Citizen 176
- You may wish to consult
Louise (disambiguation)for other, similarly-named pages.
Citizen 176, originally known as Louise, was a young artist who was rescued by Auteur from the guillotine during the French Revolution. Auteur took her to the Town to complete her education, in the hope of moulding her into an "artistic spirit of vengeance". However, thanks to her friendship with Graelyn Scythes and the Hollow Childe, she instead grew into a benevolent and well-balanced person, and ended up entering into a romantic relationship with the Childe as the two escaped from the Town and moved to the Needle.
Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]
As a girl, Louise worked as a chambermaid for the Marquis LeFoy and his family, an unglamorous occupation which, according to her, mostly involved cleaning chamber-pots. She liked to sketch and draw, even though the Marquis wouldn't let her borrow a notebook from him. During the Reign of Terror, she tried to help the LeFoys to escape France, but they were all caught, and Louise was sentenced to decapitation with her masters.
Stoically awaiting her fate, she kept LeFoy's notebook and drew a sketch of his execution while waiting for her own. Impressed by this, Auteur rescued her, stopping time around them and taking a copy of Louise to freedom while somehow, another version of her remained in the cart and went on to her historical fate. Brought to Auteur's Town in the White Canvas, Louise adopted the name of "Citizen 176" and was given a home of her own, developed as a replica of the Palace of Versailles. Hoping to mould her into an "artistic spirit of vengeance", Auteur gave her art lessons and lessons in efficient assassination.
However, by the time she was ten, Graelyn Scythes followed F.I.D.O's advice in attempting to befriend the other two lonely, strange children in the Town: 176 and the Hollow Childe. Both were highly receptive, instantly organising a sleepover at Graelyn's place, and would go on to become fast friends over the following seven years. In this time, Citizen 176 also gradually developed a crush on "Hollow", and the two even kissed around the time Graelyn was fifteen, though even after that it took them a while to fully admit to deeper feelings. When they attended the premiere of an Archimedes movie together, only for Archimedes Von Ahnerabe himself to nearly escape from the screen, Citizen 176 had front-row seats to Auteur losing her temper and using her gauntlet to turn the cinema attendant into a book, a sight which she interpreted as a murder (not yet knowing that fictionalised beings could be restored to reality) and found quite traumatic, breaking down crying. As Hollow comforted her, they shared another kiss and 176 confessed to Hollow that she loved her.
When Graelyn, aged seventeen, finally remembered her original life in full, she quickly met up with 176 and Hollow to discuss what she'd learned and what to do about it. Hollow and 176 told her that they'd been looking forward to telling Graelyn in the morning about a secret movie screening organised by Skinflint, which proved to the perfect opportunity for the girls to sneak into the back of the cinema and, after everyone was gone, screen a number of 10,000 Dawns movies to summon the characters back into reality, starting with Archimedes. The group, now joined by Archimedes and Celeste Roth, then went to Auteur's office to confront her. After Auteur briefly turned the situation to her advantage, everyone in the Town except for Auteur and Graelyn was briefly fictionalised, but Graelyn soon outwitted Auteur and then used her own gauntlet to properly undo all the fictionalisations.
Subsequently, attending the negotiations for the Christmas Needle Agreement like Graelyn due to their part in the events that had led up to it, 176 and Hollow were offered a new home by Miranda Dawkins herself at the Needle, which they accepted, though promising to stay in touch with Graelyn. (PROSE: White Canvas)
