era

This is not metaphorical. I mean actual, literal pieces of paper/plastic/metal/whatever explicitly erected to inform the public.

“How did you know this was the right trail?” I read the sign.

“Wow, how did you know what that flower is?” There’s a SIGN.

“How did you know we needed to use the side door?” THERE IS A SIGN POSTED ON THE FRONT DOOR.

Just…why are we having such different experiences of the world? People can read. I KNOW they can read. There’s nothing wrong with their vision.

Just. READ. THE. GOD. DAMN. SIGN.

This also applies to:

Syllabi

Jewish baby named Edgardo Mortara is seemingly about to die in Bologna, 1851

Catholic nanny secretly baptises him to save his soul, which she’s not exactly the kind of authority who can do that, but w/e, it’s interpreted by the church as valid later

Kid survives

1857 her secret gets out, a baptising makes a kid a Catholic according to the Church and a Catholic can’t be raised in a non-Catholic household in the Papal States, so the church authorises the police to kidnap Edgardo from his family

Raised personally by Pope Pius IX, Jewish family not allowed to take him back due to Church doctrine, this action destroys the family with grief and despair

This case gets international infamy with the Pope not understanding why everyone’s shiting on him for doing this, including allies

Emperor Napoleon III shifts from opposing Italian unification to supporting it as a direct consequence

Bologna falls the next year, 1859

Kingdom of Italy forms 1861

By 1870 Rome is lost to the Italians and the Papal States are no more

(Edgardo Mortara goes on to become Father Mortara)

The most infamous of these cases was the Finaly affair. Two Jewish children in France, Robert and Gerald Finaly, were placed in a Catholic nursery in 1944 in anticipation of their parents being deported to Auschwitz, where they were both murdered. Their aunt, Marguerite Fischel, survived the war and went to find the boys so she could take them to live with her. However, the nun who had custody of the boys, Antoinette Brun, adamantly refused to give them up, reportedly saying that “The Jews are not grateful”

What followed was a years long custody battle where despite being repeatedly ordered by courts all over Europe to return the boys, Brun took them to many different countries and hid them, with the support and help of other nuns and priests. It was suspected at the time, and later confirmed by documents released in 2020, that Pope Pius XII had supported the effort to keep the boys away from their surviving family and have them be raised Catholic.

Thankfully, after negotiations between a sympathetic cardinal in France and the chief Rabbi of Paris, the boys were finally recovered and reunited with their aunt.

I wish I could say that the phenomenon of the Catholic Church kidnapping children and keeping them away from their families for the purposes of forcefully raising them Catholic is unique to Jews, but it’s not. From the mid nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century, the Church ran hundreds of residential schools in the US and Canada where indigenous children were kidnapped from their homes and forced into these cruel and inhumane “schools”. The children were forbidden from speaking their own languages or practicing their own cultures and religions, their hair was cut, and they were subject to emotional, verbal, spiritual, physical, and sexual abuse. Many of the children died due to malnutrition or medical neglect, their bodies buried like dogs beside the schools. The Catholic Church was not the only Church to participate in this, but they’ve been the most reluctant to fully acknowledge and apologize for it. It was only in 2022 that Pope Francis apologized on behalf of the Catholic Church for their part, but some people found the apology inadequate.

it's really easy to play

I'll go first!

asdghgfds we all love a good bi marly <3

my prompts are now closed as I am working through my backlog, but my ask box remains open for yapping, headcanons etc. :)

-

"Why is Marleau calling you?" Shane squinted at Ilya's phone on the table. They were currently in a beautiful and very private hotel resort in Spain, enjoying the off-season and a gorgeous breakfast on their bungalow balcony. "It's the middle of the night in Boston."

Ilya picked up his phone, frowning at it. "Maybe he is drunk," he said dryly, and tapped the accept call button, followed by the speaker button. Marleau's voice was so loud that Shane would hear, anyway. "Hello, asshole," Ilya said.

"Heeey cocksucker," Marleau replied; Shane raised his eyebrows at Ilya, who ignored him.

"Why are you calling me while I am having a romantic and very sexy vacation with my husband?" Ilya asked. "Do you miss me so much?"

"Always, brother." Marleau laughed, but even Shane could hear that it wasn't quite natural. Ilya seemed to pick up on it, too, because he asked, "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, uuuuh, listen..." Shane could see Marleau's big, dumb, handsome face in his mind's eye. He was probably drunk, considering the hour. Shane took a very suspenseful sip of his orange juice, waiting to hear more. "...so, uh, you know how you always talk about how sex with guys is awesome?"

Ilya's frown deepened. "Yes, I always talk about this. How sex with my handsome and perfect husband is awesome." He gave Shane a wink, and Shane rolled his eyes at him.

"Yeah, so," Marly continued, "I thought I'd give it a try."

Shane chocked on his orange juice, but tried to stay silent as to not give himself away. Ilya gave him a wide-eyed, very intrigued grin, then reached out to pat Shane's back to keep him from choking. "Wow. You fucked a guy? Which guy?"

"Friend of a friend," Marly said, "He's this like, hot asian guy- what do you call it, a twink?"

Shane felt his eyes grow even wider. Ilya had a hand over his mouth now to keep himself from either laughing or screaming.

"-total coincidence on the asian part, dude, y'know," Marleau rambled, "But somehow we started talking about how maybe I'd like to give it the good ol' college try, so he was like let's do it. He came over, and he sucked my dick which, woah dude, you're so right, guys just know what they're doing, right?"

"Yes," Ilya confirmed, voice flat from trying to keep it together.

"-so he blows me, right?" Marleau was clearly getting into the story now, sounding fond in a strangely endearing way as he talked about this hook-up, "and it was like, holy shit, dude, and he was like, it's fine, just come, so I came in his mouth, and I thought, y'know, we'd just stop but he was like, do you still want to fuck me? So we just kinda made out for a while until I was ready to go again, and I tried sucking his dick and shit, dude it's so hard!"

Shane sat there, completely frozen. He knew, obviously, that Marly and Ilya shared sex stories much more openly than Shane ever had with any of his male friends (he did share some things with Rose, but not like this). But the level of detail was astounding.

"Did you like it?" Ilya asked, "Sucking dick?"

Shane thanked every available entity that their bungalow was very, very private.

"Um, yeah, I guess? It was interesting, I didn't not like it."

"Maybe you need to try again, a few times," Ilya suggested idly.

"Yeah, dude, for sure. So, once I was ready to go again he, like, got on top- I didn't even know two guys could do it cowgirl- or I guess, cowboy- style, it's fucking awesome, you learn something new everyday! But he said, since my dick's so big he need to kind of be in control, and so he rode me."

"Wow," Ilya intercepted.

"Yeah, it was fucking awesome, dude. Like, I've done anal before with girls but it's obviously different but just seeing him get off like that from it was so fucking nice, like I get what you said about Hollander coming on your dick being so fucking awesome-"

Shane gasped, slapping Ilya's thigh, feeling himself blush violently. Ilya grabbed his wrist and held his hand there, giving him a very unconvincingly apologetic grin.

"So, yeah, it was super fucking hot." Shane could hear the self-satisfied grin in Marleau's voice.

"Are you going to fuck him again?" Ilya asked.

"Dunno, maybe," Marly replied, a little too causal. There was a two-second pause, then he added, "So, uh... how did you figure out you were bi?"

"Marly, I think you are past this now," Ilya told him dryly. "I am taking credit for this by the way."

"You can, brother!" Marleau laughed, "You got me onto something."

"Yes." Now Ilya was the one looking self-satisfied. "Next time, you must try eating his ass."

"Woah, dude. Wait, let me write this down."

"Oh my god," Shane whispered, letting his forehead fall to the edge of their breakfast table.

"Do you think I will get better at hockey now?" Marly asked, sounding entirely too serious.

"Yes, of course," Ilya answered just as seriously, "Statistically, having gay sex makes you better at hockey. Will be good for Boston, ah? Better do it some more."

"On it, Cap," Marley replied.