Dirk Middleton (Otome Bachelor) "Perfection"

Dirk's "perfection"
This one irks me far less than Chika's did...but it's still kind of like...really? Dirk's perfect?

This more of an insult to me. How have you been with me this long and fathom I write 'perfect' characters? Everyone's effed up in this universe!

'Dirk's issue is he just cares too much. That's almost Mary Sue stuff!'. I've honestly already played with this concept not one story back with Yuki Chronicles. Sachiko's biggest downfall was failing to consider what she wanted and almost allowing the person that loved her to also fall to unhappiness along with her. Still kind of 'that's not a character flaw!'. OBJECTION!

There is 'being a sacrifice' and then there is being so devoted to one person where your own desires and well-being fail to exist. This isn't even in the realm of 'I want you to be happy!'. In both cases it was "I attained this relationship, you consensually want this relationship, but for your own good, I'll give it up so you can be happy". Understand? There is no virtue in this. Yes, should it arise that Chika chose Kaoru over Dirk, he probably will gracefully step back.

But I have written Dirk as insecure about this as I possibly could. One of my rare 'woah, that kind of sucks' lines I wrote and came back and reread was the one when they were dating and Chika was in high school. In his imagination, Kaoru could come out of nowhere at any time and take her away from him. This is not a comfortable feeling, you don't want to feel like someone important to you is a breath away from leaving your side.

And yes, that is mistrust. Dirk does not trust that Chika will stay with him, he is literally having panic attacks thinking about her leaving him. Dirk adores Chika and a human being doesn't deal well losing something they adore. He likes to think he'll be okay giving her away but fact of the matter is he won't be. Do recall one fact about Dirk compared to the other two that Eiji mentioned in this chapter. He's devoted but he's constantly in doubt. This is not a perfection, no matter what romantic spin anyone tries to put on it. Continual longstanding doubt doesn't equal 'Mary Sue'. I might agree if he overcame it in a matter of chapters but that's just not the case. Oh, and if he's just too amazing unbiased about women's rights and freedoms, well, no, I wasn't going to write Chika with a sleazebag.

As for Chika and him just being so 'perfect' together, as mentioned in my rebuttal for Chika, I'm still not understanding how having fun on dates and being nice to one another just levels out to being "sickeningly perfect". Take a brief moment to ponder the series and their couplings: aren't they all charming motherf—kers at some point or another while wooing their lady? And you know what, Dirk is definitely going to extra tap into that charm because of aforementioned insecurity. So yes, if you don't like Dirk because he's not your bias and you're team Kaoru or Matt, fine. But don't say I've written a perfect character, it makes me sad inside.