Ciem (2007 webcomic)

Ciem is a 2007/2008 superhero-themed, Sims-based DSHW produced by Dozerfleet Comics.

Plot
It has been several years since the deaths of Stan and Shalia Flippo. Their adopted daughter, Erin Flippo, is acting as a foster mother for her orphaned sisters Candi and Miriam.  Marina, part of the set of triplets to which Candi and Miriam belong, is revealed to have left 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 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 share their most intimate secrets with each other, including the origin of Candi's centipede powers.

The Hebbleskin Gang, fueled with zeal by Duke Arfaas, launch a raid on the city of Gerosha and try to kill all the Flippos and their friends. Miriam is seized by police and sent into protective custody; and Erin is murdered by the Soorfelt brothers. Candi herself accidentally kills Don the Psycho, after he confronts her by an abandoned building and forces a confrontation. The McAuley family, friends of Erin's, inform Candi that her boyfriend Donte has been captured by the Hebbleskins, and is presumed dead. A disheartened Candi blames herself, knowing the Hebbleskins were really after her the whole time. She flees to Viron to start her life over, and assumes the false surname of "Stevens." Not long after getting settled and dealing with Viron's numerous villains, Candi befriends and eventually marries reformed bootlegger Denny Levens. The couple's marriage soon results in an unplanned pregnancy, which causes Candi to temporarily lose her powers. Arfaas kidnaps Donte's brother-in-law Jeraime Malestrom, and puts him in a suit that is programmed to turn Jeraime into the killing machine known as "Musaran." Musaran begins killing targets left and right at Arfaas' discretion. When Arfaas convinces Dirbine police chief Merle Hourvitz to join his side, almost the entire Dirbine police force defects. Dirbine and its suburb of Viron are then under Hebbleskin control.

Musaran and Kelsea Linney independently attack the Levens family home in the same evening in their efforts to murder Denny. They also try to kill Candi, but she survives both assaults. Candi goes into labor, and is escorted by paramedics to the hospital. After giving birth, she passes out and later wakes up - greeted by her long-missing brother Tom and godfather Imaki Izuki. The two inform Candi that Donte is still alive, and that she has a responsibility to rescue him in order to overthrow Arfaas' loyalists. Candi is devastated, but not surprised, to learn that her daughter died shortly after birth.

Candi uses Imaki's technology to turn herself into Ciem officially, and begins her quest to learn how to find Donte and rescue him right when the moment is most critical. Her plan succeeds after she first gets herself arrested and then escapes from jail - only to smuggle herself aboard Arfaas' Doomsday ship. There, she dons her Ciem suit again and rescues Donte after a battle with Musaran. Donte breaks a glass tube and gets his powers back, to become the superhero Emeraldon once more. Emeraldon destroys Arfaas' doomsday ship while Ciem battles Musaran inside an office complex.

Ciem uses the CRT computer monitors inside the office complex to her advantage, electrocuting her foe and destroying the AI mind control device that was controlling him. Jeraime awakes, but discovers that he has been blinded for life. Candi and Donte reconcile their lost romance, after burying Denny and Angie in the Gerosha Cemetery. They start working as a superhero team to bring down numerous other villains that are in the Dirbine area - as a result of either Phaelite or Meethlite activities. They are last seen together about to stop the Sapphire King from his latest crime-in-progress.

Heroes

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

Villains

 * Jeraime Malestrom / Musaran
 * Gunner Soorfelt
 * Skellig Soorfelt
 * Duke Arfaas Hebbleskin
 * Harga Hebbleskin
 * Merle Hourvitz
 * Kelsea Linney
 * Jeral Cormier / Botan the Plant-Man
 * Don "the Psycho" Mendoza
 * Jeff "the Invisible" Limbacht
 * Nolle Barret
 * Pete "the Shouter" Sims
 * Kimiyato Hiriyama
 * "Poison Dart" Eddie Ramahacky
 * Bumphrob
 * Yuri Krennt
 * Emille Kayne
 * Victor Nanale
 * Jordan Reddlewick / Sapphire King
 * Justin Hogan

Supporting cast

 * Miriam Flippo
 * Denny Levens
 * Imaki Izuki
 * Erin Flippo
 * Dominick McAuley
 * Tracy McAuley
 * Dolly Malestrom
 * Laurie Pegol
 * Maria Sanmarcos
 * Wilbur Brocklyn
 * Cladeus Hutchins
 * Harold Harvey Henson
 * Hannah P. Henson
 * Ill-fated driver killed by Botan
 * Claire Rauscher
 * Dagmar
 * Khumar Hamilton
 * Lindsay Hamilton
 * Kelsea's unnamed son
 * Andrew Ryan
 * Andrew the Truck Driver
 * Dhalia Lorrice
 * Merdie Dolon
 * Niles Beldon
 * Mulwi Gibson
 * Kathy Rittney
 * Stella Oggles
 * Mike Flippo
 * Jeff Flippo
 * Tom Flippo

Locations

 * Classic Gerosha Universe
 * Earth
 * North America
 * United States
 * Indiana
 * Gerosha
 * Dirbine
 * Latin Town
 * Viron
 * Viron University
 * Hazy Eighties Bowling Alley
 * Phaeleel
 * Metheel

Production
Principal screen-gathering for this version of Ciem was officially completed on October 2nd of 2007. Post-production for the screenshots themselves was finished at 10:30 PM, EST, on Saturday, November 10th, 2007. Unlike previous incarnations, screen resolution for screenshot edits was bumped up to a 500x282 resolution.

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 Zenman's Adult Curvy Default #5 body mesh replacement for adult female Sims. Centileg openings were also not very sophisticated. Candi's mask was a simple two-piece consisting of face paint and a customized hairstyle. Her reflective green eyepieces were adjusted in Photoshop to look the way they do. Most work with her mask revolved around obscuring ears and hiding her mouth. Musaran's suit consisted of a recolor of Brasstex's Mecha Warrior suit from Mod the Sims, to give a "shrew fur" impression. However, graphics problems that Seasons created with the Dell Inspiron 6000's Intel GML 910 series graphics chip prevented many of graphics in the recolor from showing up properly. Therefore, the Musaran suit sometimes appears as being a simple brown rather than having any real complex texture. The helmet was a two-piece of a similar "shrew" recolor of Magneto's helmet with a custom face paint. 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. Couch animations are used less frequently for Sims whose faces are visible and not obscured under masks, as it would have been more difficult to alter their facial expressions in post. Realistic eyes by IcedMango were used as default overrides. Skintones by MissSimGameFan were likewise used to produce a more natural-looking skin for Sims to interact with than the game's defaults. However, low graphics card quality meant that a lot of custom skin details faded away, making characters seem almost as cartoonish as if they were using defaults. Scenes of the city from a bird's eye view are screen grabs from SimCity 4. While most of Dirbine, Viron, and Gerosha are completely fictitious, a few of the buildings are parodies of buildings and locations at Ferris State University. Hallison Hall is an obvious Hallisey Hall stand-in. Likewise, the Scarr Building for the Starr Building. Even Viron University's clock tower is inspired by the real life Ferris State clock tower. Other locations are loosely modeled after their equivalents in real life.

Many of the titles used in Ciem use the Windows system font Copperplate Gothic Bold, as this font closely resembles a centipede in the body structure of the characters. The official Ciem logo is actually a modification of Copperplate with legs added, dubbed "Copperplate Centipede." This new font only exists currently as raster, and is not a font available for download. The credits page for Ciem features an italicized version of Copperplate Gothic Bold. Thematic font preference for Ciem is inspired by the fact that the Spider-Man film franchise uses a special font for most of its titles.

Special features
The story comes bundled with four "special features," which are one-page documents describing certain aspects of the development of the story. The features are as follows:

Music
Main article: Music For and Inspirational to Ciem

Music that played on the credits page was inspired by the Sony compilation album Music from and Inspired by Spider-Man. In the compilation of songs, selections are references to or parodies of either artists or music styles in the Spider-Man film soundtrack mentioned above. The title is a parody on the idea of rock artist compilations for films, which works by reversing the relationship of music and production. Music For is not commercially available, but was accessible as a playlist on Project Playlist's website for a time.

Critical reception
Prior to release, Ciem received mixed reviews from critics. According to on critic, the plot reads "like a soap opera on LSD," claiming that characters are too frequently confronted with bizarre, otherworldly, extreme situations. Members of the His House Ministries group on the campus of Ferris State declared that the story was "intense," remarking that the plot was very complicated and that the characters were, to say the least, "interesting." According to Slovakian user HannahSpring of the Sims 2 Community Forums, the story made "very effective use of custom content." Overall, it received positive reviews in spite large criticism of its graphics issues.

Forum performance
The Mod The Sims Social release of Ciem garnered 71 views from October 11th to October 20th of 2008, in spite not being posted in its entirety. It faced stiff competition in its opening weeks from popular titles such as Ksnyatin Point, Starting a New Life, Noir Arachni, Back to Love, and When Cliques Collide.

While not the top overall story, Ciem did claim the top title of science-fiction stories for the site. By the time Ciem was moved to the Completed Stories subforum on December 11th of 2008, it had garnered over 500 views; a modest amount given the lack of popularity of sci-fi entries on MTS Social. The story later received around 600 views by the 21st of December. It was self-rated as three stars, since the JPG data quality was compromised by hardware compatibility issues.

As of October 4th of 2009, Ciem ranked as the 28th most-viewed completed story in the entire history of MTS Social's archives. By January 4th of 2020, archives on Mod The Sims showed it to have gathered a total of 36,785 views during its forum shelf life run.

Ratings controversy
The story has been the subject of some debate concerning its rating. At, the story implies itself to be in PG-13 territory. While considered appropriate by HystericalParoxysm of Mod the Sims, this claim was disputed briefly by the user BoolPropped of the same community. For release on that site's storytelling forum, the story underwent required edits to remove unnecessary Musaran murder spree scenes; and to tone down the implied racist and xenophobic attitudes of Andrew the Truck Driver.

HystericalParoxysm further argued that Ciem would be comfortably within the specifications of a PG-13 film rating. Citing entries of her own from DemusedSims, she made the case that the implied sex in Ciem is "easily tame enough for PG-13." In the #Social channel of Sims 2 Community Live Chat, others implied that cropping of images such that nothing below Candi's collarbone was visible in chapter 18's "topless" scene suggested that the story could even earn a PG rating, based only on that issue. However, the dialog about the consequences of sex in the story led to some doubt. Showing a clip from DemusedSims, HystericalParoxysm demonstrated that "so long as nipples, genitals, and butt cracks are obscured, almost anything else is admissible as PG-13." This means that nothing in Ciem was considered too sexually explicit for Mod the Sims. Mike19 and BoolPropped, the latter of which was a moderator of the story forums, both agreed with HystericalParoxysm's verdict regarding sexual themes.

Since there is almost no offensive language in Ciem, the next topic of discussion was the violence. Only BoolPropped had any issue with the story's violence content, and argued that the death of a child in a bombing, even if off-camera, was too disturbing for PG-13. She also complained against the number of pregnant women who are attacked by the villains throughout the story. While the attacks on fictional species was considered okay, the implications that certain characters were racist or misogynist was cause for concern. Uncertainty came with the inconsistency of standards in the MPAA, and that Ciem is a machinomic rather than a film, leading to subjective interpretation of criteria.

Arguments in favor of the story receiving a rating of instead of a  included the absence of on-camera nipples or genitalia, language being very mild, and most of the gruesome deaths occurring off-camera.

Meanwhile, the story almost got a higher rating due to the number of times that villains target pregnant women. Erin being shot multiple times with an automatic assault rifle further pushed controversy regarding the rating. The story was also scrutinized for containing: A mermaid being suffocated and murdered in oxygen-deprived water, numerous implied decapitations, LGBT suicides, a mutilated corpse of a woman depicted as being half-buried in the snow, a man being bloodily crushed by a tree that grows around him rapidly, an implied pedophile threatening a small child with a gun, a serial rapist alluding to anal sex while assaulting women with poisoned darts, an invisible man threatening a woman with a guillotine, a man being burned alive, violent electrocutions, animal-like stingers from Ciem attacking villains, several characters' implied racist tendencies, and a character with Down's syndrome.

By a narrow margin, Ciem was ruled a PG-13-style story by HystericalParoxysm. It nearly scored an R rating when reviewed by BoolPropped. As a result, Ciem was scheduled for submission to Mod The Sims, but on condition that the racist characters were toned down. Additional advice from HystericalParoxysm was that the story should be flagged as being approved by her, to avoid conflict with BoolPropped not deeming the story appropriate. Had the story failed examination and been bumped into the "R" category, the official DRS rating would have been raised to, which would have made Ciem the first DSHW from Dozerfleet Comics to receive that rating (a rating later bestowed on Blood Over Water and Purge-Flare: Stickin' It to Pencil.)  This would have required that the story be submitted to the adults-only Sexy Sims website, where it would have likely gotten less attention.

Distribution
On October 10th, 2008, Ciem was submitted to the Mod The Sims for approval in the Sims Stories section of that site. Approval arrived on October 13th, and the notice was received around 12:15 AM EDT. Completion of MTS Social syndication occurred at 2:57 AM EST on December 11th, 2008. That same hour, the official story status was changed from "Sci-Fi" to "Completed." Ciem was published in DSHW format on a WebCD in February of 2009. The story pages for DSHW were fully converted to HTML at 1:33 AM EST on Friday, January 2nd of 2009. Documentaries were added to the project on January 20th of 2009, around 1:15 AM EST. (Therefore, on a trivia note, the project was considered to have been finished in the twilight of George W. Bush's presidency.) On November 25th, the story was syndicated on The Dozerfleet Forum, mostly through copy-pasting of its syndication at MTS Social. It was listed as complete at 2:55 AM EST on December 11th, 2008, when the End Credits were added as a reply to Chapter 32's thread.

Trivia

 * Originally, the title for this work was Ciem: The Human Centipede. A name change was granted it in 2010, to avoid confusion with Tom Six's Human Centipede series.
 * The edit for Mod The Sims made several revisions, to better secure its PG-13 equivalency.
 * Candi's discussion with Renaud and Elle in the pharmacy was removed completely. In the DSHW, it is merely shortened.  The full original version was included in the deleted scenes section.
 * Dagmar and Claire's death scenes were removed.
 * Musaran's rampage through the Hallison Hall was shortened.
 * The clock tower deaths were omitted.
 * Kelsea Linney's son was edited out of her suicide bombing of the Levens family's house.
 * The mermaid killing scene was omitted.
 * Andrew the truck driver's anti-Mexican sentiments toward Maria were toned down.
 * Mention of Patsy Fatone, Harold Harvey Henson, Hannah P. Henson, and Mack Bern was left out. Only Terry Silverberg and Darci Lane were shown in Chapter 25 concerning Ciem's TV coverage.
 * Jeral Cormier was given the name of "Botan the Plant-Man" in this early version, as it was unknown by Dozerfleet staff at the time that "Botan" was a name used in plenty of other contexts - including a brand of rice candy. His alias was later revised to "Arbustrombre," which also helped prevent him from having name trademark issues with Samuel "Plant-Man" Smithers over at Marvel.
 * He was put in the story partially out of a desire to play around with the PlantSim life state included in The Sims 2: Seasons.