#you're telling me that its fine for the government to force a woman to give birth even if it'll harm her but it isn't fine for the woman to

[saph-yells-into-the-void]

i feel like im going insane, my ethics professor was talking about abortion arguments and he threw out the question, "do women have a choice over their bodies?"

most of us were being quiet the entire time but after a while this one girl said yes.

and then he started berating her?? saying "well then do have the right to harm others if they have a choice? can they commit murder as long as they choose to do so with their own body? are you pro-suicide because it is their choice?"

HUH?????

[katrafiy]

I think about this image a lot. This is an image from the Aurat March (Women's March) in Karachi, Pakistan, on International Women's Day 2018. The women in the picture are Pakistani trans women, aka khwaja siras or hijras; one is a friend of a close friend of mine.

In the eyes of the Pakistani government and anthropologists, they're a "third gender." They're denied access to many resources that are available to cis women. Trans women in Pakistan didn't decide to be third-gendered; cis people force it on them whether they like it or not.

Western anthropologists are keen on seeing non-Western trans women as culturally constructed third genders, "neither male nor female," and often contrast them (a "legitimate" third gender accepted in its culture) with Western trans women (horrific parodies of female stereotypes).

There's a lot of smoke and mirrors and jargon used to obscure the fact that while each culture's trans women are treated as a single culturally constructed identity separate from all other trans women, cis women are treated as a universal category that can just be called "women."

Even though Pakistani aurat and German Frauen and Guatemalan mujer will generally lead extraordinarily different lives due to the differences in culture, they are universally recognized as women.

The transmisogynist will say, "Yes, but we can't ignore the way gender is culturally constructed, and hijras aren't trans women, they're a third gender. Now let's worry less about trans people and more about the rights of women in Burkina Faso."

In other words, to the transmisogynist, all cis women are women, and all trans women are something else.

"But Kat, you're not Indian or Pakistani. You're not a hijra or khwaja sira, why is this so important to you?"

Have you ever heard of the Neapolitan third gender "femminiello"? It's the term my moniker "The Femme in Yellow" is derived from, and yes, I'm Neapolitan. Shut up.

I'm going to tell you a little bit about the femminielli, and I want you to see if any of this sounds familiar. Femminielli are a third gender in Neapolitan culture of people assigned male at birth who have a feminine gender expression.

They are lauded and respected in the local culture, considered to be good omens and bringers of good luck. At festivals you'd bring a femminiello with you to go gambling, and often they would be brought in to give blessings to newborns. Noticing anything familiar yet?

Oh and also they were largely relegated to begging and sex work and were not allowed to be educated and many were homeless and lived in the back alleys of Naples, but you know we don't really like to mention that part because it sounds a lot less romantic and mystical.

And if you're sitting there, asking yourself why a an accurate description of femminiello sounds almost note for note like the same way hijras get described and talked about, then you can start to understand why that picture at the start of this post has so much meaning for me.

And you can also start to understand why I get so frustrated when I see other queer people buy into this fool notion that for some reason the transes from different cultures must never mix.

That friend I mentioned earlier is a white American trans woman. She spent years living in India, and as I recal the story the family she was staying with saw her as a white, foreign hijra and she was asked to use her magic hijra powers to bless the house she was staying in.

So when it comes to various cultural trans identities there are two ways we can look at this. We can look at things from a standpoint of expressed identity, in which case we have to preferentially choose to translate one word for the local word, or to leave it untranslated.

If we translate it, people will say we're artificially imposing an outside category (so long as it's not cis people, that's fine). If we don't, what we're implying, is that this concept doesn't exist in the target language, which suggests that it's fundamentally a different thing

A concrete example is that Serena Nanda in her 1990 and 2000 books, bent over backwards to say that Hijras are categorically NOT trans women. Lots of them are!

And Don Kulick bent over backwards in his 1998 book to say that travesti are categorically NOT trans women, even though some of the ones he cited were then and are now trans women.

The other option, is to look at practice, and talk about a community of practice of people who are AMAB, who wear women's clothing, take women's names, fulfill women's social roles, use women's language and mannerisms, etc WITHIN THEIR OWN CULTURAL CONTEXT.

This community of practice, whatever we want to call it - trans woman, hijra, transfeminine, femminiello, fairy, queen, to name just a few - can then be seen to CLEARLY be trans-national and trans-cultural in a way that is not clearly evident in the other way of looking at things.

And this is important, in my mind, because it is this axis of similarity that is serving as the basis for a growing transnational transgender rights movement, particularly in South Asia. It's why you see pictures like this one taken at the 2018 Aurat March in Karachi, Pakistan.

And it also groups rather than splits, pointing out not only points of continuity in the practices of western trans women and fa'afafines, but also between trans women in South Asia outside the hijra community, and members of the hijra community both trans women and not.

To be blunt, I'm not all that interested in the word trans woman, or the word hijra. I'm not interested in the word femminiello or the word fa'afafine.

I'm interested in the fact that when I visit India, and I meet hijras (or trans women, self-expressed) and I say I'm a trans woman, we suddenly sit together, talk about life, they ask to see American hormones and compare them to Indian hormones.

There is a shared community of practice that creates a bond between us that cis people don't have. That's not to say that we all have the exact same internal sense of self, but for the most part, we belong to the same community of practice based on life histories and behavior.

I think that's something cis people have absolutely missed - largely in an effort to artificially isolate trans women. This practice of arguing about whether a particular "third gender" label = trans women or not, also tends to artificially homogenize trans women as a group.

You see this in Kulick and Nanda, where if you read them, you could be forgiven for thinking all American trans women are white, middle class, middle-aged, and college-educated, who all follow rigid codes of behavior and surgical schedules prescribed by male physicians.

There are trans women who think of themselves as separate from cis women, as literally another kind of thing, there are trans women who think of themselves as coterminous with cis women, there are trans women who think of themselves as anything under the sun you want to imagine.

The problem is that historically, cis people have gone to tremendous lengths to destroy points of continuity in the transgender community (see everything I've cited and more), and particularly this has been an exercise in transmisogyny of grotesque levels.

The question is do you want to talk about culturally different ways of being trans, or do you want to try to create as many neatly-boxed third genders as you can to prop up transphobic theoretical frameworks? To date, people have done the latter. I'm interested in the former.

I guess what I'm really trying to say with all of this is that we're all family y'all.

[roguekhajiit]

A debate I had on Reddit about abortion rights.

The person I'm arguing with is an active participant of the Mensa subreddit, so they already fancy themselves a genius to some extent.

Me:

No arms, no legs, no heart, no brain. Just a blood vessel pumping blood from the host to the clump of cells.

And the "But there's a heartbeat" excuse is a lie. You're only hearing the host's blood pumping into cells cause the heart isn't fully formed until 10 weeks. Additionally, the brain isn't even fully developed until 24 weeks. No heart organ, no brain, it's not a viable life outside its host body.

Them:

Yeah that's an empirical argument to deny ontology. That's not convincing to anyone who thinks there is an essence to being human that isn't tied to having arms and legs.

Me:

I'm sorry, but are you trying to use philosophy to argue whether or not someone is capable of living without a heart, brain, and lungs?

Them:

How do you determine what is human and what is not? Arms and legs? What do you call someone without arms and legs? Or a mechanic heart? You can't answer the question 'what is human' based on physical qualities only. So yes, logically you cannot answer the question without philosophy.

Me:

I think you are confusing personhood with the human species.

A person is someone who can think, breathe, and exist on their own. They have a personality and their own opinions on subjects like abortion.

A human being or homo sapiens is a species on earth that evolved enough to form social groups and cultures and, therefore, are capable of personhood. Some other more complex animals might be capable of personhood, like Koko the Gorilla. She was intelligent, learned to communicate using sign language, and even had her own pet.

I'm not discussing this subject in terms of personhood. A fetus isn't developed enough to form a sense of personhood if it can't even survive on its own at 2 months gestation.

Them:

I'm talking about the essence of what makes one a living human. As long as pregnant women before the 3rd month believe they're carrying a child, which is all of them who want to *keep* the child, I am not appealed by the argument that it's suddenly no longer a child but rather a fetus for biological/scientific/empirical reasons when there are various financial and social advantages of it being so.

The points you mention are even still different from mine.

Me:

>The points you mention are even still different from mine.

Correct because again, you fail to see the point of the argument.

You yourself say;

>As long as pregnant women before the 3rd month believe they're carrying a child, which is all of them who want to *keep* the child,

That's all fine and dandy cause it's her *choice* to do so, not yours and not the government's. But it's not yours or anyone else's place to force your philosophical or religious views on an entire nation and bully us all into following them by making your opinions a law.

Them:

It's a choice to recognise a human as a human, you're saying? So where's the end to that travesty of logic? A cat is a dog, a man is a woman, that dog is a man and that man is a dog. That's a wild world you're living in. I don't see the world that way, it defeats both logic and common sense. But it surely makes a way to justify doing whatever the hell you like doing. I won't force morality on you, but I'll tell you when it's absent.

Me:

Again, you're trying to use philosophy to argue science, and that gets us nowhere. I already stated I'm not talking from a philosophical standpoint.

You can see the world however you want. Your morals aren't always going to line up with your neighbors morals. Your neighbor might think it's immoral to eat any kind of meat. Are you gonna give up that steak dinner cause they can smell it in their living room? How would you feel if the entire government decided eating meat is a crime and, therefore, it's banned and you go to jail just for eating a hamburger. Kinda sucks when other people force their philosophy and religion on you by passing laws to get their way.

Now I know you're gonna be like, "But you can't compare pregnancies to diets!" But you're already equating philosophy with science. So, let me give you another scenario.

Do you like eggs? Eggs are just undeveloped chickens who were denied the ability to develop and hatch. Will you give up your eggs and bacon just because your vegan neighbor says it's immoral?

Since to you personhood and human are one and the same. Say aliens decide to visit earth; they have arms and legs and a brain, can speak, express emotions, and have their own culture. Are they human? Do we give them the same rights as you and me even though they weren't born on earth and are basically invading our planet? Or are they just displaying personhood?

If you say yes, they are human and deserve the same rights as you and me, then you also need to give those same rights to the "illegal aliens" that cross the border.

Why are undeveloped fetuses given more rights to life than families with children who are trying to seek a better life? Why do we value a fetus over the actual baby? Once it's born, if the mother says she needs help, she's scorned and looked down on for asking for WIC, foodstamps, and cash benefits to help feed and cloth her baby. She should have thought of that before deciding to have a baby, right? But if she decides she's unable to afford a baby, and she can't afford to take time off because the pregnancy is making it hard for her to work, she's called a murderer for seeking an abortion.

To pro-life advocates, a fetus is more important before it's born than after it's born. And you won't convince me otherwise. The same people pushing for abortion bans, banning mifepristone (a drug that's also necessary to help with incomplete miscarriages), and even simple birth control are the same people who vote to cut funding to welfare programs, free lunch programs, and to entire school districts. That's not very pro-life of them now, is it?

-------

They gave up the argument after that.

I could have converted this into a rant solely from my perspective, but I felt it would be better just to copy it as a script.

Pro-lifers are not actually pro-life. They are just anti-women and anti-choice. If they actually cared about the fetus, they would care about it after its born by passing laws and regulations that would ensure the child has the best quality of life possible and every chance to succeed. Instead, time and again, they vote against those laws.

They don't care about the fetus once it's born. Why is that? Could it be that their true goal all along is to force women back into submission because they romanticize the bygone era of the 1800s and early 1900s when women didn't hold jobs, didn't vote, and couldn't do anything without their husband's explicit permission?

I dunno, that's just the vibe I get from the anti-choice supporters. Why else would they say things like, "Stop riding dick if you can't take accountability." But then start foaming at the mouth when you remind them accountability goes both ways. When's the last time they made a child support payment?

[mllemaenad]

Right, well, I wanted to write, so I'm going to do that, even if my wrists hurt. Things I will pay for later, but make me feel better now.

Have now listened to episodes 1 and 2 of The Magnus Protocol.

My first impression is that this is much worse than what was going on in The Magnus Archives.

The Magnus Institute was a private institution with no obvious access to other people's information (Magnus's occasional psychic spying notwithstanding). Most information it received seems to have at least been given willingly. There are a handful of instances of John forcing people to talk, yes, but not so many that I am constantly concerned for the privacy of London's citizens. Gertrude is said to have disliked compelling people to talk (Family Business), so while her tally very likely exceeds John's purely due to the length of time she was in the job, it's still probably not very high. It's impossible to account for the behaviour of previous archivists of course but, well, the whole place is set up to entice people in to tell their tales. I would hazard that most of the materiel in the archives was volunteered.

Even in cases where someone was forced – at least they knew about it, because they were there. The lady in Scrutiny who was so deeply disturbed by John's behaviour was also able to make that behaviour stop just by rolling up to The Magnus Institute and reporting it – which is a reasonably straightforward outcome, given the general weirdness of their world.

I don't mean to say that The Magnus Institute didn't do harm – it very obviously did. But even in terms of its final apocalypse, we're looking at a horror that lasted mere months (assuming a passage of time that broadly corresponds to the broadcasting schedule) before a group of disgruntled employees (and Georgie) burned the nightmare tower down, stabbed Magnus and reset reality. There were limitations to The Magnus Institute's reach, and Jonah Magnus's personal ambitions concluded with an utter, embarrassing flop by any reasonable estimation.

Here, though, you're looking at a government department with truly concerning access to people's data. The forum-based statement in First Shift is perhaps not too awful (forum threads can often be read by anyone, even if actually posting requires an account), but the earlier piece regarding the bereaved woman was a private email thread, and the story in Making Adjustments is drawn from a recording of a woman's session with her therapist. Sam calls out the massive invasion of privacy this sort of thing entails, but is shut down on the grounds that it's fine because they "work for the government".

Alice Ok, so looks like it's an email. Sam And I just��� read it? Is that even legal? Alice Probably. We do work for the government. Sort of. Sam What about GDPR? Alice Look, Sam, I don't know what to tell you. This is the job. I've been doing it for years and there's never been any problems. Maybe ask Lena? She’d probably know. – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

While it is too early to definitively establish the worldbuilding rules here:

In The Magnus Archives, giving a statement was functionally feeding an eldritch power

Gertrude Robinson took statements, but kept the archives themselves in a state of disarray, to impede Magnus's plans (Dwelling)

Much of The Magnus Archives played on the difference between knowing a thing and understanding it

The characters in The Magnus Protocol are not just collecting, but blindly categorising statements – they are organising them by keyword, but not encouraged to analyse what they see or hear – Alice notes that they are paid not to care (Making Adjustments)

At least in The Magnus Archives, making a statement tended to come with consequences: typically horrifying recurring nightmares

So you have to wonder – what consequences will there be for these people, who have had their stories stolen from them?

In terms of workplace horror, this is very much coming at it from the opposite direction. The Magnus Archives was about the horrible job you couldn't quit. Most people find themselves stuck in these for economic reasons rather than supernatural ones, although in fairness both Martin (Children of the Night) and Melanie (Dig) are explicitly called out as very much needing the work, but the characters are nevertheless stuck and constantly call back to the fact that they would absolutely quit – if only they could.

It ran on punishing hours and constant exhaustion, the expectation that you would take on tasks you were in no way qualified or trained for (this started with "archiving" and escalated quickly to "apocalypses"), the boss who expected you to "just know" things you couldn't possibly know at all, and a soul destroying amount of responsibility with little hope of advancement. The same person ran the institute since its founding, literally consuming his employees along the way, and if you wanted, say, to be Head Archivist, you were very much stuck waiting for the current occupant of the role to die.

It is significant that, with the noted exception of Eric Delano, all of Gertrude's assistants died on the job (some of them by her hand), and tallying John's assistants is a bit like listing off the wives of Henry VIII: dead, dead, dead, divorced, survived, status unknown. While the story leans on deaths for drama, it gets a lot of mileage out of using historical data, so characters stick around. It's weird for them to be actually gone.

The Magnus Protocol opens with Teddy quitting the OIAR to take a job in insurance. The very first thing you learn about this place is that people leave, and this idea is reinforced a number of times even in the first two episodes: Gwen is pressured to resign by Lena because she is "difficult", and Lena notes outright that, for most people, this job is strictly short term:

Lena Hmmm. I’ve always known you thought you were slumming it down here, but I never actually considered you might think of this as the first step of a career. Most people simply move on within 12 months or so. Gwen I’m not most people. – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

Moreover, Making Adjustments concludes first with a fraught conversation about possible redundancies and then with Alice accusing Sam (however playfully) of looking to "jump ship" when he's seen researching The Magnus Institute.

This is the horrible job you might lose tomorrow. While the threat in The Magnus Archives was that you were probably going to die in this job, here it leans more toward – if you didn't show up tomorrow, who would question it? People leave.

It is a night shift, for no clear reason – they're doing data entry on what definitely looks like non-essential information so why the hell can't they do that in the day? Employees are not encouraged to think about their work, and Gwen is criticised for favouring accuracy over speed. It is grimly impersonal, and what little solidarity there is appears to be hard won; it's noted, for instance, that Colin is really only social with Alice, and Alice seems committed to team camaraderie.

But above that is the sense that the employees are considered too insignificant to participate in what is really happening here. I mean, among other things, Colin seems to be having a wildly different workplace experience to everyone else.

Alice postulates that they are a fossilised department – one that only really exists because it's been forgotten – although even she notes that the theory only works if you don't poke at it too hard:

Sam I've no real idea what the OIAR even is. Alice You and everyone else. I’ve checked and there's not really much info on it. My current working theory is that maybe it got set up in the 70s, back when everyone was off their tits on LSD and giving ghost-hunters massive grants to wave crystals in graveyards. I reckon at some point they must have put together a small government department to, like, oversee the spending and monitor this stuff and no-one's noticed it's still going. Sam Makes sense. Alice As long as you don’t pay too much attention. – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

Even if that is a bit extreme, the general consensus is that their work goes nowhere and does nothing. Which fits broadly with the general lack of action and urgency in the department ... unless you happen to be Colin.

Alice Colin! There’s my guy! How's it hanging? Is it an app yet? Do we have a minimalist logo? I assume you’ve finished all the social features? Colin Don't you start. I swear I'm going to shove a cable down that prick's throat, pull it out his ministerial anus and floss him to death. ... Teddy Colin, mate, you know you’re never getting out of here. Colin Christ, don’t say that. Teddy Even if his nibs lets you off the hook, which he won’t, you couldn’t bring yourself to just leave. Not 'til you’ve figured out all these fun little errors. Colin Or they finally kill me. ... Colin I already have to explain to some chinless inbred politician that we’re running on something as old as the goddamn Atari Falcon, now I’ve got some green little smartarse giving me lip for it too? Well you can take your funny little lines and shove them up – – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

Colin, specifically, is suffering from ministerial oversight. A lot of it, apparently. Departments that only continue to exist because they've been forgotten don't typically have the responsible minister leaning on the IT manager. Not even on the boss – the IT guy. It's interesting because his specific level of stress and frustration seems more consistent with what was going on in The Magnus Archives than here.

And then, of course, there are the stories themselves. It's impossible not to note that the text-to-speech programs sound an awful lot like the protagonists of the previous series. Presumably this is plot relevant, or else it's a really distracting choice. It's impossible to state at this stage whether that means it actually is them or not, but assuming for the moment that it is (because it is not interesting to discuss other possibilities until they become interesting) then what they have to say seems noteworthy.

They are presumably reacting to Sam specifically (welcome to the cursed protagonist club, new guy!), possibly to the box he ticked during onboarding, and likely to whatever past trauma led him to this job in the first place. And both seem to be issuing a warning.

Norris/Martin tells a story that Gwen classifies as "reanimation", but I admit I'm not sure I agree. The thing sounds like an iteration of the Anglerfish monster.

Norris/Harriet Winstead “Arthur? Is that you?” And that voice I have loved for twenty years answered: “Some of him.” – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

Archivist Are you the same Sarah Baldwin that disappeared in Edinburgh in August 2006? Sarah Some of her. Skin. A few memories. Not on the inside. – The Magnus Archives: Return to Sender

That feels at least in part like an Easter egg – no newcomer is going to recognise the Anglerfish – but it is the crossing of the boundary: this is the first true story they heard, and proof that there is something very wrong with the world. And presumably the themes of grief and loss that pervade the story would relate pretty strongly to Martin's whole ... situation. I'm assuming nobody here chose to be a text-to-speech program.

Chester/John, meanwhile, issues a fairly stern warning about The Magnus Institute. The canary in the coal mine is a bit on-the-nose as a metaphor, sure, but if I were trying to explain to someone what was wrong with that place, I would likely also be blunt. The rough thing, though, is that quite explicitly no one heeds the warning: while the "removed" image is not described it pretty clearly illustrated RedCanary's fate. It's not just that the canary died down the mine. It's that it died in vain, because no one understood what killed it. And of course, it does pique Sam's interest to the point that he starts digging in to what happened. I'm disinclined to believe that curiosity is bad in these stories – if anything, John's issue was that he could never find out the things he needed to know fast enough to make a good decision. But there is a point there ... if you start looking into things, you have to be prepared to deal with them.

The third one, in Making Adjustments seems to be playing somewhat on The Picture of Dorian Gray: Sam and Gwen start the episode by doing practice runs on classification using classic horror, and the story, when it begins, draws on that confusion between art and subject. You can line Dorian up beside Dracula and Frankenstein any day. But the bigger point seems to be that the catalyst for this happened on camera:

Daria Before I could reply they hit a button on their set-up and suddenly we were live streaming with lights in my eyes and their arm tight around my shoulders. I don’t remember much of what they said to their viewers, but they kept telling everyone how lucky I was whilst they dragged me into the chair. – The Magnus Protocol: Making Adjustments

There are nested violations in this story: Daria expected a photo shoot, but at no point agreed to be tattooed on camera. Beyond that, the story she told in private to her therapist is now being recorded and catalogued by the OIAR. And whatever happened to Daria, this "Ink5oul" person seems to have profited by it, and by things like it.

I must admit, I'm not much of a "what entity is this" person, because as far as I could tell the general consensus on that in general fell between "that's arbitrary" and "all of them, probably, if only by their conspicuous absence". That sort of thing is very useful when talking about the people and their particular obsessions – if Simon Fairchild turned up, for example, you knew exactly what sort of aggravating bullshit you were in for – but worrying too much about the exact nature of a supernatural manifestation rarely leads anywhere useful.

I am more interested in the broader implications of how the story is told. In The Magnus Archives, the characters read the stories aloud – and usually adopted the persona, and sometimes even the accent – of the original statement giver. That had supernatural implications, of course, but also played into the broader themes of the story: John is very much invested in the individuals. The tragedy of Jane Prentiss, the mystery of Gertrude Robinson – these are his obsessions. Pretty much the only point he scores in his conversation with Leitner (The Librarian) is being able to instantly spot a passing reference to Gerard Keay: John is crap at the cosmology, but he's been paying attention to the people. Many of the recurring characters are very dead by the time the story starts, but they are kept alive in the narrative because the living characters step into their shoes, and care about what they did and what became of them.

Here, though, there is built in distance between the active protagonists and the individual horror stories. They largely don't even read them – Alice says she "skim(s) the case for keywords" (Making Adjustments) and otherwise tries to ignore what is happening. When a story is read aloud it is done by the text-to-speech programs, and they, as John and Martin did, adopt the personas of the authors in a way that sounds much more fluid than software from the 90s should be capable of. When the story comes straight from the source, it is not told to Sam or Alice or Gwen, but to someone else entirely. There is a reason for the audience to connect with the stories – from that external perspective you're getting pretty much the same thing you did in The Magnus Archives – but the actual characters have no reason to connect, or even to truly listen or empathise with what they're hearing, and doing so is regarded as a mistake.

Which makes you wonder – what might you miss when you're not paying attention to the people?

[mc-critical]

Been a while but didnt want to overwhelm you

Hope You're fine!

So my question is between Nurbanu Sultan, Safiye Sultan and Mihrimah Sultan who was more Influential during Selim's and Murad's Reign? We Know that Mihrimah acted as Valide sultan too (with Nurbanu) and Safiye, considering Mihrimah's Support shouldn't have been far too off considering she was also Haseki and Very Respected.

My List in Selim's Reign Would Be

1.Mihrimah

2.Nurbanu

3.Safiye

My List in Murad's Reign would be

1.Nurbanu

2.Mihrimah

3.Safiye

Murad Respected Mihrimah Sultan Very much so i believe , as long as mihrimah lived, Sultan Murad Held her high in Status, Considering the rank in the harem Mihrimah,as a royal blood sultana plus older than nurbanu, should've been comparable to her or more influntial.

Let me know your opinion<3

During Selim's reign, both Mihrimah and Nurbanu certainly played historically, since Mihrimah was defacto his Valide and Nurbanu - his haseki. Mihrimah could be the one that dominated at first, because she ruled his harem and certainly kept stuff under control, but when Selim eventually married Nurbanu, she became the most influential woman in his reign. Safiye wasn't all that influential during Selim's reign, since she was gaining a favorable position in Murad's harem and the battle between her and Nurbanu probably intensified only during his reign.

In the show, things aren't so predetermined. We had Mihrimah leaving the capital even before SS died and Selim officially ascended the throne, leaving stuff to Nurbanu and Safiye even earlier. It's pretty much up for speculation on whether she came back or not and how involved she was in Selim's reign. The amount of influence she had in the reign depends on whether she came back or not. If she didn't come back, she could've definetly supervised stuff or at least send someone to tell her what the news are through Safiye, whom she herself trained in the show. Then I don't really see her coming back or doing stuff directly, because she had Safiye for this purpose already, she had someone to work against Nurbanu who was to keep being faithful to her (and judging by Safiye's characterization in MCK, yes, she stays true to what Mihrimah has told her about Hürrem and her legacy and based nearly her entire philosophy and principles on that). She would visit Selim, she would still help him if he needed that help, no matter how resentful she was to him for Bayezid, Selim himself would want to calm her. She left stuff go according to her plans (Safiye ultimately defeated Nurbanu) and she would have a say on how this whole battle would go before her death, but would she have all the say, if she somehow didn't rule Selim's harem? I doubt it. But then again, Selim would want her back, because someone would have to rule the harem after all and for them to maybe start over. She may try her best to rule his harem, to work against Nurbanu as a Valide and to enhance the conflict between her and Safiye and she may be the dominating force for a while, but Nurbanu would gain the upper hand eventually, due to all the support Selim would give her, especially if Mihrimah wouldn't want to let go of her resentment of Selim and he saw that. It would be a hard fight between them, since I feel who's more influential depends not as much on their positions in the hierarchy as it does on whoever gets more support from Selim eventually. Nurbanu would know that, too, and strive to keep the influence she had on him, while I think for Mihrimah it would take more time to try reaching out to Selim, because he had a finger in a wound of hers that probably would never heal and that could lose her some points. And once again, Nurbanu would prevail, because of Selim marrying her, hence giving her more priveleges and she would be more confident about asserting herself against Mihrimah. Nurbanu would perhaps struggle with Safiye more here than historically, because again, the battle would be on way earlier, but Nurbanu would still dominate as a favourite and haseki, while Safiye could show her force in a similar role to Nurbanu in Selim's reign only after Murat took over. Here too she would have the last position.

For the infamous fight for influence during Murad's reign historically, I have some quotes from Pinar Kayaalp's research on Nurbanu named "The empress Nurbanu and Ottoman politics in the sixteenth century. Building the Atik Valide": "In short, in contrast with Selim, who was rebuked for having transferred his authority to his imperial Divan, Murad was condemned for having conceded all his power to a close-knit coalition within the imperial harem loyal to the Valide Sultan. Murad’s haseki, Safiye, joined the fray, sometimes collaborating with but often acting against her mother-in-law and her allies. 125 Contemporaneous dispatches and relazioni of Venetian diplomats carefully reflect the transformation of power, following Nurbanu’s and Safiye’s political trajectory day by day. The minute details given in these sources illustrate that their authors discerned not one, but two foci of power in the imperial court. A relazione, that of Paolo Contarini dated 1583, stresses the good fortune of the Venetian Republic for having Nurbanu’s full support, since she was the most influential of the Sultan’s council, seconded by Safiye. It is a common occurrence that he shies away from any action necessitated by the [exigencies of] the day ahead, resting a deed principally on the counsel of his mother, believing that he could never obtain a more affectionate and faithful advice than hers, stemming from the reverence that he nurtures for her and his esteem for her rare qualities and many virtues. Another [woman] who has authority over His Majesty is the Sultana, his wife, who is also engaged skillfully in the affairs of state and makes her opinions heard, because she is loved infinitely by the Signor. As a result, this empire more and more has come to be governed by the [two] Sultanas, who use the magnificent pashas as the executors of their wishes and who summon them at their will as their counselors."  The fight between Nurbanu and Safiye clearly marked Murad's whole reign and Nurbanu apparently held her ground very well, given Murad leaning on his mother's advices and support. She was the most influential person in his reign, with Safiye as an opposition and unfortunately or not, Mihrimah... wasn't much of a factor during the reign. After all, she lost the position as Selim's Valide, she died very early in Murad's reign and the quotes detail how the political power between the two forces that were Safiye and Nurbanu was growing rapidly. There isn't so much Mihrimah could've done historically, since the pashas and the divan probably had to choose to be either on Nurbanu's or Safiye's side.

In the show, we're again left on more speculation. And Mihrimah could've had more say than historically, because we were shown that Murad respected her, as well, and she specifically instructed Safiye. Until she died, she could've helped Safiye in her battle and if she was still in the castle, support her even and make things even harder for Nurbanu, and if she wasn't, she would've visited them at the very least, since Murad would surely ask about her. She would have reached out to him comparatively more easily than Selim, because there was no fight between both of them. Mihrimah could've ensured Safiye's victory somehow, with a plan or an advice Safiye followed even after Mihrimah died. But even then... the battle was between Safiye and Nurbanu and its outcome was the decider of who was the most influential. Here Nurbanu probably had even more of a struggle, because Murad was infatuated with Safiye even before Selim's reign officially began and it's more likely that he would get in fights with his mother because of Safiye. We know that Nurbanu does eventually become more cruel (Safiye saying she was the cruelest sultana she has even known) and that Safiye has been exiled once in the Old Castle during Murat's reign, so she has had much power and ruthlessness at her behest. We also know that Safiye eventually has gotten used to her own power so much that she refused to give up from it in MCK and I kinda doubt this began only from Mahmud's reign. (that's why I think Safiye has the best material for a spin-off out of the show!SOW - the contrast between her E239 words and MCK Safiye is massive and it's worth observing how we got from the person being there for a sole task and fulfilling the role Mihrimah trained her for to the person who not only got out of the role, faced so many hardships from the system that she gained a vast knowledge of it, but gained this much power, correspondance with queen Elizabeth, such presence and such a big confidence in herself.) So judging by the show' canon dynamics and from what we know, in Murad's reign, Nurbanu and Safiye were fighting tooth and nail with different amounts of upper hand when Nurbanu's influence as a Valide dominated until Safiye took over and Mihrimah probably helped Safiye to gain more supporters.

[rpmemesbyarat]

RP meme from Tremors

Let's get you out of the sun for a spell.

Please move your fat ass.

Well, when I'm your age I'll probably forget what I eat, too.

How many cows does it take to make a stampede? Is it like three or more? Is there a minimum speed?

You will have long blonde hair, big green eyes, nice full breasts that stand up and say hello, ass that won't quit. And legs, legs that go all the way up!

Yeah, well, I'm getting what I refer to scientifically as "weird vibes."

They're all the same; dead weight. Can't make a decision, can't walk because of their shoes, can't work because of their fingernails. Make my skin crawl!

Well, I'm a victim of circumstance.

Twenty years of looking for a woman exactly like Miss October 1968, and where'd it get me?

Down, honey, down.

The way you worry, you're gonna have a heart attack before you get to survive World War III.

Right. We plan ahead. That way we don't do anything right now.

The idea was; we were ripping you off.

Now, you know I'm good for it.

Are we too easy-going?

If we're gonna take the plunge we oughta have a better plan than that.

Stop it! Stop it, you horrid animal!

God almighty, my mama sure didn't raise me for this.

You're the one's gotta have a plan.

What keeps us doing jobs like this is you dragging your feet.

You gonna stand there in broad daylight and tell me you think I'm the reason we're still here?

I'll call that little bluff.

Forget it, man. It's not worth it.

We did it! We faced temptation and we did not bend!

Last chance, asshole.

Jeez, look at that guy.

You're full of shit.

He must've really been drunk this time.

You damn fool, you owe me on this one

Well, whatever the hell happened it's just one more goddamn good reason to haul ass out of this place.

Hey, where the hell's that asshole dog?

We got a killer on the loose!

He's cutting people's heads off!

I'd high-tail for town if I was you!

The phone is out!

We've gotta get the police up here.

Well, there's sure as hell nothing to stop us now.

Is some higher force at work here?

Are we asking too much of life?

You on a booze break or what?!

Where are the bullets? Don't we have any goddamn bullets?

Hey, I don't want spend the night out here!

What the hell you doing back already?

Unreal! Where'd you get it?

It's disgusting.

So, it's some kind of snake?

It's dead all right. Tore the damn thing in half.

There's gotta be more out there, a lot more.

Slick as snot and I'm not lying.

Look, we organize, we arm ourselves.

We go out, we find those damn snake things, we make 'em extinct.

Might be aliens. Who knows?

Why go looking for trouble?

Phone's out. Road's out. We're on our own.

I'm dead. Let's finish in the morning.

Just keep looking at that beautiful sky.

Damn that thing!

Well, what's wrong with it?

You sure this is where it was?

God, what a stink!

Something's got me!

Oh, God! Get me Out!! GET ME OUT!!

Somebody stop it!

You want the rifle or the Smith?

IT'S GOT ME! IT's GOT ME! AAAAHGH!

You stupid punk!

One of these days, [NAME], somebody's gonna kick your ass.

Come back with the Sheriff.

Come back with the National Guard.

That means we're gonna be out here, like, in the dark.

Oh, man, I hate this shit.

Ride like hell.

How could they bury an entire Plymouth station wagon?

They're under the goddamn ground!

There must be a million of them!

It's gaining on us!

We can do it, we can do it!

We killed the bastard!

Did you just notice something weird?

Think it smells like that 'cause it's dead?

I think they shoot right outta its mouth, hook you, and pull you right in.

Good thing we stopped it before it killed anybody else.

I'm lucky it didn't find me.

This is like, well, let's say it, it's probably the biggest zoological discovery of the century.

Just look at what we caught here!

This is one big mother!

Come on, nobody's ever seen one of these!

There are five more of these things!

Five more?

If you compare the different readings, there have to be five.

There's nothing like them in the fossil record, I'm sure.

I'd vote for outer space. No way those are local boys.

The government built them, a big surprise in the next war.

How the hell's it even know we're still here?

It can sense the slightest seismic vibration, hear every move we make.

I always wanted to be stuck on a desert island. But somehow I always imagined, you know, water.

You know, I hate to be crude, but I'm gonna have to take care of some business here.

I'll tell you, if you ever wanted proof God is a man, this is it.

Running's not a plan. Running is what you do when the plan fails.

You're not even trying to come up with a plan!

Think it's still following us?

You go north, I'll go south.

Well, I'm scared, but I'm not sorry.

All right, I'm about as subtle as a donkey's ass.

You think we're not even safe here in town?

I think we should all get the hell out while the getting's good.

You should have a theory at least.

This valley's just one long smorgasbord and if we don't haul ass outta here we're the next course.

You little ass wipe!

You knock that off or you're gonna be shitting that basketball!

Where are we going to go that's safer than right here?

I'm gonna kick his ass!

Man, you got a gun?!

Big as a house!

Remember, no noise. No vibration.

Get off your pogo stick!

Go back, for chrissake!

Come on! Outta your pants!

Just run! Run like screaming fuck!

This oughta hurt like hell.

So, is that one of your usual jobs, saving peoples' lives?

How long till they go away?

Shut it up! Shut the little bastard up!

Quiet! Quiet you hateful thing!

Chuck him out the door!

Son of a bitchin' lowlife, putrid, scum.

I got enough food here to last us for weeks.

Jesus! Shut it off!

Can't you shout a little quieter?

How the hell long it take you to change a tire?

They're coming after you! They're coming right now!

Big monsters under the ground, [NAME]!

Broke into the wrong goddamn rec room, didn't you, you BASTARD!

We killed that motherfucker!

Uh, be advised, however, there are four more, repeat, four more motherfuckers.

They got one! They killed one of the sons of bitches!

You're not getting any penetration, even with the elephant gun.

Never figured on having to shoot through dirt! Best goddamn bullet stop there is.

They can feel our vibrations, but they can't find us.

The bastards are up to something.

Oh, wow, man! No way! No fucking way, man!

They're gonna tear this whole town out from under us!

We'll come get everybody. Just hang on tight.

Since when the hell's every goddamn thing up to us?!

We don't have a hell of a lot of time here.

We need a helicopter is what we need, or a goddamn tank.

Jesus. It's slower than hell.

Couldn't we distract them somehow?

We need a decoy.

Hey, [NAME], you wanna make a buck?

We're gonna save our asses here!

Get real. I'm faster than you.

Damn. Guess I have to do it.

Watch your ass, shithead.

Don't worry about me, jerkoff.

You goddamn suicidal son of a bitch!

He'll never make it! They're gonna get him!

HEY, YOU SORRY SONS OF BITCHES, COME AND GET ME!

Goddamn good thinking!

Me next!

Get me off of here!

We got about three seconds!

God damn! Armored transport!

What do you think? Max firepower or...?

I'd go for penetration.

Give me a gun! I'll take one!

I wouldn't give you a gun if it was World War Three.

Underground goddamn monsters?!

Any sign of'em?

Maybe they're taking a dump.

What the hell are they doing? They're up to something.

I don't care what they're doing as long as they're doing it way over there.

They dug a trap! I can't believe this!

Hungry?! Eat this!!

Here they come! They're coming back!

They'll sure as hell get us if we stay here!

[NAME] do you have any more of those things?

Then, when the explosion happens, if it drives them away again, we all run like goddamn bastards!

What if it doesn't scare them? What if they don't run?

They're so sensitive to sound, they have to run! It hurts too much!

We're gonna run. Get ready.

They're too fast! You can't outrun them, no way!

It worked! There they go!

You asshole! There's no bullets in this gun!

Could we make it to the mountains?

What's the matter with you? What are you talking about?!

Those animals would have killed you!

You haven't seen what they can do.

They're not falling for it!

I'll make'em pay attention, goddamnit

We can't kill them all.

Use the fucking bomb!

This better be one great plan!

We could make some real money off this whole thing, get in People magazine.

Sell the movie rights.

You're really leaving, huh?

There's going to be major research up here.

And thanks for everything, you know, saving my life and stuff.

Civil? I'm civil.

You're not civil, you're glum.

We got the world by the tail with a downhill pull and all of a sudden you go glum on me.

Somebody paying you to do this?

She just practically asked you for a date.

God, my work is never done.

Fine, make the mistakes I did.

I think I'll just be playing this hand myself.

I'd goddamn worship her.

Can you fly, sucker?! CAN YOU FLY?!