can i get political for a sec?
while working on my geography & region logic masterpost, i kept running into something thatโs been obvious for a while: there is no sims 4 world that represents any culture below the northern hemisphere. at least not without exoticizing, flattening, or othering it, that is.
selvadorada, sulani, tomarang: theyโre beautiful. but theyโre not ours. they werenโt built for those of us who live, love, grieve, and dream in the global south or descend from it. theyโre not living, breathing homes. theyโre postcards and backdrops to someone elseโs adventure.
i see simmers building entire saves around resistance, diaspora, reparation. i admire them. i want to be one of them. but i also want more than what the game hands me. more than vacation-only worlds, mystified jungles, lootable temples, or โspice festivalsโ stripped of language and lineage.
my mother is from a region directly referenced in selvadorada. iโd love to place my abuela and primes there, let them grow crops, fall in love, age into legacy. but selvadorada wasnโt built to hold them. only to be visited, looted, photographed, and left behind.
iโm not asking for perfection. iโm asking for possibility; isnโt that the point of the sims? for culture to be more than aesthetic. for queerness to exist as resistance, community, and context, not just a neutral sandbox function. for our stories to be written in. not added as selling points.
this isnโt a takedown. and i hope it doesnโt come off as whiny or brainrotted by identity politics.
that we build worlds where our people donโt just appear,ย butย belong.
izzy806
origamiaround
ellievsbear
turnnoffyourmind
