Ciem

The following is about the character in the Ciem Trilogy. For more uses, see Ciem (disambiguation).

Candice "Candi" Marie Levens-McArthur (née Flippo) / Ciem is a Dozerfleet Comics superheroine, who first was alluded to at the end of the 2005 version of the Cormorant Webcomics entry The Battle for Gerosha, created with The Sims 2. Originally meant as a Sims 2-themed parody on Spider-Man, the character has since developed a unique identity of her own, as well as four different versions of the character existing within the greater Gerosha multiverse. Although her book self is still pending, she is now available for download in two flavors with the Ciem suit for The Sims 2 and three flavors without her suit for The Sims 3.

Powers
Ciem was initially a parody of Spider-Man, hence having similar powers. However, some of these have been adapted to show distinct centipede attributes as opposed to spider ones.

Speed, Strength, and Stamina
Almost all Centhuens and Centhuen Prototypes have increased superhuman speed, strength, and endurance. However, the degree depends on how well the experiment done on the test subject parent (usually the father) was carried out according to specifications. In Candi's case, the job done on Stan to enable one of his children to be born with the mutation was near-perfect. The degree of Candi's strength varies by mission and by ability to stay focused. One application of Candi's strength is the ability to constrict her victims. She can take it as far as crushing ribs when dealing with particularly dangerous opponents.

Healing factor
Nearly all Centhuen Prototypes have an uncanny healing ability. Theirs is comparable to that of Wolverine from the X-Men, but perhaps just slightly slower. Their rate of healing accelerates according to how serious the initial injury is. A slit throat will heal its most vital parts within ten seconds, enough time to save the victim's life. A mere scratch may take up to five minutes to heal.

Centilegs
These are narcotic-strength protruding and retractable stinging tentacle cords that are attached to numerous parts of a Centhuen Prototype's body, allowing said being to perform a wider range of assaults and acrobatics. They are long tentacles in the Classic Gerosha narrative created in 2007.

In 2010's Comprehensive Gerosha universe, they have been shortened significantly. They are no longer effective grabbing tools; but they retain their use as stingers. Comprehensive centilegs are also more potent in their venom. The effects of a single sting are comparable to a bee sting or a fire ant bite. Several stings will render a victim unconscious.

Centiuition
This is a special power of hers, first called by this name in the 2009 version of Ciem 2. "Centuition," short for "centipede intuition," gives her several related sub-powers, many of them considered to be psychic abilities. These include limited precognition and clairvoyance. They have been compared to "spider sense," but work a little differently. Centuition is not as precise as spider sense, and only activates super reflexes when incoming projectiles or serious threats (like a bullet or swinging ax or knife blade) are present. It can not, as spider sense has been demonstrated to do in some Spider-Man comics, tell a Centuen Prototype how many fingers someone is holding up. The psychic radar that comes with centuition is fairly useless for building tracers as well. However, it does make enemies have a difficult time catching up unless they get far enough away for long enough.

Pregnancy
Most Centhuen Prototype experiments performed by the Phaelites involved males. The rise in female forms of the new species did not grow great until Candi's time. Even then, they were few in number. As a result, few experiments had ever been done to determine what would happen to the species if ever they were to conceive children.

Males who had reproductive problems showed no ill effects in their abilities to use their centilegs, or most other powers. But cases such as Candi and Dagmar's would prove that when female "CP"s get pregnant, their powers go mostly dormant.

For unexplained reasons, Dagmar's less-useful centilegs still functioned even during early pregnancy, allowing her to wage a futile fight against Musaran. Candi's, for other strange reasons, failed to project shortly after beginning her second battle with Botan. They did not function again until Candi went into labor.

In the 2010 story Ciem: Vigilante Centipede, this inconsistency is cleared up. After a month and a half of pregnancy, all centilegs go dormant. Dagmar is not a Centhuen Prototype in this version either, nor is she pregnant at the time of her death.

Bezeetol Fuel
The fuel oil called bezeetol is created by the Meethlites, and has been found useful by them for more than just fueling some of their machines. Its effects on Emwalt-enhanced men like Donte/Emeraldon are similar to taking kryptonite to Superman. On Centhuen Prototypes like Candi, it causes loss of focus, dizziness, emotional distress, and occasional centileg projection failure when they are near it. In Candi in particular, the smell of bezeetol weakens her to the point that she heals slower (but still faster than in normal human beings) and is beat up much more easily. Both Jeff the Invisible and Don the Psycho use it in various ways inside the Stolly's building in an effort to attempt killing Candi. Jeff fails to strap Candi to a guillotine, while Don attempts burn her to death inside.

Since bezeetol is expensive to manufacture, the Meethlites only use it sparingly, having found far more efficient fuels for their machines. The 2010 Comprehensive Gerosha universe does away with Bezeetol completely, instead finding other ways to weaken Candi in her fight against Don Mendoza.

Other
While highly unlikely, any crossover story featuring Marvel's character Leech, as featured in X-Men: The Last Stand, would also render Candi powerless, as she is a mutant. In theory, Rene of Heroes could also render her powerless.

Accessories

 * Zeran Wardrobe: This is a removable accessory on her belt. It produces a Zeran-hole tessaract storage for her clothes, allowing for much more convenient and efficient methods of switching alter-egos.  This has been compared by some to the tessaract suit storage rings employed by The Flash.  It has also been loosely compared to the morphers of the 1990's Power Rangers, though it operates on different principles.


 * Zeran Teleporter: Candi receives this via a visit to the home of her deceased Japanese godfather Imaki Izuki. She adds this to the Zeran Wardrobes as accessories to her suit.  Candi's greatest weakness as Ciem is the inability of an efficient way to get around town.  She usually has to wait for the disaster to find her, as she cannot simply fly (or sling) her way to the scene without assistance of some kind.  Before receiving this gift, she often resorts to jumping rooftops and hitchhiking.


 * Mechanical Whips: Inside her gloves are mechanical whip controls. These replace her wrist centilegs in the Comprehensive Gerosha universe, as the new continuity does away with long centilegs.  These whips have a mechanical dispenser that allows her to both shoot them out and hide them quickly.  It gives her limited-range power to grab at things, thus keeping her from completely relying on her Zeran Teleporter and also giving her a few short-range grab attack options.

Franchise media
See also: Candi Levens across Geroshas

Webcomic trilogy
Main article: Ciem webcomic series.

The first attempt at creating Ciem was in June of 2005, after the completion in May 2005 of The Battle for Gerosha. The first Ciem story takes place 13 years after the events at the end of Gerosha. Due to quality issues, both Ciem and The Battle for Gerosha have been re-made several times, with Ciem wrapping up primary footage in October of 2007.

Novel trilogy
Due to having a similar title as Tom Six's The Human Centipede (First Sequence), as well as the Dozerfleet founder's desire to create an alternate continuity that is more film-worthy, the webcomic series was deemed "Classic Gerosha" and is now discontinued. A novel adaptation titled Ciem: Vigilante Centipede begins a new version of Ciem. Unlike the webcomic, whose sequels were titled Ciem 2 and Ciem 3, Vigilante Centipede gets sequels titled Nuclear Crisis and Condemnation. They follow similar plots, with noteworthy differences. The novels form the backbone of what is called "Comprehensive Gerosha."

Fictional character biography
Main article: Fictional history of Ciem

See also: Candi family facts

Early life
Candi was born as one of three fraternal triplets to Stan and Shalia Flippo on September 9th, 1999. She was the only Flippo child to receive the Centhuen Prototype mutation via Stan. Her two non-mutant sisters, Miriam and Marina, would develop other talents.

Candi had lived for much of her early life going back and forth between being exposed to various environmental factors and being sheltered from them. She was aware early on of her mutation, and her implied calling in life; but has always had mixed feelings about it.

Ciem
Main article: Ciem (webcomic)

In her first appearance other than The Battle for Gerosha, Candi is depicted as being a romantic, insecure, duty-obsessed girl with a lot of worries and almost as many secrets. She is particularly optimistic about her future, in spite of all this. However, she feels the need to talk of her mutant powers to her sister Miriam and share a lifelong secret. The girls, knowing they will both soon have to move out of Erin's house, have no issue with this. Erin catches them exchanging secrets, however, and responds by sharing some of her own.

Candi receives a mysterious phone call that evening, and believes it to be a threat. However, the call could also have been a prank. She decides not to make a huge deal out of it, and doesn't warn her sister Erin of the caller. The following afternoon, while Candi is fighting for her life against Don the Psycho; her sister Erin is murdered by none other than the very Meethlites who called the house the previous evening.

Candi accidentally kills Don the Psycho in the fire he set to the Stolly's building. Embarrassed and scared, Candi flees to the home of the McAuley family, who have been friends of Erin's since back when Erin was in college. Tracy McAuley informs Candi of Erin's murder, and that Donte is believed to have died shortly after being captured by the Meethlites.

Devastated at her losses and wishing to believe that any right decision she makes will involve her actually having a choice; Candi moves to Viron, a suburb of Dirbine, IN. She tries in vain to move on with her life, while also developing her centipede powers to fight evil; but villains such as Musaran continue to stalk and threaten both her and her loved ones. After the deaths of her daughter Angie, her husband Denny, and her sickly godfather Imaki; Candi takes the inheritance she receives from Imaki and becomes a full-time vigilante.

She then discovers that the local police in Dirbine have been taken over by Meethlite operatives and sympathizers, and that the whole town is now being transformed into a Meethlite stronghold. Candi also learns from her dying godfather that Donte is still alive. Feeling guilty for having married another man first, she nevertheless strikes up for herself the courage to face Donte and rescue him from their common foe. The two of them combined defeat Musaran and the destroyer ship the Meethlites have positioned over Dirbine in an effort to destroy it as a last resort. They then do their best to help rebuild their broken families.

Ciem 2
As Ciem, Candi sometimes works alone and sometimes works as a sidekick for Emeraldon on his missions. As Donte begins losing his powers gradually in his constant battle against cancer, Ciem begins working alone more and more often. Candi and Donte's relationship is initially very spiritual in nature. It grows more physical, and even more sexual, over time. Not wanting to lose their spiritual bonds, the couple decide to marry after they've become convinced that they can no longer control their sexual appetites.

As the couple are married, they also adopt Charlie Wortell, the son of one of Donte's friends who died in the Phaelon-Metheel War. Candi conceived Donte's son Frank out of wedlock shortly before the story proper. The couple's wedding is just one week after their courageous fight to defeat Capp Aard, so around nine months after adopting Charlie, Frank is born.

Ciem 3 and later
Candi takes great pride in her responsibilities as a mother of two children, even if it conflicts with her ability to devote her time to her forensics lab work and to her side-duties as Ciem. In spite Lloyd Kolumn's attempt on her life among other things, Candi lives long enough to have two more children with Donte: John and Dana.

After Botan and Milp have destroyed Dirbine, Candi and Donte move with their kids to Kentucky. Candi at first has trouble getting into a forensics lab, but takes a job at a local bar. She later gets in at the lab, but gets few hours. She seizes the opportunities of her time off to either be with her kids or to fight crime as Ciem. After the births of John and Dana, however, she decides to spend less and less of her time as her crimefighting persona.

She officially retires from being Ciem at the age of 43, and lives for another ten years. She is replaced in terms of possessing the Ciem mantle by her daughter Dana, who moves to Gerosha and helps fight off a new breed of evil.

Novellas
Candi's story will be retold in the new Comprehensive Gerosha alternate continuity novella series. This series is set to begin with Ciem: Vigilante Centipede in late 2010. It is to be followed by two sequels: Ciem: Nuclear Crisis and Ciem: Condemnation. As a consequence, Ciem 2 and Ciem 3 have been canceled.

Enemies
Main article: List of Ciem enemies

Ciem's most dangerous enemies are generally considered to be Musaran, Captain Aardwulf and Milp.

Others include Lloyd Kolumn, Jeff the Invisible, Poison Dart Eddie, Lobe, Botan the Plant-Man, Victor Nanale, Merle Hourvitz, Taterbug, Jawknee, Gunner and Skellig, Duke Arfaas, the Sapphire King, and Kelsea Linney.

As with Ciem, most villains among these listed who possess powers originate from scientific experiments on the part of irresponsible aliens. Most Ciem villains come in one of three flavors: cyborg, human-animal hybrid, or brainwashed Meethlite loyalist/sympathizer.

Many of her enemies from the 2007 continuity will not carry over to the new 2010 continuity.

Supporting characters
Main article: List of Ciem allies

Among the four variations on how to interpret Candi, there are several major differences in the exact lineup of who her allies are and aren't. It is generally understood that Donte McArthur and Denny Levens are her two husbands throughout her life. Tracy McAuley has been a more-or-less ally of Candi's at least initially since the beginning. Miriam, Imaki, and Dolly have also proven to be multiversally constant as allies. Other characters come and go by interpretation. In Gerosha Prime, Candi's lesser allies were based largely on friends and associates of the Dozerfleet founder's from 1998-2005. Despair Gerosha had a smaller selection of these old friends, as friendships grew apart.

Many lesser allies of Candi's in Classic Gerosha were based on 2006-2007 school year friends and acquaintances of the Dozerfleet founder's at Ferris State University. Comprehensive Gerosha has eliminated most of these, preferring entirely fictional protagonists that are placed in parts of Candi's life based on probability, as opposed to arbitrary likeness to someone real.

Real-life doppelgangers
 http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j130/bulldozerbegins/Ciem/Model%20matches%20for%20Ciem/th_CharoRonquilloasCiem.jpg A (significantly altered) photo of Charo Ronquillo as Candi. (Presented here for demonstration purposes only.) http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j130/bulldozerbegins/Ciem/Model%20matches%20for%20Ciem/Ciem-ePhilippineGirlstrace.png Ciem, outline traced from a photo from ePhilippineGirls.com. Original photo by Ted Olikkala.

Dental hygienist Veronica Ybarra bears an uncanny resemblance to Candi. Meanwhile, a Creative Commons-licensed photo of actress Sameera Reddy was used for a time on the Candi family facts page, altered to look more like Candi. There are other models/actresses that are possible contenders for being real-life doppelgangers of Candi, including Lekha Washington, Vanessa Hudgens, and Parminder Nagra. Charo Ronquillo has also been considered as bearing a strong resemblance to Candi.

Preferred media
Traces of models have been done, and a long way has come for making Ciem a live-action-capable character. Everything from teen to young adult actresses, to machinima, to full CGI, to CEL animation has been considered, however, as possible media alternatives if a live action film is simply not possible. Unless a machinima deal with EA is worked out, then Candi will not be portrayed by a Sim on the cover art of any future Ciem-related merchandise.

Revisions to the character resulted in changes to her Sim depiction, which also led to a facelift for The Dozerfleet Forum so that Utterly Sims could support the changes made. These changes were also necessitated by the Dozerfleet founder ending a contract of carriage with Mod The Sims to carry Dozerfleet Downloads on its service. Utterly Sims became its own category of the forum, with a Sims 1 & 2 board and a Sims 3 board that had appropriate sub-boards for hosting downloads. A Sims 3 download of Candi was made available the third week of July in 2010, without her Ciem suit in any version. Since then, The Dozerfleet Blog took over most of the forum's functions. Utterly Sims was moved to the wiki, and Candi's Sims downloads were moved to Part 2 of the Ciem Interactivity Pack.

Candi's world
Significantly more altered than Candi herself between versions of her tale is the layout of her hometowns. Viron retains it's name, but became based on real-life Perry Township in Vanderburgh County as of 2010. Previous versions rendered it as entirely fictional. Farrenville is still called that in-story, but it's setting is the greater area around the Evansville campus of Ivy Tech Community College. Comprehensive Gerosha, rather than being made from scratch, was built on the ruins of real-life Boonville in Comprehensive Gerosha's alternate history. Various other fictional locations in Classic Gerosha were replaced with real-life geographical locations in southern Indiana.

Animated inspirations
One of the earliest models for Candi's appearance was the 1987 cartoon version of April O'Neil from Fred Wolf Films' Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Her skintone came from the fact that she is the daughter of Stan Flippo (a white male in The Sims 2) and Shalia Hood-Flippo (a black female in that same game.)  Matching her ethnicity with her family's Indian influences, inspiration was drawn upon from Esmeralda of Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame and the titular character of Disney's Pocahantas.

The single-largest inspiration behind her Prime-Classic Ciem body build, wardrobe, and hairstyle preference came from the ACME Agent character "Ivy" from Dic's 1994 animated series Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?. By the time Comprehensive Ciem was thought up, her appearance was modified to more closely resemble an Indo-Persian face.

Personality
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j130/bulldozerbegins/Utterly%20Sims/th_CiemOutfitsPart1.gif Various outfits Candi wears throughout Ciem, according to HeroMachine 3. Candi's in-game avatar is described as a Virgo, which does not intentionally have anything to do with her September 9th, 1999 birthday. She is fairly well-organized and very athletic-built. While generally kindhearted, she tends to be very alert and somewhat paranoid. She can also become enraged if threatened enough. She does occasionally harbor desires for revenge against others, but is usually able to suppress the urge without much difficulty. She is fairly religious and philosophical, but seeks to be so in moderation. Unlike many other women in Viron, Candi has a very strong sense of morality, especially sexual morality. Unfortunately, she also battles with a tremendous amount of lust. This is partly because of her family inheriting a curse from her ancestor Honeybee Samuel, which makes members of the Flippo family prone to hypersexuality.

In addition, she struggles to set an example for others while simultaneously deriving pleasure from men who provide her with feelings of emotional security. Her insecurities stem from her unusual growth environment in her sister Erin's home, her own sense of inadequacy as "The Gifted Flippo," and her fear of losing loved ones through inability to protect them. She is frequently rendered paranoid, as she and her family have been at war with the Hebbleskin Gang ever since the Battle for Gerosha.

Due to her internal moral conflicts and emotional insecurities, Candi is rather codependent and unable to detach from emotional baggage easily. She is very reserved, as she realizes that displaying too much confidence and being too outgoing could draw the wrong attention from her enemies. Many of Candi's personality quirks as Ciem are modeled after Batman, though toned down and feminized.

Other behaviors, such as fighting style, are modeled after the film versions of Spider-Man and Nightcrawler. Her attraction to Donte is partially because they have virtually identical personalities in spite having very different backstories. Guilt over having sex frequently bothers both of them, though Candi displays more determination to right what she sees as having gone wrong in her life. Also different from Donte, Candi is slightly more determined to fight for her own survival; whereas Donte is usually fairly passive about the thought of his own death.

Starline's Candi
Main article: Candi Levens vs. Starline's Candi


 * Ciem has been in development by Dozerfleet Productions since 2005.
 * Independently, Starline Xiomara Hodge of DeviantArt and CandiComics has since 2004 been developing a comic strip called Candi, which features a similar-looking (to Classic Ciem) female protagonist with similar hair and struggling with the pressures of college life.

It is important to note, that in spite these obvious similarities, neither character was inspired by the other. In a June 27, 2007 e-mail, the coincidence of these characters was duly noted, with Dozerfleet Productions using Yahoo Mail and Starline Hodge Productions receiving through G-Mail.

Offers to Starline
Starline Hodge may, upon request, allude to Ciem in Candi. Comprehensive Ciem provides more venues for reference, should the Candi continuity ever catch up to whenever Ciem: Vigilante Centipede is released.

Marvel's Jessica Jones
On Friday, Nov. 9th of 2007 at 9:48 PM EST, articles were discovered of the Marvel character Jessica Jones, who was created in November of 2001 by Brian Bendis and Michael Gaydos. Candi's marriage to Donte has some superficial similarities to Jessica's marriage to Luke Cage.

Family similarities
In particular, Candi and Jessica have similar body figures and also share the fact that they have African-American husbands with whom they eventually have children. However, Candi's centuition allows her to become something of a psychic detective in addition to her forensics work, while Jessica is oriented more towards a traditional detective practice.

Mind control susceptibility

 * Jessica Jones requires Jean Grey of the X-Men to make her immune to mind control.
 * Candi becomes immune to most forms of mind control that she faces only after the birth of her daughter Angie. Since the defeat of Milp's telepathy, nobody else has ever attempted to mind-control Candi.  In Comprehensive Gerosha, Kimi's power over Candi is reduced to mere clairvoyance.

ThinkTank Studios
ThinkTank Studios has been working on its own project, called "Centipede" for Hasbro. On the human-like characters page, a rough sketch is featured of a human-centipede hybrid, a woman with black hair, black gloves, tan skin, and an athletic build. The centipede features are mildly exaggerated, making it possible that this entity is closer to being a true Centhuen as opposed to a Centhuen Prototype like Candi.

Tom Six's "Human Centipede"
As of 2010, buzz began to flood all over the Internet about Tom Six, creator of the much-loathed film The Human Centipede (First Sequence). In fact, much of the renaming of the original Ciem webcomic, as well as much of the justification for a reboot with Ciem: Vigilante Centipede, was to distance the fictional species of Centhuen Prototypes as much as possible from the abhorrent surgical procedures depicted in Tom Six's Netherlands-originating film. Even so, Ciem 1 is still referred to as Ciem: The Human Centipede on Mod The Sims Social. Outside of MTS, efforts were put into overdrive to avert public association between Ciem and Tom Six's "centipede."

Utterly Sims
Main article: Utterly Sims

Sims 2
The Utterly Sims download service on this wiki provides five different versions of Candi. She is available with her Ciem genetics and suit at the Ciem Interactivity Pack. Included are Flippo Family Recipes to reverse-engineer her entire family from her genetics using Sims 2 Body Shop. The suit in Ciem 2 and Ciem 3 is also included. All those downloads are listed as part of the Classic Gerosha. Also available for Sims 2 is her new Comprehensive Gerosha look, all compiled in one ZIP file.

Sims 3
Three different versions of Comprehensive Candi without the Ciem suit also exist for The Sims 3. The first file is her as a Young Adult for the base game. A more accurate version of her, that keeps her Mulatto heritage while adding support for her Indo-Persian heritage, is provided for Fast Lane users. She is a Teen in this version. Finally, a tweak of her Fast Lane build was made that incorporates features for Late Night. This includes giving her slightly larger breasts (but still within size A-1/2 to B proportions) and better muscle definition, so that her body mass can be more accurately defined. Usage policies are documented. All downloadable versions of Candi are made available courtesy of MediaFire.

Recipes
Because she is so genetically similar to her sisters, only their base-game-compatible versions are provided. Downloaders of Sims 2 versions of Candi are provided with a "recipe" to reverse-engineer Miriam and Marina from Candi, as well as recipe guidelines to create Reily, and ultimately Candi's entire family.

Those same guidelines can be applied to reverse engineer Candi's family from her Late Night file.