gwenfrankenstien:

dandizette:

elliott, nicole, eris and i are sitting here trying to find out where lady shiva is from originally. besides detroit. here’s what wikipedia has to say:

Shiva was born in a shanty town, in an unknown country, and raised to be a warrior and protector of the village.

so she’s…an exotic warrior from asia or something

can someone resolve this for us?

Here is a thing I made up to reconcile Shiva’s actual origin which we know with this whole Mysterious Asian Village nonsense

“Our” Shiva, Sandra Woosan, IS FROM DETROIT as she always has been. The village isn’t where Sandra Woosan was born, but where she was (re)born as Lady Shiva. Which is a title that gets passed down through generations; the original Lady Shiva may well have been literally born in that village. It is probably a title you gain by killing the previous holder of the title, hence Shiva’s preoccupation with getting Cass to kill her (and therefore end the line, ‘cos there’s no way Cass would buy into that shit.)

So Shiva’s Dragon Lady act is an act, she is overcompensating because nobody respects a martial arts master from Detroit, they want and expect her to be this ~exotic Asian warrior~ stereotype, so she plays it up as part of her Thing.

This also explains how there are apparently so many Lady Shiva worshippers (like Steph fought in Batgirl v1), since I don’t think Sandra Woosan has been alive long enough to have her own religion.

TL;DR version: