the sims 4 timeline MAKES SENSE and i'm tired of pretending that it doesn't

we all know that the sim-verse follows this timeline: the sims 3, the sims 1, the sims 2 and the sims 4.
the devs have previously stated that the sims 4 is set in an alternate timeline, and a lot of people have been saying that it's just an excuse because they didn't wanna bother making lore for the sims 4. i big fat disagree, and here's why...

time travel is canon in the sim-verse - we know that for a FACT.
how? well, you just gotta do a little bit of digging in the sims 3.

https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Don_Lothario#The_Sims_3_

first of all, don lothario can be found in riverview in the sims 3. he's an adult, and his bio reads "don woke up one morning in a whole new world. he remembers stepping onto a teleporter, several women laughing, then nothing else until he found himself here...".

it's unclear who the women are - my theory is that it's the caliente sisters (but that's irrelevant for this discussion). this proves that time travel is in-fact canon in the sim-verse, because don clearly got sent back in time.

bella and mortimer are obviously children in the sims 3's sunset valley, therefore don should logically be a child, too! but he's not - he's an adult.

now, do you wanna know WHY the sims 4 being on an alternate timeline makes a lot of sense?

WELL!!!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Sims3/comments/t0e6n4/isnt_this_suspicious/

a book titled "murder in pleasantview" by alexander goth can be found and purchased in the sims 3! alexander isn't even born yet, and, i mean, his parents are literally still children! so how does this make any sense?

well, my theory is as follows...

bella never returned home after being abducted. we know that, because bella can be found dead in lunar lakes in the sims 3. she died of old age, but how she ended up there, i have no idea and is a whole other discussion. we know that she was stuck in strangetown with amnesia and was unable to leave - possibly she got abducted again and dropped off in lunar lakes.

when alex got older, he wanted to prevent his mother from being abducted. so he built a time machine (again, we know they're canon) and tried going back in time to, possibly, the night she was on don lothario's deck. but something went wrong, and he ended up too far back in the past, before his parents were even born. i assume he couldn't find his way back and couldn't fix the time machine, so, still trying to complete his goal, he wrote the book "murder in pleasantview", hoping it would give pleasantview a bad rep and prevent bella and mortimer from moving there in the future.

well, it worked; bella and mortimer never moved to pleasantview, and instead, moved to willow creek and lived happily ever after.

that's my theory at least, but i do think it makes sense. but yes, i do think they could've done a better job of conveying the fact that the sims 4 is on an alternate timeline. possibly by adding other differences in lore aside from just bella being alive. i mean, a chain reaction must've been caused, right?

anyway, let me know what you think in the replies :)

EDIT:

i just want to point out that i personally dislike the "alternate timeline" of the sims 4. i wish the sims 4 was set 25 years after the sims 2 with mortimer being dead, alexander and don being gone (bcs they're both in the past), and cassandra trying to piece her life together after losing her entire family, and maybe her being pregnant.

i also want to point out that i'm not excusing ea's laziness when it comes to the execution of the actual lore within gameplay. a lot of the lore and the sims present and their ages don't make sense and they can't be explained, because the sims team are just stupid. i was only trying to explain the "alternate timeline" theory.

in theory, an alternate timeline could've been really good if it was made well. sadly, it wasn't.