Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it,
follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.
Our rules have been updated and given
their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!
Posts
The problem is, these are the four people who bother to show up for school board elections.
And the kids mostly dress up as superheroes or princesses, rather than ghosts or goblins.
Personally I'm not bothered either way. It's nice to have an alternative at the church, but I got this box of Halloween decorations at home that I have to put to good use, and a bunch of neighborhood kids to try and scare at my front door.
Non diced board games right?
It's more because they're almost invariably on the school board and it's hard to ignore them.
Everyone picks Europe and concentrates on Transylvania?
Vlad the Impaler all round.
Oh there's dice. And sometimes... *whispers* they play cards..... and not just Uno!
SCANDALOUS!
Do they wear buttons too?!
#FreeScheck
#FreeSKFM
Also I thought Thanksgiving was the US harvest festival, Halloween is the oh shit the sun is disappearing and if we don't appease it it will fade forever!
On the topic of Christians feeling uncomfortable, GREAT you get to feel how I do the other 364 days of the year when I see the word in god we trust on the money I use.
Fuck I went to the wrong schools in the 90's.
Yeah, her school's pretty awesome, even if I think their dress code is pretty nonsensical.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
Hm.
The "Pagan" Harvest Festival is sometime near the end of September I believe.
Why would you feel uncomfortable with money with meaningless words on them? I don't feel uncomfortable just because I disagree with it. I don't get the whole "we should feel uncomfortable and be angry and scared about people who are different than us" thing.
BRAWL: 1160-9686-9416
Doesn't Australia not celebrate it or something?
http://troublethinking.wordpress.com (Updated Wed) http://twitter.com/#!/Durandal4532
That third line down is very interesting.
I don't want to rant against the Christians here since I'm well aware that most of them aren't crazy, but I could easily make the argument that Christians shouldn't have the right to remove a large, popular subset of monsters from children's costumes because they don't like it. Sorry Christians, but witches, ghosts, and demons have very little to do with your particular religion, nor are they directly against it in any way. These things are common in almost every culture, and we dress up like them because we like to explore scary things in a safe environment.
That's what Halloween always meant to me. A chance to face my fears or take on their role for a day. I think kids are at their healthiest, mentally, when they are given free reign to explore all sides of humanity. For every day a kid imagines himself as Superman and runs around making wooshing noises with his arms out, there will be another that he pretends to be a mobster or a vampire. This is normal, or at least it always was to me. Halloween is/was a great outlet for this, but it feels like it's slowly having its balls clipped.
I'm trying not to get too worked up about it though, as we're already at the point that I probably wouldn't be allowed to celebrate it the way I'd want to. The last time I did anything special for Halloween was at my parents house shortly before I left for college. We had a very creepy dead guy right outside the front door (something like a scarecrow with a zombie mask), and I had the head rigged to a motor from an RC car. Whenever a kid came up to the door who looked old enough to take it, I'd flip the switch so the head would fly up and dangle in front of them. The crappy motor even provided a horrible screeching noise.
Now that I have a good job and will soon have access to a house of my own, I'd love to go nuts with that and rig the whole walkway with mild jump scares and creepy imagery. Naturally I'd also have the best candy for those that dared come to the door :winky:.
Nowadays I'd probably get sued as soon as some kid wets his costume though, so I'll have to content myself with staying inside and playing horror games.
EDIT: I'm kind of curious how these people would react if a kid dressed up as Ezekiel's description of a cherubim.
The trick or treat thing is not really done by kids in Australia but we will take any excuse for a piss up so there will be plenty of sexy witches and nurses and drunken zombies and super heroes this weekend in Australia.
The many-eyed-blind-your-face-off-covered-in-wings Cherub or the head-of-a-lion/eagle/man/bull conglomeration?
It seems like a better idea to not require participation than to outright ban it.
Banned as in the kids are not allowed to wear them? Do kids not stand up against this stuff anymore? When I was in school the old "Coed Naked" shirts were banned, so for a week almost every one of us wore them to school. They started out making us turn the shirt inside out, but eventually gave up when they realized we wouldn't let up.
I mean, what could the school really do if everyone showed up dressed as witches?
This is mostly because they see it exactly this way: a pagan ritual that threatens their strange little highly conservative Anglican brains.
Also the New Zealand Anglican church's policies are about three decades behind most of the rest of said church. The things I learn from having a family incredibly tied to the inner workings of Anglicanism.
I grew up in New Zealand and this is completely contrary to my experiences. Halloween was very popular. I never met a kid who wasn't allowed to dress up. We always got trick-or-treaters. Adult Halloween parties were common.
Considering that only about 15% of the population is Anglican, and I wouldn't characterise it as a particulary conservative country (probably more to the reverse, in fact), what makes you think your experiences are the norm in New Zealand rather than stemming from your family being close to the inner workings of Anglicanism, and therefore naturally moving in conservative Anglican circles?
You may be surprised to learn that Halloween isn't a religion!
Actual Play: Mage: the Awakening - At the Edge of All Things
This country was founded on strong Halloween principles, and I am tired of elitists trying to take Halloween out of the classroom.
Do zombies count as pagan? They can have my zombie outfit when they pry it from my cold, undead hands!
I'm doing Movember for Men's Health! Donate if you can - thanks.
Lets not forget ghouls, since really zombies are probably closer to ghouls than vampires.
Aren't ghouls shape-shifting demons/genies? Whereas vampires were corpses that return to life to eat the flesh and/or blood of the living.