Character 145: 138 Empress Shizaaqa
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yrae
Omg you have no idea how hard it's been to keep a secret how close I've been to the top eight. Yep, I can officially name it the character 145 now! With all the others I've taken roughly 3 hours per drawing, give or take depending on how Llayan they are. The top eight I'll be spending a lot longer on. Shiz took a good six or seven.
Golden heart peacock feathers again! No I'm not likely to ever draw one. It took long enough to do those three feathers, let alone an entire bird.
NAME Empress Shizaaqa of Kazin
WHO IS THIS PERSON Clue is in the title!
GENDER Female
AGE 41
BRIEF BIO Shizaaqa is the second of four children, and the first daughter, and so was raised from day one to lead her empire. She never had any childhood to speak of, only meetings and adults and politics and learning. Shizaaqa was absolutely born to it, though, and always knew she was going to grow up to be an uncompromising empress.
Shizaaqa had private tutelage separate from her siblings. She was tutored extensively in the history and languages of the kingdoms on her borders, and anything useful about Tsayth. She sat in on every meeting she could with her mother and learned mostly through experience how to handle political situations. She learned as much as she felt would be useful about the military from her father.
Shizaaqa's mother, Yasina, got some sort of terminal disease when Shizaaqa was 17, something that would kill most people in a month but which she battled through for almost a year. Even her own advisory panel didn't know about it until two months before her death, when Shizaaqa was 18. Shizaaqa made sure everyone knew how hard her mother had fought the disease and that nobody would ever call her weak.
Since being crowned empress, Shizaaqa has tried to emulate her mother's strength and bearing. She picked out Misbah, then just a low-ranking officer, as her not-husband and future general. Shizaaqa began having children as soon as she was able, to get that part of her duties over and done with nice and fast, but her first child was a son (Sahid). So was her second (Kanera). By her third son (Shoaib) Shizaaqa was frustrated and completely fed up with being pregnant (and giving birth to more frigging boys), and disdained poor Shoaib from day one. Finally, by the time she was 28, she had a daughter: Assili.
Shizaaqa brought up Assili in much the same way as Yasina brought her up, letting her sit in on important meetings and speak up when she had an opinion.
As a ruler, though, Shizaaqa is terrible. She's tried to be the uncompromising empress her mother was, without realising that sometimes you need to compromise to keep everyone happy. She's earned a reputation among her queens and foreign royalty alike for just being stubborn and not listening to reason. She uses the treasury money to fund her own palace and the aspects of her city that she supports, and does nothing for the poor or anyone outside Assiraz city.
For this reason, her Bouquet, her personal assassination squad who came up early on in this challenge, decided to turn the tables during the events of SH: Tarnish. They each killed the queen of their province and headed for Assiraz to kill the empress. And there was much rejoicing.
CHARACTER Selfish, uncompromising, highly demanding and supremely confident. Shizaaqa is incredibly controlled over her emotions. Even when she appears to lose her temper, she knows exactly what she's doing with it and knows just how to best instil fear into her target. As such, emotions are relatively inconsequential to her. A declaration of love is merely a sign of weakness to exploit. Shizaaqa never feels guilty. When something is her fault, she will never acknowledge it and will instead shift the blame to someone she feels more suited.
Shizaaqa rules by fear. She's used to getting her way and will harshly punish anyone who defies her, often meaning entire provinces. She’ll often play the seductive role in order to get what she wants faster.
Shizaaqa refuses to take the blame for anything, or acknowledge that there may be problems in the outlying provinces. She'll generally ignore problems until they directly affect her, at which point she'll take absolute control. If there are any internal squabbles going on in her court, she won't hesitate to step in and, with a single word, take unquestioning control over the situation, putting both parties in their place.
She refuses to waste money on the lesser areas of Kazin, especially Assiraz's northern quadrant. She won't spend money unless she can see a benefit in it for her. She has no contact with the peasants or their produce, and so sees their wellbeing as a waste of money.
POINTS OF INTEREST
Shizaaqa's birds are very special to her. She often walks through the gardens to listen to them, and feels a little sadness if one of them dies. As a child, a jaguar got into the aviary and killed a number of the birds before it was shot down, including Shizaaqa's favourite bird of paradise. She now hates jaguars because of this.
Shizaaqa loves music, but disdains plays. She dislikes their repetitive plots that she can see from the first minute of the play.
Shizaaqa taps one nail on her desk when she's impatient or thinking. Usually, this is a bad sign.
Shizaaqa is scared of spiders and will order that they be killed on sight.
While she isn't afraid to reprimand her father, General Nazir, Shizaaqa knows he has a great wealth of knowledge that she is willing to listen to. However, she will cut him off as soon as he starts rambling or berating the younger generation simply because they’re young.
Shizaaqa finds her younger sister, Queen Shala of Sirrona, weak, but sees this as something of an advantage. Shala is her puppet, Silrona recognises this and wouldn't dare lay a finger on her for the retribution they know Shizaaqa would give them. From Shizaaqa's end, as long as her sister pays her taxes, she couldn't care less how she rules her province.
Misbah is the only man for whom Shizaaqa holds any respect. She still regards him as being beneath her, but she will listen to his opinions and sometimes even change her mind based on what he says.
Shizaaqa holds a nightly cocktail hour on her western balcony, which she expects her family to attend and also invites any other prominent palace officials or visiting delegates to join. For the family, it's a relaxing time to catch up on the day's events. For the visitors, it's an interrogation.
For the most part, Shizaaqa holds a lot of respect for her advisory panel. She will at least humour them and listen to their suggestions, but she'll only follow their advice if she hasn't already formed her own opinion.
Most foreigners make a point of not dealing directly with the empress, and would prefer to deal with her ministers or the individual queens of each province. They know that, unless Shizaaqa knows she'll come out of a deal well on top, she simply won't care.
Shizaaqa speaks with more clipped syllables than most northern Kazinians and has a hissing, snake-in-the-grass like voice. Her handwriting, when she has cause to use it, is beautiful and flowing but difficult to read.
Shizaaqa speaks Raykinian and Llayan fluently and knows enough Tsaythi to have a conversation, but she'll usually make the Tsaythi speak in Kazinian so she can understand them better. She never taints her tongue with the other languages unless absolutely necessary, and prefers that people speak Kazinian in her court.
Shizaaqa loves anything cocoa based, especially her cocoa liqueur.
Golden heart peacock feathers again! No I'm not likely to ever draw one. It took long enough to do those three feathers, let alone an entire bird.
NAME Empress Shizaaqa of Kazin
WHO IS THIS PERSON Clue is in the title!
GENDER Female
AGE 41
BRIEF BIO Shizaaqa is the second of four children, and the first daughter, and so was raised from day one to lead her empire. She never had any childhood to speak of, only meetings and adults and politics and learning. Shizaaqa was absolutely born to it, though, and always knew she was going to grow up to be an uncompromising empress.
Shizaaqa had private tutelage separate from her siblings. She was tutored extensively in the history and languages of the kingdoms on her borders, and anything useful about Tsayth. She sat in on every meeting she could with her mother and learned mostly through experience how to handle political situations. She learned as much as she felt would be useful about the military from her father.
Shizaaqa's mother, Yasina, got some sort of terminal disease when Shizaaqa was 17, something that would kill most people in a month but which she battled through for almost a year. Even her own advisory panel didn't know about it until two months before her death, when Shizaaqa was 18. Shizaaqa made sure everyone knew how hard her mother had fought the disease and that nobody would ever call her weak.
Since being crowned empress, Shizaaqa has tried to emulate her mother's strength and bearing. She picked out Misbah, then just a low-ranking officer, as her not-husband and future general. Shizaaqa began having children as soon as she was able, to get that part of her duties over and done with nice and fast, but her first child was a son (Sahid). So was her second (Kanera). By her third son (Shoaib) Shizaaqa was frustrated and completely fed up with being pregnant (and giving birth to more frigging boys), and disdained poor Shoaib from day one. Finally, by the time she was 28, she had a daughter: Assili.
Shizaaqa brought up Assili in much the same way as Yasina brought her up, letting her sit in on important meetings and speak up when she had an opinion.
As a ruler, though, Shizaaqa is terrible. She's tried to be the uncompromising empress her mother was, without realising that sometimes you need to compromise to keep everyone happy. She's earned a reputation among her queens and foreign royalty alike for just being stubborn and not listening to reason. She uses the treasury money to fund her own palace and the aspects of her city that she supports, and does nothing for the poor or anyone outside Assiraz city.
For this reason, her Bouquet, her personal assassination squad who came up early on in this challenge, decided to turn the tables during the events of SH: Tarnish. They each killed the queen of their province and headed for Assiraz to kill the empress. And there was much rejoicing.
CHARACTER Selfish, uncompromising, highly demanding and supremely confident. Shizaaqa is incredibly controlled over her emotions. Even when she appears to lose her temper, she knows exactly what she's doing with it and knows just how to best instil fear into her target. As such, emotions are relatively inconsequential to her. A declaration of love is merely a sign of weakness to exploit. Shizaaqa never feels guilty. When something is her fault, she will never acknowledge it and will instead shift the blame to someone she feels more suited.
Shizaaqa rules by fear. She's used to getting her way and will harshly punish anyone who defies her, often meaning entire provinces. She’ll often play the seductive role in order to get what she wants faster.
Shizaaqa refuses to take the blame for anything, or acknowledge that there may be problems in the outlying provinces. She'll generally ignore problems until they directly affect her, at which point she'll take absolute control. If there are any internal squabbles going on in her court, she won't hesitate to step in and, with a single word, take unquestioning control over the situation, putting both parties in their place.
She refuses to waste money on the lesser areas of Kazin, especially Assiraz's northern quadrant. She won't spend money unless she can see a benefit in it for her. She has no contact with the peasants or their produce, and so sees their wellbeing as a waste of money.
POINTS OF INTEREST
no subject
Date: 2014-09-23 04:58 pm (UTC)And that she came before her daughter. Dunno why. Just am.
Ugh she is such a glamorous 40. But of course she is.
I've always kinda loved that story about Yamina's death, because of how Shiz must have clearly adored and looked up to her mother, and wanted everyone else to do the same. I LOVE THE HUMANITY IN THE KAZINS OKAY?
Mishba and Shiz, otfuckingp.
no subject
Date: 2014-09-24 08:18 am (UTC)Shizaaqa had to come first because tbh she was struggling to make her case for the top eight at all. I think the only reason she made it in is because 'top eight' is a powerful term in AFL football and 'top seven' is dumb.
I forgot to mention all her creams and stuff. OH WELL. It's probably obvious when you compare her to, say, the Raykinians in their 40s. HOO BOY.
no subject
Date: 2014-09-24 11:48 am (UTC)I have decided in my head that Kanera is her fave boy because not only does he dote on her and Assili, but he kinda looks the most like daddy (or daddy looked like him kinda when I fucking drew him in that commanders pic). And Mishba is her OTP. Thus. Fave.
no subject
Date: 2014-09-24 01:04 pm (UTC)And he's so clearly Assili's favourite. She doesn't try to hide it. So anyone who makes her baby girl happy is... well he's at least a B-. We're not stretching him to A+ just yet.