Hi hi!! I hope you are doing well and have a nice day or night! ヽ( 'ω' )ﾉ
I'm wondering of what's the reason for Yelena's overblot? And how did she snap out of it? (´◦ω◦`)
Hello and i hope u have a fantastic day as well! Sorry for getting to this late bcs apparently tumblr doesnt want to save my draft and i had to start all over (LONG yapping and old sketches warning)
PART 1
Yelena Overblot Outline (?)
Essentially Im planning her OB to be after Book 3 and before Book 4 (around a week before winter break?)
So it was mostly triggered by Soren awakening his UM in Book 3 (while helping the crew fight the tweels), which their dad gets wind of it. Just his luck, he got the very much important, inherited UM of the Argens; and the only reason Korona (their dad) allowed them to cut connections with him was bcs they were failures who didn't inherit the one thing he needed for an heir. So now he's trying to expel him from NRC and bring Soren back KOH as his heir to receive special education
Yelena knew if it went through, Korona'd never allow her to meet Soren again, bcs she's always been Soren's achiles' heel. She was already quite jaded (?) after helping Leona in B2 & seeing him not only fail, but also giving up and ended up overblotting. She wanted to see if he could change, and this only cements her belief of how humans can never change for the better
So she was incredibly stressed and paranoid already after hearing that Korona was trying to take Soren away from NRC. She knew just how much influence, power, and money Korona had, and she doesn't trust in Crowley/NRC as a whole... so she had to act herself.
At her wits' end, she targeted the most vulnerable and easiest variable... Ramshackle She spread a legend she heard in KOH abt a blue fire titan/beast (painting it as related to Grim) in an attempt to retake control of the situation against her dad.
She doesnt believe the legend AT ALL, but shes on her last wits, and if NRC is "revealed" to be roofing a mythical disaster from the age of the gods, it'll def put the school on lockdown while they do some internal investigation, and halting any moves Korona would make.
This is kinda my shitty attempt at social commentary w media propaganda since. Her reasoning is ass and she knows it, yet she leverages ppl's trust in her words bcs despite how many dislikes her, Beauty Club has always been a trustworthy intelligence service & once a seed of doubt is planted, suspicions will fester→ esp w how Grim's background IS unknown, and Yuu is a mysterious student from another world. Yelena doesnt need them to believe them, she just needed them to talk and spread panic so that a lockdown would be issued → preventing Korona from forcefully withdrawing Soren from NRC. She is compromising her own prided transparency & truth for her own selfish reasons
For a sec even Grim thought that she might be right and feared what that would make him, would he hurt Yuu?😭
And yeah, since Yelena knows its not the truth, and shes still going ahead and cause chaos with her power at NRC... shes directly going against her ideals and the very foundation of what made her form the club in the first place => which ofc leads to her self-hatred and her self-destructive belief abt "never being able to change" intensifying
Soren tried to communicate with her and tell her not to worry abt him bcs he has a plan to handle their dad since he's thought abt the possibility of him inheriting the UM
but Yelena still sees him as a little brother she has to protect and HERSELF as a pathetic girl who cant stand up to her dad for years So yeah... she (unintentionally) dismissed his growth and condescendingly patronized him bcs she believes both of them hasnt changed past their childhood trauma
So she went through with the plan and cause a massive unrest within the school, Crowley having no choice but isolating Ramshackle to control the situation since ppl start scorning and bullying ramshackle esp Grim😭
I want to make her overblot a direct conflict between the siblings. Smth smth younger sibling who grows up seeing their older sibling protecting them and wants to repay them... and the older sibling who wants them to be happy so much so they CANT see what their sibling ACTUALLY wants...
her club vehemently retaliates bcs what she'a doing is destroying the very reason why they worked w her (remember NRC is full of assholes so RIGHTEOUS assholes are gonna take this kind of betrayal even more seriously), and even her closest friends & co-founders Hyla and Delano (my oc and my friend's oc hehe)
So she turned to the one person she believed would understand her... Idia💀💀💀
Ive stated before that pre-OB Idilena was unhealthy in a sense that they only got together bcs they believe its their burden to alleviate each other's guilt bcs they think theyre the only ones who could.
Idia couldnt refuse her bcs hes seen just how “lonely” she is, just like him… and how she clings to him bcs she has no one else who can stand beside her and understand her like he did… exactly as Idia feels abt her.
He knows first hand how it feels to lose a little brother, and he knows exactly how she suffered after (nearly) experiencing the same thing. Of course when the same circumstances arises, he chose to side w her out of his love for her, a twisted sense of solidarity and own guilt for OG!Ortho.. he’ll do anything to prevent it from hppening again.
So he did back her up until Hearshackle goes to confront them, and there Idia realizes that if Ortho was Soren, he’d try to listen to him first, unlike Yelena who just completely dismissed his opinions and decisions... He recognizes Yelena’s missteps in handling the situation but feels initially he has no right to tell her what to do bcs he "failed so miserably" with Ortho😭😭😭
This was the trigger to Yelena finally overblotting, bcs just how angry and betrayed she felt that Idia of all people thinks she's in the wrong too. She's looking down on the others bcs in her OB mindset their opinions are irrelevant, but Idia as well? Someone she looks up so much?
OB!Yelena is very strong bcs of her UM & OB boost but shes very unstable and manic (kinda like Riddle), and she attacks non-discriminately at anything that opposes her 😭
She's also every insecure Yuu's bane bcs she directly demeans them and calling them an outsider who doesnt belong in twst 😊 (her UM didnt work on them bcs theyre magicless and she was mad abt them going against her😊😊 girl u MADE them go against her😭)
And i'll leave the fight details later bcs ive yapped enough, but Soren was the one who defeated her with the help of Idia and the others. The very same little brother who she so condescendingly infantilized and looked down upon was the same person who ended up defeating her and subsequently, her ideals.
i see your ocs (they're gorgeous and i think i've seen them on pinterest too?) and i would love to consume anything you write about them
I have no talent for writing unfortunately 😭😭😭 BUT i do have some indulgent writing here and there but its by no means good 😔💔
This (unfinished) takes place after B6 and basically Idilena's heart to heart right after Idia's OB (they talked out their relationship and whether or not they actually loved each other) and this is the aftermath. Also the inspo for this art:
While this one is even more self-indulgent bcs its just whatever tf i was feeling like 😭 it has Yelena's inner monologue after her OB + her reflecting on Soren's growth that she can no longer deny, her and Idia's communication after her OB, and just some random ass trivias 😭😭😭
HELLO!! Sorry for the late reply (theres also some asks i'l have to take more time to answer bcs ive been quite busy lately shjsjs)
Honestly im quite basic in a sense that i believe his blue flame hair is a manifestation of his curse so any descendants of the Shroud family will have that exact same hair. Altho i can see their hair changing colors— signifying their age as they become older and perhaps losing the bright blue color bcs theyre losing their ability to maintain that complete combustion found in blue flame🤔
Hello again!
I hope you’ve been doing well with the New Year right around the corner (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ✦
I’ve been reading Like Mother, Like Daughter and I’m currently up to chapter 56, and honestly—it’s been a very personal read for me. Not just “this is good,” but uncomfortably good in the way stories sometimes are when they hit too close to lived experience. Especially with Somyung, and later with the introduction of Sol Ryu, who is… unfortunately, a painfully accurate depiction of normalization in abusive environments that I’ve been seeing (and recognizing) a lot lately.
Up until around chapter 30, I realized I understood Somyung’s psyche a little too well for comfort. That was also the point where the way her mother is visually depicted really clicked for me. On the surface, it works as a horror element—but the more I thought about it, the less it felt like “horror aesthetics” and the more it felt like a cognitive failure rendered visually.
Her mother isn’t drawn as deformed, demonic, or exaggerated in a way that externalizes guilt. She’s scrambled. Low-resolution. Overwritten. Like corrupted data—even when the surrounding environment is aggressively coded in red. And I don’t think I’ve read many manga or manhwa that portray unreadability this clearly.
You can technically see her face: eyes, mouth, outline. But none of it coheres into a readable emotional signal. Humans rely on faces to assess intent, safety, truth. When that system breaks, paranoia blooms automatically. The brain fills in the gaps with threat.
To me, it feels like after Myungjin’s death, Somyung loses the ability to interpret her mother. Suspicion here isn’t belief—it’s the collapse of trust in your own perception. It’s your brain saying:
I can no longer tell who you are, therefore I can no longer tell what you’re capable of.
That hit hard, because it mirrors something I experienced when I was younger. During periods where I was anxious, overwhelmed, and deeply stuck in my own head, I genuinely couldn’t recall my parents’ faces. Not symbolically—literally. It was like my brain blunted perception to make things more digestible. Faces became placeholders. Emotional bandwidth collapsed. Memory didn’t just fade; it fragmented.
Because of that, I honestly think that if Somyung grows older, gains distance, and comes to understand more about her mother through the lens of her “revenge,” her mother’s face might return—not because everything is forgiven, but because clarity has finally become possible again.
I also really like Sol Ryu as a character. She’s fascinating in a deeply uncomfortable way. In some respects, she mirrors Somyung’s mother—not in cruelty, but in the way she “cares” for those she commits to. That very rigid, consuming sense of responsibility reminds me a lot of Yelena, actually.
Sol also reminds me of Idia Shroud, though not in circumstances, but in structure. Their selves are built on not looking. Their defenses speak the same language, just inverted: deflection, humor, “I’m not sentimental,” “I know I suck anyway,” and staying close to people who confirm that narrative. In Sol’s case, that’s Min and her mother. In Idia’s case… he at least has Ortho and his parents.
And this might be controversial, but I’ve always felt Ortho functions as both a structural support for Idia’s hope and his self-loathing. Not because Ortho fails him—far from it—but because Idia is still carrying the unresolved grief of losing the original Ortho and blaming himself for leaving STYX that day. (Yes, the hackers attacked STYX, but this is Idia Shroud. Of course he internalizes it anyway. He loves hard 😭 That also explains why he channels everything into otaku culture and Premo—he needs somewhere safe and normal to put those feelings.)
This is why Yelena seem so destabilizing for Idia’s otherwise predictable cycle.
Like Somyung with Sol, Yelena doesn’t just see the harm—she names it through action. She doesn’t ask gently. She intervenes when Soren is in danger. She decides Idia deserves care. (The cooking lore you mentioned really stuck with me, by the way—though I did want to ask: did that happen before Yelena’s Overblot? And did she move to Fleur City with Lianhua after the divorce?)
Yelena also seems like the type to attack people using their own logic when they cross a line. She mirrors cruelty back with precision and calm—whether it’s Malleus, Azul, or anyone else—which exposes dishonesty more than it humiliates. But I’m curious: is she also the kind of person who stakes emotional consequences in arguments? Because if so… that would be devastatingly human.
To me, Idia’s early mortification around Yelena feels similar to what happens with Sol. His old self can’t be maintained. The new self isn’t livable yet. And there are witnesses. Yelena idealizing him shatters the fragile in-between space, because once he realizes she loves the idea of him, he can’t trust her perception anymore.
One last thought—more an observation than a suggestion. Since Yelena intends to intern at the Arcane Response Unit (ARU) in criminal profiling, and her aspiration is biopsychology/behavioral neuroscience, it makes sense to me that ARU’s HQ would be in the Land of Dawning. Especially considering Book 6, where governmental channels are deeply involved in Overblot containment and oversight, and how closely that all seems tied to Sage’s Island and high-level mage infrastructure.
Given that only about 10% of the population can use magic—and most barely at all—it’s interesting how skewed our perception is because we live narratively inside NRC. Overblots aren’t just personal crises; they’re state-level emergencies. And someone like Yelena, who’s obsessed with the intersection of emotion, morality, and magic, feels inevitable in that space.
Anyway—sorry for the long ramble (yapping certified 🙂↕️). I just really appreciate how Like Mother, Like Daughter and your character work don’t flinch away from the uncomfortable middle states: mortification, unreadability, obsession mistaken for love, and the terror of realizing you might be able to change—and not knowing how.
Thanks for reading if you got this far (´･ᴗ･`)✦🐥
AUGH I HAD SO MUCH FUN REPLYING TO THIS SORRY IT TOOK A WHILE
Giggling and kicking my feet bcs trust me it'd only get peaker as u read... (the evil chapter 75 onwards...) Your analysis is spot on abt how humans use faces to read someone and i dont wanna spoil anything but you'd see this symbolism at the end of season 2 😼 And yes! They depict every character's emotional struggles so beautifully and even becomes kinda uncomfortable bcs of how realistic it is 😭 also the author mentioned in a q&a that they actually interviewed professors in their uni (which is the rly acclaimed Seoul National University btw) to portray the webtoon as realistic as possible (psychology, medical terms, etc)
Idia character analysis below sorry for yapping 😭
Idia's obsession w Premo and Girls Over Sled, his deep attachment to Muscle Red, etc also is rooted from his firm belief that he wont ever be able to form any connection w the outside world, but deep down he yearns for it so so much he looks for it in the safest way he knows— online. Where he is only Gloomurai and not Idia Shroud, heir to the Shroud family and future STYX director.
That's also why Idia was so hurt in his 1st year w Yelena bcs he had alr given up on forming any connection w the outside world, but she gave him hope. That maybe, just maybe, she can be his first, real friend bcs he really thought she'd be able to understand him (atp he only knew that she was from KoH and that she hated being born into the Argen family-> not Soren's near-death experience, or why exactly she hated them).
But that tiny hope was quickly destroyed and I'd like to think that this is a new feeling for Idia bcs this time, he has someone else to blame. Idia could only blame himself for Ortho's death, for bringing him outside, for their "adventure". But his falling out with Yelena? Idia of course still blames his circumstances, but now he has a real, tangible person to blame. Someone who was equally as responsible for his inability to maintain a true connection with the outside world, someone who was not "being born in the Shroud family" or "River Lethe".
Also yes! Lianhua divorced their father and moved to Fleur City right after Soren's near death experience as it was finally her wake up call to actually do something for her children. And Land of Dawning ARU HQ... definitely stealing this hc until we're proven otherwise 😼 THANK U SM FOR THESE HEHE
