have you ever been in a friend group where one person essentially declared themselves as a dictator? it's somehow happened in both of my circles TWICE and it's honestly hilarious at this point. you'd think that a bunch of academic sweats and people in an orchestra wouldn't have time to control, manipulate, and tear at each other's throats all the time, but somehow, things have snowballed to the point that I'm basically living out an episode of Gossip Girl in real life. the first girl, Z, has a weird inferiority-superiority complex that she likes to take out on others by belittling them under the guise of being the "mom friend," mentally reducing her friends to character tropes in her mind. however, the second someone misspeaks, or even just merely disagrees with her, she ices them out, and convinces the rest of my friends to treat and ridicule them the same way. when people call her out for this though, she always refuses to take accountability for what she did, and in turn spread misinformation and gossip around this person in order to make her side sound more believable. and the worst part? her friends follow her every word like she's a cult leader. It's like they don't even have the capacity to think for themselves!! she's hurt so many of my friends and still has the audacity to think that I fuck with her, and she's only learning NOW that I completely despise her. now she's trying to end the friendship on her end secretly as some sort of power play, but it's so obvious what she's trying to do that its pathetic.