#& i'm seeing some very uninformed takes but that's not entirely their fault because this was 'celebrity gossip' prior to LSK's death

[moonsprings]

maybe it's because i've been through it these last two years with a shit ton of personal shit that happened (family deaths, friend with illness) that everything feels a lot more... more but this news of lee sun kyun's death has been shocking. it feels odd because i'm a lot more sad about it than i expected to be, just from a human perspective of not wanting other people to feel the kind of despair necessary to take your own life. i wasn't a die hard fan but a casual fan nonetheless (cue self callout about liking middle aged men with nice voices... lol.) and while admittedly i've been more of a fan of lee sun kyun's wife (actress jeon hye jin, who is famous in her own right) in recent years, he was undoubtedly an actor i watched growing up. coffee prince was the hit drama when i was in grade school, back when my family used to watch korean cable/broadcast tv at home. then pasta, then my mister which i consider his representative work, more so than parasite. it's a horrible thing that's happened.

there's a lot of context that's missing on the western side of the news, mostly to do with the whole hostess/escort blackmail situation that had been unfolding on korean news in the last 2-3 months which likely compounded the entire scandal and his decision to do this sadly. imo this entire thing has far less to do about drugs than people actually think though it's still a significant factor. lee sunkyun has always had a 'family man' image on kor tv and the revelations about him and the alleged hostess/escort who had been blackmailing him who supplied and took drugs with was a madame/hostess from a VIP (basically rich people only) room salon/hostess bar he appears to have been having an affair with for a while which irreparably damaged his image and reputation and likely his marriage and family. rumors had been circulating that his in-laws were urging jeon hyejin to divorce him, they supposedly sent their kids to an overseas boarding school because they were getting bullied in korea over lsk's scandal, and he was facing millions in won in contract violations penalty fees from cancelled CFs/advertisements and tv and film work that was delayed because of the scandal (also fucking hell, just saw the news report saying he left a message to his company's rep apologizing for the penalty fees right before his death). the same penalty fee situation happened to actor yoo ahin after he was convicted of drug charges and is now reportedly millions in debt. that is an incredible amount of pressure, even if part of it was the consequence of his actions. and to be clear, these were stupid choices he made but the reaction was so wildly disproportionate to what he's been accused of.

i feel like if it had "just" been drugs, or "just" been the hostess scandal, he could have made a come back after a few years as many other korean celebrities have (way more than people think, and he has more leeway as a critically celebrated, middle aged male actor who is not an idol), but it's the combination of the drugs, the 'room salon'/hostess club situation that just exploded, and the corrupt police placing this level of constant pressure and publicity on him that caused this imo. his private phone calls and messages he made with the hostess were leaked yesterday from a known r/ight wing kor youtuber before his suic-de. having seen it reported in the kor news, it's difficult to describe the contents of it other than being very personal and frankly, embarrassing (and i mean this as neutrally as possible. think adam levine-esque) in a country as conservative as korea when he's telling a s-x worker he 'really likes [her]' in the sense that he has feelings for her. and again, his wife is a prominent actress and their public images are tied together. given the timing, it likely wasn't just about the drugs. and i know the whole room salon/hostess bar thing is incredibly common in korea, in older stats some say something like 70% of korean men have frequented one (though it's increasingly becoming less acceptable and therefore less common, which is why the public reaction been harsh) and i really don't approve of the cultural aspects that have allowed this to be permissible (as a korean-american) but i feel like that's a personal issue that should have been handled by him and his family. if it was one or the other he could have made a return but i think the pressure of it being this public and detailed due to police likely being the ones intentionally leaking information from the investigation was just too much for him to handle. it feels like the police purposefully went out of their way to humiliate lee sun kyun in the press and public to try and get him to admit to the drug charges because g-dragon, the other celebrity that was implicated, proved his innocence rather conclusively and the police didn't have anyone else to use to get some high profile publicity.

...so we started the year with a suic-de and ended it with a suic-de. it's telling, i think. obviously i don't know any of them, they're 'just' celebrities who literally don't know i exist (as it should be) but honestly my chest feels heavy watching dark coats and emotionless faces walk into the university hospitals, the smiling portrait pictures atop the bed of flowers at the ceremonial funeral rooms, the whole lot - i don't know how many more times people can see this and not feel like anything's wrong. image is everything and the pressure to perform, be perfect, be successful is too much. i'm not even half as talented as any of them and i still felt it, a sea away, in a watered down version from immigrant korean parents and an immigrant community. everyone is way too damn casual about admitting their suic-dal thoughts but not really offering any real solutions and it's just so common. i've heard far too many interviews from kor celebrities who had scandals (and when i say scandals i mean in the asian sense again, dating, secret marriages, divorces or drugs or whatever shit that would barely even qualify as a line in the news in the west most of the time and not more serious crimes) who admitted years after the fact that they were considering suic-de because of the public reaction. or more mundane shit like 'i felt suicidal in school because of academic pressure' stuff i've heard a million times from korean friends, classmates. a lot of it gets dismissed as 'puberty' or 'everyone feels that way'. and again i ask why it's so normalized.

then even those celebrities that have died from suic-de are treated like virtual boogeymen afterwards, their names never mentioned even in places where it should be. the eggshells, the sidestepping because it could be considered 'sensitive' and thus they're erased because the only context their lives can be in is in position to their suic-des. other people who knew them, friends, acquaintances, coworkers they had - past the initial condolence messages, it's like they never existed because everyone is scared of controversy from saying the wrong thing, or not being serious enough, or whatever the hell people want to nitpick that week. people have literally been criticized before for being too sad or not being sad enough when a death from a suic-de has happened so i'm not surprised this was the end result, that literally no one talks about the deceased now outside of a very select few. if they are talked about, it's more so alluded to in an extremely vague manner usually not mentioning them by name, and they rarely, if ever say the actual word suic-de. they usually say that it was an "안타까운 사건" ('an unfortunate incident') even in official news reports, including of LSK's death, and it just bothers me that it's this taboo, everything from making stupid decisions and stupid mistakes (bullying, drugs, cheating, whatever the fuck) or just plain having mental illness, to ending their lives because of it, to having their friends and family not speak about them publicly because it's 'shameful' and they'll get judged.

i don't know what the point is, just that i'm really increasingly frustrated with the state of things. the police shouldn't have pushed him to the brink. this entire situation straight up should not have happened at all.

[krovav]

07•07•16💉// 06•18•18 🔪

5 years on Testosterone // 3 years post-top

----

[he/him] | Instagram

Ok, full disclosure, it feels so bizarre to be at this point in my transition. It took me a while to get HRT, and even shortly before I started testosterone, I was half-convinced I would never manage to get to even 1 month, let alone 5 years.

I figured I would take some selfies with facial hair for this milestone because I hardly ever show any of the hair growth I got from T—largely because I'm not a fan of it, but I think these came out nicely.

[CW: dysphoria, suicide ment. etc from this point on]

Transitioning has been a bit of a rollercoaster, but definitely one of the best decisions I've made in my life. While I still have my struggles, I have never been more at home in my own form than I am now.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about my identity, and some of the final puzzle pieces of "self" have been falling into place. I have always been a very feminine person; I do not fit the mold of trans guy who did all the "boy" things as a child. I was stone-cold serious about my dolls, I regularly got mani-pedis, I wore dresses and heels as if they were a second skin.

That changed dramatically when I hit puberty and the dysphoria (tm) started to set in, and suddenly I was overcompensating with hypermasculinity. Masculinity was my armor, the only thing keeping away the suicidal storm cloud invading my brain at all times. I didn't care if I hated how I looked if it meant that a cashier every so often would call me "sir".

But that was the most stifled time of my entire life. Not only was I lacking the knowledge that trans people existed and so also lacking the ability to define my own experiences, I was in turmoil over the clash of my interests and my need to feel "like a man". Sexism is a hell of a drug.

I've been working for years to shake off the chains placed on my self-expression by society's definition of being a man. I would tell myself that, sure, I wanted to do x thing, but if I do that, I'll never pass. And, sure, T and top surgery would magically make it so that I always pass, as long as I follow all these strict rules and never enjoy my life ever again. Passing is very much presented as the end-all-be-all to transitioning, so it's understandable that many trans people, myself included, have little set as a higher priority than being the "most" of their given gender.

But the reality of my transition has been that I don't always pass, even when I'm performing masculinity to the nth degree, because everyone (particularly uninformed cis people) has their own idea of what women and men are "supposed" to look like. And for a while that really plagued me. I was so happy and fulfilled with the changes I was seeing, I felt so much less dysphoric, so why were other people still seeing me as female? And that would push me further into feeling the need to be masculine, and over and over again I would just have it confirmed that I needed to work harder to be seen as a guy. That the dysphoria I was going through was somehow my fault for not working hard enough to pass.

What I've realized over the course of a year or so has been that it isn't and has never been my job to validate my identity to other people. If I'm making myself happy, if I'm relieving my own dysphoria, it does not in any way matter that some random person at the grocery store thought my long hair equaled girl, or that I get stared at in public restrooms, or that other people find it awkward when they get my pronouns wrong.

It is my job to take care of myself. It is my job to wear things that make me feel good about myself, either because they are simply comfortable or because I love the way they look. It is my job to make myself happy.

It is my job to learn to cope with my dysphoria in whatever way works for me, and to never let someone who doesn't even know me dictate who I should be to be valid as a man. I know who I am, and I always will.

Anyway, if you want to throw some spare change my way, it would greatly help me achieve my next transitional step (getting a hysto). I will link some payment options below, but even if not, interacting with my posts helps too.

https://ko-fi.com/nekromancy

https://venmo.com/krovav

https://cash.app/$Krovav