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It has always bothered me that Sims do not visibly sustain reactions to the conversations they have. The mood system pushes one set of animations at a time, which leaves very little room for nuance. A Sim in a Happy mood will get insulted, then go right back to smiling like nothing happened. There aren't even meaningful autonomy changes afterward.

Social Reactions fixes that.

What This Mod Does

Social Reactions decouples animations from your Sim’s current mood.

Instead of every Sim snapping back to whatever their mood says they should look like, Sims can now pull from six distinct reaction states:

Fine
Bored
Tense
Sad
Angry
Embarrassed

Each state has its own facial expression and body language. A Sim who is bored by a conversation will visibly look and act bored. A Sim who gets insulted may tighten up and look displeased, or, depending on their traits, go straight to anger. Other Sims in the group who witness an argument may look visibly tense or uncomfortable.

Mean Interaction Improvements

The biggest overhaul is to mean interactions.

When a Sim is mean to another Sim, the game now keeps score. The aggressor's animations will reflect their hostility and, for a brief period of time, the aggressor will also lose their desire to be friendly toward the Sim they were mean to.

The Sim on the receiving end may:

Tighten their expression
Look visibly angry
Look visibly upset
Stay composed

Their response depends on their traits and their relationship with the aggressor. A Sim who dislikes the aggressor may get angry. A Sim who cares about them may look visibly hurt instead.

The target also cools off toward the aggressor for a short while. During that time, they will no longer autonomously want to be friendly with them, although both Sims can still argue or trade mean socials.

Note: Idle Chat is blocked within groups containing both an aggressor and a victim.

Recovery

A Sim’s facial expression, body language, and autonomy will usually recover within about 30 Sim minutes. They may recover sooner if they share a positive interaction with the aggressor or have a positive interaction with someone else.

If the aggressor keeps antagonizing them, the situation escalates.

A Sim who has been repeatedly insulted will reject all of the aggressor’s friendly advances and become more likely to fire mean or argumentative socials back at them for a short while.

Recovery can be sped up if the aggressor apologizes and the apology is accepted.

Social Group Reactions

Sims within a social group also respond to arguments in their own way.

A Sim watching a tense exchange may simply look uncomfortable. They may stay out of it entirely. Or, depending on their relationships, they may get involved.

Sims in a social group can react based on who they care about and who they dislike:

A friend or loved one of the wronged Sim may become tense or defensive.
A Sim who dislikes the aggressor may react negatively toward them.
A Sim who already dislikes the target may pile on with mean socials of their own.
A Sim with no strong connection may simply stay uncomfortable and avoid getting involved.

The goal is to make social conflict feel less isolated. Arguments no longer happen in a vacuum. Other Sims in the conversation can notice, react, and take sides.

Compatibility & Download

⚠️ If you use sims4me's Less Facial Overaction, delete it and download this alternate version of Social Reactions. It merges both what their mod does with the parts my mod needs.

⚠️ This mod will conflict with any mod that overrides the following Animation files:

Emotions_lowIntensity
Soc_NT_AskQuestion_Answers
soc_friendly_NT_askQuestion_Friendly
Emotions_highIntensity
FacialOverlays
Soc_Chat_Talk
Listen

This mod was made possible by Sims 4 Studio, Tuning Builder, and STBL Studio.