My Blue Garnet - Ch. 10

[MangaDex]

 

[outinthegardener]

sweet songs never last too long on broken radios 🎶

 

[Redrot]

Fascinating backstory for Kaede.

 

[Kamui]

So Kaede is an emotional vampire. Nice.

You really know how to pick them, eh Ai?

 

[AkodoRyu]

Kaede's issues aside, her ex was kind of a bitch. She took all the support, encouragement, and everything else positive Kaede had to give, improved herself, and then dumped her ASAP. Since she didn't see Kaede's broken internal monologue, she just dumped a partner who invested a lot into her, because some random people that she barely met, who never even met Kaede, said their relationship is unhealthy. The entire situation is just infuriating to me.

 

[DoboDoboDobo]

I'm still team Kon but I want things to work out for Kaede.

 

[T-sama]

So Kaede is an emotional vampire. Nice.

You really know how to pick them, eh Ai?

I disagree, Kaede never drained Akane, if anything she gave nothing but support to her.

Although I kinda understand where you're coming from, Kaede is basically like mildly sociopathic and need others to really feel alive, the break-up simply messed her up even more than she already was

I also feel that her coworker is pretty clearly being set-up as her new future love interest since she obviously lost Ai

 

[T-sama]

Kaede's issues aside, her ex was kind of a bitch. She took all the support, encouragement, and everything else positive Kaede had to give, improved herself, and then dumped her ASAP. Since she didn't see Kaede's broken internal monologue, she just dumped a partner who invested a lot into her, because some random people that she barely met, who never even met Kaede, said their relationship is unhealthy. The entire situation is just infuriating to me.

She literally had a dream girlfriend, for all her issues Kaede was the definition of supportive lover

Fuck now I hope we see later Akane having nothing but regrets cause all her future relationships failed

Cause honestly, she fucking deserves it for throwing away a perfect relationship like that on the word of strangers

 

[T-sama]

Me seeing Akane throwing away a perfect relationship with Kaede for no good reason

We really need to fucking see her regretting such infuriating moronic choice

 

[jmgaling0924]

Yo she might've not have the word 'go' and 'directly' on her vocab

 

[Kamui]

I disagree, Kaede never drained Akane, if anything she gave nothing but support to her.

Although I kinda understand where you're coming from, Kaede is basically like mildly sociopathic and need others to really feel alive, the break-up simply messed her up even more than she already was

I also feel that her coworker is pretty clearly being set-up as her new future love interest since she obviously lost Ai

Oh, yeah I can see it now. My read was a bit off.

I do wonder if Akane breaking up with Kaede was her picking up instinctively on Kaede's "hollowness." As cliche as it is, you do expand your horizons at college. Perhaps meeting so many new people made Akane feel something was off about their relationship.

 

[T-sama]

Oh, yeah I can see it now. My read was a bit off.

I do wonder if Akane breaking up with Kaede was her picking up instinctively on Kaede's "hollowness." As cliche as it is, you do expand your horizons at college. Perhaps meeting so many new people made Akane feel something was off about their relationship.

It's easy to read her as negative as possible due to what she's doing, but since karma is a bitch all she did was lose Ai :v

Now that you mention it that could be a possible angle, I think it'll depend if we ever see again

And now that I think about it from Kaede angle the break-up was honestly horrible and makes no sense, feels like it's shallow because her girlfriend listened to some strangers

But like, we see pretty clearly Kaede is basically a empty shell and probably mildly sociopath or something else since she barely feels anything, won't be surprised if we ever get the other side we see that Kaede life was literally completely about Akane and nothing else, which to be fair is unhealthy

Unhealthy if you're a regular neurotypical person, which Kaede isn't but Akane had no way of knowing

Now I wonder if we see Akane again if story will paint her choice as a tragedy cause she truly thought she was doing the best for Kaede when it was actually the worst

Shit now I don't hate Akane anymore cause we don't know if her choice was out of stupidity or tragically good intentions that backfired lol

 

[Saki-movement]

"I'm hollow"
"She was alive..all i felt was envy..i wanted to be her"
"It was exactly as I wished that she and I would melt together"
"With her I finally gained true life"

Kaede substitutes her hollow inside with other people's ambitions because that's how she captures the feeling of being alive. Akane wasn't "saved" by Kaede but vice versa. That's why Kaede went on to pull the same from her husband and then for Ai.

 

[PixelCrow12]

Akane wasn't "saved" by Kaede but vice versa

I disagree with this. It was a "mutually beneficial" relationship. Kaede got to experience "life" through Akane and Akane got love, encouragement and support that she needed to achieve her dreams. The relationship wasn't healthy mostly because of Kaede's issues and, while we can't say for certain because we don't know enough about their relationship, Akane is probably right that they've become codependent. Kaede for sure was because she thought that she could only experience life through Akane.

Could they have worked on this? Honestly, I don't think it would've worked out anyways but Akane could've at least tried something instead of just leaving Kaede because some people she just met told her that their relationship was weird. Kaede deserved that much at least. I hope that Kaede will find her happiness (and not try to ruin Kon and Ai's but I know I'm asking for too much with that ) but I can't even begin to imagine how her issue could be solved without another codependent relationship

 

[shinmera]

Hoping that one day humanity can reach the point where people can access therapy at any point no matter their background.

 

[Andigo]

Hoping that one day humanity can reach the point where people can access therapy at any point no matter their background.

At least we've started in that direction with multilingual AI. It's no therapist and falls short for emotional labor, but especially in 6 months or a year out that pattern recognition tool is free therapy.

Not that someone coping with something like sociopathy or borderline personality disorder is going to be saved by pattern recognition logic and fake empathy. Still progress. Kaede really would've been better of recognizing her major malfunction before she began increasingly desperately prioritizing codependence over other people's wellbeing. Just potential labels, a sense she's not uniquely broken, and a rough comparison of different approaches can prevent this spiraling. Maybe she'd even be worse towards other people but at least she'd not be as lost and singleminded.

Problem: That totally fails the needs of vibes-based storytelling where it shouldn't even be clear if the character knows their major malfunctions

 

[FiddlePop]

Kaede's breakup flashback was so comical.
They literally built it up like a punchline after the previous few pages. I'm still giggling at how it was delivered.

 

[SrNevik]

Kaede's issues aside, her ex was kind of a bitch. She took all the support, encouragement, and everything else positive Kaede had to give, improved herself, and then dumped her ASAP. Since she didn't see Kaede's broken internal monologue, she just dumped a partner who invested a lot into her, because some random people that she barely met, who never even met Kaede, said their relationship is unhealthy. The entire situation is just infuriating to me.

I said this elsewhere but it applies here too:

I disagree. Considering how Ai is being treated by Kaede right now and how dependently Ai behaves, I wouldn't be so quick to say that girl was wrong. I think this chapter was showing how unhealthy Kaede's views are for her and her "partners." Her past girlfriend recognizes this and bails, something we should want Ai to repeat.

It wasn't just because people said something. It was that she saw more of the world and could finally compare her very isolated relationship with Kaede to others. Once she does this she begins to realize how abnormal their relationship structure is.

Isn't that exactly what's happening to Ai? Would we consider what we know of Ai and Kaede's relationship healthy? Or Kaede and her husband? Now we even know how self-focused Kaede's thoughts have been.

Ai's and that girl's story are actually the same: Ai also has met someone new who tells her things are unhealthy and she's also expanded her horizons. She's learning about other forms of relationships outside of her relationship with Kaede. Now, hopefully she also recognizes how unhealthy her past relationship with Kaede has been along with this absurdly selfish game of hide and go seek. She should make the same decision as that girl, but the narrative parallel makes me a bit nervous.

 

[outinthegardener]

I won't judge Akane too harshly because everyone experiences a massive shift in perspective and personality at that age. It's a combination of environment (Being on your own, exposure to new ideas and perspectives) and biology (Your brain is still maturing into your early 20s). It's normal that Akane would be apart from Kaede for a bit and decide to move on. Plenty of healthy high school relationships don't survive college/long distance.

We don't know much about Akane to try and armchair psychiatrist her. We know a fair bit about Kaede that's disturbing. Things like suicide pacts, a history of cheating, and how she's been stringing Ai along. We just learned that she shows signs of being a sociopath, and that her validation only exists in her romantic partner. She's an unwell person, and that's a big burden for a romantic partner to bear.

 

[GooseBolt]

At least we've started in that direction with multilingual AI. It's no therapist and falls short for emotional labor, but especially in 6 months or a year out that pattern recognition tool is free therapy.

Not that someone coping with something like sociopathy or borderline personality disorder is going to be saved by pattern recognition logic and fake empathy. Still progress. Kaede really would've been better of recognizing her major malfunction before she began increasingly desperately prioritizing codependence over other people's wellbeing. Just potential labels, a sense she's not uniquely broken, and a rough comparison of different approaches can prevent this spiraling. Maybe she'd even be worse towards other people but at least she'd not be as lost and singleminded.

Problem: That totally fails the needs of vibes-based storytelling where it shouldn't even be clear if the character knows their major malfunctions

Do not use Ai chatbots for therapy as your conversations become training data for it. Not a great idea to bear sensitive info into a recording software