#Kennedy PR team

[jacks-weird-world]

#Anonymous ask

Okay, Kennedy PR team. 😂

Or should I call you "delulu in love"?

"you sure do miss/misinterpret his jokes a lot." Cool, and how should I interpret such behavioral abstractionism? Ah, you answer yourself: Like silly goofy.

[zot3-flopped]

None of these delusion “swifties” actually know much about Taylor Swift’s weird summer with the Kennedys and it never fails to make me cringe.

Taylor Swift spent an entire year obsessing over the Kennedy before even meeting them - reading books, dressing like a 1950s housewife, and visiting JFKs grave to lay flowers. (I beg you to look up the paparazzi photos, she’s stood there in a yellow dress, massive sunglasses, an umbrella and a serious look on her face - it looks like it came straight out of a Pretty Little Liars episode lol).

She manages to get into their circle and spends time with them in Hyannis Port over the summer. She starts dating one of them (Patrick), however Patrick wants to pursue a career in acting and leaves. A few days later, Taylor is cozying up to his 17 YEAR OLD COUSIN (she is 22, almost 23 at this time), Conor Kennedy. Unfortunately, Conor’s age isn’t the only problematic part - his mother had just commit suicide very recently so he’s in a vulnerable position, and Taylor decides it’s completely normal to buy a house right by his own family’s (they’ve only known each other for weeks)!

Not only does this social climbing psychopath buy a 4 million dollar house to be close to her boyfriend, but she also has to sign him out of school to hang out with him 😭 Not to mention the moment she crashed a Kennedy wedding she wasn’t invited to, was politely asked to leave by the mother of the bride (if I remember correctly) and apparently “looked straight past as if she wasn’t there”

Her PR team must’ve worked overtime to squash this because all of her feral fans are constantly attacking Taylor’s exes for problematic age gaps, yet seem to completely blank on Conor Kennedy being a minor.

I've seen Cages talk about the age gap between Taylor and the boys she dated when she was 22 and she just dismissed it by claiming that 'Taylor was a very young 22', as if Taylor was a virgin who'd never left her family home instead of an international popstar who'd already had two serious relationships with older men.

Jaime also said 'Harry Styles was much more experienced at 18 than Taylor was at 22', even though at 18 he'd only dated one other person for any length of time, and that was a fellow student his own age called Felicity Skinner in secondary school.

[msmc-796-official]

After-Action Report: The Fireman Saga

[PARTIES INVOLVED]

MSMC-796 "Heaven's Fury"

MSMC-148 "Neon Scene"

Corsair Mercenary Company / @corsair-mc-official

AGNI clone "Rev" / @revvedandrunning

Hercynian Refurbished Armaments / @hra-official

Monsoon Lance, Dawnlight First and Only

Patrol Squadron Osprey / @albatross-lancer [tangential]

Intern Jimbo, THOR clone "Arthur" / @harrison-armory-incorporated [tangential]

Karrakin Trade Baronies / @ktbofficial [tangential]

+++++++

[CASUALTIES]

0 dead, 1 incapacitated, 2 wounded

MSMC-796-1 "Lockbreaker" // unconscious, stable condition; fractured right arm w/ shattered wrist [prosthetic replacement recommended], third-degree burns across most of the body

MSMC-148-2 "Prowl" // stable condition; second-degree burns across the upper body, temporary blindness

MSMC-148-5 "Stimpak" // stable condition; temporary blindness

+++++++

[DAMAGES]

1 destroyed mech

SSC Dusk Wing "And The Voice Of Apollo Spake From On High" // stable condition; damaged auxiliary weapons targeting system

IPS-N Caliban "Sudden Intervention" // DESTROYED

+++++++

[REPARATIONS - IN PROGRESS]

HRA - reparations paid; turned over the casket of AGNI clone "Rev", along with a confiscated virus harpoon (initially obtained from CMC) from known mech-poaching group "Whalers"

KTB - discussions on necessary reparations ongoing; jurisdiction over final reparations to be overseen by Hades & Jackal, Esq.

AGNI clone "Rev" - d̵͎̘͛̆ȃ̶͓͑̉t̸̨̯̜̅̉ḁ̶̺̗̍̄̑ ̶̱̺̋c̴̨̮͒o̵̤̐r̶̢̧̭͗̃͆r̶̨̢̰͋̅̕ȗ̶̡͕͝͠p̷̼̫͇̃͗t̵̨͍̐͠e̷̟̹̾̑d̶̨̕

[ha, yeah, no, I don't think so. the higher-ups can [AUTO-CENSORED BY PILOTNET] for all I care, we are NOT paying reparations to Rev, especially not after what they did to Kennedi // -- Slipshod]

+++++++

[DISCIPLINARY ACTION]

MSMC-796 "Heaven's Fury" is on a one-month deployment probation, effective immediately. They may not accept commissions (paid or unpaid), recommend or commission fellow squadrons for deployments on their behalf, send or receive commission offers, or otherwise engage in the field duties of a MSMC Lancer squadron.

However, all squad members are permitted to engage with PR responsibilities as usual, within the updated guidelines handed down from MSMC Upper Management.

MSMC-148 "Neon Scene" is on a two-week deployment probation, effective immediately, following the same terms as above.

+++++++

There, that should about do it. Hopefully command is satisfied with that. MSMC-148 is sending in their recorded footage from the field for review (seeing as they were actually able to get the full scope of things from the sidelines), and all of our text correspondences with everyone have been compiled and timestamped for viewing from as many perspectives as I and Slipshod could track down.

Obligatory thank you to the boys from Hades & Jackal, Esq. for their assistance in drafting this. (Hopefully Slipshod's little "addendum" in the Reparations section doesn't show up in their copy.)

TL;DR - Our entire squad is banned from any sort of field deployment for a month, and we're probably gonna owe some pretty serious reparations to the KTB for blowing a Worldkiller-sized hole in Karrakis during combat (if/when they actually get back to us).

Kennedi's gonna need a new mech once she wakes up, and as far as the medical team can tell us, she's slated for a new arm prosthetic once her burns start to heal over and they can safely remove the old one without damaging anything further. But she is in fact alive, and is currently stable. Sometimes, stubbornness is a good thing.

It's been one hell of a week. We all need some rest. Expect us to be on and off for a bit as we wait for this entire mess to blow over.

-- Angel

[OOC: FC's Note - look for the new tag (#the fireman saga) on my blog to track down all of our side of the story!]

[redvioletarts]

I'm so normal about IBM 7094 and Daisy Bell. So normal.

Bell Labs in the early sixties. You know what kind of stuff they were working on back then? The first continuous-light laser. The Telstar spacecraft. The first worldwide TV broadcast, bringing one of President Kennedy's press conferences global in the kind of groundbreaking display of communications technology that eventually paved the way for, y'know, the same kind of global communications technology you're using right now to see this.

And they also had a team of programmers teach this computer to sing. Not the national anthem, not a well-known hymn, not even the alphabet song--they taught it a goofy love song that was already nearly seventy years old at the time. My pet theory is that the name Daisy Bell made a cute pun with Bell Labs and they just went with it.

Maybe they just did it for the PR, but... I doubt it. You work with computers this much, you start to get sentimental about them.

All this work on a computer with the processing power of a calculator so we could meme about Hatsune Miku's grandfather sixty-five years later. ...Worth it.

Of course, with me, y'all know what's coming next. Get t-shirted.

Daisy Bell Lyric T-Shirt

[Image ID #1: A photo mockup showing two smiling women with their arms linked and their heads resting on each other, standing in a sunny room indoors. Both wear jeans and matching T-shirts with the lyrics "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do / I'm half crazy all for the love of you" in hand lettering, curved to fit whimsically around ten hand-drawn daisies. The shirts are dark brown, with white-and-yellow art and lettering. End ID.]

[Image ID #2: A photo mockup showing another smiling woman standing in a living room. She also wears jeans and a T-shirt with the same design, but the base T-shirt color is olive green.]

I used a computer thousands of times more powerful than IBM 7094 to make this artwork, and another one to upload it and configure it on a handful of different products (T-shirt, throw pillow, sweatshirt, and both a cotton and a polyester tote bag). It's in like four different databases and an integration system--I should know, because I wrote a ton of metadata for them to make sure people could find my stuff. When you buy one, a message goes back through the entire tech stack and sends my print partner your custom order, which they then produce and mail out to you in a matter of DAYS.

(How the fuck did we get here from there?)

Anyway, these are great T-shirts! They're super soft, go all the way up to 3X in sizing, and they're manufactured by Bella + Canvas, which has platinum WRAP certification (a huge labor standards org--you can read about their deal here). And they come in five colors!

Get yours here <3

[jessread-s]

Thanks to Get Red PR and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review*

✩🏒🦋Review:

I could not be more grateful to Kennedy for revisiting the Briar Universe with her Campus Diaries series!

“The Graham Effect” follows Gigi Graham, the daughter of the legendary hockey player Garrett Graham, as she tries to make a name for herself by qualifying for the women’s national hockey team. In order to improve her game behind the net, she makes a deal with Luke Ryder, Briar’s new hockey co-captain. In exchange for a few practice sections, Gigi agrees to put in a good word for him with her dad so that he can get the summer coaching spot he so desperately wants. The only snag? The chemistry between them that is impossible to ignore.

If I’m being honest, I don’t normally reach for “next generation” stories. I find that they don’t live up to the stories that paved the way for them and they lack a certain something. All this being said, “The Graham Effect” is THE exception. I found myself loving this book just as much as I loved the Off-Campus series and it’s all thanks to the addictive quality I’ve come to associate with Kennedy’s writing. 

Gigi and Luke are my new favorite couple. Alternating between their perspectives deepened their romantic tension and mutual pining, making my heart race. Most of all, I loved that they could be vulnerable with and push each to be better.

I would be remiss if I did not touch on the cameos made by the characters that started it all! I thoroughly enjoyed catching up with Garrett, Hannah, Logan, Dean, and Jake. Their brief appearances are memorable without taking away from Gigi and Luke’s love story. 

I cannot wait to see which child of this new generation will be the protagonist of book 2!

Cross-posted to: Instagram | Amazon | Goodreads | StoryGraph

[woodsteingirl]

i finished my beautiful 1960 election book and i feel forlorn. how will i function knowing i can’t learn about any more women who kennedy’s pr team supposedly hired to go cry to richard nixon after the debate and tell him “you’ll get him next time 🥺”…. what will i do without that.

[dreamofstarlight]

1.) love your blog!

2.) the Kate crisis has shown that the internet is vast and no one is immune to conspiracy theories. Which is why it is more important than ever for institutions with insane soft/ hard power and sway - like the BrF- should work with and uplift reputable journalistic outlets and avoid what a monarchy in the 21st century can become when they use 19th century comms. And that the women and kids in these institutions need to be safeguarded in a much different way because disturbingly, the conspiracies always come for these groups. H&M and their kids especially, but now also kate and her children.

3.) very random but were Carole radziwill and Caroline Kennedy ever relatively close? I’m doing a rhony rewatch and I love and miss Carole so much and loved how she was herself but didn’t cash in on the gossip and tea she surely had and has.

Aww thank you so much!

This was the perfect example of how conspiracies don’t come out of nowhere and even though most times they are false and not to be taken seriously, there’s a reason why they start and part of that is lack of information/misinformation. The comms teams need to be able to adapt and take the temperature of the public instead of just doing what they've always done and thinking it'll continue to work. Something else that's been interesting is the difference between BP and KP, Charles and Camilla's team seems to understand that the public needs to have updates and be in on what is going on. KP PR seems to not understand that updates and "signs of life" do not have to be direct medical updates, so many people have suggested this but something I think could have been a good post would have been a photo of a collection of the get well soon cards and then the caption is "Thank you for all of the support! I hope to express my gratitude in person when I am able. - C". There is a balance between not keeping medical information private and keeping the public posted on progress, they severely missed the mark and were acting like in order to avoid this they had to reveal what the surgery was and exactly what was happening and that's not true, they just had to be a little more creative and they could not do that obviously and when it got out of hand they floundered. They didn’t shield Kate from criticism, they actually made her the target for the criticism and gave people more ammunition to go after her and create insane theories.

I do not know how close Carole and Caroline are now, I do know that Caroline was Carole's maid of honor and she gave Anthony's eulogy at his funeral so I think they were close at one point. I’m sure Carole could have spilled a lot but she didn’t and I respect her for that. There was enough messiness in her time on the show I think they needed someone like her to balance things out yk.

[volskayadottxt]

time to engage in some Speculation*

*seriously, don't pretend i have secret insider info

**i could be booboo the fool here

***thats why im posting this here (no one reads this really) and not on twitter and im already beginning to have second thoughts abt keeping it up so we'll see i guess

i'm not gonna say that aaron's blog post today isn't pr-washed, it totally is (wouldn't get published otherwise). i didn't expect to see any blame laid at the foot of corporate mismanagement. but what i did expect (and did see) is creative mismanagement i've (and others) suspected for a hot minute.

team 4 originally thinking of themselves as an 'mmo team' post-ow launch, with their ultimate goal being the rebuilding of project titan, explains so many strange creative decisions kaplan and the old leadership made prior to his departure. they never really saw ow as we saw ow. we saw it as a fun competitive shooter. they saw it as a stepping stone on the way to creating this massive mmofps.

early in ow's history there were so many weird balancing decisions (example: trying to make each hero equally viable in all situations, balancing around quick play). before the closed beta, im pretty sure they only wanted ow to be playable in dedicated teams of 6. meaning no solo queue. which seems like a REALLY weird decision for a competitive fps, right?

well, now it makes sense. they saw ow as this small part into building this big mmo. chasing that white whale that was project titan. and yeah, in hindsight, easy to think "well they couldn't make it work once, why did they think they could the next time?" well they probably didn't expect ow to be a big runaway success, either. they might've felt like they had the right idea, wrong approach.

it also explains (although i think budgets fall into this as well) why they didn't want to just build a new team for ow2's endgame pve. they saw team 4 as the team that did "everything." that handled the whole franchise.

ironically, we probably wouldn't have gotten archives or (in august) ow2's story missions if it wasn't for that creative vision. we know from former ow producer tracy kennedy that kaplan was thinking of a sequel before ow1 even shipped. that was ow2 and its pve, and eventually... ow3?? the mmo?? so it was something they'd prolly planned to start exploring early in ow1's life cycle.

this also explains why the original ow2 announcement in 2019 was so controversial (thats ignoring the whole blitzchung stuff, which i have zero desire to talk about). i remember kaplan being... kinda hostile in some interviews. like, he was interviewed by nathan grayson during blizzcon 2019 for kotaku. in the published version, grayson expressed frustration that ow1's development had been put on ice for a sequel he didn't really want or expect. kaplan mentioned this first interview in a second interview later (although grayson wasn't mentioned by name). like, he was being professional abt it i guess, but he was clearly upset grayson did not understand the vision and sorta accused him of insulting his team (which i don't think grayson was trying to do, either).

but also--how were we supposed to react? we had no idea the goal was to make titan again. we just assumed ow would function like lol or dota. i guess i can't help but be a little angry. i think the team meant nothing but the best, but a lot of fandom angst could've been avoided if we were told abt what ow1 was (a stepping stone to a larger project) instead of what we thought it was (an always supported online game).

this of course ignores all the corporate mismanagement, which i suspect Jason The Video Game Reporter Guy will cover in the next few weeks. i hold no love for kotick and his goons. but if what aaron is saying is at least marginally true, then the old vision was also a problem. its very easy to lay all the blame at abk corporate and a lot should be, but someone had to pull the creative plug earlier i feel.

at the very least, we now have leadership that's willing to make the tough choices, i guess? i'm certain the mentality of many will be "well they should've done this years ago" but hindsight is 20/20. i'd rather focus on rebuilding now (which is what i think the goal is). and while i have issues w ow2 in it's current state, there's also quite a bit of things i like, and quite a lot of goodwill their narrative team has fostered with me (it helps that the lore/characters/story are my favorite thing perhaps).

i also don't really "blame" aaron or jared. it sucks they've become the face of this when it was a different team, with different members, different structure, different makeup. yes aaron was there but he also wasn't director or ep. jared's been at blizz for like 6 months. i'm not saying trust them wholeheartedly but also... don't treat them inhumanly either.

[houseofbrat]

Hard disagree on the conjecture for Cambs arriving late to the Coronation. They were late. They were busy on their PR film shoot but a last minute bathroom break from Louis caused them to be late?! NO.

They then followed up the bad manners of being late by choosing to throw The King under the bus with their misleading statement. Now the rumor mill wants to use The King again as if he somehow sanctioned their behavior. NO.

And what is this incessant need to make excuses for them? Wailers will tell you William is BoS$, an alpha dog, that Catherine has untold power. But anytime they’re held account for their choices, it’s needed to bend over backwards to excuse and coddle them or else you’re a HAteR? NO.

[related post]

I find what the Royal Foibles dude said credible. This is mainly because he doesn't have a dog in the fight between the stans of different British royals. He writes about a bunch other royals or other old time celebrities such as Jackie Kennedy Onassis.

A last-minute bathroom break by a five year old is quite realistic when you consider the behavior of four- and five-year olds.

Charles & Camilla being so early as to cause & block Will & Kate and kids from arriving isn't as plausible as certain Wales fans/stans would like to believe. The horses and their driving teams practiced the route from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey prior to the coronation. The driving teams had a good estimate of how long it would take them to do the route and arrive on time.

The non-reaction by Buckingham Palace to the incident confirms that Charles & Camilla aren't concerned about the incident. Also, BP & CH household & officials don't seem to care about making corrections, which they probably would if they were more concerned about being thrown under the bus in this instance. But they clearly aren't making any moves regarding it, so they must see it as insignificant in the long run.

Kensington Palace's statement blaming The King & Queen for being early is typical William overreaction. It's the same overreaction that happened regarding William's speech at the end of the 2022 Caribbean tour, and the same overreaction that happened in Boston over Lady Susan Hussey. I'd bet that he had his communication officers overreact because the real reason does involve Louis and his potty story.

I agree with your last paragraph. Any minor critique of the Waleses causes an absolute meltdown by some of their fans/stans.

[jacks-weird-world]

[insanityclause]

The proximity is alarming… in a Conor Kennedy way. - oh come on. Clearly London is so small it’s the only place she could find. Total coincidence!

I jest. It has long been weird but this takes the cake. One or both of them need to seek closure and let TH go.

Also, is it me or has this break up made her fans even more unbearable than usual? Just got into a new fandom and followed someone on Twitter only to discover they were a sw*ftie when they claimed HS was PR and then started shipping an actor in the show with TS. SIGH.

2)

The proximity is alarming… in a Conor Kennedy way.

But Saney, you don't understand!!! London is such a small town and Primrose Hill is literally the only neighbourhood and there are so few houses. It was that house or under a bridge!! /sarcasm

On a serious note, I really don't know what to think about this...

3)

wow. That is some coincidence.

4)

Omg… about the house… they could almost share backyards.. and she knows where he lives, there is no way she doesn’t // or her “team” do the research about the area of where she buys houses,etc… what is even crazier is that she was renting/staying in a house on park hill road, like a 2 min drive from where he is… this is weird

(Somehow it got weirder, didn't it??)

5)

North London is known to be celebrity central. Lots of industry people live there and the place is more infested with paparazzi than NYC is with rats. Doesn't exactly seem like an ideal location for people who were apparently obsessed with their privacy.

The fact that it's also super close to her ex-boyfriend is Stephen King level of disturbing and Tom and Zawe need to move to Hampstead if she does still buy it.

Not to mention with her money she could afford Kensington or Belgravia which is way more private

(Right??? Even in north London, Zoopla has probably half a dozen houses today that are same size/price range/with more security, and yet they chose this???)

6)

I know this is unreasonable, but I am a little bit angry that they actually offered on a property so close to Tom. I don't care if it was somewhat close to the Primrose Hill property they had been renting, surely they could have found something that wasn't around the corner from him and Zawe? It feels so disrespectful and gross.

7)

Did TS not already have a house with J in the same area? Was this one seriously closer to TH and Z??

(It is seriously close - like, 500 ft away, per Google maps; about half the distance that the other place was.)

[zot3-flopped]

I’m very interested to see what Matty’s response to TTPD. If you look at her other exes, he’s sort of an outlier.

Jake and Harry were both pretty pr trained in their responses and stuck to the “it’s her story to tell”-esque statements . Joe (Jonas) did diss her a bit but it’s was nothing different from what Taylor had done to him, they were both petty teenagers. Calvin did actually call her out, but she’s never really written a song about him (just a couple references here and there) so she didn’t go after him the way she did with her other exes. She did go after Joe (Alwyn) but there was really nothing bad to say about him. The worst things she could say about him was that he had depression and didn’t want to marry her.

Tom and Taylor (Lautner) were more into her than she was into them so there were no real bad songs about them. I don’t think she ever really cared about the Kennedy kid and just used him to associate herself with his family so there was nothing bad about him. Plus, I’m sure her PR told her to not remind people about her dating a 17 year old when she was 21/22.

The closest to Matty would be John Mayer. However, John was actually in the wrong in their relationship (nobody in their 30s should be dating a 19 year old) so even though he did “call her out”, nobody really took him seriously.

Matty differs from John because even though he’s very problematic, Taylor clearly had no problem with it. She even said that she “would’ve died for [his] sins.” Unlike John, Matty didn’t take advantage of her. She knew the type of guy he was and still chose to associate herself with him and defend him, so her fans can’t use him being problematic as a defense when he calls her out.

Matty has absolutely no fear of Taylor and her team. It's now just a case of whether he'll drop a standalone song or wait for the next 1975 album.

[msmc-796-official]

Correspondences from Pilot NET #2

[BEGIN CHATLOG]

C0ns1d3r1tW0n: Hello? Who is this, and how did you find our private server information?

calibanhammer: Greetings, Linchpin. This is callsign Lockbreaker, from the 796th Detachment. I apologize for not using the official channels to contact you, but as this job offer isn't an officially-sanctioned deployment, I had to use your backdoor. May I have a word with your commander, if they're online?

C0ns1d3r1tW0n: Oh, shit, you're with the PR squad? Yeah, of course, gimme ten seconds, I'll tell 'em to log on. Forgive my hostility, I didn't recognize your username - Angel never mentioned you were one of her squadmates.

calibanhammer: It's a fact I try not to advertise. Given my history prior to joining MSMC, it's probably not a wise decision for someone like me to be known as a spokesperson for a rival corporation.

C0ns1d3r1tW0n: No, no, I getcha. You were with the Armory before MSMC, yeah?

calibanhammer: Yes. Briefly. It is a time in my life I much regret.

C0ns1d3r1tW0n: Ouch. Sorry to hear it. Oh, there he is - here's squad commander Halogen for ya. I'll log off and give you two some privacy. Pleasure speaking with ya, Kennedi.

[USER "C0ns1d3r1tW0n" OFFLINE]

[USER "URBN-NYTLYF" ONLINE]

URBN-NYTLYF: And to whom do I owe the pleasure of a visit from "Heaven's PR Team"?

calibanhammer: This is callsign Lockbreaker speaking. But please, call me Kennedi. The 796th requires your squad's services.

URBN-NYTLYF: Is that so? And why, pray tell, couldn't you go to any of the higher-ups for these "services"?

calibanhammer: This mission is of a more... personal nature, I'm afraid. Requesting this as a sanctioned deployment would only paint a target on the back of MSMC. Discreet measures were a necessity.

URBN-NYTLYF: Interesting. Consider me sufficiently intrigued; what do you need us for, Kennedi?

calibanhammer: There's an AGNI-class NHP currently housed inside a "Worldkiller" Genghis Mk. 1 which we suspect to be the cause of a recent rogue NHP cascade over at Harrison. The offending NHP (a THOR-class, I believe) has since been contained by HA's PR Intern, but the AGNI (if indeed responsible for the cascade, as it claims to be) has yet to be apprehended.

URBN-NYTLYF: An AGNI in a Worldkiller? My goodness, Kennedi, you spoil us. Prowl will be thrilled to test his newest virus suite. Do you simply want it neutralized, or are we authorized to kill?

calibanhammer: Neutralized is preferable, but there's a catch.

URBN-NYTLYF: Oh?

calibanhammer: To my knowledge, this AGNI is under the protection of the KTB, and claims to live in a mansion sufficiently sized to house its frame within their territories. I'll warn you now: expect more resistance than just the Genghis, whichever approach you choose.

URBN-NYTLYF: Oh, I see. Worried about upsetting the Baronies, are we, Colonial Legionnaire?

calibanhammer: Please. I've already been called a "corpo bootlicker" by the offending AGNI once today, Halogen. I don't need any further reminders of my previous affiliations.

URBN-NYTLYF: You really are no fun, you know that? But no matter. Consider the 148th Detachment willing and able to fulfill this "special request". I'll inform my squadmates shortly.

calibanhammer: Excellent. Thank you for humoring me, Halogen - I'd have gone to someone else, but your squad is well known for its ability to deal with hostile Genghis and Tokugawa frames, despite its... let's say glaring eccentricities, and not using your talents felt like a waste. We'll discuss matters of compensation after.

URBN-NYTLYF: Naturally. Take care now, Lockbreaker. Oh, and do send the rest of your squad our regards for me - we so seldom get to cross paths with the 796th, you know.

calibanhammer: I'll pass the greetings onwards. Farewell.

[END CHATLOG]

[icedfae]

( teddy + ronan )

Teddy had been waiting once again for Ronan to come home for pasta night. He promised he wouldn’t miss them anymore! Still, he could hardly blame Ronan for being busy while Teddy was clearly not having much of a social life these days. He was still navigating through his PR team trying to minimize the casualties from the break up from Maiya at his hands, which was getting difficult considering that she was a Kennedy and that came with a lot of weight behind it. The front door opened and Teddy leaned forward to see who it was, as if it weren’t Ronan coming home. “Finally, I’ve been bored out of my mind. How was whatever you were doing? Or whoever? Am I allowed to make jokes?” @spctlights​

[cinnamonfm]

{ SAVANNAH LEE SMITH, 22, CISWOMAN, SHE/HER } Is that HENRIETTA ASTOR? A JUNIOR originally from GREENWICH, CT they decided to come to Ogden College to study GOVERNMENT. They’re THE FALLEN PRINCESS on campus, but even they could get blamed for Greer’s disappearance.

001 – the basics.

full name: henrietta pearl kennedy-astor (no relation to the kennedys, other than name) nickname(s): heni, hen, etta, ettie, hettie date of birth: 01 november 2000 place of birth: greenwich, ct hometown: manhattan, new york sexuality: bisexual, though i’m pretty sure she thinks she’s mostly straight religion: agnostic, lapsed catholic

002 – the girl.

+ intelligent, loyal, resourceful, quick-witted, eloquent, cunning, astute, observant - fault-finding, rigid, insincere, scheming, unyielding, vindictive enneagram: 3w4 mbti: esfj temperament: choleric-melancholic

character inspiration(s): blair waldorf (gossip girl), cordelia chase (buffy the vampire slayer), paris geller (gilmore girls), quinn fabray (glee), summer roberts (the o.c), heather ratner (chuck), claire standish (the breakfast club), heather duke (heathers), regina george (mean girls), mini mcguinness (skins), lucille bluth (arrested development), alex russo (wizards of waverly place), amber mariens (clueless), sharpay evans (high school musical)

primary trope: the fallen princess secondary tropes: lovable alpha bitch, always second best, manipulative bitch, deadpan snarker, death glare, defrosting ice queen, good all along, bitch in sheep’s clothing, anti-hero, moral myopia, stepford snarker, jerk with a heart of gold, inferiority complex

how they embody their trope:

(brief neglect mention tw) Facades, facades, facades. In hindsight, it’s a wonder her first words as a toddler hadn’t been scripted for her and pre-approved by the Astor PR team. She’s the only child of two lawyers - with her mother serving her second term as New York’s attorney general and her father ensuring that multi-million dollar corporations were able to skirt around their social, environmental and fiscal obligations. They’re not American royalty, not by any means, but the Astor name carries a certain weight, and her parents would sooner give up all their worldly possessions than let her forget it. It wasn’t her parents who brought her up, so much as their expectations. Perfect grades, perfectly behaved, perfectly aligned with their wants and needs. The Astors hadn’t really wanted a child. What they’d been in the market for was a trophy. Henrietta, by virtue of her upbringing, is a perfectionist. Nothing she ever did as a child was good enough for her parents (not that they’d ever say that, but she could sense it), and nothing she ever does as a young adult is enough to meet her own impossible standards. She’s spent considerable time and effort constructing a vision of herself that she feels comfortable portraying to others, a thin veneer to keep herself hidden from onlookers - a never-ending performance. And part of that was being Greer’s best friend. After all, you’re only as good as the company you keep. She’s yet to take an actual tumble, but with Greer missing, the paint job on the facade that is Henrietta is slowly starting to crack. It’s only a matter of time before it starts chipping, too. 

general personality: 

Were I to use one word to describe Henrietta, it would have to be sharp. It’s her defining characteristic - she’s all edges, all the time. Sharp wit, sharper tongue. At least that’s the curated version of her. The one you’d get to see. Beneath the high school mean-girl persona, behind the rolling eyes and raised brows, she’s genuine and vulnerable and has the capacity for care. But she’s been raised to believe that kindness is a weakness, something for others to exploit, and so she’s extinguished that flamed. Stubbed the embers into the ground with her foot. Because it’s easier to keep people at a comfortable distance this way. This way, they won’t get too close. They won’t be able to see her for the lonely, insecure person she’s tried so desperately to keep under wraps.

003 – greer.

If there is such a thing as a universal truth, it is that teenage girls exercise cruelty rarely seen outside of cartoony depictions of hell. And if the Manolo-toting schemers of gossip girl were anything to go by, Manhattan girls were the absolute worst. Henrietta had thrown an uncharacteristic fit when her parents had broached the subject of moving (in the middle of the school year, no less) - tears wiped on the back of cashmere sleeves, voice choked with adolescent desperation. Were they trying to ostracise her from her peers? Ensure she’d stand out like a sore thumb? How did they expect her to find friends, when social hierarchies and cliques had already fully solidified by now? The answer to the latter was, unsurprisingly, Greer. Henrietta had hardly set foot on the grounds of her new alma mater, before Greer had linked elbows with her, flashed her a bright smile, and announced to anyone who’d listen that this, this was her best friend now. Maybe, she’d told herself as she returned home from that first day, moving hadn’t been such a bad idea after all. Ever since that first meeting, the two of them had been practically joined at the hip. If Greer was there, you could place a pretty safe bet that Henrietta was there. Joint birthday parties in their early teens, trips abroad over the summer holiday, secrets shared behind walk-in-closet doors. They were inseparable. It was the sort of friendship others looked at through either a lens of envy or aspiration. Or both. Perhaps that’s why Henrietta feels so guilty over how restricted she’d felt since traipsing in Greer’s footsteps all the way to Ogden. It wasn’t that she didn’t still love Greer in that platonic way a best friend does, because she really, really did, but college had just highlighted just how much her existence had been fashioned as an extension of Greer. It wasn’t like the power dynamic had ever been even, not even back in New York, but something about the new backdrop to their relationship had lit up its flaws like a starry night sky. Getting to bask in Greer’s light also meant existing in her shadow. It was always Greer, and then Henrietta, half a step behind. It was hard not to feel like an afterthought. An asterisk at the end of a lengthy paragraph.  004 – family.

(see here) To say that Henrietta’s relationship with her family teethers on being strained, would be an understatement. Everything she does is with the express intent of getting their approval, and yet, she’s never so much as gotten a nod in recognition. Everything she achieves, her brother (four years her senior) has already done. And better at that. During her formative years, they were too concerned with getting Evangeline elected as attorney general to let their children be children. And now they’re too concerned with getting her re-elected to see the damage that did to them. 

005 – brief summary of events. 

coming soon.

006 - wanted connections.

exes (derogatory) - these two used to date, and now they can barely stand to be in the same room as each other. can they even remember why? who knows, but that doesn't stop them from bickering all the same.

what could have been - what's worse than almost being something, but never quite getting there? these two never had the timing thing figured out

academic rival - the nelly yuki to her blair waldorf. someone heni feels like she has to outperform, all the time. could even be one-sided.

the project - no idle rich girl is complete without someone to take under her wing.

behind closed doors - someone heni gets on with, and likes spending time with, but for social reasons (and because she's the worst) she doesn't want to be seen with publicly

the light feminine to her dark feminine - she's always been a pack animal, and now that greer's off somewhere? being her counterpart is up for grabs.

[compellingselling]

Cannes is the ultimate advertising ICYMI

I try to keep up with what's causing the industry to buzz, but every year projects surface at Cannes that I missed. Here are some of my favorites that I didn't know about until they popped up at the 2023 Cannes Creativity Festival.

Chipotle Doppelgänger

While there are a gazillion of combinations of Chipotle's various ingredient options, agency GALE figured out how to tell when two people somewhere in the country placed the exact same mobile order at around the same time and messaged each where their "Chipotle Doppelgänger" was. Search it on Google and you'll see how much organic attention these received. Case study above. Agency: GALE. Lion: Gold, Data-Driven Targeting

Muskrat Magazine "Missing Matoaka"

The cynic in me couldn't help seeing many purposed-driven Cannes entries and winners as desperate attempts at trophies rather than sincere concern for a problem. But I admire this one for being so innovative and clever in how they attempt to counter the inaccuracies in Disney's Pocahontas. (And, okay, I'll admit that it's a stretch that their "client" is a small publication.) Agency: BBDO, Toronto. Lion: Gold, Silver, and Bronze, Brand Experience & Activation; Gold, Radio & Audio

I see Coke

Pepsi arrived to Saudi Arabia before Coke, so they have more share and spend more on media. “In a region where Coke is the challenger and not the leader, there was still one place Coca-Cola owned: movies and TV shows. So, we turned 100 years of product placements on the big screen into an interactive, shoppable experience using voice [Alexa].” Easier said than done. I can’t imagine what it took to pull this off, but it’s a fun idea. They claim that brand awareness increased 234% as a result. Case study here. Agency: VMLY&R. Lion: Silver, Radio & Audio

Opt Ink

McCann’s client wanted to increase the number of Germans who consent to donate their organs. Their ingenious solution: “a free tattoo designed by renowned ink artist Gara” and offered at 250 studios across the country. They promoted it at tattoo conventions, through influencers, and got a ton of free PR. Turns out 25% of Germans already have a tattoo, so they had a built-in audience. Case study here. Agency: McCann Germany. Lions: Gold, Social & Influencer; Silver, Direct; Silver, PR; Bronze, Direct; Bronze, Media.

Clash From The Past

To celebrate Clash of the Clans' 10th anniversary, Wieden + Kennedy created a 20-minute documentary celebrating the make-believe FORTY-year history of the game. This is reminiscent of the "Make-Believe History of Black Star Beer" which was also done by Wieden and also won big in the award shows. But I think it's okay to steal from your own agency's history.

In addition to the 20-minute documentary – which has was produced really well, especially the old commercials – the game makers invited current fans of the game to play games from Clash's make-believe historic origins. Winner of the Grand Prix for Gaming AND Grand Prix for Entertainment. Case study here. Full documentary here.

Cashback for your jersey's back

Just before the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the Brazil national team made the jersey they would be competing in available for purchase by fans. The Nike jersey was the most expensive ever. Flash, "a benefits card" that gives cash back for certain purchases, announced on social that they would reimburse half the cost of the jersey if fans put "Flash" on the back of the jersey instead of a player's name. That's a very clever guerrilla tactic that answered a real problem for fans and got Flash a ton of attention. I won't say it was "free publicity," because they did have to pay out a lot to cover half the cost of the jerseys ordered before Nike's website blocked people from putting "Flash" on their jerseys. Case study here. Agency: FCB Brazil. Lion: Gold, Social & Influencer

Sorriso sponsors Sorriso

Sorriso is the name of a Colgate toothpaste and a big shot football player. “Sorriso” means “smile” in Portuguese. Sorriso (the toothpaste) were able to get their logo on the back of Sorriso's (the soccer star) jersey/kit AND wherever the player’s name appeared on stadium signs and TV screens. Then they did the same for a female player with that last name. I saw this one mentioned as a Cannes contender, but it looks like it didn't win any Lions. Case study here. Agency: VMLY&R.

McDrip

To recruit more young employees to work in their restaurants in Sweden, DDB got a streetwear designer to redesign McDonald's uniform. Even if it's still a hurdle to get teens to work at a fast food restaurant, I bet it increased the chances teens would apply to McDonald's ahead of other fast food joints. Case study here. Examples of TikTok here and here. Lion: Bronze, Social & Influencer.

Hilton Waitographer

To show the lengths they go to serve guests, Hilton in the Middle East brought in a professional photographer to train staff people – especially restaurant servers – how to take good phone photos. By TBWA/RAAD, Dubai. (It didn't win at Cannes, but it was in some coverage of Cannes hopefuls. I'm not going to include a link to the case study because it was silly and overlong.)