( ooc ) app
Character name: Dahlia Hawthorne, but she goes by "Melissa Foster."
Fandom: Ace Attorney
Timeline: The end of the third game, Trials & Tribulations.
Age: 20
~*Magical*~ abilities and strengths:
Other than being an amazingly good actress who lives to con and kill people? She doesn't have any.
How would they use their abilities?:
KILL PEOPLE--uhh j/k. Since she'll be trying to keep a low profile, she's not going to do anything incriminating. For now.
Appearance:
Dahlia looks good, and she knows it. She's about 155 cm tall (5'0" to people IN AMERICA), and has long red hair that reaches down to her back, with two strands put into braids. She's usually seen in a long white dress with pink frills, a transparent pink shawl around her shoulders, and a pair of butterfly-adorned heels. She also carries a white-and-pink parasol that matches her dress. Oh, and she usually has a group of butterflies following her around. I'm not even kidding, those things are usually present until they get set on fire by her rage. And yes, I'm serious about that too.
Background:
Welcome to the wacky lawyer-filled version of Los Angeles, where the Ace Attorney series takes place! This strange parallel universe differs from our own by having a weird law system, anachronistic technology, and spirit mediums that aren't fake. In fact, our story today focuses (sort of) on these spirit mediums!
Dahlia and her twin sister Iris were born to Morgan Fey, of the Fey clan. Founded by Ami Fey, the women of the Fey family were famous for their strong spiritual powers. The strongest of the Feys were able to channel spirits. As the eldest daughter of the previous Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique, Morgan was set to become the next Master. However, where Morgan had next to no spiritual powers, her little sister, Misty, had amazing ones. Therefore, Misty, despite being younger, usurped the position of Master. Morgan's side of the family became a lowly, powerless branch family. Needless to say, Morgan was pretty pissed.
Things continued sucking for Morgan when her husband left her after her failure, taking both Dahlia and Iris with him. He then got married to another woman, who had another daughter, Valerie. He decided that having three kids was too much for him, so he abandoned Iris at the Hazakura Temple, where she was taken in by a fellow Fey branch family member, the nun Bikini. After the loss of her sister, Dahlia became very resentful of her father, and was determined to ruin his life just as much as he'd ruined hers, her sister's, and her mother's.
When she was about fourteen, she pretended to fall in love with her tutor, Terry Fawles, and the two made a vow--they buried a necklace whose pendant was actually a bottle of poison under a tree near Hazakura Temple, stating that whichever one lost faith in the other would drink the poison. Dahlia then came up with a plan to get revenge on her father--she would have Terry "kidnap" her and demand a $2 million diamond as ransom; Valerie would hand over the diamond, and the three would split it between them. Once they met at the meeting point, Dusky Bridge, though, the sisters betrayed Terry; Valerie shot him in the arm, and Dahlia jumped into the river below. Dahlia was believed to have died, and Terry was charged with her murder. Unknown to him, Dahlia survived the fall with the diamond in her backpack, and was being taken care of in secret by Valerie.
About five years later, Terry escaped from prison and called Valerie to meet him at Dusky Bridge. Valerie then called Dahlia and told her she was going to reveal the truth to Terry; Dahlia wouldn't have any of that. She arrived at Dusky Bridge before Valerie did and stabbed her to death, hiding the body in Terry's stolen car. She posed as Valerie, and Terry was arrested for yet another murder. At the trial, Dahlia appeared as a witness, under the false name "Melissa Foster." After proving that Melissa was just an alias, defense attorney Mia Fey almost proved that Dahlia was Valerie's real killer, but Terry, having lost faith in Dahlia, revealed he'd taken the poison from under the tree. He drank it, and died on the stand, leaving the case without a verdict. Only one person was able to walk away from the courtroom with a smile that day--Dahlia Hawthorne.
After the trial, Dahlia went back to college, where she hooked up with a guy named Doug Swallow, a pharmacology student. She dated him for about eight months before he realized that a bunch of poisonous chemicals he worked with were going missing. Around the same time, Mia and her superior/boyfriend Diego Armando became suspicious of Dahlia, and started to do background checks on her. She found out and called Diego to the courthouse's cafeteria, slipping the remaining poison from her necklace into his coffee; he fell into a coma, and wouldn't wake up until five years later--but we'll get to that later. (Meanwhile, Doug realized what was being done with his chemicals after this little incident, and broke up with Dahlia immediately.) In a nearby room, a young man named Phoenix Wright was reading up on some old case files, and Dahlia pretty much flung herself on him. She gave him the offending necklace as a "symbol of their love," and the two began dating. Unknown to him, though, his Dollie wasn't quite who he thought she was--for most of their relationship, the "Dahlia" Phoenix knew was actually Iris. After passing on the necklace, Dahlia had asked Iris to pose as her and get it back, but Iris had genuinely fallen in love with Phoenix. (She never did get the necklace back.)
Fast-forward to a couple of months later to Phoenix being put on trial for murdering Doug. His defense attorney? None other than Mia Fey. She eventually proves that Dahlia was the one who killed Doug (gee, I wonder who saw that one coming). Dahlia found out that he was trying to warn Phoenix that she was, uh, fucking insane, so naturally she had to get rid of him. As a bonus, she tried to murder Phoenix too by poisoning his cold medicine--he didn't die, but he did end up swallowing the necklace. Yes, you read that right--he swallowed the necklace. He got better, though. On the other hand, Dahlia was finally caught put on death row, swearing vengeance on Mia. Five years later, she was hanged.
... But not even death could stop Dahlia's wrath. In fact, it only took it to a whole new level, and was instrumental in a plan concocted by her mother. Sometime before her execution, Morgan visited Dahlia in jail and told her that she would soon send her other daughter, Pearl (born several years after Dahlia and Iris, with a second husband), and her niece Maya (Mia's sister) to Hazakura Temple (remember that place?). While they were there, Pearl would channel Dahlia, and would kill Maya. While Morgan was in it to have Pearl become Master, Dahlia had her own goal in mind--since she couldn't kill Mia, she would do the next best thing: kill her sister.
So after her execution, Dahlia's spirit lingered until the right time. Unknown to her, though, "Godot," a prosecutor (really Diego Armando--he sort of got better) and "Elise Deauxnim," a children's book author (really Misty Fey) found out about Morgan's plan and tried to put an end to it. Misty channeled Dahlia to prevent the clueless Pearl from doing so. In Misty's body, Dahlia attempted to murder Maya, and almost succeeded... until Godot intervened. In his rage after seeing the girl who'd ruined his life, he stabbed Dahlia--effectively killing Misty. Iris, who had been at the temple since being abandoned by her father, was accused of the murder.
After this whole affair, Maya locked herself in the "Sacred Cavern," a special training room. There, she channeled Dahlia to yet again stop Pearl from doing it--Dahlia had no clue, and thought she was in Pearl's body. When Maya was needed for the trial, Iris was sent to the Sacred Cavern to try to unlock it; unfortunately, after she undid the locks, an earthquake happened. Dahlia took advantage of the confusion and switched places with Iris; since she was in Maya's body, who also had black hair (when possessed, a spirit medium's hairstyle and body change to match the appearance of the spirit they're channeling) she appeared identical to Iris. No one else knew about the switch, and Dahlia went back into the trial as Iris.
During the trial, "Iris" was called in to testify against Maya. She claimed that Maya was the one who killed Misty, and that Maya killed herself from the resulting grief and guilt. However, Phoenix realized that something wasn't quite right with this "Iris," and provided a different situation--that "Iris" was actually Dahlia! ... And he was right! Soon after this revelation, Pearl channeled Mia, who revealed that she was the one who told Maya to channel Dahlia. Dahlia--furious with herself for having failed to kill Maya even though she'd been so close the entire time--started breaking down, but just before she did, Mia told her one thing.
"But I think you finally understand, Dahlia Hawthorne. ... You will never defeat me. [...] As long as I'm around, you're destined to lose for all of eternity! [...] For all of eternity, you'll have to remain as Dahlia Hawthorne. A miserable, pathetic, weak creature who can never win at anything... And for you, there is no escape from that. No hope of freedom. Since the day you were executed... the narrow bridge that once stretched out in front of you has burnt to a crisp!"
And then she lost it. And I mean, REALLY, completely lost it. Just. Watch this. After that, the Judge suggested that Dahlia never, under any circumstances, be channeled again. Safe to say, that was the last that anyone had ever seen of Dahlia Hawthorne.
Personality:
At first glance, Dahlia appears to be sweet and innocent. She tends to stutter when nervous and becomes flustered easily, all while keeping an overall vibe of tranquility about her. She's charming and charismatic, and people just seem to trust her. A few characters comment on how they can't imagine someone like her to be capable of hurting a fly, let alone committing cold-blooded murder. To add more to this image, she's usually followed by a flock of butterflies.
... Buuut that's all just an act. The real Dahlia is something much more sinister. She's a cold, calculating, and manipulative bitch who doesn't care for anything except her own profit and well-being. She'll do anything to make sure she gets what she wants, without any thought for how moral the activity in question is. Her calm demeanor quickly turns into one of an insensitive woman who lashes out at people and revels in others' pain. (The butterflies that surround her spontaneously combust when she's in this mode.) All of her "relationships" have been fake with ulterior motives--with Terry, she needed a third accomplice in her kidnapping plot; with Doug, he had access to poisonous chemicals that she could use; with Phoenix... well, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. (Also being a gullible idiot could kinda help.) She was even planning on using her sister as a pawn in her kidnapping scheme (luckily, Iris pulled out at the last minute).
The extent of Dahlia's heartlessness is most evident in the motives behind her crimes. She's involved in the most murder attempts of any character in the Ace Attorney series (being involved in the planned deaths of eight people), and never showed any remorse whatsoever for her victims. Hell, consider the entirety of the last case of Trials and Tribulations--the only reason she wanted Maya dead so badly was to get back at Mia. Why? Well, in her own words--
"I was sentenced to die because of that woman... Mia Fey. ...I wanted to send her a message. It was at her hands that I suffered my first humiliation... I wanted her to feel the same pain she made me feel!"
"And then I realized... there's only one way to take revenge against the dead. Even when the body dies, the spirit, the ego, it lives on... forever. I wanted to take away the person that Mia Fey loved most. I wanted to kill her with my own hands! That would be the one and only way I could take my revenge against Mia Fey!"
Iris provides a different way of looking at Dahlia's craziness, being perhaps the only character to feel sympathetic for her. She says that she always thought of Dahlia as being smart and strong, and never complaining about her life--even though they'd both been more or less abandoned by both their mother and father, at least Iris had Bikini to take care of her. Dahlia had always been alone.
Fandom: Ace Attorney
Timeline: The end of the third game, Trials & Tribulations.
Age: 20
~*Magical*~ abilities and strengths:
Other than being an amazingly good actress who lives to con and kill people? She doesn't have any.
How would they use their abilities?:
KILL PEOPLE--uhh j/k. Since she'll be trying to keep a low profile, she's not going to do anything incriminating. For now.
Appearance:
Dahlia looks good, and she knows it. She's about 155 cm tall (5'0" to people IN AMERICA), and has long red hair that reaches down to her back, with two strands put into braids. She's usually seen in a long white dress with pink frills, a transparent pink shawl around her shoulders, and a pair of butterfly-adorned heels. She also carries a white-and-pink parasol that matches her dress. Oh, and she usually has a group of butterflies following her around. I'm not even kidding, those things are usually present until they get set on fire by her rage. And yes, I'm serious about that too.
Background:
Welcome to the wacky lawyer-filled version of Los Angeles, where the Ace Attorney series takes place! This strange parallel universe differs from our own by having a weird law system, anachronistic technology, and spirit mediums that aren't fake. In fact, our story today focuses (sort of) on these spirit mediums!
Dahlia and her twin sister Iris were born to Morgan Fey, of the Fey clan. Founded by Ami Fey, the women of the Fey family were famous for their strong spiritual powers. The strongest of the Feys were able to channel spirits. As the eldest daughter of the previous Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique, Morgan was set to become the next Master. However, where Morgan had next to no spiritual powers, her little sister, Misty, had amazing ones. Therefore, Misty, despite being younger, usurped the position of Master. Morgan's side of the family became a lowly, powerless branch family. Needless to say, Morgan was pretty pissed.
Things continued sucking for Morgan when her husband left her after her failure, taking both Dahlia and Iris with him. He then got married to another woman, who had another daughter, Valerie. He decided that having three kids was too much for him, so he abandoned Iris at the Hazakura Temple, where she was taken in by a fellow Fey branch family member, the nun Bikini. After the loss of her sister, Dahlia became very resentful of her father, and was determined to ruin his life just as much as he'd ruined hers, her sister's, and her mother's.
When she was about fourteen, she pretended to fall in love with her tutor, Terry Fawles, and the two made a vow--they buried a necklace whose pendant was actually a bottle of poison under a tree near Hazakura Temple, stating that whichever one lost faith in the other would drink the poison. Dahlia then came up with a plan to get revenge on her father--she would have Terry "kidnap" her and demand a $2 million diamond as ransom; Valerie would hand over the diamond, and the three would split it between them. Once they met at the meeting point, Dusky Bridge, though, the sisters betrayed Terry; Valerie shot him in the arm, and Dahlia jumped into the river below. Dahlia was believed to have died, and Terry was charged with her murder. Unknown to him, Dahlia survived the fall with the diamond in her backpack, and was being taken care of in secret by Valerie.
About five years later, Terry escaped from prison and called Valerie to meet him at Dusky Bridge. Valerie then called Dahlia and told her she was going to reveal the truth to Terry; Dahlia wouldn't have any of that. She arrived at Dusky Bridge before Valerie did and stabbed her to death, hiding the body in Terry's stolen car. She posed as Valerie, and Terry was arrested for yet another murder. At the trial, Dahlia appeared as a witness, under the false name "Melissa Foster." After proving that Melissa was just an alias, defense attorney Mia Fey almost proved that Dahlia was Valerie's real killer, but Terry, having lost faith in Dahlia, revealed he'd taken the poison from under the tree. He drank it, and died on the stand, leaving the case without a verdict. Only one person was able to walk away from the courtroom with a smile that day--Dahlia Hawthorne.
After the trial, Dahlia went back to college, where she hooked up with a guy named Doug Swallow, a pharmacology student. She dated him for about eight months before he realized that a bunch of poisonous chemicals he worked with were going missing. Around the same time, Mia and her superior/boyfriend Diego Armando became suspicious of Dahlia, and started to do background checks on her. She found out and called Diego to the courthouse's cafeteria, slipping the remaining poison from her necklace into his coffee; he fell into a coma, and wouldn't wake up until five years later--but we'll get to that later. (Meanwhile, Doug realized what was being done with his chemicals after this little incident, and broke up with Dahlia immediately.) In a nearby room, a young man named Phoenix Wright was reading up on some old case files, and Dahlia pretty much flung herself on him. She gave him the offending necklace as a "symbol of their love," and the two began dating. Unknown to him, though, his Dollie wasn't quite who he thought she was--for most of their relationship, the "Dahlia" Phoenix knew was actually Iris. After passing on the necklace, Dahlia had asked Iris to pose as her and get it back, but Iris had genuinely fallen in love with Phoenix. (She never did get the necklace back.)
Fast-forward to a couple of months later to Phoenix being put on trial for murdering Doug. His defense attorney? None other than Mia Fey. She eventually proves that Dahlia was the one who killed Doug (gee, I wonder who saw that one coming). Dahlia found out that he was trying to warn Phoenix that she was, uh, fucking insane, so naturally she had to get rid of him. As a bonus, she tried to murder Phoenix too by poisoning his cold medicine--he didn't die, but he did end up swallowing the necklace. Yes, you read that right--he swallowed the necklace. He got better, though. On the other hand, Dahlia was finally caught put on death row, swearing vengeance on Mia. Five years later, she was hanged.
... But not even death could stop Dahlia's wrath. In fact, it only took it to a whole new level, and was instrumental in a plan concocted by her mother. Sometime before her execution, Morgan visited Dahlia in jail and told her that she would soon send her other daughter, Pearl (born several years after Dahlia and Iris, with a second husband), and her niece Maya (Mia's sister) to Hazakura Temple (remember that place?). While they were there, Pearl would channel Dahlia, and would kill Maya. While Morgan was in it to have Pearl become Master, Dahlia had her own goal in mind--since she couldn't kill Mia, she would do the next best thing: kill her sister.
So after her execution, Dahlia's spirit lingered until the right time. Unknown to her, though, "Godot," a prosecutor (really Diego Armando--he sort of got better) and "Elise Deauxnim," a children's book author (really Misty Fey) found out about Morgan's plan and tried to put an end to it. Misty channeled Dahlia to prevent the clueless Pearl from doing so. In Misty's body, Dahlia attempted to murder Maya, and almost succeeded... until Godot intervened. In his rage after seeing the girl who'd ruined his life, he stabbed Dahlia--effectively killing Misty. Iris, who had been at the temple since being abandoned by her father, was accused of the murder.
After this whole affair, Maya locked herself in the "Sacred Cavern," a special training room. There, she channeled Dahlia to yet again stop Pearl from doing it--Dahlia had no clue, and thought she was in Pearl's body. When Maya was needed for the trial, Iris was sent to the Sacred Cavern to try to unlock it; unfortunately, after she undid the locks, an earthquake happened. Dahlia took advantage of the confusion and switched places with Iris; since she was in Maya's body, who also had black hair (when possessed, a spirit medium's hairstyle and body change to match the appearance of the spirit they're channeling) she appeared identical to Iris. No one else knew about the switch, and Dahlia went back into the trial as Iris.
During the trial, "Iris" was called in to testify against Maya. She claimed that Maya was the one who killed Misty, and that Maya killed herself from the resulting grief and guilt. However, Phoenix realized that something wasn't quite right with this "Iris," and provided a different situation--that "Iris" was actually Dahlia! ... And he was right! Soon after this revelation, Pearl channeled Mia, who revealed that she was the one who told Maya to channel Dahlia. Dahlia--furious with herself for having failed to kill Maya even though she'd been so close the entire time--started breaking down, but just before she did, Mia told her one thing.
"But I think you finally understand, Dahlia Hawthorne. ... You will never defeat me. [...] As long as I'm around, you're destined to lose for all of eternity! [...] For all of eternity, you'll have to remain as Dahlia Hawthorne. A miserable, pathetic, weak creature who can never win at anything... And for you, there is no escape from that. No hope of freedom. Since the day you were executed... the narrow bridge that once stretched out in front of you has burnt to a crisp!"
And then she lost it. And I mean, REALLY, completely lost it. Just. Watch this. After that, the Judge suggested that Dahlia never, under any circumstances, be channeled again. Safe to say, that was the last that anyone had ever seen of Dahlia Hawthorne.
Personality:
At first glance, Dahlia appears to be sweet and innocent. She tends to stutter when nervous and becomes flustered easily, all while keeping an overall vibe of tranquility about her. She's charming and charismatic, and people just seem to trust her. A few characters comment on how they can't imagine someone like her to be capable of hurting a fly, let alone committing cold-blooded murder. To add more to this image, she's usually followed by a flock of butterflies.
... Buuut that's all just an act. The real Dahlia is something much more sinister. She's a cold, calculating, and manipulative bitch who doesn't care for anything except her own profit and well-being. She'll do anything to make sure she gets what she wants, without any thought for how moral the activity in question is. Her calm demeanor quickly turns into one of an insensitive woman who lashes out at people and revels in others' pain. (The butterflies that surround her spontaneously combust when she's in this mode.) All of her "relationships" have been fake with ulterior motives--with Terry, she needed a third accomplice in her kidnapping plot; with Doug, he had access to poisonous chemicals that she could use; with Phoenix... well, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. (Also being a gullible idiot could kinda help.) She was even planning on using her sister as a pawn in her kidnapping scheme (luckily, Iris pulled out at the last minute).
The extent of Dahlia's heartlessness is most evident in the motives behind her crimes. She's involved in the most murder attempts of any character in the Ace Attorney series (being involved in the planned deaths of eight people), and never showed any remorse whatsoever for her victims. Hell, consider the entirety of the last case of Trials and Tribulations--the only reason she wanted Maya dead so badly was to get back at Mia. Why? Well, in her own words--
"I was sentenced to die because of that woman... Mia Fey. ...I wanted to send her a message. It was at her hands that I suffered my first humiliation... I wanted her to feel the same pain she made me feel!"
"And then I realized... there's only one way to take revenge against the dead. Even when the body dies, the spirit, the ego, it lives on... forever. I wanted to take away the person that Mia Fey loved most. I wanted to kill her with my own hands! That would be the one and only way I could take my revenge against Mia Fey!"
Iris provides a different way of looking at Dahlia's craziness, being perhaps the only character to feel sympathetic for her. She says that she always thought of Dahlia as being smart and strong, and never complaining about her life--even though they'd both been more or less abandoned by both their mother and father, at least Iris had Bikini to take care of her. Dahlia had always been alone.