i love dahlia both as a character and a villain but its always so frustrating how much fanworks involving her just kind of ignore the fact that she barely knows phoenix, doesn't really care about him, and only met him twice.
i think retroactively a lot of people want to fit phoenix's relationship with dahlia into being the same kind of doomed #wastehistime situationship that phoenix has with edgeworth in aa1 and kristoph in aa4 which like sure whatever i understand the appeal on paper. but just because iris wasn't the one who tried to poison phoenix to death doesnt mean she was not wasting his time with a doomed situationship.
like. pretending to be your own twin sister and lying to a guy you've been in a relationship with for months in order to better serve your purpose as Accessory to Murder is pretty fucked up! like at the end of the day dahlia is a stranger who tried to kill phoenix because he was inconvenient. meanwhile iris is someone phoenix cared about, and who cared about him, and who was willing to let him take the fall for a murder he didn't commit. which also is coincidentally the same situation he was in with edgeworth in 1-2 and kristoph in 4-1.
i think that kristoph and phoenix dynamic is a really great reflection of iris and phoenix dynamic beause like. actually you know what hold on i have to make a chart
are you guys with me am i making sense here