outrage

I don’t have much to say today except that I’m getting more and more horrified by the twists that are showing up in the plot of the present arc with each passing episode. Even the teensiest hopes I had harbored of Byakuya having a covert plan in mind which would justify his switching sides so unabashedly were belied when I was presented with an entire scene in Episode 241 where he supposedly “proves”, maybe not his loyalty to Muramasa’s disgraceful clique, but definitely his opposition to the Soul Society when he, after Senbonzakura challenged him to do so, attacks and apparently kills Sode no Shirayuki, knowing full well that if anyone except the original owner of a Zanpakutō were to defeat it, it would never return to normal. Even Senbonzakura was incredulous when Byakuya did this, since he thought Byakuya would refuse to do something like that to his own sister’s Zanpakutō. The very fact that he seemed to be doing all this in order to “prove a point” and make himself part of a group he would never belong in if he tried with all his heart for several thousands of years killed any semblance of the “pride” he so desperately wanted to “protect”. I’m getting more sarcastic than is warranted, I know, but it can’t be helped—this is disturbing. He so obviously became subservient to Muramasa when the latter said that he had a “job for [him].” Subsequently he pretty much destroyed the Sixth Squad’s building, when Rukia was in it, and engaged Renji in battle when the latter tried to save Rukia from Senbonzakura, who was also present. There was a brief skirmish where for whatever reason Byakuya seemed to fighting on equal ground with Renji (until the latter fell, that is) when he should have had the upper hand right from the start. I mean, come on, Renji even said, “You’re under arrest.” How disgraceful is that? Being put under arrest by your own subordinate, the one you always looked down upon since you first met him definitely doesn’t figure in Byakuya’s List of Proudest Moments. However, in the end, the other Zanpakutō arrive on the scene, and the fact that they asked Byakuya why he wasn’t going to finish them off rekindled a remote, maybe a bit too idealistic hope that he still had something up his sleeve that would redeem him. And then the Stealth Force and Soifon, Ikkaku, Yumichika and Ichigo arrived on the scene (none of them taking any special notice of Byakuya except for Ichigo, who was, as always, burning with the all-consuming desire to extract an explanation), and the Zanpakutō seemed surprised at this. This in turn inclines me to believe, again, that Byakuya has some hand in this; maybe he set them up. The ray of hope I’m seeing seems a tad brighter now. I really, really hope I’m right.

Okay, so today these people from the Academic Operations Department walked in during the last ten minutes of Chemistry class and announced that they were going to conduct the Feedback Session for the IPE teachers. I totally screwed up the Math guy’s feedback (for a genuine reason, which was that his presence was generally not felt unless you focused really hard, and even then you have a hundred to one chance of missing him), as well as the English guy’s, since he’s so self-important, talks so abrasively, and talks nonsense. The only person I gave a positive feedback to was the French teacher, because he’s the only genuinely good teacher of the lot, despite his many personal faults. Okay, so that’s that. Also I got in trouble with the IIT Math teacher for the second time in two days when I was caught telling someone a joke about him (luckily he never found out what the joke was). What was funny was that the whole class thought he was yelling at the guy sitting next to me. In any case, such things make you feel uncomfortable, and a repetition of this would be least desirable.

Oh, and for the time being, I’m making this blog public again. I may privatize it all over again without notice, but since my select few readers’ email addresses are already up, you’ll still be able to access it without invitation if you’ve been invited before.