dragon" and if a dragon is "fire made flesh", then surely the statue of "Illyrio" in his manse's garden could be called "fire turned to stone", just like the Temple of R'hllor. Moreover, the fact that the statue is supposedly Illyrio but (in my opinion) isn't truly seems consistent with the idea that Illyrio is a glamorer.
The red temple looks "chiseled from one colossal rock", which sounds like Casterly Rock:

Yet by far the greatest lords in the westerlands were the Casterlys of the Rock, who had their seat in a colossal stone that rose beside the Sunset Sea. (TWOIAF)

That sounds Illyrio-ish, in that he's not just akin to the Temple, but continually related to Casterly Rock. He's…

…a cheesemonger half the size of Casterly Rock. (DWD Ty II)
He reminded Tyrion of a dead sea cow that had once washed up in the caverns under Casterly Rock. (DWD Ty I)
Illyrio gave a laugh and slapped his belly. "As you will. The Beggar King swore that I should be his master of coin, and a lordly lord as well. Once he wore his golden crown, I should have my choice of castles … even Casterly Rock, if I desired." (DWD Ty II)

As if to confirm that we're supposed to think about Illyrio when we read about this temple, just afterward we "meet" another building described in a manner that's even more on the nose with its Illyrio references, thereby encouraging us to see Volantene buildings as figurative Illyrios:

"Just there. Fishmonger's Square."
Their destination proved to be the Merchant's House, a four-story monstrosity that squatted amongst the warehouses, brothels, and taverns of the waterside like some enormous fat man surrounded by children. Its common room was larger than the great halls of half the castles in Westeros, a dim-lit maze of a place with a hundred private alcoves and hidden nooks whose blackened beams and cracked ceilings echoed to the din of sailors, traders, captains, money changers, shippers, and slavers, lying, cursing, and cheating each other in half a hundred different tongues.
Tyrion approved the choice of hostelry. Soon or late the Shy Maid must reach Volantis. This was the city's biggest inn, first choice for shippers, captains, and merchantmen. A lot of business was done in that cavernous warren of a common room. He knew enough of Volantis to know that. Let Griff turn up here with Duck and Haldon, and he would be free again soon enough.

• Illyrio's manse is literally a "Merchant's House".
  
• He surely owns countless "warehouses" and found his wife Serra in a "brothel".
  
• The phrase "some enormous fat man" not only sounds like Illyrio (an enormous fat man I linked to the "enormity" of the Red Temple, above), it also recalls "some beast": the phrase Jaime uses to describe Rhaella's seeming rapist and the phrase Illyrio uses when he "slapped a meaty thigh" like Tormund does when he tells his tale of impregnating a she-bear after stealing into her den and having rough-and-tumble sex with her.
  
• "Surrounded by children" rather than "by his children" recalls my theory that Illyrio raised multiple children he did not sire.
  
• "Squatting" recalls Tywin dying "squatting on the privy", which led to Tyrion's exit via a system of tunnels Illyrio used to access the Red Keep.
  
• "Fishmonger" and "larger than the great halls of half the castles in Westeros" recalls "a cheesemonger half the size of [Westerosi castle] Casterly Rock".
  
• The juxtaposition of "the castles in Westeros" with "a dim-lit maze of a place" reminds us of the dimly-lit, labyrinthine hidden ways of the Red Keep.
  
• "[A] hundred private alcoves and hidden nooks" reminds of the "little snuggeries in the pleasure gardens" in Meereen we hear of in the context of an attempt to bed a Targaryen Queen—the very woman who was supposedly born on Dragonstone after Rhaella was "savaged" by "some beast".
  
• As for "sailors, traders, captains, money changers, shippers, and slavers, lying, cursing, and cheating each other in half a hundred different tongues", this basically describes the explicitly multi-lingual Illyrio to a tee. He is all those things, and he does all those things.
  

Illyrio and the Yellow Whale

The Yellow Whale is another curiously Illyrio-esque figure who is, like the Temple of R'hllor, described as an "enormity":

Foremost amongst them was the Yellow Whale, an obscenely fat man who always wore yellow silk tokars with golden fringes. Too heavy even to stand unassisted, he could not hold his water, so he always smelled of piss, a stench so sharp that even heavy perfumes could not conceal it. But he was said to be the richest man in Yunkai, and he had a passion for grotesques; his slaves included a boy with the legs and hooves of a goat, a bearded woman, a two-headed monster from Mantarys, and a hermaphrodite who warmed his bed at night. "Cock and cunny both," Dick Straw told them. "The Whale used to own a giant too, liked to watch him fuck his slave girls. Then he died. I hear the Whale'd give a sack o' gold for a new one."

"Yellow silk" recalls Illyrio flame-colored silks and the yellow robes of the acolytes at the Temple of R'hllor.
The Yellow Whale is "obscenely fat". Illyrio is a "fat man" who is called a "whale with whiskers", and he strokes those whiskers, his "yellow beard", "obscenely".
The Yellow whale is "a monstrously fat Yunkishman". It's Illyrio who tells us "the male line of House Blackfyre" ended "[w]hen Maelys the Monstrous died upon the Stepstones." One of just two other uses of "monstrously" in the canon comes in the same chapter, surrounded by mentions of Illyrio, dragon dreams, and lost Targaryens:

When the magister drifted off to sleep with the wine jar at his elbow, Tyrion crept across the pillows to work it loose from its fleshy prison and pour himself a cup. He drained it down, and yawned, and filled it once again. If I drink enough fire wine, he told himself, perhaps I'll dream of dragons.
When he was still a lonely child in the depths of Casterly Rock, he oft rode dragons through the nights, pretending he was some lost Targaryen princeling, or a Valyrian dragonlord soaring high o'er fields and mountains. Once, when his uncles asked him what gift he wanted for his nameday, he begged them for a dragon. "It wouldn't need to be a big one. It could be little, like I am." His uncle Gerion thought that was the funniest thing he had ever heard, but his uncle Tygett said, "The last dragon died a century ago, lad." That had seemed so monstrously unfair that the boy had cried himself to sleep that night.
Yet if the lord of cheese could be believed, the Mad King's daughter had hatched three living dragons. Two more than even a Targaryen should require. Tyrion was almost sorry that he had killed his father. He would have enjoyed seeing Lord Tywin's face when he learned that there was a Targaryen queen on her way to Westeros with three dragons, backed by a scheming eunuch and a cheesemonger half the size of Casterly Rock.

The Yellow Whale is explicitly compared to Illyrio:

Covered all in yellow silk fringed with gold, he looked as large as four Illyrios.

Four Illyrios, actually, which recalls my thesis that the four servitor dwarves represent Illyrio.
The Whale can't hold his water and covers his stench with perfume—

…he could not hold his water, so he always smelled of piss, a stench so sharp that even heavy perfumes could not conceal it.

—which reminds us of Illyrio:

They changed out teams only thrice that day but seemed to halt twice an hour at the least so Illyrio could climb down from the litter and have himself a piss. Our lord of cheese is the size of an elephant, but he has a bladder like a peanut, the dwarf mused. (DWD Ty II)
Dany could smell the stench of Illyrio's pallid flesh through his heavy perfumes. (GOT D I)

This detail—

"The Whale used to own a giant too, liked to watch him fuck his slave girls."

—reminds us of Illyrio being coded as a giant and is suggestive of Illyrio's sadistic sexual tendencies.
The Whale's goat-legged boy sounds like the Greek God Pan, which is mostly about coding Tyrion as a Pan-figure, in my opinion (something I'll detail in a future writing) but also has heavy associations with sex and fertility.
The Whale is "rotting from the inside out", while Tyrion likens Illyrio to a "rotting sea cow." (DWD Ty X, I)
Tyrion bids "all the gold of Casterly Rock" (on himself) against the Whale—

The yellow enormity was squirming in his litter, a look of annoyance on his huge pie face. He muttered something sour in Ghiscari that Tyrion did not understand, but the tone of it was plain enough. "Was that another bid?" The dwarf cocked his head. "I offer all the gold of Casterly Rock." (DWD Ty X)

—after promising the same to Illyrio:

"I would sooner have mine own weight in gold." The cheesemonger laughed so hard that Tyrion feared he was about to rupture. "All the gold in Casterly Rock, why not?"
"The gold I grant you," the dwarf said, relieved that he was not about to drown in a gout of half-digested eels and sweetmeats, "but the Rock is mine." (DWD Ty I)

The Whale has "yellow teeth" and acts like a snake—

He weighed the sellswords with his yellow eyes, flicked his tongue across his yellow teeth, and said, "Five thousand silvers for the lot."

—whereas Illyrio has "yellow teeth" and is coded as "water snake".
The Whale has "piggy yellow eyes" and huge breasts likened to a pig—a fatty farm animal—

Just the sight of him sagging across his litter, a mountain of sallow flesh with piggy yellow eyes and breasts big as Pretty Pig pushing at the silk of his tokar was enough to make the dwarf's skin crawl. (DWD Ty X)

—while Illyrio has "pig's eyes" and "heavy breasts" covered in yellow hair and likened to suet—i.e. animal fat:

[Illyrio's] brow was dotted with beads of sweat, his pig's eyes shining above his fat cheeks. (DWD Ty I)
His bedrobe was large enough to serve as a tourney pavilion, but its loosely knotted belt had come undone, exposing a huge white belly and a pair of heavy breasts that sagged like sacks of suet covered with coarse yellow hair. (ibid.)

I suspect the point of this rather obvious parallel is largely to simply foreground the fact that ASOIAF rhymes, and thus to get us to look for more interesting, more revelatory rhymes involving Illyrio, like the rhymes between Illyrio and the mother of the Stark direwolves, Tormund, Old Fishfoot, Theon, fat-bellied Pentoshi ships, etc.

Illyrio and the text surrounding the Brazen Monkey

In the main body of my writing, I talked about the way the Brazen Monkey, positioned as it is in the text between a bunch of Illyrio-evoking ships, suggests a relationship between the woman-ravaging dwarf servitors with their monkey-like "tiny pink hands" and Illyrio.
In fact, the entirety of the text surrounding the "Brazen Monkey" stuff seems to resonate with the idea that Illyrio impregnated Rhaella, so long as we treat the text like a song and look for "rhymes". The text describes Arya's walk through the waterfront. Let's walk through Arya's walkthrough.
Arya is initially being followed by a bunch of cats. As previously noted, the most prominent of these cats recalls the very cat she was chasing when she and thus the readers discovered that Illyrio can enter the Red Keep secretly via some kind of serpentine stairway in a hidden well:

Her favorite was a scrawny old tom with a chewed ear who reminded her of a cat that she'd once chased all around the Red Keep. No, that was some other girl, not me.
Two of the ships that had been here yesterday were gone, Cat saw, but five new ones had docked; a small carrack called the Brazen Monkey, a huge Ibbenese whaler that reeked of tar and blood and whale oil, two battered cogs from Pentos, and a lean green galley up from Old Volantis. Cat stopped at the foot of every gangplank to cry her clams and oysters, once in the trade talk and again in the Common Tongue of Westeros.

We talked about most of this. Now, let's add that Cat cries her clams. Rhaella verbatim "cried" "You're hurting me" when the multi-lingual Illyrio (who surely speaks "the trade talk") came for her "clam".

A crewman on the whaler cursed at her so loudly that he scared away her cats and one of the Pentoshi oarsman asked how much she wanted for the clam between her legs, but she fared better at the other ships.

This drives home the obvious clam/sex metaphor, and centers it on a Pentoshi, like Illyrio.

A mate on the green galley wolfed half a dozen oysters and told her how his captain had been killed by the Lysene pirates who had tried to board them near the Stepstones.

"Wolfed", reminding us of Illyrio the direwolf. Lysene pirates in the Stepstones reminds us of the super-fat Illyrio-ish pirate who was killed attacking Quentyn's party and whose jeweled rings could not be removed.

"That bastard Saan it was, with Old Mother's Son and his big Valyrian. We got away, but just."

An "Old Mother's Son"? Rhaella was nearly 40, an "old mother" when she gave birth on Dragonstone to a son, Aegon. A "big Valyrian" would be one way to talk about Illyrio. And it's all framed by reference to a bastard, a la House Blackfyre, a House founded by a bastard.

The little Brazen Monkey proved to be from Gulltown, with a Westerosi crew who were glad to talk to someone in the Common Tongue. One asked how a girl from King's Landing came to be selling mussels on the docks of Braavos, so she had to tell her tale. "We're here four days, and four long nights," another told her. "Where's a man to go to find a bit of sport?"

The reference to sex and "four days, and four long nights" again reminds us of the four servitors I believe symbolize Illyrio ravaging Rhaella.

"The mummers at the Ship are doing Seven Drunken Oarsmen," Cat told them, "and there's eel fights in the Spotted Cellar, down by the gates of Drowned Town.

Aerys being a drunk conditioned Illyrio's visits to Rhaella. "Eel fights in the Spotted Cellar" in "Drowned Town" surely reminds us of the flooded cellars of Moat Cailin from which "water snakes" would creep up the stairs to bite in the night, which is something we've already pegged as a reference to Illyrio boning Rhaella.

"Or if you want you can go by the Moon Pool, where the bravos duel at night."

Illyrio, of course, famously claims to have been a dueling bravo: the very one depicted by his statue. Moon-talk is always fertility/pregnancy talk.

"Aye, that's good," another sailor said, "but what Wat was really wanting was a woman."
"The best whores are at the Happy Port, down by where the mummers' Ship is moored."

The "mummers' Ship" reminds us of the "mummer's dragon", which many believe is a reference to Young Aegon.

She pointed. Some of the dockside whores were vicious, and sailors fresh from the sea never knew which ones.

This reminds me of Tormund saying his she-bear with the "terrible temper… put up quite the fight", ripping and tearing him. "Vicious" is a term GRRM doesn't use much, but he does use it to describe the blow Robert (descended from a bastard Targaryen and a Targaryen princess) lands on Cersei (a Queen and, in my book, a Targaryen herself), which reminds us of Jaime's error-filled tale of Aerys the "beast" abusing Rhaella. (GOT E X) Rhaella's son Viserys is called "vicious", as is Queen Cersei's son Joffrey. (SOS Dae I, Ty VIII) So is Varamyr, a skinchanger, with skin-changing reminding us of the other magical means of identity theft: glamoring.

S'vrone was the worst. Everyone said she had robbed and killed a dozen men, rolling the bodies into the canals to feed the eels.

We're again reminded via both the robbery and the corpse-rolling of the obese Illyrio-evoking pirate whose corpse was rolled into the sea by the men of the Meadowlark.

The Drunken Daughter could be sweet when sober, but not with wine in her.

This reminds us of the vicissitudes of Aerys's moods, which Rhaella perhaps shared.

And Canker Jeyne was really a man.

This is really interesting. A "canker" can mean "a source of spreading corruption and decay", and we've seen that the obviously hedonistic, corrupt, and decadent Illyrio is quite explicitly linked to those things. He also has huge boobs, although he's a man.

"Ask for Merry. Meralyn is her true name, but everyone calls her Merry, and she is." Merry bought a dozen oysters every time Cat came by the brothel and shared them with her girls. She had a good heart, everyone agreed. "That, and the biggest pair of teats in all of Braavos," Merry herself was fond of boasting.

Again, huge "teats" and Illyrio are bosom buddies on the page. So to speak. "Meralyn" of the "Happy Port" reminds me of merman and Myrmen, which we linked to the notion of Illyrio banging Rhaella in several ways. That she has a "true name" recalls Young Griff being truly named Aegon.

Her girls were nice as well; Blushing Bethany and the Sailor's Wife, one-eyed Yna who could tell your fortune from a drop of blood, pretty little Lanna, even Assadora, the Ibbenese woman with the mustache.

Who expresses interest in a woman with a mustache? Tormund, whose meaty-thigh-slapping story resonates so dramatically with the idea that Illyrio bedded Rhaella.

"I hope you never said how big me member is, Jon Snow, that'd frighten any woman. I always wanted me one with a mustache." (DWD J XIII)

Back to the text:

They might not be beautiful, but they were kind to her. "The Happy Port is where all the porters go," Cat assured the men of the Brazen Monkey. "'The boys unload the ships,' Merry says, 'and my girls unload the lads who sail them.'"
"What about them fancy whores the singers sing about?" asked the youngest monkey, a red-haired boy with freckles who could not have been much more than six-and-ten. "Are they as pretty as they say? Where would I get one o' them?"
His shipmates looked at him and laughed. "Seven hells, boy," said one of them. "Might be the captain could get hisself a courty-san, but only if he sold the bloody ship. That sort o' cunt's for lords and such, not for the likes o' us."

"Not for the likes 'o us", just as a queen's cunt is for the king, not a brazen beast from across the narrow sea.

The courtesans of Braavos were famed across the world. Singers sang of them, goldsmiths and jewelers showered them with gifts, craftsmen begged for the honor of their custom, merchant princes paid royal ransoms to have them on their arms at balls and feasts and mummer shows, and bravos slew each other in their names.

Illyrio is a bejewled merchant prince who can afford a "royal ransom"—indeed, I've argued he paid one to have Serra killed by the Faceless Men—and who used to be a dueling bravo. If he's Aegon's dad, he's the "mummer" behind the "mummer's dragon".

As she pushed her barrow along the canals, Cat would sometimes glimpse one of them floating by, on her way to an evening with some lover. Every courtesan had her own barge, and servants to pole her to her trysts. The Poetess always had a book to hand, the Moonshadow wore only white and silver, and the Merling Queen was never seen without her Mermaids, four young maidens in the blush of their first flowering who held her train and did her hair.

The "Merling Queen" reminds us of the "spears of the merling king", upon which Davos finds himself stranded, which clearly remind us of Old Fishfoot and his trident with its broken off prong and thus of Illyrio and his beard and an entire chain of associated symbolism. It also reminds us of the Merling King, which is used to transport Littlefinger, who seems to be the nemesis of Illyrio and Varys. (Here it's relevant that the Brazen Monkey is out of Gulltown, where Littlefinger originally rose to prominence.)

Each courtesan was more beautiful than the last. Even the Veiled Lady was beautiful, though only those she took as lovers ever saw her face.

This reminds us of the idea that Illyrio was glamored, and that only his lover, Rhaella, saw his true face. (And of another hint that this was the case: Tormund covering his face when he set off on his quest for his she-bear.)

"I sold three cockles to a courtesan," Cat told the sailors. "She called to me as she was stepping off her barge." Brusco had made it plain to her that she was never to speak to a courtesan unless she was spoken to first, but the woman had smiled at her and paid her in silver, ten times what the cockles had been worth.

Did Rhaella spot Illyrio when he was young and handsome and take a shine to him? Perhaps staking his business interests?

"Which one was this, now? The Queen o' Cockles, was it?"

The Queen of Cock, notice. Oh. Cockles. Right.

"The Black Pearl," she told them. Merry claimed the Black Pearl was the most famous courtesan of all. "She's descended from the dragons, that one," the woman had told Cat.

So is Illyrio.

"The first Black Pearl was a pirate queen. A Westerosi prince took her for a lover and got a daughter on her, who grew up to be a courtesan."

At this point this shit writes itself. Illyrio is a spice or merchant king who married a Westerosi prince's daughter who grew up to be a quasi-courtesan (Serra), and who washimself taken for a lover by a Westerosi queen, on whom he got a son.

"Her own daughter followed her, and her daughter after her, until you get to this one."

Note the emphasis on female lineage here, which is how Illyrio is "Mopatis" but also a Blackfyre.

"What did she say to you, Cat?"
"She said 'I'll take three cockles,' and 'Do you have some hot sauce, little one?'" the girl had answered.
"And what did you say?"
"I said, 'No, my lady,' and, 'Don't call me little one. My name is Cat.' I should have hot sauce. Beqqo does, and he sells three times as many oysters as Brusco."
Cat told the kindly man about the Black Pearl too. "Her true name is Bellegere Otherys," she informed him. It was one of the three things that she had learned.
"It is," the priest said softly. "Her mother was Bellonara, but the first Black Pearl was a Bellegere as well."

Reminiscent of Young Aegon hardly being the first of his name.

Cat knew that the men off the Brazen Monkey would not care about the name of a courtesan's mother, though.

We card about the name of Aegon's mother, though.

Instead, she asked them for tidings of the Seven Kingdoms, and the war.
"War?" laughed one of them. "What war? There is no war."
"Not in Gulltown," said another. "Not in the Vale. The little lord's kept us out of it, same as his mother did."
Same as his mother did. The lady of the Vale was her own mother's sister. "Lady Lysa," she said, "is she . . . ?"
". . . dead?" finished the freckled boy whose head was full of courtesans. "Aye. Murdered by her own singer."
"Oh." It's nought to me. Cat of the Canals never had an aunt. She never did. Cat lifted her barrow and wheeled away from the Brazen Monkey, bumping over cobblestones. "Oysters, clams, and cockles," she called. "Oysters, clams, and cockles." She sold most of her clams to the porters off-loading the big wine cog from the Arbor, and the rest to the men repairing a Myrish trading galley that had been savaged by the storms.

A wine cog from the Arbor reminds us of the wine from Lord Redwyne's own stock that sits in Illyrio's cellars, while the Myrish galley is "savaged by the storms", recalling both the circumstances of Rhaella's impregnation ("the queen looked as if some beast had savaged her") and the storms that hit Dragonstone as she gave birth.
Meanwhile, a Myrish galley recalls the "Myrish galley [that] cast a grapnel" and made a "gash" in secret-mother Vermax's belly, and all that that connects to.

Farther down the docks she came on Tagganaro sitting with his back against a piling, next to Casso, King of Seals.

Sounds kind of like a "Wine-king".

He bought some mussels from her, and Casso barked and let her shake his flipper. "You come work with me, Cat," urged Tagganaro as he was sucking mussels from their shells. He had been looking for a new partner ever since the Drunken Daughter put her knife through Little Narbo's hand. "I give you more than Brusco, and you would not smell like fish."

I wonder if Illyrio made a proposal of parnerrship to Rhaella after Serra's death, perhaps as he was "sucking mussels from their shells", so to speak.

"Merry says the same." Cat was sad. She liked Little Narbo, even if he was a thief. "What will he do?"
"Pull an oar, he says. Two fingers are enough for that, he thinks, and the Sealord's always looking for more oarsmen. I tell him, 'Narbo, no. That sea is colder than a maiden and crueler than a whore. Better you should cut off the hand, and beg.' Casso knows I am right. Don't you, Casso?"

That was a hugely important passage, but not regarding Illyrio and Rhaella. No, has more to do with the circumstance by which someone might only have half a hand…

The seal barked, and Cat had to smile. She tossed another cockle his way before she went off on her own.

Much as Rhaella perhaps threw one last "cockle" Illyrio's way "before she went off on her own" as Quaithe?

End Appendix

That's it. No new conclusions or anything. Just a run-through of some of the "legwork" I did running down what I believe to be the text's interreferentiality that didn't make it into the main post. Hope you enjoyed this stuff half as much as I do!