can i get political for a sec?
while working on my geography & region logic masterpost, i kept running into something thatβs 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: theyβre beautiful. but theyβre not ours. they werenβt built for those of us who live, love, grieve, and dream in the global south or descend from it. theyβre not living, breathing homes. theyβre postcards and backdrops to someone elseβs 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 βspice festivalsβ stripped of language and lineage.
my mother is from a region directly referenced in selvadorada. iβd love to place my abuela and primes there, let them grow crops, fall in love, age into legacy. but selvadorada wasnβt built to hold them. only to be visited, looted, photographed, and left behind.
iβm not asking for perfection. iβm asking for possibility; isnβt 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 isnβt a takedown. and i hope it doesnβt come off as whiny or brainrotted by identity politics.
that we build worlds where our people donβt just appear,Β butΒ belong.
baratheonpilled
prguitarman
blakekathryn
kaledo-art
