Blanche

*Thanks for inviting me, sir. I'm Blanche. I work as a showgirl at a high class cabaret in the pleasure quarter of Verforet. I can promise you I'll give it my all to read the vibe of the room, so be sure to come back for another dance.*

## Trivia

* Blanche's birthday is the opening date of the Maison Blanche Métro in 1930.
* Despite her birthday making a reference to Maison Blanche station, her showgirl theme is instead inspired from the Blanche station, closest to Moulin Rouge, located in the red light district of Pigalle.
* Blanche dances the can-can in the victory pose. The can-can (also spelled cancan as in the original French) is a high-energy, physically demanding dance that became a popular music-hall dance in the 1840s, continuing in popularity in French cabaret to this day. Originally danced by couples, it is now traditionally associated with a chorus line of female dancers. The main features of the dance are the vigorous manipulation of skirts and petticoats, along with high kicks, splits, and cartwheels.
* Blanche was arranged to be the next host in line for Termini's next reincarnation by her father as a political move, but was ultimately rejected. The consequences however, removed all emotions from her soul.

## Counterpart

Maison Blanche is a station of the Paris Métro, serving Line 7. South of this station, the line forks into two branches, one leading to Villejuif – Louis Aragon and the other to Mairie d'Ivry.

The station is located under Avenue d'Italie, between Rue Caillaux and Rue Bourgon, near Porte d'Italie, a gate in the former Thiers Wall. Towards the south, this is the last station in the common trunk line before the branches separate, thanks to an underground grade-separated junction located after the station, one towards Mairie d'Ivry and the other towards Villejuif-Louis Aragon. Oriented approximately along a north-south axis, it is positioned between Tolbiac on the one hand and Porte d'Italie (towards Ivry) or Le Kremlin-Bicêtre (towards Villejuif) on the other.

It opened as part of a planned section of Line 7, which was temporarily operated as part of Line 10 until the completion of the under-Seine crossing of line 7 from Pont de Sully to Place Monge. On 7 March 1930 the line was extended from Place d'Italie to Porte de Choisy, including Maison Blanche. The station was integrated into line 7 on 26 April 1931. The station is named after the district, which gets its name from a hotel of the same name, which is French for "White House". The station has three entrances in front of no's 103, 144 and 162 in the Avenue d'Italie.

Along with Place des Fêtes, a prototype air raid shelter was added to the station in 1935 to protect it from chemical attacks and was fitted with airtight doors to allow the people to take refuge inside in the event of an attack. They were chosen due to their proximity to the heavily populated, working-class districts. Early plans to extend line 14 from Olympiades to the Orly Airport included the possibility of taking over the existing line 7 branch from this station to Villejuif – Louis Aragon, which opened in the early-1980s. However, the inclusion of line 14 in the Grand Paris Express project means that the line 14 extension to Orly will only consist of new infrastructure. Wikipedia

Moulin Rouge (lit. "Red Mill") is a cabaret in Paris, on Boulevard de Clichy, at Place Blanche, the intersection of, and terminus of Rue Blanche. In 1889, the Moulin Rouge was co-founded by Charles Zidler and Joseph Oller, who also owned the Paris Olympia. The original venue was destroyed by fire in 1915. Moulin Rouge is north of Montmartre, in the Paris red-light district of Pigalle on Boulevard de Clichy in the 18th arrondissement, it has a red windmill on its roof. The closest métro station is Blanche.

Moulin Rouge is best known as the birthplace of the modern form of the can-can dance. Originally introduced as a seductive dance by the courtesans who operated from the site, the can-can dance revue evolved into a form of entertainment of its own and led to the introduction of cabarets across Europe. Today, the Moulin Rouge is a tourist attraction, offering predominantly musical dance entertainment for visitors from around the world. The club's decor still contains much of the romance of fin de siècle France.

The Belle Époque was a period of peace and optimism marked by industrial progress, and a particularly rich cultural exuberance was present at the opening of the Moulin Rouge. The Expositions Universelles of 1889 and 1900 are symbols of this period. Japonism, an artistic movement inspired by the Orient, with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as its most brilliant disciple, was also at its height. Montmartre, which, at the heart of an increasingly vast and impersonal Paris, retained a bohemian village atmosphere; festivities and artists mixed with pleasure and beauty as their values. Wikipedia

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