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Hey everyone! I’m Sam, and I’m super excited to be a part of this roleplay!!! Since I’m Irish myself I was gonna make my character from Ireland too but I saw there’s already a bunch of characters from there, so in the end I went with someone who’s originally from Turkey. Aaaaanyway, if anyone wants to plot or has a wanted connection you think Safiye would fit into, please let me know!!

Safiye Ismihan Sultan was born in 1819 in Topkapi Palace to Sultan Mahmud II and his consort Kamerfer Kadin.

Safiye is a member of the Ottoman Dynasty and so she did not grow up with the conventional family unit that most other people had. Her father, the Sultan, took no official wives and instead had children with a number of his concubines. This means Safiye has a large number of brothers and sisters back home in Turkey. Eighteen brothers and eighteen sisters, to be exact.

She was used to being just another face in the crowd and though she was loved dearly by all those who knew her, the girl found great difficulty in establishing her own place and identity within Topkapi. It seemed like someone was always louder than she was, or more demanding than she was, or more charming. Add that on top of the fact she didn’t have nearly as many privileges as her brothers, it would be safe to say Safiye assumed she could vanish in an instant and no one would notice.

Life at Topkapi Palace was luxurious and splendid, but it was also predictable, monotonous, and vicious. Her position as the daughter of the Sultan meant she was untouchable, but it did not stop her from witnessing the tensions between her father’s women as they all continuously jostled for the attention and favor of Mahmoud. Living in the palace also meant that she was required to adhere to strict etiquette that made socializing with anyone other than people in the harem very difficult.

Safi would often slink away to spend her days in the gardens which was one of the few ways she could find some peace and quiet.

Another way she would pass the time was to throw herself into her studies. Unlike her other European counterparts, Safiye was afforded a greater amount of agency in numerous aspects, one of them being her exemplary education. She devoured whatever the scholars offered and even managed to win her father’s pride with her ability to absorb knowledge.

Thanks to the agency afforded to Muslim women, Safiye had wealth that was entirely her own and had nothing to do with the men in her life. Unlike other European women, she had access to the justice system. Had she been married during her time in Turkey, she could have divorced her husband if she wanted to. She was also capable of buying and selling property, which Safiye ended up doing when she and one of her sisters established a school for poor children.

Indeed, life within the Ottoman Dynasty was great in many ways, though the Empire itself had stared showing signs of decline. Gone were the days of Suleiman the Magnificent and the Sultanate of Women. Their borders had shrunk with time, and Safiye’s father sought to do something about it.

Over the course of Ottoman reign, women from all over Europe were brought to Constantinople to serve as concubines. However, Safiye could not recall a time where an Ottoman princess married anyone other than a Turkish statesman. Of course, that was until Mahmoud decided he needed to start forming more amicable relationships with European royals if his own dynasty was going to flourish.

It started with Austria, and making Safiye it’s Queen.

From the beginning, Safi was very against becoming Matteo’s wife. She knew nothing about him except his name, and though she was told he was kind and handsome, the young woman was shrewd enough to know that those were probably lies to make him seem more appealing. However, Safiye would never disobey her father, so when Mahmoud declared that she would be the one to go to Austria, the brunette merely smiled through gritted teeth.

The months following the announcement were a whirlwind for Safiye, and not a happy one. Marrying a member of the Austrian royal family meant she would have to give up her religion and convert to Christianity. She would have to give up her own separate personal wealth because everything she owned would become the property of her husband as soon as they were wed. She would lose her right to buy and sell property, and her access to the judicial system. To Safiye it seemed like she was loosing far more than she was gaining.

During her journey from Constantinople to Vienna was long, and the princess welcomed the time to contemplate what awaited her. Safiye realized that if she was ever going to be happy in her new life, she would have to leave the negativity behind. After all, the least Matteo deserved was that she tried.

Upon arriving in Vienna, the first thing that piqued her attention was the novelty of no longer having to be hidden from view of everyone who wasn’t a part of the harem. For the first time, strangers were allowed to gaze upon her. The second thing Safiye noticed was the magnificent architecture. Everything was so wildly different than her homeland that she couldn’t help but feel like a fish out of water. Safiye had been learning German in preparation, but her grasp on the language was still tenuous adding yet another barrier that needed to be broken.

To her great relief, everything she had been told about Matteo was true. Indeed, he was handsome. His kindness was also apparent even though Safi couldn’t understand everything he was saying. Upon their first meeting she began to think that maybe she would be able to find real and lasting happiness in Austria.

As time passed, Safiye’s comfort grew. Even though as a child she had felt lost in her small army of siblings, she now missed their presence but made up for it by learning about the people of her new home and making friends in ways she hadn’t been allowed to before. The brunette’s confidence soared higher the better her German was and eventually Austria truly felt like home. When Safiye left COnstantinople she had been afraid that she was giving up more than she was gaining and while it’s true she gave up some of her freedoms, she also gained some she never had before.