Believe it or not, Gossip Girl is ten years old (the TV show, not the fab-u-lous books by Cecily von Ziegesar – which we highly recommend, btw), and so we thought it only right to honour one of the show's icons and a personal hero of ours.
A wise woman, who once remarked, 'once men have tasted caviar, it baffles me they settle for catfish', and gave us the life-affirming statement: "You can’t make people love you, but you can make them fear you."
We are of course talking about Blair Waldorf. The ambitious, sartorially savvy and, if we're being honest, slightly terrifying New York socialite who ruled over her Upper East Side empire from the steps of The Met.
Barely an episode went by without Blair mobilising her minions for a brutal take-down and pretty much everyone in the five boroughs fell victim to B's plots over the course of six seasons.
Seeing as 'What Would Blair Do?' was our mantra through much of our journey into early-adulthood, we thought we'd take a look back at some of the petty QUEEN's most scandalous schemes.
When Serena meets the wrath of Blair – Series One
Let's kick things off at the beginning with season one Blair. A young, seemingly innocent schoolgirl adorned in colourful tights and matching headband (admit it, you gave it a go too) with a bright future ahead of her. No one could have predicted the utter carnage that would ensue during Ivy Week after those Serena van der Woodsen and Nate Archibald revelations.
Blair shows her taste for revenge and conspires with Chuck Bass to bring down Serena for stealing her boyfriend. Unfortunately, at this point in the show, Blair hasn't quite perfected the art of a seamless scheme, and while trying to ruin Serena's college prospects jumps to the wrong conclusion over a stint in rehab.
Blair ends up outing Serena's brother Eric's stay at the Ostroff Centre after his attempted suicide. Not ideal.
When Blair tries to get her teacher fired – Series Two
This is pretty bloody brutal, and also probably illegal.
In another scheme orchestrated within the walls of elite private school Constance Billard, Blair takes a dislike to her new English teacher and tries to get her fired for her ‘affair’ with Dan Humphrey.
Basically, after Miss Carr (Rachel) gives Blair a slightly lower grade, thus threatening her fast-track to Yale, the Queen of Scheme takes the natural step of setting out to totally destroy her life.
Fortunately for Blair, Rachel does end up entering into an illicit affair with her St Jude's pupil, Dan, providing the perfect ammunition for a take-down (although it was all kind of innocent while Blair was plotting away).
When Blair banishes Jenny – Series Three
Less of a scheme and more of Blair exercising her power as Queen of the Upper East Side.
In Last Tango, Then Paris, Blair and Jenny's years of feuding come to a head when the unthinkable happens and Jenny has sex with Chuck. WE KNOW.
Blair and Chuck had agreed to meet to confess their complicated and undying love for each other, but just as B's rushing off to the Empire State Building, bloody Dorota's waters break and she rushes her to hospital.
Blair later dashes to Chuck's hotel room to tell him she loves him, while Jenny sneaks out after their gross moment of passion. Blair and Chuck are the picture of young love for a brief, fleeting moment before Jenny confesses all to Eric van der Woodsen.
Dan confronts Chuck, Blair realizes what's happened and deals with it in the way only Blair can and proceeds to banish Jenny from New York. Totally reasonable.
When Blair FINALLY rid us all of annoying and evil Juliet – Series Four
More of a take-down than a scheme, but it involved some double-agent level espionage.
In series four, Vanessa Abrams , Jenny Humphrey and Juliet – a frankly irrelevant secondary character who took way too long to get rid of, tbh – conspired to ruin Serena van der Woodsen. They successfully managed to turn Nate Archibald and Dan against her, almost got her expelled from college and even drugged her.
But when it came to turning Serena's BFF (most of the time) against her, the three witches of the Upper East Side proved no match for Queen B.
Blair teamed with Serena and Chuck Bass to turn the tables on Juliet, staging a fake fight, embarrassing Juliet in front of her boss and the whole inner-circle, and sending her packing from New York. Good riddance, tbh.
When Blair and the gang team up against Bart Bass – Series Six
OK, this one goes a little off-plan.
In The Revengers, Blair forms a scheming dream team with Serena, Georgina Sparks, Ivy Dickens (formerly Charlie Rhodes but that's a WHOLE other story) and Sage Spence to take down the villainous and newly returned from the dead Bart Bass.
Employing the 'divide and conquer' method from Blair's repertoire of scheming devices, the girls work together to drive Bart into a paranoid frenzy. But all their scheming results in a heated confrontation between Chuck and Bart on the roof of his Man of the Year Party.
After lunging to throw a punch and Chuck, Bart ends up falling to his death.
XOXO.