were kids in school actually like this
Abso-fucking-lutely. At least girls were doing this shit, and mostly in middle school to early high school I'd say. The whole two-faced friend level up situation is extraordinarily common between the so-called "cute girls" and so-called "nerdy loser girls". Usually it goes like this. Nerdy-uggo girl is childhood friends with Nerdy-cute girl. Nerdy-uggo girl continues be a Nerdy-uggo girl while Nerdy-cute girl evolves into Popular-cute girl once they enter high-school or middle-school. Nerdy-uggo girl thinks that even after all the time that passes, they're still friends like they were before the new school-year.
Bzzzrrt. Wrong, when Nerdy-uggo girl tries to talk to the now evolved Popular-cute girl (who now has an entirely new set of
non-nerdy friends) Popular-cute girl, now in survival mode at being confronted with an undesirable remnant of her past that will bring down her newfound sense of ego and popularity, will either
1. act dumb and pretend that she doesn't even know Nerdy-uggo girl.
2. start acting uncharacteristically mean so that Nerdy-uggo girl never talks to her again.
Thus, causing an intense, almost irreparable sense of trauma, insecurity, and distrust-of-others (especially others who happen to be cuter, slimmer, or outwardly nicer) in the Nerdy-uggo girl that will seldom go healed.
A tale as old as time among super unsocial, weird and very nerdy girls~!
I don't get the hate for this arc, to me it's an extremely well written and a far more interesting one than seeing BPD-chan moment #2454. I mean, I get it. There's a high percentage of people here who've come to see hot girls acting mental because it gets them hard so the lack of hot mentally unwell girls is sure to spark rage. I get it, totally get it. BUT. Tomiko's flash-back arc is horrifyingly realistic and absolutely enrapturing. I unironically love this arc because it paints a realistic picture of interpersonal conflict and relationships among teenage girls in different ""castes"", a caustic, terrifyingly unstable thing. It's almost nostalgic.