Have you ever had second lead syndrome so bad you want to throw your laptop across the room?

No? That's just me?

Oh. Okay, then.

But seriously, the Korean drama Cheese in the Trap is currently killing me right now. I already had second lead syndrome before going into watching the drama, and it's just been amplified as I've watched the drama. In case this sounds a bit strange to you—Cheese in the Trap is actually a Webtoon penned by author Soonkki that I am totally and utterly in love with and have been since this past summer, when I started reading it.

The lead, Yoo Jung, has always come off as rather...well, simply put, sketchy to me. He's hot and cold too often, and he always seems to have an ulterior motive. While the first season of the Webtoon was a bit better at conveying this because it was comprised of a lot of flashbacks and setup of the entire series (which is currently ongoing, whereas the drama is going to end in a few episodes), the most recent seasons it's still fairly obvious that Jung has some sort of...ulterior motive. I don't know what it is, but it bothers me. What also bothers me is there are some serious markers in both the drama and the Webtoon that show Jung as, possibly, a sociopath.

But what really bothers me, though, is that the main girl, Hong Seol, doesn't even completely trust Jung, either, and she's dating him! And see this guy, here?


His name is Baek In Ho. He's a childhood friend of Jung's, and I absolutely love him in both the manga and in the drama. While his personality is a bit more tame in the drama, he's more of my kind of character that I always fall for. He's a spitfire, he's honest, and he's not good at showing his feelings but he cares. If anything, I absolutely love characters like this because they always have character development.

And, if anyone knows me by now, I love character development!

But on a more serious note, I have an extreme case of second lead syndrome, as I said before, and that image above is what finalized it. I prefer In Ho over Jung in general—whether we're talking about the drama or the Webtoon. In Ho's character is more trustworthy, and he's there when Seol needs him. They've gotten to know more intimate things about each other, such as some of Seol's family problems and her stalker, and In Ho has been there to stand up for and save her. He's even worried about Jung using her, as seen from some inner battles he has with himself in the Webtoon.

Whereas Jung...what? What is he? What is he to Seol? Seol and Jung don't even seem to know why they like each other or are dating, and have admitted on several occasions they hated each other the prior year. And what kind of "getting to know each other" have they been doing? None. They go out to dinners when they can, but most times those plans get intercepted or cancelled (more so in the Webtoon). He hated her so much he's the one who manipulated someone into stalking her. And, speaking of manipulation, that's what he does with majority of his relationships.

And now, apparently, the show is receiving a lot of backfire, from what I've read. The reason? For not following the material of the manga. While I admit I haven't read past season two, I also have to say this—the show doesn't have any responsibility to follow the Webtoon exactly, despite what Yoo Jung's actor, Park Haejin, may think or say on the matter. It does claim to be true to the Webtoon, which is misleading and possibly unfair because Soonkki hasn't given her permission for some of the things that have happened in the drama to happen, and since the show claims it's true to the Webtoon...well, that's just not right. I hope it doesn't influence Soonkki to change whatever plans she has for the comic in the future. But I don't think it's fair, either way, to give the producers such crap about not staying true to Yoo Jung and Hong Seol's relationship. Even the Webtoon has been splitting time between the characters evenly, so I see no problem with what the drama is doing or with the drama wanting to be unique to the parent material.

The rumors that are going around about everything going on concerning the drama are worrisome to me, especially because I like Seo Kang Joon and don't want him to receive a bad rap for this—because Korean fans are insanely fucking obsessive when it comes to their music and dramas—but I can't say I dislike the direction the drama is going in. Sure, it would've been nice for Jung to get some of the backstory that appeared in the Webtoon in order to understand him a bit more...but I don't even like him in the Webtoon, so it's not a huge loss to me. I'm skeptical, anyway, because also despite what Park Haejin may say...well, the lead always gets the girl, from my personal experience of watching dramas. So cry about it a little more, everyone.

I'm rooting for In Ho to win in the end, despite what people say. Because I've been rooting for In Ho since the day he showed up in the Webtoon.

Okay, maybe hate is a strong word (actually, not maybe—it is a strong word) but I really, really didn't like Valentine's Day. This dislike mainly stemmed from the fact that, at home, I saw my father and mother love each other each and every day. Sure, he bought not only my mother, but me as well, flowers and chocolates or a card on Valentine's...but he also did those things during the year, as well. My dad always buys my mom lilies on Easter and poinsettias in December. He gets her a card for Mother's dad and her birthday. Every time she goes on a trip somewhere, even if it's just a 2-hour day trip, he kisses her before she gets in the car and tells her to drive safe.

When I was in elementary school, Valentine's Day didn't seem so bad. It was a day to appreciate friends, get cards, and also get candy. As I grew up and got closer to about the 5th grade and eased my way into middle school...well, everything at that stage in life was about who was crushing on who—at least at my school it was. So I started to dislike Valentine's slowly. Because all I saw were guys buying one or two girls in particular gifts to win her over. I literally mean one guy would buy her flowers and chocolates, and then another guy would show up with a giant bear holding a heart, flowers, and chocolate. They were all competing. For the same girl. Okay, yes, she was pretty. She was nice. We can't deny these things. But at my middle school it just became a competition for the one popular girl's attention. I can't even say heart, because who takes dating seriously at that age?

Basically, it was nothing my parents taught me about Valentine's Day. To me, Valentine's Day was about showing love you should be showing every day of the year to people you care about. Not just significant others, but your family and friends and parents, as well.

It got worse in high school. By the time high school rolled around, I had basically labeled Valentine's Day as a "commercial holiday"—where the point was literally just to buy chocolates, stuffed animals, and flowers to toss at the person you supposedly "liked" to just have it tossed aside after a few months when it started to take up too much storage space...and then forget you liked the person and spent money on them, anyway. I wasn't even bitter, either. I still got cards and flowers from my dad. My mom gave me chocolates. My brother would get me a card. My best guy friend would buy me chocolates or a card. But these people are all people I also received love from throughout the year. My parents have always provided for and loved me. My brother shows his appreciation in his own way. My best guy friend would buy me flowers or gifts on my birthday, or if he couldn't do that he'd write me a letter. So getting gifts from them on Valentine's day just meant I was either getting something edible or red. So, I got attention on Valentine's, but I still hated the holiday.

As I got to my senior year in high school my dislike for Valentine's slowly dwindled to a slight annoyance. It was still, at that point, mainly about pleasing the most popular girl on campus. There was still always one or two people that had the most bouquets or balloons they were walking around with. But I just started to ignore it and focus on myself, my family, and friends. Valentine's Day isn't special and it shouldn't be special. I decided if people make it special because they suddenly get spoiled and get a lot of attention from their significant other, then they obviously aren't appreciated or appreciative of that significant other. I took on this perspective at the end of high school, but it was further solidified when I started dating Jeremy.

Sure, I'll admit that I enjoyed the first Valentine's Day date with Jeremy—our first couple of months together. It was my first time being treated special on Valentine's. It was my first time having a guy plan out an entire surprise date for me. I think Jeremy saved the surprise date for Valentine's Day for that exact reason. He was well aware I'd never had a boyfriend before. So, yes, Valentine's Day 2014 was extremely special to me and I liked being spoiled. I liked being taken to a nice Mexican restaurant and then taken to an observatory and getting flowers and some chocolate. But even before that date, Jeremy already made me feel special. He already did little things to show he cared and he would always leave me little gifts—even if it was just a sticky note or a message on Facebook or even a text message—for me to wake up to. So when my first Valentine's Day where I got a cute, handsome, charming man to myself to spoil me happened...well, I loved it. I felt special.

But I also had already felt appreciated for every single day before Valentine's that Jeremy and I spent together.

Like I said in my previous Valentine's 2016 Date post...after the special day, Jeremy and I do exchange chocolates or flowers on Valentine's Day. But we also treat it like any other date day that we set aside every month. It's nothing special. It's just a day where I find an excuse to dress up for our date and then we go out and do normal, non-special things. We spend the same amount of money on each other that we usually would and we share our time together. Just like we do every month.

I still think of Valentine's Day as a commercial holiday. It's a day where stores prey on couples who feel insecure in their relationships or who just feel like they haven't been spending enough time together. But why use Valentine's Day as the excuse to suddenly start spending time together? To realize how you're loving your significant other? Spend every day treating them special. You don't need to spend a crap ton of money on someone in order to do that. Gifts, flowers, chocolates, and items with red hearts aren't required to make someone feel special. Just your love and undivided attention, and a tad bit of quality time. Gifts are nice, but they don't mean everything. Especially if it's a white teddy bear holding a heart that says "I LOVE YOU" that'll just collect dust on a shelf or the back of the closet when the month of February is over.

Between Jeremy and myself, Valentine's Day isn't anything special. Every month we have a day we set aside as our "Date Day" and it's this little tradition we've kept going since we started dating, just as a way to always appreciate each other and take some time for us. Because Valentine's Day is in February, and because you can get some fairly sweet deals on Valentine's—that's the day we go on our monthly date. That being said, I personally have nothing for or against Valentine's Day. I'll get into that at a later date.

Anyway, I have to admit last year's Valentine's was a bit busier. We went exploring downtown, visited our favorite tea shop, I got some pretty flowers from Jeremy, we went to a chocolate shop together and discovered everything was insanely over-priced, discovered a new Thai restaurant that we now love, and then went and got my anti-helices pierced. Pretty sweet.

This year wasn't like that very much, but the simplicity of it all was nice. We explored downtown again—that's usually our go-to thing. Downtown is always changing. The stores are constant but the activities are always different, and so it's fun to just walk it with Jeremy and window shop and pop into some of our favorite stores just to explore. I never thought I'd actually find someone I could window shop with, of all things. But that's my Jeremy for you! This time, instead of exploring stores like usual, we were mainly focused on scoping out food places for our Valentine's Day lunch and also for future reference. There are a ton of food places we've yet to try, and whenever we say we're going to go somewhere new, we don't. So we forced ourselves to find somewhere new to try.

First off, my day actually started by waking up to this cutie pie's face:


Ghost woke me up with the treat of him gazing down at me lovingly (or maybe he just wanted me to wake up and open the bathroom for him, who really knows) and purring. So Jeremy and I cuddled with him for a while and set about getting ready for the day. We discovered in the midst of getting ready that our water heater was acting up again, but I told Jeremy there was absolutely no way someone was coming out today because we had plans.

Riot. What. Are. You. Doing.

This is the epitome of all ridiculous things Riot has done in...like...the last year. This tops it all. The sweet icing to the cake.

"These days the 'core' item build that feels good often only goes to 'build Ghostblade and Maw and hope that's enough to finish them off'," says whoever in Riot wrote the summary of the 6.3 Patch concerning the new item, terrifyingly called Duskblade of Draktharr—and if you read the description and think about it a bit, terrifying it is.

Seriously. Whoever wrote that line. I want to know: Do you even play? Because even though assassin's have been feeling a bit left out lately with all the updates to game play going on, with that new thing called keystones, assassins can fucking hurt. Thunderlord's Decree is literally the bane of my existence on Zed and Yasuo. Meanwhile, Diana has always made me cry due to how scary she can be...especially when dinner is a five-course meal.

Okay, yeah, I admit—the League assassins needed a little boost of some sort...maybe. Kind of? Not really. That's just me trying to give assassins the benefit of the doubt. I love playing assassins. I hate playing against assassins when they have Thunderlord's as their keystone mastery. They really didn't need this much love. Even if Riot wanted to give their assassins a bit more love...who decided that taking a Zed ult, making it into an item, and creating a mini-Zed ult in the form of something similar to Deathfire Grasp was a good idea?

Think about it: Now Zed can essentially ult twice with his own ult, and with the item Duskblade.

Mind. Freaking. Blown.

I'm slightly upset, slightly scared out of my mind, and slightly angry at Riot for releasing too many OP things lately and bringing completely broken things like this to the Rift.

Dear Riot. Please calm down. You're getting too excited over there with your ideas and stuff.

This item, though, is going to bring a whole new meaning to the word "assassin" though. Like Zed, Katarina, LeBlanc, and Yasuo, Duskblade is going to allow most assassins to get in and get out with ease. It's going to create a huge new dynamic for team fights and it won't make it feel like assassins are just there for the last second cleanup of the fight. Pair this item with your attack damage assassins and the items they usually build (Maw, Ghostblade, etc.) and then add your Thunderlord's mastery and the damage it can proc into the mix...one word: ouch. The thought is making me cringe.

I'm pretty decent at taking mages against AD assassins, but this Duskblade item is going to make me need to rethink how I play my mages mid, and if I even want to take a mage against someone like Zed or Yasuo—who already hurt like no other.

I have to at least hand it to Riot. While the game and the introduction of new characters, new items, buffing and nerfing have been making some people upset lately (i.e. my boyfriend), the changes and even champion reworks are opening up a whole new style of game play and they're making the game of League of Legends a little less mindless. A little less mindless in the way you play means a little bit more toxicity, I suppose, but I'm finding some of the changes fairly interesting. If you think about it, anyway, everyone hates League—but everyone plays it anyway. It's giving the game, the story, and its characters a bit more depth in my opinion. It's changing the way people normally play, it's forcing them to change how comfortable they've become with playing League and think of things a little differently when they go about their laning phases and team fights.

This new item, Duskblade, is going to add to all of that even more now.

But I still hate you for giving the assassins so much love, Riot.

Synopsis: Kim Chi Ho, Lee Dong Woo, and Kang Gyung Jae have been best friends since high school, but can their close bonds survive the challenges of growing up? Amidst shifting priorities, these friends learn important lessons in love and life, proving that while girls and work can be confusing at any age, it's especially challenging when you're a 20-year-old guy.

My Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Title: Twenty

Episodes: Movie (1)

Genre(s): Coming of age, comedy, drama

Air Date: March 25, 2015

Producers: Lee Byeong Hun, Lee Sung Doo, Lim Ji Moon, No Seung Bo

• • •

I actually watched this movie the weekend before last with Jeremy. We were supposed to watch the second Lord of the Rings movie...but since we don't own it, and we couldn't find a decent quality, and for some strange reason Netflix doesn't have any of the trilogy...well...we watched Twenty.

Which is completely okay. I mean, I wanted to watch LotR but in all honesty, I've been wanting to watch this movie, too. I've put it off for quite a while. Which is seriously insane, considering Kim Woobin is one of my favorite actors.

Anyway, this movie is getting a 4 out of 5 stars due to it's humor. Honestly, besides the humor, it was pretty mediocre. But I surprisingly didn't mind that. I think it was mainly mediocre because it was a bit...predictable? The plot was pretty dry and in my opinion didn't go very far. The characters were funny and somewhat relatable but they didn't particularly grow on me. The start of the movie was rather confusing, and I feel that they could've definitely introduced the characters in a cleaner fashion. Names were thrown around randomly without faces appearing straight away, and so that also added to the confusion of figuring out who was who.

Despite the initial confusion of trying to figure out the characters, their names, and most of their stories, the entire movie was hilarious and funny. Jeremy laughed a lot and I loved it and there were moments where we had to completely pause because we were cracking up too hard. Or because of the secondhand embarrassment. It was an interesting take on the whole coming of age story being told, mainly because it was so funny. Like...I wish my life was that funny. I wish coming-of-age was that funny. I wish problems were that easy to solve.

For a coming of age movie, I feel that it didn't really touch on a whole lot of topics that were super important to those viewers who actually are around that age. The romance was hugely played up, the college life had, really, nothing to do with college at all, and there was really no backstory to these characters introduced, at all. It would've been interesting to know a little bit more about some of them. Instead, what was given about the two that didn't lead your normal everyday family life (Gyung Jae) was very limited and a lot was left up to the audience to guess—and also put the pieces together of why Chi Ho and Dong Woo act the way they do.

That being said, the movie did touch on some interesting, and maybe questionable, Korean culture issues. I say "issues" and "questionable" tentatively. Korea has a major drinking scene problem—one you get to briefly see in the midst of Gyung Jae's short-experienced college life as he makes a slight fool of himself when he sees a pretty girl. But, seriously, the drinking culture there is pretty ridiculous. So I don't blame his outburst. It was also interesting to see someone make an outburst at that...albeit a fictional character who won't change anything. But still.

The family values issue is also touched on. As in the son being the head of the house. Dong Woo, as the oldest who doesn't want to be a lawyer like his brother, really feels the brunt of this expectation after something happened to his father. But I wasn't able to pick up what exactly it was that happened to his father that landed the man in...prison? Chi Ho also experiences this as an only child, although not as forcefully as Dong Woo. Chi Ho could be coined as being spoiled, from a rich family, and used to getting his way. On top of it all, he's a womanizer because of all those traits. So when his father finally puts his foot down and says his allowance will disappear until he figures out what to do with his life...well, I kind of felt bad, because he's still at that age where not everyone knows what they want to do with their lives. But the Korean culture is fairly strict about having a Life Game Plan and also either going to college or getting a job straight out of high school (neither of which Chi Ho did) and also making it a respectable job or major (Dong Woo's problem).

All in all, it was an interesting movie, with some interesting topics touched upon very briefly that related to Korean culture. It was still pretty mediocre. I wouldn't really watch it again. Some tweaks to the story to either make it more relatable or to give the characters some more depth would've definitely helped the movie, in my opinion. The humor was A+ and had Jeremy and I both pausing the movie in order to either catch our breath, or hide our faces from embarrassment. I also enjoyed the light note it ended on.

To me, the point of relationships is to grow constantly. Even after marriage, you and your significant other as individual people should be growing. Together, you should also be growing. There should always be surprises and new things in relationships. I'll admit, once you become accustomed to each other they probably won't appear as often—but there should still be things that are new, exciting, and unknown you and your significant other are learning about one another. Or, at the very least, growing. Sometimes you'll hit obstacles that will cause you to grow closer and overcome them together, whether that obstacle is physical, mental, or even just disagreements between one another. That's how relationships should be.

Yesterday gave me a huge headache. Between the boyfriend putting things off all week and it frustrating me because all the errands that needed to be tended to piled up to yesterday, and then getting annoyed with each other because we weren't sure if an assignment for our class was due at 9pm or 11:59pm and we thought we were cutting it close, and also between him telling me to "calm down" as a joke constantly for the last week and a half when I was neither stressed, angry, or upset—my patience was wearing thin. I was getting annoyed, and being really snappy (being told to "calm down" when I'm already calm rubs me the wrong way).

But then, to top it all off, our plumbing system decided to take a—no pun intended—huge crap.

Whether it was the recent snowstorm we had, the pipes not being insulated correctly (I wouldn't put it passed our landlord), the fact that we didn't drip hot water enough during the freezing and below temperatures, or the fact that our piping is shared with four other houses...I don't know. I don't know what happened, but our toilet got clogged on Tuesday. Hey, no big deal. It happens. We're used to it. Later that night, the toilet started to work perfectly fine.

Wake up Wednesday, toilet starts acting strange. Also something we are used to, and we think nothing of it. It fills really high, then drains out really low and won't fill back to where the water normally sits. We plunge it throughout the day on and off thinking that whatever is making the toilet act weird is just lodged and it'll move after a while. Well, we were wrong.

We didn't know this at the time but the other houses on the lot were having the same trouble—and they were also adding to the problem just as much as we were. Since our house is the smallest, though, we got most of the problems. Like, after plunging so much, it started to back flood into our tub, and at one point our kitchen sink. The tub back flow never drained, either. Then the pipes under our kitchen sink started to leak. And then, at one point, when we were trying to plunge, water started to come up from under the toilet through the floor where the wall and tiles meet.

That's when we decided to stop, call our landlord, and pray the house didn't completely burst at the seems overnight while we slept—unable to shower or even wash off, since the sink piping was leaking, the disgusting toilet water we had on us from cleaning up what flooded onto the floor.

So basically, what I'm trying to get at in the midst of yesterday and part of today completely sucking—we were a boyfriend and girlfriend of 2 years stinky and disgusting, covered in toilet water and who-the-hell-knows-what, unable to shower and unable to pee. TMI, but we ended up each peeing into respective plastic cups and dumping that into a leftover empty liter soda bottle we were about to recycle.

That's when I decided to stop being annoyed with Jeremy, because the situation at hand was so gross it beat out my annoyance. But, hey, we got to experience something extremely strange (and, yes, gross as I said) together.

I did, however, bawl at one point last night and tell him I wanted my mom. And neither of us were able to make it to class today since we had to be present for the plumber the landlord sent out to fix the sewage (she's sent a person into our house before without telling us, so we aren't exactly comfortable letting her workers come and go), and also make sure our cats didn't escape.

Good news is everything is in working order again, the plumber was a pretty chill guy, we both showered as soon as the guy left, and we both feel better now.

Growing and learning experiences...how fun! Ha. But mark my words, when the only toilet in the house no longer works you will definitely reach an all-new level of partnership with your significant other.