can i get political for a sec?
while working on my geography & region logic masterpost, i kept running into something that’s 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: they’re beautiful. but they’re not ours. they weren’t built for those of us who live, love, grieve, and dream in the global south or descend from it. they’re not living, breathing homes. they’re postcards and backdrops to someone else’s 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 ‘spice festivals’ stripped of language and lineage.
my mother is from a region directly referenced in selvadorada. i’d love to place my abuela and primes there, let them grow crops, fall in love, age into legacy. but selvadorada wasn’t built to hold them. only to be visited, looted, photographed, and left behind.
i’m not asking for perfection. i’m asking for possibility; isn’t 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 isn’t a takedown. and i hope it doesn’t come off as whiny or brainrotted by identity politics.
that we build worlds where our people don’t just appear, but belong.
janainaart
kaledo-art
stormborns
gummygunk
blakekathryn
snowghoul
ellievsbear
yousharknotpass
