Goro is my fav character ever tbh. I've literally talked about him in therapy and how he's helped me lol.
There was one day in 2021 where I went absolutely crazy for him out of nowhere. He was all I could think about, all I woke up thinking about, all I drew, etc... Mainly this happened because I was freaked out about COVID and going home to visit family... but yaoi saved me.
Ok in all seriousness, and to be vulnerable here on my ~personal website~, he reminds me of myself. He reminds me of myself in that I was never allowed to be angry, experience anger, or express it in any meaningful way. I was robbed of an emotion for most of my life, unable to comprehend it well into adulthood and only find myself grappling with that now. To me, he represents the feelings I suppressed. The intrusive thoughts that were too violent and scary to share with my therapist, the parts of myself I thought were doomed to repeat the mistakes of my family, or find myself in a neverending cycle of hatred and pain.
I only have recently, at nearly 27, noticed how closed off thinking this way has made me over the years. I shared endless facts, endless details about myself, but did anything truly ever dive deep enough to reach the core? Akechi reminds me of that part of myself- wearing a mask of a kind person to seem appealing to the masses. Constantly dodging even my own introspection to allow myself to think that I would, in some regard, define myself as "morally good".
But enough of the trauma dumping! Seeing myself in Akechi has allowed myself to feel truly alive, as dramatic as that sounds. I feel like I have a vessel through which to express my anger in a safe way, a way that lets me use him as a puppet to depict my emotions. Art, fanfic, comics, whatever... all of it has felt so deeply personal to me because I've projected so hard on his experiences. I've been able to reconnect with my anger, allow myself to sit in it, express it through various means... and that wasn't something I was capable of before.
Let's also not forget the entire third semester plot... It means a lot to me, seeing someone desire to be independent so badly that he casts away an ideal reality. It reminds me a lot of how I grew up, how controlling my family was and how uncomfortable it made me feel. I felt less like a person, more like an doll they possessed and projected onto to make themselves happy. Moving away from Pennyslvania was breaking away from all of my support systems, all of my past experiences, all of my past traumas. It was finally allowing myself to exist as a person. It was finally allowing myself to exist in a way that I envisioned. It was finally being free from expectations, transphobia, trauma, and being a walking fucking trauma response. It was taking my life back from my own ptsd.
The strength of being able to take your life back is so profound to me. I love Goro for helping me realize that. I love him for helping me learn myself through him. I'm going to be learning how to be myself and how to express my needs and wishes for a long time, but this character helped me get one large step closer.