Atlas ISBI 1: Would You Like to Eat This Lily?

Hello there! If you're a loyal reader of mine (or an occasional reader with a good memory), you may be surprised to see me trying something besides one of my many legacies. I tried something different because sometimes I just need a break from micromanagement, which is my usual play style. Thus, an ISBI was born. I've read some really interesting ones (my fave is The Fallen ISBI by missmiserie, which I crack up reading every time!) and they inspired me to try something outside my wheelhouse as a way to loosen up and also just enjoy the general stupidity of sims. So far, they have not disappointed, and my new ISBI family has become frustratingly, endearingly, dichotomously accepted into the fold of my stories for those times when I just need to only give instructions to one sim and see what the others do. They've become a very enjoyable family for me (when I'm not tugging my hair out at their choices), so let me introduce you . . .

This is my founder - the first torch holder - a young adult by the name of Roman Atlas. If you're not a regular reader of ISBIs, you may be asking, "What does that stand for?" or "What is a torch holder?" or "What's all this business about not controlling sims?" The ruleset I'm using is here and I believe this might be the original rules that explain it better, so check there for the answers to your questions, my friends. The gist is that I will only control one sim per generation and I will chronicle and score their failures and successes, but probably mostly their failures. Scores will be updated at the end of each chapter. Now let's meet Roman.

The theme of this family will be geography, so every child and pet will be named after some geographical feature that you could find on a map somewhere. Roman is kind of the exception to this, although I'm sure someone has named something somewhere 'Roman' instead of 'Rome' but I'm not going to check. Roman himself aspires to be a Painter Extraordinaire, with the personality of neat, creative, and vegetarian. He is a quiet and dutiful sim who can be easygoing but has high standards for himself. We will be having pets in the family (they came out during the first generation, so they won't show up in this chapter yet) because they add to the chaos. I have MCCC and I've raised the cap of the family, but I'm still not going to go over 8 sims, but pets will be in addition to that. I'm not using the Erratic rule or any other special rules for future torch holders, but I will put them up for a vote, further taking things out of my control. Now let's check out where Roman will be starting out.

He's starting Rippling Flats in Newcrest, a nice-sized 40x30 lot with room for growth, but that also is near a playground for future children. Who knows? Maybe some kid will accidentally complete the first tier of Rambunctious Scamp on it someday. That's the dream anyway. Roman is an artsy guy, so his house is full of color, despite his furnishings being pretty cheap. He sure is starting off a lot better than any of my legacy founders.

This is the outside of his little cottage. I don't know what's going on with the roof edges, but I don't like it.

Roman starts his foray into the working world by going into Writing, but this is only for the free computer. He'll be switching to Painting after that. For now, though, he needs to read some to get the promotion that gives that computer.

All of the walkbys were children or teens at first, which was not really conducive to spouse-hunting. Because he wanted to meet someone, Roman introduced himself to Alexander Goth, who remained his only non-family acquaintance for a long, long time.

Apparently the near-playground location hurt him socially, so while waiting for some YAs or adults to wander by, Roman occupies himself earning a bit more money. The ISBIs I've enjoyed have been ones that provide opportunities in the houses for sims to make a fool of themselves rather than tightly regulating everything, so we want plenty of money for stupid, unnecessary toys.

Finally, a YA! Miko Ojo from City Living stops by to grill some fruit, which works out just fine for our vegetarian here. He thanks her for the snack with some conversation. I'm pleased with her being our first female sim to stop by, because I think she's cute, and I also had a guinea pig named Miko in the past, so we can honor Miko the guinea pig, who, spoiler alert, ended up being the smart one of the two Mikos. I knew nothing about Miko's personality at this point because I had never played her or interacted with her before.

Roman: "It's so nice of you to make food I can eat. Here, let me return the favor. Would you like to eat this lily I just pulled out of my back pocket?"
Miko: "Oh, how . . . sweet? You know, I'm full, but thanks."
Roman: "Oh. Well, you wanna come check out my house and hang out?"
Miko: "Yeah, okay."

While chatting up Miko, I noticed the option to "hand food to . . ." and she sure as hell wasn't getting our single apple, so lily it was. Unfortunately, the interaction kept failing, which is too bad, because I really wanted to see her eat that flower.

Miko: "This house looks suspiciously like an early legacy house. I'm not going to get roped into helping to found a legacy, am I?"

I promise you this is not a legacy house.

Miko: "If you say so."

Miko: "Wow, a 'flirt flirt, compliment appearance, rose twice in a row' combo within an hour of meeting? This is definitely a legacy sim."

Miko: "Although he's pretty cute, so maybe I'll just go with it."

Ha! You're trapped now, Miko! This is no legacy ("I am no man!") but you're a part of it nonetheless. Don't worry though, she totally pays me back for this and then some.

I'm trying to generally fulfill Roman's whims when they're not totally stupid, and he rolled this one pretty quickly. Miko moved in right afterwards.

Here's her makeover. Still quirky, but a little more mature.

Miko aspires to be a serial romantic (hah! even if I wanted to help, I can't since she'll be uncontrollable) and is good, a geek, and neat. Hopefully with two neat sims the house won't get too out of control. She's really cute, but I'm a little worried about how her tiny mouth might look on different face combinations. She came in with a level 3 job in the political career. I will always choose to send her to work rather than have her work from home. I didn't look at her skills because it doesn't really matter unless she somehow tops one.

Good girl, Miko. She goes for a non-cooked meal, which is the preferred option for anyone out of my control. She is officially on her own, because besides moving her in and a few things here and there like sending her to the hospital for her eventual pregnancies, it's hands-off from here on out.

She then proceeded to celebrate her good decision-making skills by staring at a bookcase for two hours straight.

While caring for Roman's needs and kind of on autopilot, I accidentally made him eat eggs and bacon, which made him sad. He had made a group meal, so I put the rest away. Interestingly, Miko never ate the leftovers even though she could have, not being a vegetarian herself. She always ate either her own cooking or Roman's veggie dishes.

Miko heads off to her first day in politics. I'm not expecting much without my help, but hopefully she'll bring some money in.

Roman is still so shaken up by eating meat that he's making fruit salad entirely out of apples. Roman, honey, I think there's already a name for that. That's just chunky applesauce.

Roman had a good first day of work, got his promotion and computer, and then switched over to Painting.

The new couple went to the park to celebrate their first day together. It's so romantic to be getting a massage near a child making a mess. What great atmosphere. By the way, if you like this park, it's by me and called Shady Summer Picnic Park (I think?). You can find it by searching for me on the Gallery - I'm 22Taube.

Roman chose this, their second day of knowing each other, as the perfect moment for a proposal. And I highlighted the park bench like a noob, which I JUST noticed, some few months after taking this picture. Grr. Anyway, Miko said yes, as all sensible young women would do in this scenario. Really the only places that proposals are this breezy and casual are the sims and reality television.

In the dark (because that makes for such great pictures, right?), Miko and Roman eloped. Miko is wearing a palette swap of the formal dress she came in, which I am pretending is her native culture's form of a wedding dress, whatever culture she may be from in the weird mishmash of pan-Asian cultures Maxis has constructed for us. This wedding was officiated by a llama topiary.

Llama: *throws confetti* "You may kiss the bride."

Roman instantly had a whim to try for baby, that little go-getter, for 100 points no less, but no dice this time.

Just Miko making me nervous cooking while Roman's at work. My every fiber of my being is screaming 'control her!' but I think it's probably not only fun but healthy for me to ignore that impulse. Healthy for her? We'll see, I guess.

Luckily, she succeeded in making taco casserole . . . for breakfast. Whatever floats your boat, Miko.

With nothing to do, I followed Miko around. She spent hours - HOURS! - cleaning up the accumulation of messes from children on the playground. This was when Parenthood was pretty new, so they hadn't tuned it yet, and there were constantly children coming by and adding to the layers of paint, flour, and chocolate.

She took a break to meet this guy, Vivaan, who was busy making ALL the veggie burgers.

Once the tables were full, he set the plate on the ground and immediately started grilling a new set of veggie burgers. I admire this man's dedication to veggie burgers.

Once Vivaan had met his quota or whatever, neat little Miko cleaned the grill for him. Vivaan left behind no less than six plates of veggie burgers and one plate of grilled corn. Color me impressed.

Then Miko spent a while singing to herself. Luckily, apparently she has some skill - 8 points actually - so she didn't sound terrible.

Roman's first promotion in painting put him in a very silly outfit.

Roman is still wishing for a child, and it really isn't an ISBI until children are really upending the household, so these two try again.

So . . . did it take this time?

Roman: "Holy shit, it looks like my easel is exploding. I better get some shut eye before the hallucinations get worse."

I think confetti is easily confused by small bathrooms.

Miko: "Roman! Roman! You'll never guess what. I'm preggers!"

Roman: "Okay."

He had no real reaction despite consistently rolling a whim to try for baby. Smh.

First aspiration milestone down! Our first points! Yay!

+5

Somehow, Miko managed to get a promotion. Good for her.

This is as exciting as their life is at the moment: mac 'n cheese and TV. Hopefully things get a bit more interesting soon.

It appears likely that that will happen pretty soon, actually! Miko is very close.

Crap. Well, at least it's not the pregnant lady, but Roman is already quite tired, having only gone to bed a little while ago.

I'm not sure Roman even actually woke up for this.

Miko woke up and is upset. Will she fight for her husband's life?

Lol, nope.

Miko: "Sorry, honey. That upset my delicate pregnant bladder."

First fail. Does this count? I guess it does. Damn.

-5

In a surprise twist, Miko decided to get dressed and went to the park to clean up kid messes.

In a not-so-surprise twist, this resulted in her wetting herself. Aaaamd we're in the negative already.

-5

Miko, now filthy, went right back to work on kid messes, letting her own puddle blend in. This is when I realized having a neat spouse and living next to a park constituted a really fundamental flaw in an ISBI.

And so they were unceremoniously dumped in the Windenburg wilderness. Is this cheating? I don't care. It's not even the points. I just don't want to have to see her wet herself over and over and come up with new things to say about it. They'll stay on this lot now.

Miko is still working but heavily pregnant, and she just . . . can't . . . quite . . . find the bed a lot of the time, but at least she's not passing out.

Roman quickly racks up another promotion, probably due to the artistic flair of his flip flops.

This guy really got chewed up and spat back out by Maxis's accessorizing system. How sad.

The remoteness of the Windenburg countryside encouraged Miko to begin using the toilet again.

I can't complain a ton because she does clean up after herself most of the time.

Roman: "How did I get another promotion already? It feels like Miko's been pregnant for five days."

Hmm, I feel that way too but I don't think my pictures are out of order. I started this in August of 2017 and made some notes, but I've sat on the pictures so long that my notes are all I have to depend on.

Shortly after Roman arrives with his promotion, the littlest Atlas is all set to arrive too. I send them off to the hospital.

Roman does the obligatory pre-parental freakout.

He calmed himself down by cleaning desks for a while . . .

. . . but he eventually found the delivery room.

Welcome to baby Georgia! In Sims 2, I had a 10 child challenge founder named Georgia who I really liked. She was a redhead, and I hope this Georgia will be too, but we'll see. Georgia's birth puts us back to zero.

+5

Roman is autonomously a really good dad, and that's a good thing for Georgia because Miko fed her exactly once in her whole infancy.

Georgia: "Ahhhhh! Stop touching me with your clippy hands!"

However, that diaper change was what Georgia needed. Miko celebrated her competency by standing in front of the bassinet for a few hours. Is Miko really this dumb or is our house just not interesting enough? I'm hoping the second, so I added a chess table to start with.

Roman: "You see, Miko? The bottle goes in the screaming end."
Miko: *turns slightly and stares at the wall for several more hours now*

Next to standing around stupidly and cleaning, Miko's next favorite hobby is TV. We definitely need some more diversions in this house.

Miko got another promotion to level five of politics, but I suspect she'll be stuck here forever because there are now promotion requirements that I can't fulfill in her one action, so it's not even worth trying.

Roman is becoming so adept at painting that he doesn't even need a painting/writing implement to create a mathematical diagram. He just uses his mind. woooOOOOOoooooo

This represents the achievement of another aspiration milestone.

+5

Miko's secret talent is that she can easily sleep through the screaming of her own child in the same room, a scant few feet away from her.

Georgia cries A LOT. She always needs something, so she's not one of those babies that cry just because, but she is very needy compared to other babies I've had in the game, and Miko is not much help when she's home alone with Georgia.

First bills and . . . hey! Vivaan is our mailman. How's the veggie burger life treating you, Vivaan?

Vivaan: "I miss you guys."

Well, we are emphatically not moving back.

Roman has gotten another promotion (good) and fused with Miko (bad).

They celebrate their eventual separation (oh, and Roman's promotion, I guess) with more cheesy food and TV.

Late that night, Georgia grows up and apparently taught herself to walk, since the game couldn't be bothered to wake up either of her parents. I can already tell she's going to be a cutie.

After a makeover, she's absolutely adorable! I think she'll probably look a lot like Miko - whose mouth she definitely has - but with Roman's coloring, so I'm really happy. Georgia is an independent toddler, which seems like a pretty good trait for her to have considering the family she's been born into.

Now let the true ISBI begin!

Current Score +5
Self Wetting : -5 (x1)   -5
Pass Out : -5 (x1)   -5
Failing School : -5
Negative Traits Earned by NTHs : -5
Accidental Deaths : -10
Fires : -10
Social Worker Visit : -15

Single Birth : +5 (x1)   +5
Twins : +10
Triplets : +15
Any sim in the household completing Any Aspiration Milestones (Child and Adult): +5 (x2)   +10
Any sim in the household completing Aspirations (Child and Adult) : +10
Toddler Skills maxed by NTH toddlers : +5
Skills (Child and Adult) maxed by NTH family members : +10
NTH children (Child and Teen) earning an A in school : +5
Positive Traits Earned by NTHs : +5
NTH sims reaching the top of a career (Teen and YA/A/E) : +10
Randomizing every trait and aspiration for an entire generation : +10
Not using spares' Satisfaction Reward points for an entire generation : +10
Every 100,000 simoleons earned : +20
Immortalizing the Torch-Holder : +5

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, be sure to check out my other, more established legacies and other challenges. I hope you enjoyed the Atlases. I have a few more chapters of pics and notes saved up and I'm still playing them, so there's more to come! This blog is still a work in progress, so I'll be continuing to work on it as well. Check in with me at Boolprop and be on the lookout for a returning SiMania in the next few months. Thanks for stopping by!