Wonder Woman IV - Who is Donna Troy?

For those of us who are familiar with the comics, this is a loaded question.

A little background to bring people up to speed.  Back in the Golden Age of comics, Wonder Woman would have adventures with her younger selves, Wonder Girl and Wonder Tot.  The comics were clear that they were Wonder Woman at previous stages of her life. Editorial forgot that little fact, and thus was Wonder Girl became a full-fledged character.  Really.

Unfortunately the character has suffered from the sketchy background.  Many attempts have been made over the past 40+ years to give her a background rather than ‘teen Wonder Woman’ with mixed results.  Donna has been tossed into limbo with the DC reboot.

So, the original question remains.  Who is Donna Troy?  In my series, Donna’s still an orphan, in her teens.  Her mom is Etta, rather than being a foundling discovered by Diana.  She would quickly develop a sort of hero worship for Diana, leading to some friction between Diana and Etta.  She also would be the one to play off Diana’s lack of modern culture, allowing for some humor.  If Donna is working on school work, and says “It’s Greek to me.” Diana would be the one to straight-faced say, “No, that appears to be English.”  Donna does not have (initially) any superhuman powers, though the idea of her ‘borrowing’ artifacts to give her powers for an episode are not out of reach (this would also be a nod to Cassie Sandsmark’s original origin).

So who plays Donna Troy?  I’ve two people in mind, given that the role (and actress) would invariably grow older.  If we want a younger Donna, I’d cast Kiara Glasco.  This young actress blew me away in Copper, and I’d love to see her in a more heroic character.  For a more mature Donna (late teens) I’d cast Hanna Leigh.  This 17 year old caught my attention in an episode of Body of Proof, and her ‘innocent to psycho in 10 seconds’ act made me want to see her in a regular role.  With Ms. Glasco, I’d likely tease her getting superpowers (including the Cassie Sandsmark reference above) and stretch out the tease over a few seasons, to let the actress mature.  With Ms. Leigh, I’d go with her being exposed to the Amazon’s Purple ray at the beginning of season 2, and ‘officially’ make her Wonder Girl in season 3.

Equal protection.

Watching a thing on Pot growing in California.  I don't smoke it myself, and I'm not in California, but I am bothered by the mentality of the California cops on the show.  "I can't bust you, but I can bring the feds in and bust you," is wrong. Growing drugs, food, making items etc, for yourself shouldn't be a Federal issue, and I am upset at the idea of state police calling in the feds because they can't prosecute people they disagree with.  Especially in California, where they make an effort to impede the feds in their actual duties.  "I don't like you, so I'm going to call the feds to bust you if you can't." flies in the face of "You're breaking the state and federal laws, and we're going to keep them from arresting you."

Wonder Woman III, fleshing out the cast

Making a show with a strong female lead is not as alien now as it was in the ‘70’s.  That said, lets start with some of the other cast.

Etta Kandi.  Etta is a ‘modern woman’.  She’s strong and military trained, but took a civilian position.  Why she left the military is something we can reveal later in the series.  She’s also a scholar.  She starts somewhat as the Scully of the group, always looking for a scientific reasoning for what happens.  She’s hard to nail down, as you want her to be a competent woman, but overshadowed by Diana in combat, and diplomacy.  She knows, for example, more languages and cultures than Diana, and is clearly going to be more technologically savy, but she’ll be overwhelmed by the things she can’t explain.  For another way of looking at her, think crossing Samantha Carter and Elizabeth Weir from Stargate, but without the experience of either.

Who would play her?  In my dream world, the lovely Kandyse McClure.  In addition to being the right age for a vet/up and coming diplomat, she deserves more exposure.

Taking a break from Pazio, not the Society,

I find myself needing to take a break from the Pathfinder Society boards.  The coming changes have stirred up a hornet’s nest of contempt, and seem to have exacerbated other feelings.  I’m taking a break, so I can still enjoy the game.

In the past few weeks I’ve been accused directly and indirectly, of being a bad GM for…

·        Wanting to run new scenarios rather than the same scenario over and over, so I can apply GM credit/gain boons.  Yes, how dare I want to run through scenarios/modules/adventures I’ve bought and paid for to get the full value out of them.

·        Daring to ‘fudge’ a die roll so that a first time player doesn’t get to watch his character die to a lucky roll

·        Not sponsoring a ‘community attitude’.

I’ve been also accused of being a bad player for:

·        Opposing a proposed system that encourages not ‘taking one for the team’ and playing down.  Most annoyingly, by someone who doesn’t go to scenarios/games that ‘don’t interest him’  So I’m a bad guy for showing up and not wanting to play down, but he’s not for just not going at all?

·        Not always GMing to split a table, instead of playing.

Between that and the attitude I see of people arguing from authority that ‘the community’ agrees with them, or saying ‘We feel’… I’m taking a break.  You know what?  I don’t care if you have 5 stars, I don’t care if you started playing RPGs at Gary Gygax’s table.  I don’t care if you’re a writer, a Venture Lieutenant or a Venture Captain.  Your ‘authority’ is exactly the same as mine.  Unless you’ve a mouse in your pocket, or voices in your head, you aren’t speaking for the community.  You’re likely just talking out your aft.

I’ve an emotional interest in Paizo in general, and personal interest in the success of the Society as a community as a whole.  When I got back at the table, playing a 4 hour session exhausted me.  I was rocking forwards and back (a sign that my Social Anxiety is about to hit critical mass) by the end, and I was exhausted the next day.  Now I can take the stress (and it is stressful) of GMing, and run full day events, with little effect.  I’m stronger because of my interactions with the local community, and I’ve met some good people.  I’m looking forward to testing my endurance (and meeting more people) in two months at Origins.

The local community can’t generalize, or marginalize me as part of a faceless group that matches their stereotypes.  They’re real people who interact with me, warts and all, every week.  I don’t want the actions of a loud closed minded minority to drive me away from the real people I’ve met and been to their homes.  People I interact with may not like me, but they don’t like me not some easily dismissed pseudo-real person they can pretend matches their notions, because I make them uncomfortable.

So why am I posting this on the Hermit-blog?  Because I’m not conceited enough to post a long rant on the Paizo site saying why I’m leaving.  This however, is my blog, and I’ll say whatever the frak I want.

Free Speech and Double Standards.

Yup, it’s another political post.  Recently, Debe Terhar posted a picture from Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children to her personal Facebook page (now deleted). It attributes a quote of questionable sourcing to Adolf Hitler about disarming a populace to conquer them.  So of course Ohio Dems got their knickers in a twist demanding she be fired.  She knuckled under, apologizing for the post (made on her personal facebook page, and not in her position as head of the Ohio School Board.  Both her and Gov Kasich shouldn’t have backed down.  But I’ll give the Governor credit, he’s (professionally) telling the Dems to get stuffed.

I'm not going to get into the accurate sourcing of the quote, except to say some historians doubt the validity of the attribution.  It *is* undeniably true that he approved of the disarming of the Jews.  And the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising would have gone much better for the Nazis if they'd been kind enough to disarm.

A couple things.  First, she has a method of being ‘fired’ it’s called an election.  Y’know, part of that democracy thing.  Second, if the Ohio Democrats didn’t have double standards, they’d have none.  

After all, the whining is that the post compares Obama to Hitler.  Yet I didn’t hear any condemnations from the left of things like this, or this, or this.  Or maybe some of these classic hits.

Ohio Democrat party leader Chris Redfern (language warning)  Or Ted Strickland Or how about Sherrod Brown’s greatest lies.  I could go on, but I won’t.  Funny, since these examples are the Ohio officials speaking in their official positions, and the Democrats are silent.

Point is, I’ll take the whining Ohio Democrats seriously when they live up to what they demand of others.  If it wasn’t for double standards, they’d have no standards at all.

Wonder Woman II – What is Paradise Island in my reboot?

One question that is raised in my reboot concept is why Paradise Island exists.  Clearly it existed in the 30’s and 40’s for a place to put ‘perfect’ women.  That doesn’t quite fit with modern sensibilities, so how do we use the island in the reboot?  We repurpose it.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Paradise Island holds/held various magical artifacts.  While some, if not most of those artifacts are going to be Greek in origin, some aren’t.  In the background information, Paradise Island is meant as a vault.  A storehouse of items connected to the ‘old gods’ left behind in the Amazons’ protection in The Great Compact.  The Amazons then were (initially) the chosen guardians, blessed with superior strength, speed and longevity as long as they stood vigil.  Basically Paradise Island is 'neutral ground'.

Since we’re talking thousands of years of time, we can ‘diversify’ the Amazons.  Basically small groups of Amazons would go into ‘Man’s World’ both to see how the world has changed, and to find the occasional ‘recruit’.  Legends of the Valkyrie, Amazons, Boudica, Joan of Arc, and others, can either be explained by Amazons, or maybe they were recruited.  This allows an ethnically, if not gender-based, diversity.  It would also allow for a number of different fighting styles.  Imagine a Sikh Amazon with a tulwar, or  a Zulu Amazon with a iklwa sparring in the background.

This is the second time I’ve mentioned The Great Compact.  So I guess I’d better describe it.  Essentially the plot point is that the gods ‘backed off’ the world as humanity expanded, rather than see the earth destroyed through deity level conflict. Without their direct influence, magic faded, and that’s why these artifacts are so powerful. This does then imply that every religious conflict in history wasn’t the fault of the gods, rather it was people. *shrug* (I’d also specifically avoid having JudeoChristian items on the island.  It neatly sidesteps the protesters, and allows for a Christian ‘WMD stockpile’.  Templars, anyone?)

‘Powerful’ is a subjective term too.  A gauntlet that projects fire through a mouth is powerful, capable of immolating a hoplite, but it is powerful and unique.  Hook it to a backpack, and it’s a flame thrower, we’ve a lot of those.  Likewise Dianna can block bullets with her bracelets.  A HEAT round is still going to blow her into bloody chunks, no matter if her bracelets are in the way or not.  For TV, Wonder Woman is still more than human, but not Comic Book levels of invulnerability. (Plus, if she was Superman level bulletproof, why does she need the bracers?)  Likewise, Dianna’s bracers are lightweight and effectively indestructible, but could be scienced away with “titanium nanotubes” (no, really).  Basically the show plays hard and fast with Clarke’s Third Law. (Kind of like Warehouse 13)  Some things are going to be outside the realm of recognizable technology, like if one of the artifacts was Athena’s Aegis, for example.

Dry Run

I’ve asked for Feb 15^th and 18^th off of work.  If I can get the time off, I’ll be heading up to Toledo to run Pathfinder events at a convention.  It will be my first Convention since 2009, and the first one I’ve ran official events.

As most people who know me know, I had a nervous break down in 2004.  It’s kept in check with medication, but I still don’t like crowds.  I’ve a finite amount of tolerance for crowds, and strangers, before I have to run away.

My first Pathfinder Society game in 2011 I almost didn’t make it.  By the time we were done, I caught myself rocking back and forth (a sign that my stress levels are too high), and spent most of the next day asleep.  It was mentally exhausting.  And a blast.

Since then I’ve been able to fun games, and stay out all day. January is stressful for me because I’m on the phones.  Not because I can’t do customer service (I can likely do any job at work).  Because I don’t want to. But I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again. So after the stress of this month, I’ll be putting myself in a different challenge.

And yet this is a dry run for what is to come.  If I can handle the stress in Toledo, I’ll e running events at Origins.  Much bigger convention.  And if I can handle Origins…

I know I’ll never be as I was before the breakdown.  Hells, there are parts of me I don’t want to be ever again.  But I’ll keep moving forward and be the best I can be.