Character Profile Series #05: Cecilia “Cici” Fontaine

Cicilia_Z_neutralWelcome back to our weekly Character Profile Series! This week, we take a look at Cecilia “Cici” Fontaine, the most ostensibly ditsy and social elite member of the Undead Darlings crew. Let’s examine her basic stats and talk about why they are what they are!

Basic Stats
Blood type: AB+
Height: 5’9” (~176 cm)
Weight: 52 kg (~115 lbs.)

So we added both versions of measurements to height and weight, but to keep being weird we switched which one is in parentheses. Enjoy!

Why AB+? It’s the universal recipient blood type, which when examining Cici only skin-deep, compliments her reputation as a girl who gets around. Since it can only accept AB+ blood, it can be seen as the “elitist” blood type in a way; this matches her family’s “old money” wealth and her elite upbringing. We chose AB+ for Cici because the key personality traits (based on Japanese blood-type culture) are quite telling: she is incredibly social, but irresponsible. She adapts her personality to the situation at hand with ease, but her identity suffers as a result.

Why 5’9”? Being the most “classic American” in appearance—blonde hair, blue eyes, busty—we decided to make her height match this socially perceived “ideal.” Whether or not she sees herself this way is for Reggie to uncover.

What about 52 kg? It’s roughly 115 pounds, which considering her height and buxom nature, is pretty darn light. If we hadn’t pushed this weight in other forms before now, we might want to bump it up a bit. Alas! We will stand behind it as one of those “unrealistic anime weights” and roll with it. But of course, coming from the background she does, she may have been pressured into eating disorders during her youth, causing her to become rail thin outside of the chest area. And who knows, maybe those aren’t even real. We never even discuss that as a potentiality, so really, until we make a canonical choice, it’s up to you.

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Character Relationships
Pearl = “She's whatever…”
Jordan = “She's so neato!”
Summer = “She's really cool!”
Kairi = “She's so booooring…”
Emily = “Eeee! She's so cute!”

We made a basic character relationship chart for everyone in the game, written as the character, so that we could best assign roles in event scenes. Who would say what, who would chime in or be critical of the speaker, et cetera. Such a small effort yields characters who don’t have to voice their motivations or feelings; rather, they come out organically based on the conversation’s topics.

Fun Factoids

  • We initially envisioned Cici as having giant “moe megane”-style glasses, but after diving deeper into her background and with Kairi already wearing glasses, we tabled it. Doesn’t mean they’ll never make an appearance, but they won’t in this title.
  • Cici will often make comments that not only seem illogical, but downright idiotic. As the party gets to know one another, they pick up on some trends in what Cici says and does. To prevent spoilers, the things she says are later described as basically “too stupid to be unintentional.” It’s up to Reggie to spend time with her and uncover the truth!

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  • Cici’s family owns several homes. Their primary residence is on an orchard, which serves as a supplemental source of income for her family. She parrots their marketing slogan often: “Fontaine oranges are the best!”
  • It comes up almost immediately, but one of Cici’s more secretive hobbies is programming. She has taken to programming games on her calculator, which may look quite familiar to most students. We still remember playing games on our TI-83s… Why she does this is unclear; perhaps spending time with her will uncover her reasons?

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  • Jordan and Cici have an interesting connection—they attended the same private high school. However, due to their age difference, Cici does not remember Jordan; Jordan remembers her because, as a freshman, she knew her as “that senior with a certain reputation.”
  • Her parents raised her to fit into a very specific segment of high society—those who are “celebrities” despite never actually accomplishing anything except for having money and throwing it around. Cici has been raised to dress, act, and speak a certain way by her parents. They also told her what to prioritize as important, no matter the cost to her—either mentally or physically.

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Undead Scars
All things considered, Cici has gotten away with relatively minimal scarring. Sure, a massive chunk of her shoulder got gnawed on, but that is the only real damage she seems to have. Of course, we’ll never know if more scars exist beneath the dress. If you’re curious: no, there aren’t any.

Gameplay with Cici
Cici is a bit of a tank, most accurately “classified” as a Paladin. She uses larger weapons like spears or wields defensive weaponry like shields to soak up damage. As a Paladin character, she also has some healing skills in her repertoire. Being a tank character, her offensive abilities pale in comparison to her defense, so she’s good to keep around if you’re going on an extended dungeon crawl.

As for her offensive Skills, she is balanced with physical, magical, and healing abilities. She does not learn many advanced forms of Skills outside of healing, so keeping her in a Skill Link-focused party is the best way to use her in order to access top-tier offensive abilities.

Sub-events with Cici are quite high in number because in key story events, she does her best to stay out of the spotlight outside of some non-sequiturs and flirtatious dialogue—mysterious, considering her social nature during her life. This fact, coupled with her tanking and healing capabilities, makes her worthy of a semi-permanent placement in the battle party.

We’re grateful you came to read Cici’s profile, everyone! She is one of the more complex characters in the game, so it’s hard to go in-depth about her without spoiling parts of her story arc. That said, next week we will cover the final character you meet in the game, who also plays her cards very, very, very close to her chest. We are talking about Emily Brinehart, a girl so secretive that she herself has abandoned reality in favor of her own delusions.

 

6 thoughts on “Character Profile Series #05: Cecilia “Cici” Fontaine”

  1. So she was raised to become a Kardashian….. Great. e.e

    Myeh, I’ll prob’ly like ‘er better than I do any of them, simply because of the trappings. Here’s to hoping she busts (I’ll show myself out) outta the mold and reveals herself as a most endearing, enlightening, fascinating lady.

    And thinking back on a handful of people I’ve met, “too stupid to be unintentional” can actually be just that: too stupid. Hoo boy. Let’s also extend her that chance to prove she can be otherwise.

    I mean, I can think of another blonde-haired, blue-eyed, asset-heavy woman who broke the mold of the socialite ditz:

    http://i.imgur.com/iqIvx9x.png

    …well, uh, most of the time. <.<

    • Yup. She’s a bit different from Vert in a lot of ways, but I find Cici’s arc to be the most “real” in terms of how Nature vs Nurture can create a direct conflict in one’s life. If you’re raised to be a Kardashian, but love programming, then how can you connect with either demographic? You act like one because it’s how you were raised to be and know of no other way, but in your own time you find yourself fascinated by things that get you shunned from the former group.

      Sometimes you just can’t fit in…until the entire world changes and you get a second shot.

  2. Wow, I never thought that Cici would play the role of the tank, I always thought she would be the mage type, you got me there.

    It seems that she has the most things to hide from the group, and I can guess why. I think maybe she will eventually grow closer to the group the further the game is played. Even so, she is to me the least interesting character of the group, not to say she is bad, but… she doesn’t have much that interests me, hopefully I would get interested her when I play the game.

    Now to see how you handle a chuunibyou character in Emily.

    • Right on! Not everyone is everyone’s type, so that’s totally understandable 😉
      I will say that the way in which you see her true personality is fairly unique and is worth experiencing–perhaps on New Game + if you’d rather chase after Summer your first go around!

      • You are absolutely right. And yes, I would go for Cici in later playthroughs, in fact, the routes that I would go after are in order, Summer, Pearl, Jordan, Kairi, Emily, Cici and lastly the harem/true route if there is such route planned.

        • Pretty nice order. Mine is almost the same except I’d move Summer after Pearl and Jordan. I guess I’m biased since that basically means I’d chase ’em in the order I introduce ’em, Kairi aside XD

          In fact, man… There’s so much more I wish I could go into, but I’ve got to shut up and let you guys experience some character growths as surprises. Kairi becomes quite interesting after you break the ice.

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