to the person who just sent me that ask abt how i think the hockey should work w hollanov duo star centers on the centaurs. im literally kissing u on the mouth i have to go to bed (bc it's now 5:39am 💀💀🤒) but i have so many thoughts it's unreal. PUT ME IN COACH WE'RE WINNING THE CUP!!!1!!
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Hello! Just so everyone knows, I cannot answer things that aren’t related to OCD/OCspec problems. If you have other disabilities/issues that overlap with your OCD/OCspec disorder, that’s okay and you can still send it here (such as comorbidities or abuse surrounding your OCD). However, if it isn’t related to the topic of this blog, send submissions to either general blogs like this-is-ableism or this-is-saneism, or a different blog related to your specific submission. I cannot help with life dilemmas or things pertaining to stuff I’m not educated on.
This is not intended to be rude or targeted, I just don’t want to spread misinformation/give advice on topics I’m not properly educated on.
If you reblog an ask, you send an ask to the person you got it from and they send one to you. Likewise, you send one to anybody who rb’s from you. Maybe not 100% of the time but most of the time. And lately (at least the last 6 months+) it’s like people reblog asks and move on???
Did I miss some memo about Asks or am I just having a cranky *shakes fist at cloud* moment?
Mostly, I answer "asks" in the order that I receive them. Sometimes I have quite a number in my in-box (as now).
Obviously when I'm grading/otherwise super-busy, they may gather dust for a while.
But occasionally, I alter the order when a question comes in that's very quick to answer. Answers that require me to look things up or that require a longer reply may get put off until I have more time.
And yes, I do proofread answers, especially the longer ones, sometimes more than once. Most are written offline on Word, any links or images tracked down, any citations lined up, and only then do I transfer it to a reply on Tumblr. So that's why some of these (many of these) take more time.
I suspect most people have figured all that out, but just in case....
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Sah sultan? Her influence and power? how powerful do u think she was and if she stayed could she have defeated mihrimah? or hurrem?
I really loved Şah’s character. And I think her character gets frequently reduced in the fandom to being “badass” princess & her power fight with mostly Hürrem (also a bit of Mihrimah).
Yes, she’s the most ambitious and pragmatic of Suleiman’s sisters. I’d also say she had the most influence on Suleiman of them all, perhaps because she reminded him of their mother most and she never actually crossed him, which is why she absolutely could contest Mihrimah’s claims and continue the fight. However, she chose not to. I also elaborated on this issue earlier here.
All of Suleiman’s sisters try to replace their mother following Hafsa’s demise, as an upholder of harem order & protecting the dynasty. Hatice even invites Şah specifically so she can support her in this task, even despite the fact they weren’t the closest of sisters, such as she was with more maternal-like Beyhan. Still, of course Şah does not take a stand against Hürrem just because Hatice wants her to - first and foremost, those people do not live in vacuum and it’s implied Şah and Hürrem actually have met before. For several episodes Şah observes and assesses the situation carefully without taking any side openly and Ibrahim’s death is the moment she decides to act, even though her plans are still hidden because she has a long-term plan. Her method of working to remove Hürrem is very wise - she decides not to try to assassinate her, bring another woman or anything of this sort, but to make her fall permanently from Suleiman’s favour. And she also knows what is the only thing to make Suleiman cast Hürrem away - not her doing any harm to others or committing any crimes, but to hurt his ego and use his paranoia. If Hürrem had yielded and had crowned Bayezid (and Şah again did it so masterfully it was very believable Suleiman d worded), it would have been over. It’s the sort of thing Suleiman would never forgive Hürrem, probably the only one. Same with making H loans money from Venetians during war with them. /Big thanks to @mc-critical for our discussion on this topic some time ago :)/
Sah and Hatice’s relationship is very complicated - they are like polar opposites, with one being highly emotional, and the other very pragmatic and cold, but despite even Hürrem hoping for wedge between them and trying to put it between them - she cannot. Sah is very much concerned each time anything happens to Hatice and she is heartbroken seeing her pain following Ibrahim’s demise too. She promises Hatice she will help her in revenge “Because anyone who comes to their palace with blood and death, will leave with the same”. Their family got attacked and obviously subsequent actions of Hürrem against Mustafa only solidified their need to unite against her.
Sah also has her own ambitions, which I mentioned in the other post, but those are not only simply power oriented. She also desires to prove herself to her own family by being the one to neutralise Hürrem, which is why she has the arrogant attitude towards Hatice or Mahidevran. Unlike Fatma or Hatice, she actually abandoned hope for a fulfilling private life - she’s stuck in a marriage to a guy she does not respect, but she also knows she needs him for pragmatic reasons. The guy she clearly admired a lot married her sister, and even Suleiman & Hafsa showed their preference for sweet Hatice. She felt like her colder, more pragmatic personality was not appreciated enough by her closest. This is why she mocks others’ attempts to remove Hürrem and tries to paint herself as different. In a way it actually shows her inferiority complex & also desire to prove herself to others.
While Şah is deeply embittered by her marriage and does not actively search for love (like Hatice or Fatma), she has a close bond with her daughter (for whom she also sets aside her pride and asks Suleiman to spare Lütfi) & also is very concerned with spiritual matters. Of course providing money for religious establishments & building endeavours (which was done also by historical Sah) is also a way to gain influence, it’s clearly an area important to her also personally, which is why in the end she decides to live in one monasteries after her marriage falls apart and Hatice dies.
And it is a great ending to her arc IMO. She’s well aware that to have an influence as a princess, she should get married again to a prominent statesman, but she obviously does not desire another marriage after the last one ended so traumatically. Hatice took her own revenge herself before dying & it seemed that she was the one who neutralised Hürrem in her last desperate attempt. Suleiman is depressed and while she leaves Mercan to take care of him, idk whether she’s up to sitting with him and pretending she’s sorry Hürrem disappeared. Since Hürrem is gone, Rüstem is powerless and it seems like Mustafa does not need protection anymore.
Standing against Mihrimah would be for Sah a betrayal of her values - standing up against her own blood and dynasty, for what at this moment? Staying in the capital, where almost all her closest are gone? Power for the sake of empty power now?
Sah did never want any harm to come to Hürrem’s kids yet she already almost brought harm to her family inadvertently - she specifically instructed Nigar not to harm Mihrimah or her daughter, only Rüstem and Hürrem, yet the little one suffered most. It was against what Sah wanted or believed in. She fucked up big time here and she knows it. She almost brought harm to dynasty she aimed to protect. It’s not the age when Dilruba sets her nephews on fire - Hafsa’s daughters were brought with a strong sense of family and family loyalty, which is why as much as they did not like Hürrem, they did not treat her kids as enemies, but as their own blood.
Şah is a woman of action and she has no more work to do in the capital. She was always interested in supporting scholars & monasteries, so she chooses to be important & influential there. She’s disillusioned by all the power games in Topkapi & the futility of it. She again confides in Mercan she’s tired. Sah does have her limits, she does not intend to cause upheaval by going against the dynasty (represented by fellow member in Mihrimah) & now all she needs is finding peace & calm.
Could she rival Mihrimah? Mihrimah at that point was not at peak of her power - she was still a young girl and freshly married to Rüstem who had not yet become the Grand Vizier and with Hürrem gone lost a lot of his power. Mihrimah’s role has much more increased following her mother’s demise when she was left with the task to protect her brothers and to be her dad’s adviser and confidant. Upon Rüstem’s demise (historically), she inherited his huge fortune, which helped her to maintain influential even though she was no longer married to a prominent statesman. Even though her relations with Selim were soured by her support for Bayezid, her brother needed her (or her money) very much once he ascended the throne. It’s truly when she was at the peak of her power - in early years of Selim’s reign, and again absence of Valide and Nurbanu needing time to build her own faction & network of power in capital also worked in her favour.
Princesses did not wield that much direct political influence usually, but Şah and Mihrimah were similar in that they found ways to yield some even without their statesman husbands they could influence. A bit of historical info to finish my musings:
Shah’s career as a sufi devotee began early, in Ioannina in western Greece, where she accompanied her husband Lutfi to his post as governor. There the princess became a lifelong follower of the popular sufi order of the Halvetis. Returning to Istanbul when Lutfi was promoted to vizier, Shah built the first of three mosques with an attached dervish lodge, this one for her Ioannina shaykh. The next lodge-mosque was dedicated in 1537 to the Halveti shaykh Merkez Efendi, who had recently become Shah’s new spiritual guide; the last was a memorial foundation erected after his death in 1552.
Source: Leslie Peirce, Empress of the East. How a European Slave Girl Became the Empress of the Ottoman Empire
Source: Necdet Sakaoğlu, Famous Ottoman Women
As we can see, Sah continued her construction & spiritual works following her divorce and moving out to live in a dervish lodge outside capital.
A bit about Mihrimah after Rüstem died (she was also aware how beneficial marrying a prominent statesman was because her proposal to Semiz Pasha was true also historically):
From this date on, Mihrimah lived as a widow until her death. In the beginning, Mihrimah was afraid that the political influence she had during her late husband's vizierate period would decrease after her husband's death. Indeed, according to the report of the Venetian bailor Daniele Barbarigo, she had proposed to Semiz Ali Pasha, who was the grand vizier after Rüstem Pasha's death, to marry him, but the Pasha refused the offer, saying that he was not thinking of marrying her. But Mihrimah continued to be politically influential as a widowed member of the dynasty.
Source: Zahit Atçıl, Ottoman Dynastic Marriage Politics and Mihrimah Sultan’s Marriage (translation mine)
And
However, Mihrümah, although now a widow after Rüstem’s death in 1561, still figured prominently in dynastic politics. To illustrate, she was privy to the fact that the royal treasury had been emptied by her father and carried to Hungary to wage the campaign, and she rushed to her brother’s aid, lending him the much-needed gold to cover the obligatory accession donatives. As such, Donini’s assessment and prediction concerning both Selim and Mihrümah’s future relations came true. The eventual return of Süleyman’s treasure to Istanbul, coupled with the pillaging of Chios under the command of Piyale Pasha, soon restored the solvency of the imperial treasury; but Selim remained forever grateful to Mihrümah for the aid she provided at a most critical time.
Source: Pinar Kayaalp, The Empress Nurbanu and Ottoman Politics in the Sixteenth Century: Building the Atik Valide