laurademelza

[laurademelza]

[laurademelza]

Popped into my other main world, Pembray, and the game loaded with some fantastic golden light

[laurademelza]

[laurademelza]

I love Northeney

[laurademelza]

[laurademelza]

One of the things I've been very occupied with whilst on my Sims break is real life gardening.

I used to only be able to do Sims gardening only due to a debilitating condition, so I lived out my gardening fantasies through the game. I never thought I would be able to garden.

Now thanks to a new medicine I can garden. Never lose hope in developments in medicine!

[laurademelza]

With TheSweetSimmer's Romantic Interactions, if one of your sims is shorter (Hemlock is shorter than his fiancée Carmina), the forehead kiss becomes a nose kiss 🥹

[laurademelza]

I return with Northeney!

[laurademelza]

Feels like I haven't opened my Sims 3 game in about 2 centuries but it's only been 4-5 months. Forgot how to get Reshade to work so using the native Nvidia thing. Going around random worlds I've downloaded while I figure out what I was doing back in March to make Northeney not have a memory crash...

This alien swamp world is called Qornenthus and has no roads or lots

[laurademelza]

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.

it’s a longing.

that we build worlds where our people don’t just appear, but belong.

[laurademelza]

Catching up on Tag Games

Lovely @ts3-rauh tagged me in a couple things the past weeks while I have been a bit inactive here, but I did not want them to be unanswered! First was about what song(s) are in my head (Rauh's post here). Usually I have a whole playlist of songs stuck in my head but lately I haven't had too many, just this one:

Second was about non-sims hobbies (Rauh's post) and this one makes more sense to post about as they are the reason I am inactive here right now! I very much go into phases with my hobbies and completely hyperfixate on one or two at a time and these cycle to include:

Art - this is what is consuming me right now! I attend a pottery class weekly, and do watercolours and pastel works on my own or with friends. I also love to study art history and see the artworks of others too.

Art Supplies - Technically related but for me this is very much a separate, additional hobby as I get extremely into collecting, organizing, and cataloguing my art supplies, including fountain pens. I have devoted way too much brain space to pigments. For Rauh if you are reading this, I have just bought some very beautiful Rosa Gallery watercolours from UA! 💙💛

Video games in general. I love all sorts but especially story based games (Elder Scrolls - got distracted with new Oblivion!, Baldur's Gate 3, Dreamfall Series, LA Noire), other simulation games like Planet Zoo, and strategy games (Civ series, CK3, Tropico)

Interior design and gardening - I hate cleaning and tidying up but really enjoy re-organizing and re-decorating my house and garden. I just bought some new plant pots today, I never would have thought something like that would be so exciting, but I am getting old.

I am not really counting this one since I am not terribly successful at maintaining it, but I am trying to get back into reading again. I am hoping a two-person book club with one of my closest friends will keep me accountable - we are reading Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar - my friend reading the native Spanish and I am reading the English translation (same translator as One Hundred Years of Solitude).

I was also tagged by the amazing @ice-creamforbreakfast for a sims-related tag, so I will see what Sims magic I can conjure up soon, when I eventually load my game again :P

[laurademelza]

Hi, world you svaret you save file for Zavoti? :)

Hiya, since Zavoti is just my edited version of an EA Store World (Sunlit Tides) and I have a pathological fear of being sued by a corporation (shoutout that lady who was sued for $2 million for sharing 24 songs by Goo Goo Dolls and Vanessa Williams), I will not be sharing it unfortunately! I recommend you check out the original Store world, or custom worlds! Here are a few:

Suvadiva Resort by Nilxis here: https://www.tumblr.com/nilxis/58069131371/hi-this-is-my-latest-creation-suvadiva-resort Anju Falls by My Sim Realty: https://www.mysimrealty.com/WORLDS_AnjuFallsReborn.html Oahu by Jasumi: https://thesimscatalog.com/sims3/downloads/worlds/large/oahu/

[laurademelza]

I have been working on this house + daycare for the Treean family in Northeney, but between a lovely trip to Amsterdam, work, and even playing a bit of cheeky TS4 (that keeps getting corrupted), progress has been very slow. But as always with Sims 3, I am enjoying the process!

[laurademelza]

bridgeport

you can’t run a business on passion alone — and Rovenna knew it. so she decided it was time to visit Bridgeport and try to find some investors. she brought a few bottles of her best nectar, a bright smile, and a well-prepared business plan. the only thing missing? the money to grow and proper advertising. first | prev | next

[laurademelza]

[laurademelza]

I love decorating the fronts of houses

[laurademelza]

Me