Talk:Hellmouth Beautification Society

Hi! I'm going to make some changes to this page based on certain underlying messages I'm not a big fan of. Just leaving this here so there's a paper trail, as I know there are lots of beams attached to this lore. I have brought this up in beams spaces in the past and we have had some really great discussions about it.

The gist of it is that I feel uncomfortable with implications that the desert has to be 'made beautiful'. I know it probably isn't that deep, but there are a lot of colonialist histories of trying to turn desert spaces into places that are more suitable for western sensibilities - generally without consideration of the environment or indigenous people with rights to that land! I'm just changing certain sentences to change the vibes of the beautification society from 'bringing non-desert plants into the desert' to 'making sure that native plants can survive the changes that came with the Hellmouth opening'.

I'm assuming that this won't be contentious, but feel free to get in touch if you have any issues (im dasyuridae on discord too). Cheers o7

Sup! I was an original author on this page. The name "Beautification Society" definitely has Implications, i.e. of a very formal organisation with distinctly Victorian/Colonialist Vibes. Like a lot of my early law fingerprints it was definitely putting a jokingly-lawful-evil kind of pompous spin on things, but I'm happy to see changes to the pages to clarify what it means to distance it from said implication.

I definitely didn't envision the group as trying to bring European flowers and trimmed hedges and manicured lawns to Hellmouth (or trying to create plant abominations a la Little Shop of Horrors to add to the "Hostile Environment").

I like to hope the Society primarily works to raise native plants that were already in the region but may struggle due to the Hellmouth being the Hellmouth. This could include breeding programmes and/or propagation of species that, when cared for, grow well - as well as more preservation work for rare/delicate species at risk of extinction.

As you probably know I'm in the habit of hyperfixating on rare endemic plants of eastern Utah, so wouldn't mind seeing (and writing articles up for!) an IRM added for Completely Normal Rare In The Material Plane Plants Being Managed By The Society.

Yeah! I knew it wouldn't have been intended in that way but I'm overly sensitive about that sort of thing for a bunch of reasons 😅 thanks for the reply schazer!