𝐎𝐃𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐄 — [ ❁⋆˖ soft lace, sharp mind ˖⋆❁ ] private, original muse — warm smile, thorned intuition, stitched-together grace. authored + adored by Willa ( 21+ • she/her • est ) set in windsorbay.
ODETTE "ETTIE" ROSALIE FORD-DAWSON
STATS:
FULL NAME: Odette Rosalie Ford-Dawson
NICKNAME(S): Ettie, Otti, Dot
BIRTHDAY: March 17, 1990
AGE: thirty5.
GENDER: cis woman
SEXUALITY: bisexual, biromantic
ZODIAC: Pisces sun • Scorpio moon • Leo rising
BACKGROUND:
BORN: Windsor Bay
LENGTH IN WINDSOR BAY: Entire life
NEIGHBORHOOD: Coral Coast
FOUNDING FAMILY: Ford
FAMILY:
DOROTHEA FORD-DAWSON: mother
CALLUM DAWSON: father
OLDER SIBLING: male
YOUNGER SIBLING: female
YOUNGER SIBLING: male
CAREER(S):
THEATER TEACHER & VOCAL COACH: Windsor Bay High
TRUE CRIME PODCAST
ONLINE COLLEGE STUDENT, MASTER'S PROGRAM
PERSONALITY:
(+) POSITIVE TRAITS: empathetic, determined, creative
(-) NEGATIVE TRAITS: stubborn, over-thinker, impulsive
HEADCANONS:
often hums or sings while setting up for class.
has a strong dislike for having to give written exams in what she teaches, she prefers performance-based.
drinks her coffee at home black, but indulges on sweeter more decadent drinks.
loves lace & velvet, and finer fabrics thanks to her upbringing mostly from her grandmother.
wears a diamond band on her middle finger that was her great-grandmother's on the Ford side.
her home is decorates in theater posters, framed playbills, vintage books, and plants.
wanted to move to New York but despite bigger dreams felt tied to Windsor Bay because of her past and her family's history.
enjoys mornings on her balcony when weather permits, curled up in her robe watching the views.
her podcast officially has more than 250,000 listeners and sometimes has a mild panic anytime before she films/records.
can come off extremely guarded around people she doesn't know or haven't been apart of Windsor Bay for years.
collects vintage jewelry from the place she does travel, her favorite so far is a 1870's diamond and emerald bracelet.
mildly obsessed with the 70's history and some of its fashion.
either texts back right away or leaves messages waiting for days, there's no in-between.
when she sends voice memos they're long, bordering on obnoxious length.
can't sleep without a fan running and the television on a low, low volume.
has not been on a boat since her boyfriend's boating accident that claimed his life, even though she wasn't there.
still has all her old voicemails that her boyfriend left her on her old iPhone that she still keeps charged to hear his voice.
hasn't spoken to his parents since the funeral even though they've attempted to contact her several times, mostly out of guilt.
refuses to speak to his best friend and forever blames him for the accident and surviving.
still wears the white gold necklace that was given to her by his parents at the funeral that was his with is initial on it.
makes lists for everything.
prefers running over strength training, but her trainer insists that she lifts and she curses him every single day but mostly on leg day.
bakes when stressed to the point she has to give food away.
has heard the stories and rumors on the Ford Family and doesn't really read much into it despite being into true crime. (it wouldn't surprise her if it was true, she knows her family.)
can fall asleep to true crime docuseries but don't even think about asking her to see a horror film.
for her college graduation gift her Grandmother Ford gifted her with an 18k gold and diamond Panthère de Cartier watch.
prefers Cartier to Van Cleef & Arpels, but will always prefer small independent jewelers for making custom jewelry
is not ashamed of her privileged finances and that she comes from money, but doesn't flaunt it in others faces, not purposely.
drives a 2023 Range Rover SV.
BIOGRAPHY:
Trigger Warnings: death, loss of a loved one, boating accident, drugs and alcohol mention, severe depression, anxiety, miscarriage.
Born with the Ford name meant entering the world with a silver spoon in your mouth — and a lifetime of unrealistic expectations. The family history stretched back generations; countless relatives had lived, loved, died, and likely even killed on the land they claimed as theirs. It wouldn’t have been surprising to Odette. Her family was known for its ruthlessness, its cunning, its hunger for power and control. So, when she arrived on March 17th, those same expectations were placed squarely onto her tiny shoulders.
For the most part, her childhood was normal — at least, as normal as it could be when you grew up in a family dripping with wealth, credited with helping build the town they now dominated, and still flush with money from the gold rush in California. Luxury wasn’t unusual in the Ford household, nor the Dawson. The Dawsons, while considered “new money” compared to her mother’s lineage, still commanded influence — something the older patriarchs demanded. It only made sense that Dorothea and Callum married, but what surprised others was that their marriage held genuine, enduring love.
Being the second of four meant occasionally fighting for attention —not due to a lack of love, but simply because there were four strong-willed children under one roof. Odette became no stranger to performing: dancing, singing, putting on shows for praise and applause. Yet the strongest, most formative relationship she had was with her maternal grandmother. Her father’s mother passed long before she was born, but her mother’s mother became a tether in her life. They had the quintessential grandmother-granddaughter bond — shopping trips, fashion shows in her sprawling parlor, afternoons at the grand piano. It was the quieter moments that shaped her: long talks after dance recitals, late-night ice cream eaten by the glow of the fridge, slipping into her grandmother’s wedding gown and dreaming of her own future. Those memories stitched themselves into the foundation of the woman she would become.
High school was like anywhere else; social value was defined by who you were and what you could buy. That made Odette popular, surrounded by people who weren’t always real friends. A select few weren’t impressed by her wealth or her family name. One of them was Emmett. He entered her life freshman year, a year older, and their friendship formed easily. More than that, she found herself quietly captivated. People often say it’s easy to fall in love with your best friend, and with Emmett, that cliché proved true. She fell slowly, and then all at once.
Sophomore year brought change. New confidence, new experiences, and Emmett. The summer before had been full of tentative steps beyond friendship, toward something deeper, something soul-binding. While she was the theater kid, he was the captain of the baseball team — the lightning-fast shortstop destined for the pros. Talented, kind, handsome, endlessly charismatic, he made friends with anyone, and Odette adored that about him. Loving him was effortless, and part of her knew he would someday be her husband.
When he graduated, he went on to Oregon State University on a D1 baseball scholarship — new friends, new adventures, a new world. She followed a year later, and together they became one of the campus’s “it” couples. After every game, she was the one he kissed in the stands, and she couldn’t help but hear wedding bells. She wanted to graduate first — she refused to be a pretty, empty-headed housewife — but plans were forming. Scouts were eyeing him for the minors, she was excelling in every class. Maybe her head got a little big, but she couldn’t help thinking they were a true power couple in the making, destined to rise above their small hometown and her family’s shadow.
But life is cruel, and fate doesn’t care about ambition or love. Heartbreak found her anyway. Maybe she should have been better prepared, given the Ford history. Maybe it was karma for the lingering darkness around her family name. Whatever it was, it shattered everything.
What should have been a normal weekend on the water became the nightmare that would haunt her for years. She stayed home to study for a test, something she would regret forever. The team had rented a boat; girlfriends and partners were going, but she insisted he go without her. Couples didn’t need to be attached at the hip, and these were his friends. His teammates. They’d be fine.
The call came late. Then the knock. University officials at her door. Most of that night blurred into screams until her voice gave out, panic attacks that left her gasping, and the repeated, unbearable reminder: Emmett was gone.
A careless and preventable boating accident, his teammate drunk driving speeding through the dark. Another boat with no lights to be seen when you were going that fast. Four dead, several injured, lives upended. The future she had been quietly building evaporated in an instant. The funeral broke her further, grief-stricken teammates, shattered parents, and the secret Odette had been waiting for the right moment to share. For three weeks, she had known she was pregnant. She had wanted Emmett to enjoy one last carefree weekend before everything changed in ways that would scare and thrill them both. Now she carried the weight of never being able to tell him, the guilt of withholding the news from his grieving parents.
The university granted her a leave of absence, and she returned to Windsor Bay. Her family surrounded her with care, but she wanted solitude. Depression and anxiety hollowed her out. She blamed herself — still does.
At thirteen weeks, something felt wrong, and she finally confessed to her mother. The miscarriage that followed was her next deepest heartbreak. The last piece of Emmett was gone. Another reminder that her future would never look the way she once imagined.
But she was a Ford, and Fords endured. She returned to school, finished her degree, and walked across the stage with his necklace around her neck.
Life moved on, as it always does. She became a vocal coach, then the theater and drama teacher at Windsor Bay High. She loved it, but something in her still felt hollow. One night, after a few too many glasses of wine, she started a podcast — initially rambling, unfocused, painful to listen to now. Slowly, it evolved into a true-crime podcast with over a quarter million followers, giving her an outlet she hadn’t realized she needed.
Ask her about her personal life, though, and she’ll dodge the question. She’s dated here and there, but rarely. She claims she hasn’t moved on — and maybe that’s partly true. If you managed to peel back the layers she’s built around herself, you’d find the real reason: she’s terrified of loving someone only to lose them again. Terrified that loss is her fate, no matter who she lets in. She knows she wouldn’t survive another heartbreak like Emmett.
