Aurora Goth

𝔚𝔯𝔞𝔱𝔥

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.

it’s a longing.

because as a granddaughter of diaspora, mixed, white passing and all, i want to and will. and yeah, extractivist and all, it was fun. maybe even a product of its time. but it’s been over a decade, and there’s still no sign of moving past that kind of rep.

New Survey Asks Players About Free Updates to The Sims 4

The Sims team just shared a new survey on their official Discord channel asking players about future free game updates to The Sims 4.

The questionaire is available in five different languages.

Sul Sul Simmers! We’re currently conducting a survey about future The Sims 4 content and would love your feedback! English https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/8398803/ce6a9da2c44d Español https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/8398803/775e0ff4abd8 Deutsch https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/8398803/6985517c4f2f Français https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/8398803/b2f193e4ccaf Português Brasileiro https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/8398803/351ed9c58a29

The questions are mostly about representation in the game, asking players for their feedback and suggestions they may have to improve how The Sims 4 can reflect players’ lives.