So, you've made it to the end with me... and I only have these words.

THANK YOU. Thank you so much for clicking that read button when you first saw this story, for taking the time to read this story, for voting, commenting and supporting me all the way till the very end, even if the controversial things in there have screwed you up (and myself) or made you personally attacked.

Thank you for actually sticking with the trainwreck / dumpster fire that this boi is.

Now, here are some fun facts about this story, just to keep y'all entertained while I churn up that Q&A for the peeps who commented :)

The initial storyline was supposed to be Selene rallying together all of Natalie's former targets to figure out how to expose her - but I realised that it was an old trope, very cliche and not representative of real life (not that it is now lmao). But after noticing how tv shows had storylines regarding a threatening anonymous mastermind + reading stories with revenge in a school setting (All That is Gold by , High School Hit List/Clique Bait by , Bad Girls by and literally any other 'rich kid school with a dumbass hierarchy system that main girl hates' book on wattpad), I decided that Selene would be flying solo and knocking people down from their pedestals. After all, she's too antisocial to even connect with the other loners. And the serious trust issues.

Selene is based off myself. Yes, so each time Selene ranted, it was really me ranting about life. Congratulations, you just read a story about me villainising myself to remind me that I am, in reality, a dumbass whenever I try to pin my own issues on others.

Shush, don't judge. I needed to get this book out of my system, as terrible as the contents are.

If you're also wondering, some of the things that I wrote about here were personal experiences, others based on rumours, inaccurate teas and piping, legit dramas I've heard about; it's up to you to wonder which were true and which were inaccurate.

There wasn't always chess imagery/symbolism in the story. It started with me thinking, "Selene plays chess, so does she think in a strategic 'chess' way?" and it escalated from there. As such, Gillian is portrayed as being second in command above Lisa due to certain ideas that bishops are more powerful than knights despite both being worth 3 points. I guess the Castle twins and Natalie don't need explanation and neither should Selene the pawn. The other cliques are probably represented by pawns linked together and not isola-

I digress.

I had no idea how to write Lisa's arc of the story, which is why it is quite bad. For whatever reason, I just couldn't. Her character was still important in my opinion, but I just didn't quite know how Selene caught her issues and screwed her up; my mind just went blank with her. Please drop suggestions and concrit here.

Rifton Girls' High School used to be called Jewelstone High School, in the oldest writing attempts.

*cringes intensively*

What was I thinking ?????? Was that supposed to seem intellectual ?????? Did that name ?? carry ?? a single piece of sophistication ?? Wut ?!?!?!

I have no idea which country Rifton is in. I am an uncultured frog in a well, research was hard and I didn't want to be a clown right from the beginning.

so let's all assume this is a literary device, despite me failing to mention them explicitly and explain them in the exams, that characters such as this, and organisations with wild politics are e v e r y w h e r e !!!

Angeline plays the role of the typical MC in a mystery novel - the one who goes out to investigate, to figure out what the heck is going on and gets shooketh at the conclusion. However, this book takes the mastermind's POV, so you don't really get to see what is going on with her. Instead, you see what Selene thinks of Angeline as an investigator.

Despite having said that Selene is the villain compared to the rest, this story was meant to blur the lines between good and bad. None of the girls are completely good people, and the bad things they do manifest from aspects of their own lives. As mentioned in her lovely comments, all of these girls have the capacity to be a 'mean girl' of sorts. There is no singularly all-evil character.

Compared to other revenge teen fic books regarding a preppy rich kid school on wp, I'm aware that this story is honestly, in comparison, boring and one-sided.

But that's the point. The content of this book is to highlight that while childish and petty, this is kind of what normal students worry about on a daily basis - school project participation, how many friends they have, what one (1) person did to ruin their day and their test grades. Here, we don't see fake dating to take down the 'king' of the school and how kids are linked to their parents' business empires and all that. And revenge happens for even pettier reasons, compared to character deaths and serious issues. As foolish as it is, this is sometimes life - worrying about miniscule, petty things that we shouldn't be thinking about.

One flaw I will admit to regarding this is that the plot is actually unrealistic.

No girl is gonna go into the school and see all her peers screwing up conveniently for her revenge plan that she also conveniently develops along the way. It's unrealistic and wild, I know, despite it being a story and all. And I wish I could make up a better revenge plot, but here are the main explanations for that.

a) Selene is not super proactive in revenge. She came into the new school year expecting nothing great for herself. If they never screwed up, she wouldn't do a thing because she's not that obsessed with the idea of revenge to learn coding and hack a computer for dirt, since all of this drama is mostly too petty, even for her. There wouldn't be a story if things didn't happen the way they did.

b) Complacency. My theory is that the girls were very careful about behaviour in the first year, but they thought they had it in the bag after one year of walking on eggshells. That's when careless slip-ups began to come through, since they'd gotten more comfortable with each other and all.

You've noticed that Selene constantly disses things in pop culture, haven't you? Admittedly, I have included these as satirical elements to point out the existence of over-obsessed, sometimes toxic stans that we commonly witness in real life.

And that's all for now.

So, once again,

(ah, yes, and a special mention for taylor swift, for giving us the quality content that is the entire reputation album and lwymmd that fits this story perfectly.)

(and of course, to every revenge/fake friends/life is scheming song out there, too.)

(extra content coming soon, as I mentioned above.)