what's something you'd like to see more of on royal simblr?
Great question, me! There's a number of things I'd love to see more often in the royal simblr community, such as:
More non-western influences and royals. European monarchies are the most accessible to English-speaking westerners, but in the modern day, most monarchical systems exist in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. I can only think of a few royal Simblrs that are meant to have non-Western settings--I'm sure there are more that I'm not aware of, so I'd love recommendations on that front!
More stylistic diversity. @warwickroyals touched on this in her answer to this question, but there is a prevailing style for women on royal simblr, which is very classically feminine with a lot of dainty features and soft pastels. I'd love to see more people try to differentiate their characters a bit more in terms of silhouette and personal style. I think there were some royal simblr fashion police a few years ago who sent rude messages to people who broke "the rules" of royal dress, and I think that's had a bit of a stifling effect on the community. Even if you give your royals strict dress codes, I think there's a lot of room to play around and experiment within those parameters. For example, I was actually watching that Prince Philip doc produced by the royal family after his death, and I was struck by how distinctly all the women dressed. Princess Anne was in jeans and a blazer, Zara Tindall was wearing a sleek skirt suit, Beatrice and Eugenie were wearing flowy floral dresses...there's a lot of ways to be polished and stylish while still expressing individual style, so I'd love to see some of that on simblr.
More diversity, just in general. I'm not going to pretend I'm not also guilty of this, but royal simblr is very white, very able-bodied, very cisgender and heterosexual, very thin, and very conventionally beautiful by western standards. There's no reason why made-up countries with made-up histories should follow all the patterns and prejudices of the real world, so it'd be nice to see more of a range of types. I love my beautiful, icy brunettes as much as the next person (you will pry Rosalind from my cold, dead hands) but it'd be great to see more representation of different types of people.
More interesting men. This is one that's a lot more subjective, but I feel like there is a general tendency toward blandness when it comes to male characters on royal simblr. Speaking very broadly, the menfolk tend to be either irredeemable dumpster creatures OR perfect husbands and fathers who wait patiently for their "messy" love interests to realize that he's the man of their dreams. I don't think there's anything wrong with either of these things in a vacuum (and there's tons of stories that I really enjoy that make use of those archetypes), but I feel like there are some missed opportunities for more interesting and dynamic male characters, especially as love interests. For me personally, it's hard to get invested in a romance where one or both parties is certifiably Nice (tm) without any other defining character traits.
Anyway, all this to say that these are really broad trends, and I'm sure you could cite strong counterexamples for each OR point out places where I've fallen into the same patterns. But in general, those are the community-wide tropes that I think could use the most refreshing.
