#2premades

ohh. ohhhhh ok HERE I GO. this is gonna be long. welcome to the dina caliente apologism zone

im going to focus on ts2 dina because, lbr, ts3&ts4 dinas dont have anything outside their given personality traits, no fiction behind them, no substance, + they’re whitewashed anyway so

as a fictional character, dina has at least two fundamental “sides” to her: how she was intended to be by her author (eaxis), and how she is being interpreted by fans (me in particular, since those are my opinions!). i could ignore what eaxis intended her to be (as i usually do in my gameplays at least), but i think its important to understand where eaxis fucked her up. there is also a specific side to her as a playable sim, who behaves accordingly to their personality and aspirations. so im gonna talk about the 3 dina calientes: eaxis lore dina, “gameplay” dina, and my own headcanon dina!

eaxis werent exactly slick when they coded dina as one of pleasantview’s villains (or at least a red herring?). the way they wrote her in ts2: a young pretty (sexy, have you seen that cleavage??) fortune aspiration lady, who may or may not be involved in legendary icon bella’s disappearance, because look at her wanting to bone poor old “widowed” (or is he?) mr money bag mortimer goth. caliente family bio says it: “is their interest in Mortimer physical... or fiscal?”, and by the way it is phrased, and by the way caliente family picture (the one where dina is thinking about marriage and, obviously, money) is, we know we are supposed to think she IS involved in bella’s disappearance, because she always wanted those old dollars. upon further inspection we learn not only that calientes are related to an alien (which is an obvious red flag in context of bella’s story), but that dina also was married to ANOTHER old guy in the past, and that guy was no other but bella’s deceased brother! total gold digger-slash-possible-bella-murderer alert (not to mention that the pop up message in caliente’s house literally says “dina is digging for gold”)! so this is pretty much how eaxis wrote her. since they weren’t writing a complete story, but creating a setting for a gameplay without a plot, only they know exactly what they intended to say, but i interpret it this way, and i feel like a lot of players would agree with me. and thats why when i was 10 to 14 yo i really disliked dina! she’s a golddigging bitch who’s responsible for bella’s disappearance, and wants to fuck a mustache grandpa because cash money! oh no! just like eaxis intended. btw eaxis’ obsession with giving ts2 women fortune aspiration and making them villains/bad mothers (whereas Good Women(tm) have family aspiration most of the time lol) is..... yeah. basically what I’m saying is: dina is either supposed to be an (almost) innocent red herring, which is unlikely, or just a lazily-written pleasantview villain, and eaxis are cowards for yet again perpetuating their beloved trope of evil fortune asp lady.

but here, when dealing with dina, we have another thing about her: her personality points. since ts2 doesn’t have a plot, and can only use limited resources to tell a story (bios, memories, family pictures), almost every detail counts, and then why is dina, the bad guy, so playful and nice? some may argue that she just pretends to be nice to fuck rich guys, but is it that deep tho.... this detail adds complexity to dina’s character to many players i think. if we look at dina as a sim and not a character, she’s much more pleasant than her sister, than bella (kinda), than cassandra... yeah, she’s a fortune sim, but (just as every fortune sim) she rolls wants to get a job and probably has job-related ltw. she’s lazy and sloppy, but it only adds to her charm as a lady who looks like she would poison you, but is actually goofy and fun (playful+nice). and THATS my interpretation of her when i play the caliente household (because i usually dont come up with a plot to play with)! she is in love with mortimer (because she canonically is), wants to get a job, is nice to everybody (UNLIKE NINA), is friends (good acquaintances) with poor single mom brandi, and is a pretty good person.

next up im gonna tell you what i personally like to imagine and what my big headcanon is, so this is going under the cut