not to be crazy at 10 am on a wednesday but dahlia's surname is hawthorne as a reference to nathaniel hawthorne's short story rappaccini's daughter, in which the character beatrice is immune to poison because she herself is poisonous. but the thing about beatrice is that the reason she's poisonous is because her father experimented on her from birth. she's a genuinely kind person who is horribly lonely because nothing can get close to her without dying--flowers wilt in her hands, her very breath is poisonous. the protagonist lusts after her and then is disgusted by the fact that being around her has made him poisonous as well. he objectifies her, he's cruel to her, he explicitly tells her she's a monster and that she deserves death. the narrative explicitly states that the only way she can ever be happy is by crossing through the gates of heaven.

the story is widely regarded as a metaphor for the garden of eden, but also... from birth, beatrice has been isolated. she has only ever been viewed as an object--a test subject, a monster, a figure to lust over. she's no more human than any of the plants in the garden, and she's just as feared. she doesn't get a choice to be loved like she so desperately wants. she doesn't get a choice to not be lonely. her father has already made that choice for her.

and that's... the character her name is a reference to. that's a character dahlia hawthorne is connected to. the girl who was fed poison all her life until, at last, she became poison.