Dear Listeners

Current birth order for the Manisa children: Mahmud (1512) Mustafa (1515) Raziye (1517) Murad (1519)

Mahmud was born to Suleiman's first concubine (sorry, but, no, not Gülfem—actually, even when she was "traditionally" believed to have been a concubine mother, it was to Murad, not Mahmud)

Raziye and Murad, meanwhile, are a product of that "floor of favorites" that we see in the show, which I imagine to have been women sent to Suleiman by the Valide Sultan after Mahidevran's fertility struggles began to grow apparent

Am tempted to go with the idea @redrosecut had of Raziye actually having a different mother than Mahmud and Murad since I think it aligns with how, up until Hürrem, Mahidevran appears to be the only woman Suleiman was regularly summoning and allowing to stay with him for long stretches of time

I'm still fleshing out the aspects of the other concubine mothers, but, drawing on inspiration from Chinese harem dramas, I think Mahmud's mother fell prey to a scheme, where someone "had a hand in her food" (aka: adding stuff that shouldn't be there to it) resulting in her either barely surviving Mahmud's death or suffering a miscarriage when she falls pregnant after him -> in both cases, the aftermath is that her health is left permanently weakened and she's unable to have anymore children

I think her compromised health is why she falls prey so easily to the outbreak of smallpox, which gives Mahmud cause to swear vengeance and would make him particularly sensitive to Hürrem being poisoned while pregnant herself

I'm unsure just who would have done that to Mahmud's mother, though, all the more since I don't think the Valide Sultan would interfere at the cost of her own grandchildren, so that leaves either Mahidevran or maybe one of Suleiman's sisters?

Admittedly, while this might be too "sophisticated" a scheme for her, I'm not entirely putting Gülşah out of the running either (unless another servant did this and she's taking inspiration from them?) since, to take inspiration from @julyzaa maybe Gülşah escalated to trying to take out one of the children directly and their mother got caught in the crossfire instead?

Mahmud is admittedly not close to Mahidevran by default since, similar to how she dislikes the ways in which Gülfem can still claim a degree of favor from Hatice and the Valide Sultan, she really didn't like how Suleiman was still notably caring towards Mahmud's mother and his fondness towards Mahmud as his firstborn son (the irony is that I think Suleiman probably would've lost interest eventually since her quiet sweetness isn't really his type, but her being struck with poor health over something he thinks he did to her through getting her pregnant actually made him protective of her)

I'm unsure of what to do with Gülfem in this AU, though? Do I invent a child to give Suleiman or...? (I do like the idea that her character arc goes a bit differently here, though, since I could see the children being rather close to her/Hürrem relying on her as a result)