Candace Mason (Dromedeverse)

''The following is about the Prodigal-Gamer / Dozerfleet Comics character. For the unrelated British cafeteria, see The Lemon Witch Facebook Page

Candace Dixon Mason / Lemon Witch is a superheroine from Camelorum Adventures. She was created by Prodigal-Gamer, AnirBrokenear, Shases, and the Dozerfleet founder on DeviantArt. Originally envisioned as a sort of parody of Marvel's Scarlet Witch from Age of Ultron, Lemon Witch quickly grew into a character in her own right. She is a prisoner convicted of endangerment and involuntary near-manslaughter after accidentally turning a mall cop into a lime, and is seeking to work as a nutritionist and run an orchard in Georgia upon her release.

In addition to her role in Camelorum Adventures, she is xeroxed by the Percolation Event, allowing her to join much of the greater Dozerfleet Megaverse. This includes a sprite proposal for Marvel: Avengers Alliance, the entry featuring on the Avengers Alliance Fanfic Wiki, where suggestions are made for how she could actually enter the Marvel Gaming Universe.

Powers
Candace has the ability to emit energy beams that, as she wills, turn any human or animal (or alien) in her presence into sentient plant matter or some by-product thereof; with an emphasis on fruits and vegetables. She also has a less-often-used ability to turn her opponents into June bugs. When wearing her yellow gloves, she eventually learns how to change her victims back - and can use the gloves to avoid accidental transformations. Being given abilities via Xiboruty also enables her to be agile and have a high metabolism, as well as healing quickly.

Weaknesses
Candace is dependent on her yellow gloves to be in total control of her abilities. Without her gloves, she sometimes emits energy by accident, having hard-to-predict side effects on her environment. She is also weak-willed at times, often tempted to misuse her powers.

Accessories
Inside of Camelorum, Candace is allowed to wear her yellow gloves and occasionally some yellow eyeshadow, as a way to make herself more identifiable from the other female prisoners. If recruited to aid the Camelry in saving Dromedary Heights, she is issued a yellow skirt and jacket to aid her outfit. She eventually gets a new hairstyle to complement her look, as she has by this time fully embraced her Lemon Witch identity. She also has comm devices attached during Camelry field duty, to keep in touch with other Camelry members.

When not on duty with the Camelry, she wears a standard orange jumpsuit. She may or may not sometimes be on the chain gang, wearing leg irons sometimes and sometimes not. She is one of the few inmates who is not afraid of Tobey the Toilet Monster, as Tobey knows sufficient blasts from her could transubstantiate parts of him into plant matter if he isn't careful.

Acquiring her powers
Candace was a recent high school graduate living in Dromedary Heights, Delaware. She longed to go to college and study to become a nutritionist. However, her father Eddy Mason was abducted by an evil alien named Xiboruty. Xiboruty tried to convince Amelia and Bobby Mason that he was a "good fellow" with odd skin due to a lab experiment, but that he intended to help. Candace always had a bad feeling about Xiboruty, but her discomfort around him went ignored by her family.

Xiboruty waited until he was alone with Candace one day at the house, then pinned her against a wall and some tentacles came out of his mouth. They began sucking on her face, and she fell unconscious. He tried to implant a device of some sort inside of her; but was spooked when the power grid failed and the lights went out. He went outside to investigate, and found himself in a confrontation with Lightning Hobo. A confused Xiboruty, not remembering having created Lightning Hobo, flees and vows revenge.

Candace awoke some time later, dazed and finding that the family parrot was out of its cage. When she tried to catch the parrot, she turned him into a coconut instead. She ran into the road in a state of panic. However, a driver that barely stopped in time grew furious and pulled out an uzi. She managed to turn him into a June bug before he could shoot her. As he approached, she stepped on him. Candace ran further and further from home, in search of answers. She took what little money she had the next day, however, and went to the mall to buy some food. She also attempted to calm her nerves, hoping that would reduce the number of incidents until she could get some answers. She met a friend named Jessie, and the two tried to have a fun time shopping. However, Jessie was at one point mistaken for a shoplifter that looked similar. Mall security began chasing after both Jessie and Candace, and Candace had a panic attack. Most of the mall, with the exception of herself and Jessie, vanished. June bugs were everywhere, and some of them could talk. A mall cop named Roger Sanders then tackled Jessie, which caused Candace to panic again. Energy beams shot out uncontrollably, and she turned Roger into a lime.

In desperation, Candace put on Jessie's yellow gloves. She found that with them on, she suddenly had some level of control of her newfound abilities. She tried to change all the June bugs back into mall shoppers, but was unable to completely change the lime back into Roger. Jessie told Candace to keep the gloves, then fled the scene. Candace was then able to apprehend some actual dangerous criminals in the mall, turning their dog into a tangerine and threatening to transform them if they didn't surrender to mall security. She also proved herself agile enough to avoid their assaults.

Terrorized shoppers cheered on Candace for subduing the armed robbers until mall security could arrive; yet the mall security would not allow Candace to be so easily forgiven for turning Roger into a lime. She attempted to warn other shoppers about Xiboruty; but to no avail. Upon pressure from mall security, Candace agreed to also surrender. She was arrested minutes later, with media on the scene quickly dubbing her "the Lemon Witch." Amelia paid Candace a visit; but she was unable to pay bail. Candace warned her mother that Xiboruty was dangerous, and that he was the one who turned Candace into the Lemon Witch.

Candace was sent to trial a few days later, and was very quickly found guilty of wreaking havoc and turning a mall cop into a lime. She was sentenced the next day to Camelorum Correctional, and urged to use her 3 years in there to gain control of her powers. She was assigned the prison number of 8009517471, (which is coincidentally also the phone number of the Slap-Chop, since Camelorum is shameless about product placement to generate ad revenue.)

In the holding cell, she meets fellow prisoners Barry Navoz, Carly Rancine, Janet Joblin, Katrina Cantina, and Melinda Rotinda. The conversations soon make it clear to her that her life at Camelorum will be one filled with adventure - whether she likes it or not. She also, prior to being transferred to Camelorum, met Missy (in for assault and battery of a member of the Homeowners Association) and Jen (in for driving a lawn mower the wrong way down a one-way street, but neither of the two main Jens.)

Life at Camelorum
Most days for Candace at Camelorum proved fairly uneventful, though she was occasionally witness to a lot of the weirdness that affected other prisoners. Little did anyone know that it was because of the side effects of Xiboruty's face-sucking on Carly that many of these reality-warping effects were happening, as Carly possessed the most dangerous power set of any prisoner. Xiboruty's species had caused enough cosmic chaos, however, that even getting Carly's powers under control was not enough to stop all the weirdness in Dromedary Heights.

Candace would usually spend her days joking around with inmates, particularly about nutrition and plants. She'd be assigned odd jobs by staff that often accommodated her abilities. When a guard named Bob went crazy, she turned him into grape jelly and had him put in a jar. This gave way to the entire facility singing "The Jelly Jar Song" to celebrate, set to the tune of "Better Days (And the Bottom Drops Out)" by Citizen King. She also enjoyed karaoke night; once beating everyone else at a parody song contest by performing "Too Many Princesses", a spoof of "Two Princes" by the Spin Doctors.

Joining the Camelry
After having many silly, wacky adventures with the Camelorum Chain Gang (as well as inside the prison,) Candace is left defending some of the guards after Xiboruty breaks in and trashes the place to abduct Carly and Emily - as well as Jenny Jane and Jenny Kay. Several prisoners are killed and Dromedary Heights is threatened. Lightning Hobo and Laney the Laughable arrive at Camelorum to ask the staff to recruit some of their most unusual prisoners to form the Camelry - a task force that can defeat Xiboruty.

The Camelry already have some help from the 20s Altered Judo Iguanas, who are sadly not adequate by themselves. Camelorum's staff agrees to let Lightning Hobo and Laney borrow Barry "Ion Boy" Navoz, Janet "the Glob" Joblin, and Candace as part of their team. Candace acquires her official Lemon Witch uniform, and sports a new hairstyle to go along with it. She has by this point in time gained enough mastery of her abilities to take down an entire SWAT team, only being detained at Camelorum because she believes serving her time is the right thing to do under her circumstances. She manages to cure Roger, though he has hardly forgiven her.

The Camelry defeat Xiboruty with help from the Iguanas and the "Jen in Black," a team consisting of the two Jens after they escape and steal some of Xiboruty's own equipment to use against him. Carly and Emily are rescued in the nick of time, before they're both dissected by a Xiboruty who would have used the battery he hid inside Carly to bring about his diabolical agenda. Afterwards, Candace and several other prisoners are transferred to a section of Camelorum known as the "Paradox Wing," to test out the psychological effects of its architecture.

Rampage of Utkitroll
Following Xiboruty's demise, his cousin Xironooti launched an attack to avenge him. He seizes control over Candace and Melinda at one point, forcing Candace to laugh uncontrollably and possessing Melinda into his mind slave. He causes Melinda and Katrina to get into a fight by exploiting Katrina's vanity. Both girls are cured by the Jen in Black. Camelorum Correctional is reluctant to let the Camelry assemble again, but is forced to; when Xironooti creates Utkitroll and traps the Judo Iguanas along with June O'Reilly and the Spatula in Pocket 5 - as well as Beat-Drop and Eurodance.

Laney reveals that she wants to retire from the team; but Xironooti's attacks on Carly and Emily appear to have stabilized their abilities to an extent. Emily is suddenly able to interpret what the changes in her hair color mean. She is also given an Afro wig to make her stand out more, and adopts the alias of "Semaphore" so she can join the team. Carly is able to become "Maddening Rod." Candace gains just enough control over her abilities that if she becomes angry enough and focused enough, she can temporarily have partial control even without her gloves. However...she starts having side effects of uncontrollable botanokinesis when not wearing her gloves. She decides to use her "gloves come off" as a desperate last resort option in battle. Candace's leadership helps Carly and Emily adapt to officially being on the team, convincing Laney that she can safely retire. The team fights a long, hard battle. However, they eventually defeat Utkitroll and force Xironooti to retreat. Lemon Witch becomes so popular with children in the city afterward, that petitions start forming to pressure the governor into granting Candace an early parole.

Camelorum Halfway House
The defeat of Utkitroll allows Candace and a few others from Camelorum Correctional to become eligible to be moved out of the actual prison, and into the Halfway House. Candace is required to wear a bracelet, and is usually given strict times when she needs to return to the Halfway House. Otherwise, she is allowed to wear her Lemon Witch outfit or civilian clothing. She has limited permission to go shopping or attend a church service or do anything else a normal individual her age would do. She uses this to her advantage, as getting back into the field to battle Xironooti's evil forces becomes a lot easier when she only needs to clear it with the Halfway House front desk - as opposed to the Correctional's security team.

Freedom
Once Candace's 3-year sentence is fully served, she gets out and returns briefly to her family. Her father has been found, but is too mentally scrambled by his experiences with Xiboruty to think clearly. He is unable to compute the fact that his daughter is an ex-con.

Candace finds settling down at home with her family difficult, as being Lemon Witch has changed her so dramatically from the timid teenager that her family remembered. She eventually manages to get a job at a university down in Georgia, and later becomes an orchard farmer and nutritionist. She stands at the ready to join the Camelry again should the need to ever arise.

Personality
Candace has always been a bit of a bubbly personality, though she did grow a tad shy around the time she left high school. She was especially uncharacteristically unhinged about gaining abilities via Xiboruty sucking on her face. However, she bounced back from this depressed phase after gaining the ability to control her abilities - and embracing her new Lemon Witch identity. She insists that she's not technically an actual witch, and that Xiboruty's space oddity attached to her is not the same as demonic power. However, this is the only time she ever gets defensive about her nickname.

She can be difficult to anger; but is absolutely not to be crossed when angry. She also usually has a joke ready if she does decide to abuse her power to settle a score with someone. She is revealed to have a caring side for others too, once turning Barry into a horseradish for five hours; so he wouldn't embarrass himself by proposing marriage to Carly at a carnival.

All-around, Candace can be tricky but fun; and believes life is an adventure worth having. Her favorite food is kangaroo jerky, and her favorite song is "Clint Eastwood" by Gorillaz. Her other hobbies include knitting, turning stuff into citrus fruits, gymnastics, karaoke, and dancing. She gets along well with Carly Rancine, Emily Barnes, Beatrice Index, Barry Navoz, Janet Joblin, June O'Reilly, Jackie Regg, Joe, and Bonnie Bogidy. She does not get along well with Luin Kim, Rita Rigatoni, Annie, or Jasmine.

Development
Candace was first depicted in the Shases drawing "In Chains," which debuted on DeviantArt on Saturday, June 23rd of 2012. She appears to have been hand-drawn and then scanned into Shases' machine, or else was sketched with the aid of a Wacom or similar tablet. It is theoretically possible that she was supposed to be Emily at one point; but that detail got lost in the shuffle as not all artists doing commission work for Prodigal-Gamer were very good at establishing names or continuity. Shases, at the time, even exclaimed that he had worked so long on the drawing that he was too tired to write a caption. He apparently didn't get around to writing a caption after that, because a caption was offered by the Dozerfleet founder on May 17th of 2015 for that same image, identifying Candace by name.

If she were supposed to be Emily, than this made Candace one of many characters that started out as attempts at Emily and later became separate characters. Most prominently, Carly was created due to confusion over Emily's hair color. (Which also led to the in-joke about her ever-changing hair color, which then became Emily's superpower in Rampage of Utkitroll.) Annie of the Flooby-Don't Gang was another character that may have possibly been Emily at one point.

In 2015, the Dozerfleet founder began doing concept art for Prodigal-Gamer based on the idea that his vision for a cartoon about female prisoners could be turned into a family-friendly comedy slapstick cartoon filled with jokes and pop culture references. The premise was reworked into Camelorum Adventures, originally dubbed "The Dramedy Sour Power Hour" and taking inspiration from Animaniacs and SuperJail. After the "Lemon Witch" joke from "In Chains" - a reference to Scarlet Witch in Age of Ultron - it was decided right off the bat that Candace would be a major character in Camelorum Adventures.

Inside Sims games
Candace was first depicted in Dozerfleet panels being generated inside of The Sims 4, which has been her default look ever since. For certain action sequences not possible with that game, however, she has been translated backwards for The Sims 3.

Model depictions
The only photographic model to depict Candace so far has been an unidentified stock photography model whose photo was listed on DeviantArt as "Freestock" by the artist "Goldman555." This was used to depict an older-than-canon version of Candace in her Camelorum jumpsuit, in a panel titled "Lemon Witch: Armed and Citrus."

Themes and inspirations
Candace has been described by "Prodigal-Gamer" Chad himself as "Girl Next Door Meets Yellow." She was drafted as a Sim using Carly's Sim as a template. While she has as much reason as Carly (or more) to go through life angry, Candace is surprisingly able to go through life a lot happier overall. Her nickname is, of course, a reference to Marvel's Scarlet Witch. Her need for yellow gloves, however, is inspired by the X-Men franchise. Rogue needs gloves to not kill whomever she touches. Jubilee is seen wearing yellow gloves often in the 1992 X-Men animated series.

The spelling of Candace's first name is the way it is for a two-fold reason. The first is to differentiate her from Candice McArthur from The Gerosha Chronicles. This is also why Candace Mason refuses to be called "Candi," whereas Candice McArthur prefers to be called "Candi." The second reason is as a tribute to Candace Cameron Bure.

Trivia
Candace continues a tradition of there being a Dozerfleet character with "Candace / Candice" first name created for each decade, dating all the way back to Rainbow Jockeys in 1997-1998.


 * Candace in that series, being a boy irritated to have been given a girl's name, goes by "Conrad" amongst his friends, and became the Blue Rainbow Jockey.


 * Seven years after Rainbow Jockeys, Candice Flippo became a character in the Gerosha Prime version of The Gerosha Chronicles in 2005, later being evolved into the Classic Gerosha Candi Levens that featured in Ciem. This later gave way to the Cataclysmic Gerosha version that would feature in Ciem: Inferno, Sodality, Battle for Metheel, and Centipede + 49.


 * Candace Mason was first conceived in 2012 by Prodigal-Gamer as an unnamed female prisoner, first drawn by Shases. She was given her name and her superhero alias of "Lemon Witch" in 2015.