Ciem (2006 webcomic)

Ciem is the canceled 2006 attempted redux of its even-more-sloppily-made 2005 precursor Sims-based DSHW Machinomic, spending a lot more time on Candi's origins before letting her go into full Ciem mode.

Plot
The story begins in the home of Erin Flippo, who is acting as a mother for her orphaned sisters Candi, Miriam, and Marina. Marina is revealed to have left the home after getting married to the delivery boy Matthew Baret, who got her pregnant. Candi is therefore living with her remaining two sisters. One evening, the phone rings; and Candi answers it unaware of the fact that it is really Hebbleskin Gang hitman Gunner Soorfelt trying to confirm that he has reached the Flippo residence and confirm his assassination targets. Candi hangs up the phone, scared but ignoring her instincts.

Candi and her sisters begin to share their most intimate secrets with each other, including the origin of Candi's centipede powers. The Meethlites, fueled with zeal by Duke Arfaas and his Hebbleskin Gang, launch a raid on the city of Gerosha and try to kill all of the Flippos and their friends. Miriam is sent to jail for her own protection and Erin is murdered by Gunner and Skellig. Candi herself accidentally kills Don the Psycho.

Ashamed of this, Candi seeks help from the McAuleys to move away from Gerosha to Viron. Not long after getting settled and dealing with Viron's numerous villains, Candi befriends a local scientist named Denny Levens - but also befriends police chief Donte McArthur. Both men have more going on than they let on.

Candi tries to get a job at the local bowling alley, but leaves when new management threatens to turn it into a strip bar. She instead joins the local pom squad. She goes back and forth between her feelings for Donte, and the charm Denny shows her. However, Gunner's attempt on Denny's life leads to the two of them growing closer. Seeking comfort in each other over their common enemies, the couple let their guard down and share an intimate night together. Candi discovers a short time later she is pregnant, and she and Denny rush to get married. Donte remains Candi's supportive friend.

However, the marriage proves rocky, as more and more of Denny's unpleasant past comes back to haunt him. One evening, as their child is getting ready for birth, L1 the Llama is sent to attack them. Denny is killed off quickly, efficiently, and ruthlessly. Candi escapes, starting to go into labor. However, L1 pursues her for quite some time before she is able to lose him. A bad encounter along a roadside leads to her getting caught up in a gang crossfire, and getting shot in the arm.

Donte arrives at the hospital upon hearing the news of Candi being there. However, after she gives birth, she vanishes. She awakens a week later in a cabin, which is sinking into a bog, finding herself naked in a coffin. Finding some clothes, she discovers a message from her since-deceased godfather Imaki Izuki, telling her of her need to become Ciem and fight back. She also learns her daughter didn't survive past birth.

She returns to Viron to discover Donte has gone missing, and that it's believed he and "Emeraldon" were both captured by Duke Arfaas' doomsday ship overhead. Candi buckles down to learn her new Ciem tech and suit, so she can be of maximum efficiency when helping take back as much as possible from what the Hebbleskins took from her.

Heroes

 * Candi Flippo-Levens / Ciem
 * Donte McArthur / Emeraldon

Villains

 * Jeraime Malestrom / L1 the Llama
 * Victor Nanale
 * Don "the Psycho" Mendoza
 * Gunner Soorfelt
 * Skellig Soorfelt
 * Duke Arfaas Hebbleskin
 * Harga Hebbleskin

Supporting characters

 * Miriam Flippo
 * Denny Levens
 * Imaki Izuki
 * Erin Flippo
 * Dominick McAuley
 * Tracy McAuley
 * Ploribus Philippine
 * Rev. Wilbur Brocklyn
 * Angie Levens

Creative changes from the 2005 version

 * Skintone: The original 2005 story featured a much paler-skinned Candi that did not look ethnically like she should have looked. The original look for Candi was that of a Caucasian woman.  This is due to the fact that she was not directly created by the Dozerfleet founder in 2005, but by the Sims 2 base game.  Her genetics were a random combination of Stan and Shalia's, as the game saw fit.  Candi was designed to be light brown in the 2006 version, but various lighting conditions in Nightlife made her appear to be white, when she was supposed to be a fair amount darker.  In the 2007 version, especially with Seasons installed, she was given a custom default replacement for the medium brown in-game skintone.  Candi's sisters were based loosely on the same template that was used for Candi herself, as is the case with her brothers.  The game recognizes order of childbirth for Shalia's children via SimPE being used to edit the neighborhood and change family ties.


 * Siblings: Candi was originally created in 2005 as "Candace Flippo," one of two girls in a set of twins with Marina following as the third child that was supposed to be with Candi and Miriam as a third triplet sister. This was because of Stan having the Family aspiration, and a desire to have 10 biological children.  Reily was the first, forced into being as a carry-over from the Proto Gerosha Flippo family first created with The Sims Deluxe.  The game decided not to "count" Ploribus since he was the result of an alien pregnancy.  Erin was adopted, so she didn't "count."  Vince, Mike, Jeff, Jason, and Tanya brought the total to nine, before the challenge was forfeited.  This was due to the hardware that the game engine was running on not being able to handle that many Sims existing in a family tree in one neighborhood at at time.
 * In the 2006 version, Jason and Tanya are completely removed from continuity for that very reason - and also, because no good stories around them could be written. Vince was also renamed Tom.


 * Candi's self-control around men: In the 2005 version, Candi had no trouble saving herself for marriage to Denny. As the backstory of Candi's grandparents would become more developed though, her grandfather Dwayne Lloyd was revealed to have a very dark side to his character that included a predatory sexual appetite.  As part of the family curse, the Flippo children were very prone to sexual temptation and a constant desire to be with their sweethearts at the very moment that their hormones urged, with little regard for self-restraint.  This did not square with Candi's behavior in the 2005 version, however.  Therefore, in later versions, Candi has some difficulty controlling her sexual conduct.  In the 2006 version, she agrees to marry Denny only after they've had sex.  She agonizes with herself over her inability to wait, though her reasons for having such a strong appetite are not revealed beyond her being bitter with being mistreated at church by the elderly women.  The woman most responsible for Candi enduring this suffering is later revealed in the 2007 version to be Nolle Barret, but none of the women are referred to by name in the 2006 version.


 * L1 the Llama: The base game llama mascot suit originally used as the source of the AI mind control device being used to control Jeraime was later ruled to not look menacing enough. Therefore, his suit was re-made in the 2006 version to a metallic warrior.  This version was lost when the game files failed to transfer properly from a Hewlett Packard desktop to a Dell laptop.  This, along with the save file being lost, were why the entire Despair Gerosha timeline was abandoned, and given the nickname "Despair" Gerosha to begin with - because picking up the pieces of it seemed hopeless at the time.  For the 2007 version, L1 was deemed a not very threatening villain at all, and was entirely scrapped in favor of a new theme.


 * Life with Erin: The 2006 version began a trend that has followed in all Gerosha continuity since: depicting Candi spending a good lot of her early life living with Erin. The 2005 version hinted at this, but never showed it.


 * Hospitalization: In the 2005 version, due to uncertainty about whether or not to bother with showing Candi in the hospital, it was decided that Candi would not even bother going. Instead, Candi wears one of her disguises out in public after fleeing from Musaran.  She gives birth in an alleyway, and witnesses Angie die. She is forced to abandon the nearly still-born and traumatized child in a dumpster, and makes her way to a place where she can find help. However, she is mistaken for a prostitute and is sent to jail.  The following morning, her godfather Imaki Izuki gets her out of the city jail after clearing her with the authorities. Candi gets a new condo and begins training.  Imaki meets Candi in the park and dies of a heart attack.  Candi has no such chance to know Imaki intimately in either of the other versions. In the 2006 version, Candi has a psychic link with Angie's soul and knows Angie's intentions even though Angie is physically not old enough to express them intelligently.  Candi gives birth to Angie in the downtown Dirbine hospital and then slips into a coma. Imaki hides Candi's seemingly lifeless body in a coffin, and then takes care of the dead baby himself.  Candi wakes up naked in the coffin in an abandoned cabin that is sinking into a bog. She finds a video in which Imaki tells her everything, but states that if she is viewing the video, then he is probably dead. Candi then leaves the cabin after dyeing her hair and gathering some clothes to wear. She sets out to become Ciem.


 * Fake glasses and "Stevens" persona: Candi did not ever wear fake glasses in an attempt to conceal her identity in the original 2005 version of the story. Instead, she married Denny very quickly after Erin's death and relied on Denny's scientific genius to keep her concealed. Her marriage to Denny and everything else was quite deliberate, as was their first child Angie. By the 2006 version, there is a show of build up to Candi choosing to marry Denny. She initially hesitates, as it was decided by 2006 that Candi always suspected Donte was Emeraldon, and that Candi knew Donte first.  Candi was in a love triangle in the 2006 version, and a night of carelessness with Denny led to an unwanted pregnancy that led to Candi's choosing to marry Denny to cover up the nature of the pregnancy. Due to this, there is a time after Candi moves to Viron that she tries to obscure her identity to protect herself from the Hebbleskins.  She tries to assume the false last name of "Stevens" and hide behind false glasses to conceal herself.  However, this plan is quickly abandoned.


 * Candi gets a job: The 2005 version never makes clear what Candi's resume is / was, ever. In the 2006 version, she works at a bowling alley, revealed in the 2007 version to be the Hazy Eighty's Bowling Alley.  While it was never referred to by name in 2006, it did exist.  However, it had a very different design in 2006 as opposed to 2007 - and did not feature a Grillitan Diner.  Cladeus Hutchins was never identified as Candi's original boss before Victor Nanale's takeover; and Candi is able to quit her job before the building was torn down.  RAM issues with the laptop forced the Seasons version of the alley to have to be torn down after use, hence Candi finding the entire area bulldozed in chapter 16 of the 2007 version.


 * The Soorfelt Brothers: Gunner and Skellig debuted in the 2006 version, and were never present in 2005. This is because the first chapter begins with Candi in the McAuley family's protection, whereas Candi doesn't seek help from Tracy in 2006 nor 2007 until chapter 6.  In the 2006 version, Skellig was referred to as "Sleshing" randomly.  The name change was due to the fact that the data was initially buried on a CD as to his original name.  Gunner's name was easily remembered, but Sleshing was forgotten.  The term "Skellig" for the character's name is inspired by that being the name of a song on The Celtic Circle, a 2-disc compilation of folk and pop Irish tunes performed by various artists.  Skellig Soorfelt does not, however, get his name from the titular character of David Almond's book.

Screen capture
See also: Known browser compatibility issues with Ciem

The 2006 attempt at Ciem featured a 400x300 resolution, an upgrade from the 300x225 resolution in 2005. All versions featured JPEGs, though the 2005 version featured an animated GIF for its closing scene.

Effects
Most of the Ciem suit's composition consists of a simple recolor of the white ski outfit from the base Sims 2 game, designated in the Everyday clothing section for Adult females. The ski outfit was wrapped around a bikini mesh, which in turn was wrapped around &lt;span class="plainlinks"&gt;Zenman's Adult Curvy Default #5 body mesh replacement for adult female Sims&lt;/span&gt;. The centileg openings were also not very sophisticated. The mask was a simple two-piece consisting of face paint and a customized hairstyle. The reflective green eyepieces were adjusted in Photoshop to look the way they do. Much of the work with the mask revolved around obscuring the ears and hiding the mouth. The diameter and complexity of a centileg varies between shots and essential details. One thing that remains certain is that they are extremely long-but-strong, thin, well-controlled spare appendages that Centhuen Prototypes have. For most instances in Ciem, they are simple brown lines that are added in Photoshop and beveled to look more natural.

Keyframes from several Sim animations are deliberately taken out of context to create the battle scene effects, the most frequently used of which is the "Play on the Couch" animation sequence. To create the illusion of lunging into the air at an enemy or of doing a flip, the character's couch is removed after the footage is paused. The character then horseplays on an "invisible couch," making them look like they are really doing something more serious. The couch animations are used less frequently for Sims whose faces are visible and not obscured under masks, and it would have been more difficult to alter their facial expressions in post.