Fluttering Feelings
Fluttering Feelings is an original Korean manhwa (Korean word for comic) written by Ssamba. It updated episodically, telling the tale of Kim No-Rae and Baek Seol-A, who could be no more different, but connect when they find themselves neighbors and go to the same school. The art style differs from the manga style - hence the differentiation between manga and manhwa. The story follows them getting closer as friends, but there's always been romantic undertones and these get more intense as the story goes on. It's a very soft, very emotional story, and the line between friendship and romance gets blurred. This article references Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's work Between Men which talks about homosocial and homosexual relations, and how especially between two women, there's not a distinct boundary between homosociality and homosexuality, whereas it's more distinct between men.
In the scenes above, No-Rae (whose name means song) sings a love song for Seol-A (whose name is not dissimilar to the original Korean title which is pronounced as Seol-lae-neun Gi-beun) as a simple demonstration, but the moment after is charged with intense imagery of hands and nonverbal communication. Hands are a big part of sapphic communication and I really appreciate the panel-by-panel breakdown of every little movement in this moment.
I came across this manhwa first when I was about 16 years old, and followed it religiously, and I learned that the author, Ssamba, was struggling through cancer. They have since passed away, but their legacy is not forgotten. I think about this manhwa a lot, and found myself thinking about this story especially during our Tumblr share today. No-Rae and Seol-A's story might not be complete in the comic form, but they live in the queer space of my heart and my mind, and I'd like to think they're happily together.
-ML
