Vanessa Dudley

**Vanessa Dudley** is an actress who plays a professional "skeptic" on the show *Gotham Ghosts*, alongside Tony Pacuci.

## Character Biography

The breakout star of *Gotham Ghosts*, Vanessa first met Ben online when he posted negative messages about how "fake" her show was and his contempt for those who would take advantage of ghosts and superstition for personal profit. In response, she invited him to appear as a special guest expert for an upcoming episode of the show in a haunted New Jersey strip club. Ben accepted her offer and found that he was somewhat attracted to Vanessa herself. While filming the episode, several members of the crew got nosebleeds and Ben, through careful investigation, discovered that the show's creator, Tony, had concealed a projector behind a piece of drywall; the chemicals sprayed by the projector to simulate "ghosts" were causing allergic reactions.

During post-production, Ben was recording ADR lines for his role when Vanessa caught Tony upping the pitch on his voice to make him sound whiny and insecure. She angrily reminded Tony that this wasn't the first time he'd done this to a person of color on the show. When Tony brushed off her concerns, Vanessa erased all eight hours of both her and Ben's recorded dialogue to keep the episode from being aired. She fired back at Tony when he threatened to kick her off *Gotham Ghosts* by telling him to take it up with HR.

Before Ben left for the night, Vanessa wrote her number on his hand. Ben tried to call several times but kept getting dropped. Eventually, he concluded that Vanessa had given him a fake number. When he confronted her, however, he learned the truth; according to Vanessa, her right arm actually belonged to her deceased sister Maggie, and that because the two sisters essentially shared the same body, Maggie had become extremely protective of Vanessa and influenced her to intentionally miswrite her number so Ben would think she wasn't serious.

Ben found himself torn; he wanted to continue his relationship with Vanessa yet couldn't get pass his natural skepticism, not to mention his fear that she might be crazy. He finally contacted David for advice. David reminded his friend that the world is "weird", and that he, by implication, shouldn't use such a thing as an excuse to deny his feelings for Vanessa. Ultimately, Ben found himself unable to fully commit and a month passed before he called Vanessa out of the blue to help him research the Elevator Game. Her irritation at being ignored put aside, Vanessa took Ben to a tour group where a guide gave them some background on the Game that Ben later used, albeit resulting in him briefly being trapped in an abandoned subbasement where he nearly lost the will to live before David and Kristen saved him.

After an incident where Vanessa trashed her apartment and blamed Maggie, Ben finally told his girlfriend that she needed to do something about her sister. The two visited a psychic who seemingly severed the connection between Maggie and Vanessa, thereby enabling the latter to finally live her own life. The next day, when Ben came over to check on her, he found Vanessa chipper and aroused, and the two of them wound up having sex. However, when Ben questioned why she was behaving so strangely, "Vanessa" revealed that she was actually Maggie, and that she was eager to steal Ben for herself out of jealousy for her sister's happiness.

Ben at first assumed that Vanessa was experiencing some sort of mental episode, but when she left to pour herself some wine, his phone rang. He answered it to find Vanessa on the other end, saying that she was about fifteen minutes away from her apartment. Ben took it as a prank until Maggie returned, took the phone from him, and told her sister what they had done before hanging up. Ben, unable to process what was happening, fled from the apartment in terror as Maggie watched gleefully.

## Episode Appearances

	+ "October 31"
	+ "2 Fathers"
* **Season 2**
	+ "E Is for Elevator"
	+ "O Is for Ovaphobia"