It certainly seems Ssamba's metaphorically preparing to rip the lid off the rating. Seol-a past relationship flashbacks were already tiptoeing in that direction, but this...This is Seol-a...

o__o <-- brain is malfunctioning somewhat after the nail clipping registered

re: My own question about No-rae on the phone with Sung-pyo. She'd probably call to thank him after finding out he carried her back.

P.S. Thank you Comico for fixing your rankings so that FF is #1. As it should be. -- . --

Oh. So that means the pane where Seol-a's set down the coffee cup is to show off her nails again.

I'm going to be re-reading this chappie a few more times today.

So what did No-rae say upon noticing Seol-a's hand? Before, I thought she just might've remember the feel of Seol-a's hand in her hair but now...

...Ohhh... ha-ha. After wondering a little more at all the nail comments, I just re-read (again again) to see that she came back after cutting her nails. Wow... (-__- ; )

And that's ...wow...

Wow...

...

wow.

madlax232 posted:

No matter what, I feel like Seol-A having short nails is going to have a greater meaning for later, like its pathing the way...?
No-Rae already has short nails, right? Hehehe
Wait I'll laugh in korean
Kekekekek

OMG. Dying. Hilarious. Thank you.

...in my illiterate anticipation, my worrier side is entertaining the idea that No-rae is on the phone with Sung-pyo when she steps out of the restaurant. ...It's not like he's moving yet. He just returned to school.

I also really want to know what Seol-a's "excuse" is for draping herself all over No-rae toward the end, ha-ha.

I'm kinda thinking (hoping) Seol-a implied he should go away.

Erm.. yeah, so. The chapter...

I need friggin' English!! Seol-a's eyes are saying something, and I can't tell what right now. She's starin' at Sung-pyo hard. No-rae noticed her hand...

So many glances!! And Seol-a finally reached out to her (if only to touch her head).

AGHghghg. ha-ha. <-- Yes, I'm totally squealing over this.

It's here folks!! http://comico.toast.com/titles/85/chapters/73

...Darn. I'm an hour early. Stinking DST...

I need to find something to do. ... :(

@Nevri posted:

takachi posted:

Nya-chan, I find you are cool. I sincerely mean it. :D

yeah, as cool as a corpse xDDDD

Ok, that was just low.

Ugh. I thought this was going to fly under the radar, through I agree it was really unfair slipped in the middle of all that.

Not responding at all would've been the best option, it seems to me, @takachi. In recent months, Nya-chan's comments have generally been targeted at the work. It doesn't matter how critical, sarcastic, "opinionated" or otherwise. I'd guess that most of the comments in this forum are more emotional than constructive. It's not like we're paid critics or something. As long as we're talking about Fluttering Feelings it should be okay to share whatever.

Some people here post more frequently when they're squealing over something. Some people tend to post sarcastic jokes. I can appreciate both (and the latter are more likely to make me laugh). They're equally valid reactions. No one has to like everyone or every thing, but we should respect everyone participating and how they participate so long as they aren't tearing down others.

Yeah, it can definitely stink when you're cheering over the latest release and someone comes and rains grumpy poop on the story, but that's life. And, for the record, I think @Nya-chan has been consistent and genuine in her replies, and more forth coming in recent months. I'm not saying all of the posts get a pass, but it seems to me that's she's really trying and collectively, I'd hope we would honor that.

@Nevri, thank you for standing up for Nya-chan. @Nya-chan thank you for sticking to your opinions and voicing them (not that you've had any problem with that). Thank you to everyone else who's been posting lately, enriching the discussion. Again, there seem to be a lot more voices in the mix this year, which is awesome.

Now, can we please drop this and move onto just anticipating the new chapter to day (and hopefully reading it).

last edited at Mar 20, 2016 9:12AM

Morning peops. (-- _ -- )

...food.

@cipp posted:

Nice job with the typeset takachi, thanks! On a semi-related note, I feel like I haven't seen anonymous around lately. Miss their puns :(

Also, super belated, but @ffins07, the categories listed in FF's comico header are actually: drama, serialized, slice-of-life, Korean, romance. I agree with a lot of what you said though.

Nevri: Unless there are no chapters left for that.

I agree, that would be a bummer. But can we wait for it to actually happen before complaining?

Oh, "slice-of-life". Well...

¯_(ツ)_/¯

Thank you for pointing that out @cipp.

Okay. ...Then, hmmm. Well, I've certainly read slice-of-life series slower than this. And a number of the ones I've read (and I've probably watched more slice-of-life anime than read them) they tend to have a snap-shot quality, as in episodes being loosely related. There's a general sense of progression and well fleshed characters (in the good ones).

That actually makes this even more interesting to me. A romance slice-of-life with an imbalanced relationship. ...Yeah, that's tough.

kk. Back to other people's thoughts.

re Seol-a encountered Sung-pyo: My interpretation of Seol-a's gaze thus far is that she's cautiously curious. She's at risk of "invading No-rae's personal life without her permission". I think that it is in part because of Seol-a's confidence that she's not particularly uncomfortable. It's more like she's respectfully treading a boundary, imo. Given that--if she's actually the more comfortable/confident one of the two (Seol-a and Sung-pyo) once they're in an enclosed space, Sung-pyo might be the one to break the ice.

This is like real life. I can't predict it. (That would be boring.) Sung-pyo might feel more confident by societal assumption (he's the guy and past lover) or it might be Seol-a, who's just generally confident.

Hah! I'd love (just for my own personal amusement) to have No-rae wake up, hung over, with both of them there and have the sweat drop. Good job, No-rae. |;p

Also, although I think it's okay Seol-a couldn't remember his name, it's really like she doesn't remember who this is. I find that kind of odd... Urgh! I kind of want to see Seol-a and Sung-pyo interact, but that would mean delaying No-rae POV. The more I think about it, the more frustratingly pointless it seems to do so. The end is showing they're silent. Strangers to one another. Yet they have a significant connection. Talk about a pregnant pause (or elipsis in this case).

I should probably just drop off 'til next Sunday. I'm going to bed. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

last edited at Mar 13, 2016 10:35PM

@Knightingale posted:

I’ve been reading the forums for a few days now and I just wanted to add my two cents to the discussion of the series ^^ .

Overall, I still am interested in the series and want to know what happens in the discussion but the last couple chapters have lessened my interest in the series. Frankly, I don’t care if the series will ever cover a working relationship between Seola and No-rae. And I’m fine with the series having a slow character-focused pacing. But I really think that in the whole ski-resort-arc (with the trip to No-rae’s parents) the series jumped the shark without knowing what to do with that.

I don’t think repetition is the problem here. It would imply that when something happens the series would move on in order to return to the same point – but the series never seems to move on these days. The relationship between Seola and Norae is frustratingly static, the complications of the plot remain incidental and the closure (even on an incidental level these days) is non-existing. FF’s writing seems very inconsequential. What happened on that ski-resort-trip was all VERY dramatic (Seola crying out of frustration, Sungpyo suddenly appearing, Seola and Norae nearly kissing etc.) but it didn’t amount to anything. None of it even seems very dramatic in hindsight due to this lack of commitment. Those atrocious time-jumps happened too often between chapters and killed the natural momentum of the story again and again there.

But even aside from consequences, the writing wasn’t very elegant. You have all these plot-points and character-moments but they all seem to be only tangentially related in how they’re presented. Every meaningful moment of the ski-resort-trip exists in its own little bubble. There have been no confrontations between Norae and Seola despite the fact that the reason for all the events is that they’re at odds with each other. Norae clearly isn’t on the same wavelength as Seola when it comes to their relationship and the series has so far done nothing besides rubbing the readers’ noses in it. And if for some reason you haven’t realized that yet, you will have certainly gotten the message with that wordy chapter 66 that needlessly summarized all that has happened in the previous couple chapters (the golden rule is “show, don’t tell”, not “show, don’t tell – then later tell them what they’ve seen”).

What bothers me the most these days is Norae, though. I assume Ssamba wants to create tension by making us identify more with Seola than Norae. But it should be the other way around at this point, I think. Chapter 66 and this new chapter are disappointing because we already know what Seola’s mindset is. Far more interesting would be to find out what Norae is actually hoping to achieve by doing this whole “oblivious”-routine. Honestly, in the scene where Norae plays the guitar she acts oblivious to the point of being kinda insulting. Since it’s hard right now to identify with Norae (because we don’t really know what exactly she’s thinking) the whole thing starts to feel like an “idiot-plot”. You know, the kind of plot that can be easily resolved with one short, honest conversation but it isn’t happening because the characters behave like idiots. And Norae is that idiot right now. I mean, with how stubborn Norae is, I don’t think there’s anything Seola can actually do to change their relationship.

It’s disappointing for me because the chapters itself often have one or more nice, little moments of fluffiness and cuteness. But these are only moments in a story that hasn’t really come together as a whole in a while.

Also Sungpyo is a stalker… Seriously, this is the second (!) time he just “happened” to be in the vicinity of Norae for a flimsy reason.

@Knightingale: I agree with much of what you've said, though I have much more sympathetic view of No-rae's behavior. To me, No-rae is failing where many people fail in relationships, whether it's confidence, not knowing how important communication is, whatever. I do think it's frustrating, but I'm just saying... I wouldn't call such a person an idiot. Just normal, and unfortunate to be Seol-a or a fan looking to see a relationship grow. :?

Definitely, if Seol-a isn't going to risk being pushy, we're all depending on No-rae to move things forward. She doesn't necessarily have to confess, but if she'd at least let Seol-a know that she needs her help ("push me") or something.

Even though I say that, I felt similarly about No-rae's lack of response "**being kinda insulting**".

As someone else mentioned, Fluttering Feelings really has a "slice of life" feel to it, and, honestly, that's not usually my cup 'o tea. If that were the advertised genre for it, it would perfectly explain "**writing seems very inconsequential**".

I'm not worried about the story ending up poorly, but I'm not going to ignore its rough spots. We're in the middle of one. Have been for a while. (I expressed similar feelings after chapter 60.)

To me, the problem--for lack of a better word--here is that this is a character-driven story. The nuances of the character seem to be lost on or uninteresting to some folks, which is a way to explain why some people feel it's pretty inconsistent. I think No-rae's characters has put many of us, Ssamba included, into a tough spot, if our concern is to satisfy readers, generally. Without the aid of an omniscient or semi-omniscient narrator, No-rae's character is naturally quiet, and her lack of expression makes it hard for us to empathize with her, regardless. Period. If you can't know someone (someone's mind), you can't empathize. You can project and empathize with the person augmented by your projections, but those projections are fragile.

From this perspective, I'm not convinced Ssamba is intentionally aligning us with Seol-a. I think the alignment is a consequence of how we're wired. Whether or not Ssamba is aware of this, so long as she chooses to stick to her style, we "suffer" this.

Going forward or in her future works, with characters such as No-rae I think it would help if Ssamba "goes out of the way" a little more in order to bolster their presence. Slice of Life is Slice of Life, but this is a romance story, and one advertised for readers of Shoujo at that. I feel like I've been complaining about not getting enough of No-rae since half way through. This recurring feeling is probably the most damaging indicator for me with regard to how I feel about Fluttering Feelings at a given moment and will feel after it's completion.

Ultimately, the obvious time skips and plot devices aside, many of the complaints around the story being can be generalized as it being too natural or normal, full of details of regular life that are either not very entertain or cause frustration that we'd rather not revisit for too long in a story where we are all watching for growth (i.e., of the two characters' relationship in this case). This path Ssamba's chosen is not easy, but there is still a lot of story left to tell before the final judgements. So long as the content of the ending is satisfactory it will overshadow a lot of these discontented feeling that have mounted along the way. Still, I hope to see her grow as an author and ...elevate the writing before then. I'd prefer all of my favorite stories were very well written.

@sarawr144 posted:

I used to really enjoy reading people's comments on this thread each week with all the predictions and insights to the chapters, but it's not that fun to read anymore. The horse has been dead for quite some time, and yet every week it's the same posts about how the pacing is too slow, and then the fans of the pacing coming out to defend it. Everyone has already stated their opinions on this multiple times, so why do we keep dwelling on it? There's so much more to talk about, but the whole thread is too clogged up with pacing complaining/defending to really enjoy it.

@sarawr144: Totally understand. Why don't you share your observations and start a different thread of discussion?

More thoughts: Despite some of the issues at the macro level with transitioning, her in-chapter transitions are still very nice. Still handling subtleties well. ...But, as @Knightingale noted, we do not need any hints subtle or otherwise in order to tell the why or hows for Seol-a's reactions. No-rae's...behavior is more curious but, as usual, we're in the dark. I mean, if this is just normal No-rae, then this much of this chapter's content is wasted. The party scene could've been condensed into a few panes if the only point of the setting was to (naturally) reintroduce/reintegrate Sung-pyo.

last edited at Mar 13, 2016 2:19PM

Hey folks. Been a bit out of it latest, so very, very late to the party.

Anyway...

The thumbnail was a tease. Not pleased with that choice (now). However, I am looking forward to seeing the resolution of the situation with Sung-pyo. We haven't had explicit closure from No-rae yet, and I, for one, would like to see it.

No-rae really seems to be a bit out of control here. I wonder if we'll learn more after she wakes up, but maybe this is just how she is at parties. Still, it was kind of unexpected for me.

Other observations: No-rae's hair is longer. ...The art style is...different. Maybe Ssamba's experimenting... The images really feel (and look) secondary to the emotional context conveyed by Seol-a's thoughts and the interactions between Seol-a, No-rae and Sung-pyo. To put it plainly, the screens and characters look sloppier or rushed to me. It really feels like an "in between". (And I've read @cipp's gist too.--Thanks @cipp.) I'm not saying it's bad, but if I could see bits of the future, it would've felt more satisfying to read the previous chapter (65), this chapter and the upcoming chapter all together...

I feel frustrated, and I think that's how I should feel. Like Seol-a, all I can do is wait until No-rae's not drunk anymore.

This ending is...something. I wonder what Seol-a's thinking and feeling walking next to him (them). ...uncertainty.

P.S. Catching up on all the convos (about 10 pages), I was really pleased to "see" all the new voices in the mix. It's refreshing.

Hmm... My thoughts of Min-jeong was that maybe she isn't the go-to friend for love trouble. She seems to not do to well with the "musty stuff". ha-ha

My favorite is still Hee-jin. She was hilarious.

I don't want something to happen while No-rae's drunk. So many not OK routes there. >__>

Well, Seol-a isn't going to let things fly like this another chap (unless it's No-rae's chap). I'm either expecting something to happen (e.g., Seol-a doing or saying something) next chapter or No-rae's POV because I think we've very clear on Seol-a's situation right now.

Looking forward to next chap.

@cipp posted:

Finished reading, liked the chapter (lots of Seol-a inner monologue yay! though still waiting for No-rae's). I don't think I'm gonna attempt a translation because I don't want to bork the monologue, but if you've got any questions let me know. Random bits for now:

• Minjung's worried because she's never seen Seol-a having trouble getting a guy before. And Seol-a started crying...
• Yup, the guy's part of her flashback, one of her exes (and shows their breakup fight)
• Seol-a's inner monologue goes on w/ something like how up till now, she kind of had a formula/modus operandi for relationships. "But you're (No-rae) different. I can't do that to you."
• The graduation is Hee-jin's.
• At the end, some dude announces a party in class, Seol-a, No-rae, and Hye-kyung look annoyed and are like "Let's just show our faces there real quick then leave." Cut to No-rae living it up haha

Tease.

ha-ha... I'm glad I have some friggin' work to do because otherwise I'd be obsessively checking this forum for the rest of the day looking for that translation. The ending looked hilarious, but now it seems like even more of the chapter will be (humorously) amusing. (I was already sure the dialogue/monologue was going to be full of interesting thoughts from Seol-a.)

Still on the "dense" point: Real life. Even if No-rae isn't resolved, I'd rather she said she needs time or something instead of being unresponsive.

Communication, communication, communication...

Ah. Hee-jin. K.

Yeah, I'm thinking it's the contrast in how quickly her the physical contact of her past relationships escalated. I wonder if that was just a one-night stand. And more about the physical contact and less pass relationships gone sour. In other words, she wants to touch her girl. ha-ha-ha-ha

@Kinetik_09 totally agree on the "isn't a virgin" thing. I'm glad we have a story here with a positive, healthy view on a female's interest in sex. It's just part of Seol-a's experience.

I just get grumpy seeing our leads with other people. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@aidan17697 posted:

I think it's been pretty well established throughout the story that Soul-a has slept with her fair share of men. That's what makes her relationship and feelings for No-Rae so special and different; it's a first for her.

Let's not do the whole "omg main female character is ruined because she is being portrayed as a young twenty something who gasp isn't a virgin!!" That's so 05 shounen romcom. We're better than that.

P.s. It is a flashback folks.

People would have gotten mad over it but i agree with you, everyone needs to get so every once in a while especially when the fact that the person your in love with acts dense as hell every time you try to make a move on them

I totally lol-ed at that.

last edited at Mar 6, 2016 9:49AM

gugu09 posted:

Aah i had a very long week and i was only waiting for FF to make it brighter but it didn't, it's cute to see soela imagining herself with norae doing things like the couple she saw. But it wasn't nice to know soela slept with a guy that she just met on some party!
P.s if you haven't seen it, after the scene of them checking out each other. There is a small panel with their clothes discarded on floor.

No way in the world I missed that. That's why I was all. (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

I'm like, please tell me that was a flash way back.

Ugh! I need English!!

ffins07, its not much time skipped. I think No-rae went to the winter graduation. Then in the same chapter the new semester started

@ieeheh Winter graduation?? For whom?

I'm also wondering how much of a time skip this is. We are clearly in a different place now.

Wow... I'm full of feelings, yet I understand nothing.

What I got out of this (just impressions, obviously) is that something's culminating in Seol-a...and she's frustrated.

ha-ha-hah-a

No-rae is not present.

On a different note, Seol-a's hair looks different, and I like it. Ssamba's drawing style in this chapter just seems different. The lines around the hair of the brown-haired girl--is that Seol-a's one friend again?--are pretty heavy. The technique reminds me more of the early chapters of FF--but just on the girl. The other thing I'm appreciating is that the random girl with the guy Seol-a looks at (imagining herself and No-rae in that position) has a distinguishable face.

And finally, I'm really wary of the scenes with Seol-a and the guy. Why?! What is that?!!

Lazy for the win: http://comico.toast.com/titles/85/chapters/71

I'm refreshing...almost as hard as I can. >>__>>