Random Questions Thread

He looks exhausted to me, or maybe "studied out".

I'd say, "He fell asleep studying at the table, using his arms as a pillow."

Re: Glasgow grin

Depends on the extent of the damage you're talking about. If the muscles were suitably undamaged then theoretically there would be no difference. Though over the long term if the injury continued to hurt the subject, they would probably speak softer and de-emphasize certain sounds that would involve working those muscles.

A good exercise could be to go through phonemes and try to keep your mouth shape and size as uniform as possible, and if you can't then try to make a sound similar that doesn't require excessive mouth manipulation.

I'm writing a character, is this an example of Deconstructed Character Archetype, which is the new character archetype of the Atheist President of the United States.

Joseph C. Dawson is the Atheist president of the United States. Despite his noble goals of a Atheist nation, he is actually a Deconstruction of atheism. After he becomes the president, he starts by persecuting religious people and forcing them into Atheism. When it was clearly shown that the religious people did not want their religion to be changed, he basically sends attacks them and sends them to death camps. During his regime, he enforced horrifying laws, made propaganda posters about Atheism and kept the atheist population increasing and ignorant of his actions.

This quote summarizes him

• "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good."

How is that a deconstruction and not just a straw atheist bad guy?

Not a deconstruction. That trope is misused rather commonly. A deconstruction would be to display what effects a trope would have realistically. Most atheists don't want religious persecution so a deconstruction that is not.

Is Atheist President even a trope or character archetype in the first place?

Did you actually have a question, or were you just doing an impression of a vastly less-eloquent Jonathan Edwards?

There aren't enough coherent patterns of how that scenario is played to call it a trope. To me that example is a combination between President Evil and Straw Character or Hollywood Atheist.

as someone who's agnostic, I'm very off put by this. so you're telling me that if I'm an atheist, I hate everything that has to do with God and wish death upon those who worship him? this isn't a deconstruction, this is flat out unrealistic and stupid.

@Huthman: you should interact more often with actual atheists. Preferably in a non-aggressive or confrontational way.

What would really be a Deconstruction of Atheism and the Deconstructed Character Archetype of Athiest President?

Not sure you can have one. Largely because Atheist President doesn't really exist as a trope.

as a matter a fact, i have yet to come across the idea so yes, an atheist president is not trope, just a concept.

Well. To play it fully realistically, you have to keep in mind that the US is not only one of the more religious countries in the world (and one of the most religious in the West), but that it has a very loud, very prominent, and honestly somewhat unhinged Christian-conservative political movement that would probably scuttle any publicly-atheist politician's bid for the presidency.

On a rather more serious note, the asker seems to be characterizing atheists in a way that would fit right in with bad Left Behind fanfic. There's no correlation between "religious/irreligious" and "good person/bad person". Only in evangelical Christians' imaginations is Christianity under threat in the US, and the idea that atheists as a whole want to wipe out religion falls somewhere between implausible and hilarious.

But, fine. Let's say a president decides to start persecuting a religion. (This is sadly less far-fetched than it'd have been even two years ago.) Keep in mind that usually it's the vulnerable minority, the ones that feel "different", that come under attack, since that works nicely for a us-versus-them mentality—so, realistically, it wouldn't be the majority religion under attack; if anything the attack on minorities is going to be framed as "defending the rights of the majority". In that case, no less than two different clauses in the US constitution—as well as two centuries of Supreme Court case law—plus the federalist structure of US government would stand as obstacles. The President would have to find his way around probable Congressional opposition, judicial branch decisions, and probably widespread civil disobedience to try to exert his power.

That's not to say it's impossible; the US certainly has blatantly unconstitutional Executive Branch actions, backed by legislative and/or judicial support, in its history. (Cherokee removal and the Trail of Tears, and Japanese internment/executive order 9066/Korematsu v. US, as two examples.) But not only are there a ton of legal and political obstacles that would be very difficult impossible to surmount, doing so would require a mobilized majority of the population and a minority that's too weak to resist—neither of which come remotely close to the scenario described.

Obligatory reminder that there is such things that are called "misotheism" and "dystheism", which seem to be what Huthman is looking for as terms. Also, atheism =/= antitheism.

edited 29th Dec '16 4:51:12 AM by MarqFJA

This seems like a bad Author Tract caricature. Don't use fiction to attack belief systems you disagree with. It's not a deconstruction, but rather blatant propaganda Chick Tract style.

Well, you can argue that satire is basically attacking concepts in order to make them look bad, but yeah. There's a difference between satire, like Erasmus' Praise of Folly, and just straight-up bashing, like Chick Tracts.

Re: Huthman

Seriously, don't bash atheists. Or at the very least, don't bash them in a way that makes them look like saturday morning cartoon villains. Not only is this offensive, your work would probably become Snark Bait because of this.

If you really, really need to have your evil president want to eradicate all religion, why not make him a part of a Path of Inspiration instead? Or, if Dawson's part of the same universe ad Theriomorphs, perhaps one that worships Megiddo/The First Parasite(which I honestly think is actually a pretty cool idea for a villain, at least if you strip out most of the random idealogies out of it)? It would link him to Megiddo and Laura Satan, opening up a host of new, interesting plot options, as well as explaining why exactly Megiddo is atheistic (after all, if you're a god yourself, why even acknowledge that there's another).

Sorry if this comes out as a bit rambling.

There's also good old Stalin. Who did that. IRL.

And of course he was elected by the people of the United Sta... oops?

History Fact: Stalin is the General Secretary of the Soviet Union. He was in office for 3 April 1922 – 16 October 1952.

And they're relevant how?

Just to finish up that joke.

A deconstruction of Hollywood Atheist would be interesting.

Doubt that. You'd just end up with an Internet troll.

...okay, not necessarily. I think 2016 has just been getting to me.