oncejaw-a

[oncejaw-a]

important!

Marcel’s blog has finally graduated from sideblog to full blog! You can find him over here at @oncejaw !

I will continue threads from the new blog - don’t worry too much if you owe me replies, I’m not deleting the sideblog so I will get the notification regardless when you reblog, and I can take it from there!

[oncejaw-a]

important!

Marcel’s blog has finally graduated from sideblog to full blog! You can find him over here at @oncejaw !

I will continue threads from the new blog - don’t worry too much if you owe me replies, I’m not deleting the sideblog so I will get the notification regardless when you reblog, and I can take it from there!

[oncejaw-a]

I keep thinking all the time: who is ever going to pray for me? Is there anyone in the world?

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (via apocryphics)

[oncejaw-a]

I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake.

Shirley, Charlotte Bronte (via macrolit)

[oncejaw-a]

Marcel’s lines in the anime are 49% “Porco, stop!”, and 49% “I’m sorry, Reiner”, and I think that’s a beautiful summary of his entire character.

[oncejaw-a]

‘  you  are  not  broken .  ’ * pieck !

@vvasilisa (misc quotes)

------------ “... I’m not?” Marcel’s voice is but a croak in his throat, almost comically surprised - almost, for there is nothing comical about the way it forces it way out like nails digging into dirt to get out of a premature coffin. On Pieck his gaze remains, while his hand vaguely moves to designate and encompass the room, his room, his present den of misery. A frankly unreasonable amount of empty bottles, including a yet unfinished cognac, are the only company Marcel has been keeping for the past couple of days. The young Warrior has not asked for anybody, nor has anybody asked for him. Well, to his knowledge. At least until today.

A vague nausea, shame- and alcohol-induced, stirs within ruins of battered, feverish body, as he feels Pieck’s gaze, oddly soft, oddly piercing all at once, bearing down on him. He looks up, musters the courage to face her - after all, she has the heart not to laugh at his pitiful state, there is a kindness to repay; amber meets heavy clouds, but the former is tainted. “I sentenced Reiner to death.” He articulates, slow and low. Marcel always strives to present well, under more normal circonstances; today he sits and broods, unkempt, disheveled, a wreck even he can no longer contain. A vague part of him feels sorry that Pieck has to see him that way. She has always been the braver, wiser, more stoic kind - truth be told he always greatly admired that disposition of hers. Nevermind the bitterness or fatigue that may lie underneath - he knows too well there are always to sides to a shiny coin. “I lied to the army, to all of you, and I ruined my brother’s dreams.” Slurred words painfully roll onto his tongue, and he leans upon the table, elbows on smooth surface, head in hands, fingers gripping at the brown spikes of his hair. Laboured breathing, his chest compressed and crushed. “And all that for nothing.”

He knows that she knows. The unofficial news is already circulating among Warriors and candidates alike. Gabi and Falco are still locked in an arm-wrestling match for the Armored, but Porco will inherit the Jaw. His Jaw. How messed up is that? He looks back at Pieck, as though silently asking her that same question. Please tell me this isn’t normal. Please tell me I’m right. Please tell me you understand. “I don’t know what to do, Pieck.” A bomb is dropped - shockwave reverberating across the room, shaking whatever is left of his bones, and he prays the blast will at least spare her. Never once in his life had Marcel Galliard uttered the words ‘I don’t know what to do’. Well, here’s you goddamn first. Amber gaze, pained and sullen, screaming of drunken remorse and guilt, seeks some sort of comfort, of certainty, in her silence. Pieck has always been the smart one. The one with good judgement. He used to find so much comfort in that - her wisdom. Maybe she’ll know. Maybe she’ll see what he hasn’t been able to for nearly a decade. “What would you do?” . 

[oncejaw-a]

“ They’re all adults. They can handle themselves in public.“

Famous last words.

[oncejaw-a]

‘  sorry  about  the  blood  in  your  mouth .  i  wish  it  was  mine .  ’ * hisu :^/

@vvasilisa (misc. quotes)

---------------- Silence stuffs the room, suffocating presence between them: the queen on one side of those four walls, the Warrior on the other, trapped, encased in this glasstank of stones and sorrows. They stare at each other as wounded animals do, with bafflement and a hurry fluttering beneath the skin, only waiting to see what the other will do first. It is the first time Marcel lays eyes on the queen of the Walls; and yet, there is this feeling, that he has seen her before - in another time, in another life, a life that is not his to claim as his own.

Even her voice sounds vaguely familiar -- there is this odd sense of déjà-vu, that grazes at the back of his skull. And yet, a discrepancy, uncomfortable, grating; this is the voice that sometimes echoes in distant, alien memories, yet not quite. It is too quiet, too cracked, and the cracks are filled with misery in lieu of gold. He is familiar with misery. He too, wears it engraved on his face, in the harshness of his scowl; once a fearless young lion, today mere imitation of one. The queen is right - there is blood in his mouth. His titan has crushed many bodies under its powerful teeth - the only blood he cares for are those of the Jaws that came before. The blood of the woman he ate. The blood of a brother she passed on to him. 

Marcel’s gaze hardens, amber turned from liquid to solid, edged and cutting. “There is still time to fix that.” He retorts somberly; but the hands buried in his pockets make no motion to edge towards the blade he hides in the crook of his palm. The curiosity is overpowering. Morbid as it is. Somewhere, there is a hole in his chest, which he knows not to be his - it is her legacy, in the shape of a cavern, and it has her name written all over it. Here she is, then. The girl whose face he sometimes sees when his predecessor’s memories slip through the veil between past and present. 

“I’ll admit, your Majesty, you are not what I expected. Not from what I saw in Ymir’s memories.” He continues; steadies his voice, anchors it in detached monotony, careful and apprehensive. Tries to, at least. But grief is so pervasive; it chips away at the amber of his eyes, it splits his own voice like misery does hers. “I suppose the past few years have not been kind to you.” He sees it in her eyes. There too, is a crack, a splinter. Poisoned, irreparable. She has lost something she is never getting back. A wave of pity overcomes his sorry remnants of a heart. “You were there, weren’t you? When she decided to return my brother to our homeland. She killed him, and returned him to us.” Oh, how it aches; keep it together, Galliard, push the pieces back together before you crumble before the enemy. “... I'm sorry it had to come to this for me to get my brother back.” 

[oncejaw-a]

(ooc) so, what do we say is the worst case scenario: 1. Marcel did influence the army in Reiner’s favour to save his brother and sentenced his friend to death (for nothing, Porco inherited the Jaw instead) and died with this guilt. 2. Marcel did not have the influence he thinks he did, the army would have picked Reiner anyway, and he died firmly convinced he sentenced his friend to death, even though he actually had nothing to do with it.

Sub-section post-Paradis: 3. Marcel did influence the army in Reiner’s favour, and now has to quietly sit back and watch as Reiner comes close to the end of his thirteen years and Marcel is going to have to be devoured by his own little brother.  4. Marcel did not have the influence he thinks he did, and only finds out years later when Magath or Zeke tells him, making him realise that he tormented himself with a soul-crushing sense of guilt he wasn’t meant to bear (well he’ll always feel guilty for trying but still), and that he never had any agency in his brother’s fate, or in anything, ever. 

[oncejaw-a]

‘  i  wanted  to  let  go  of  the  pain  even  though  it  was  the  last  thing  that  felt  alive  from  you .  ’ * porco :^)

@vvasilisa (misc. quotes)

------------- You should have. The words form in a mind that is no longer a mind, dance on a tongue that is no longer a tongue, and never fall, frozen like a raindrop in the dead of winter. There is an endless winter here, and he is very dead, so perhaps it is all very fitting, that he, in death, was robbed of his voice. There is not a word that can be uttered here, unless you are still alive; and the living are a rare occurrence in the Paths. Some of them slip through, sometimes; chance upon the clear, light sands and starry skies through an open crack in a dream, or a delirious fever. None of them ever stayed long - none of them remembered. Not really.

You should have. The pain is a tether that binds them; it weighs on their shoulders and strains a brother’s love, distorts it, until it nestles there, right where it should have no place, right at the heart of something that should be pure, and good, and bright and warm. There it is, his legacy: Marcel Galliard, holder of the Jaw, brother, traitor, tormentor. Behold your life’s work, my child: a brother grown up, and broken, and pulled down by your very own string of failures. He had wanted to save him, once. That is all he had ever wanted, in thirteen (thirteen!) blazing years of life: to protect his little brother from the gears and teeth of a monstrous machine that he knew would swallow him whole - the way the titan had swallowed him. He had wanted to save him; perhaps hell is being doomed to gaze upon the consequences of your bad decisions and watch, powerless, as others continue to pay the price.

Porco has not been able to access his memories. Marcel knows that, and he knows it all the more, to his core, as he gazes upon the folded silhouette of his brother before him, kneeling in the sand and grasping at nothing. Porco has not been able to access his memories, but other things has seeped through the Jaw, he knows. He feels it too, from this place, feels himself leaking into sand and down that tether that binds them, an everlasting, nagging presence, one that torments and tortures where it should comfort and reassure. A constant reminder of what they have lost, and a reminder of what Porco is being denied time and time again. Marcel cannot give him anything - save for pain. The excruciating pain of a life cut short; the pain of a promise broken; the pain of watching a beloved sibling walk into one’s blood-soaked footsteps; the pain of a cycle that never ends; the pain of gigantic teeth closing on one’s tender neck. All of it is Marcel’s - for a while, it had been the girl’s too. Now that Porco has inherited the Jaw, all of Marcel’s pain, unspoken and unexplained, is shoved onto him. 

Had Marcel still had a voice, he would have screamed. 

Let go.

                                                                                                                             Don’t let go. 

He watches him, with wide, hungry, sunken eyes. He must retreat. If he stays, it will only make his brother suffer. He cannot; he stays in place, frozen, immobile, before this little brother who has grown so much bigger, so much older than he ever did. And he aches - aches, seeing his brother shackled to him so; aches, as a child too frightened (too selfish) to let him go. 

I am

                                                         gone

I am

                                                                                                                         right here.

[oncejaw-a]

My family is the myth of an animal devouring      ��                     itself. What is an ouroboros but a body, or a story, without a beginning or an end.

torrin a. greathouse, “Medusa with the Head of Perseus,” from Wound from the Mouth of a Wound (via bostonpoetryslam)

[oncejaw-a]

The Thin Red Line (1998)

[oncejaw-a]

“I’m sure that would be what my brother wanted!”

[More comics]

[oncejaw-a]

(ooc) No thought, just Zeke organising a brunch with his gang of trauma&conflict-riddled warriors and fucking not showing up.

[oncejaw-a]

…your mind performs like a circus, sharp as a sword somebody has to swallow,

Alicia Ostriker, from The Imaginary Lover; “Waiting all” (via feral-ballad)

[oncejaw-a]

𝐚𝐬𝐤  𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐞 :    𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒆𝒐𝒖𝒔  𝒒𝒖𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒔

‘  i’ll  find  you  again ,  wherever  we  end  up  next .  ’

‘  the  enormity  of  my  desire  disgusts  me .  ’

‘  please ,  one  more  kiss  in  the  kitchen  before  we  turn  the  lights  off .  ’

‘  i’ve  been  lost  but  i’m  here  now .  you’re  the  only  person  who  has  ever  been  able  to  find  me .  ’

‘  almost  dead  yesterday ,  maybe  dead  tomorrow ,  but  alive ,  gloriously  alive ,  today .  ’

‘  you  are  not  broken .  ’

‘  you  can  love  and  be  loved ,  despite  what  may  feel  like  the  eternally  brutal  nature  of  the  world .  ’

‘  i  did  violence  to  my  own  heart .  ’

‘  will  i  be  forgiven  for  the  sins  i  did  not  commit ,  but  created ?  ’

‘  i  would  never  kiss  anyone  who  doesn’t  burn  me  like  the  sun .  ’

‘  i  would  rather  break  the  world  than  lose  you .  ’

‘  i  think  you  and  i  have  known  each  other  in  a  few  lifetimes .  ’

‘  i  didn’t  know .  i  had  no  idea  how  greedy  my  heart  really  was .  ’

‘  is  that  why  the  idea  of  losing  you  torments  me  so  much ?  ’

‘  how  long  have  i  been  without  you ?  ’

‘  am  i  foolish  for  wanting  this ?  it  will  end  in  flames .  it  always  does .  ’

‘  sorry  about  the  blood  in  your  mouth .  i  wish  it  was  mine .  ’

‘  if  i  love  you ,  is  that  a  fact  or  a  weapon ?  ’

‘  tell  me  how  all  this ,  and  love  too ,  will  ruin  us .  ’

‘  and  you  realize  the  one  person  in  the  world  who  loves  you  isn’t  the  one  you  thought  it  would  be .  ’

‘  it  cannot  be  a  mistake  to  have  cared .  it  cannot  be  an  error  to  have  tried .  it  cannot  be  incorrect  to  have  loved .  ’

‘  finally ,  i  plead  guilty  of  adoring  you .  ’

‘  a  child  weaned  on  poison  considers  harm  a  comfort .  ’

‘  without  realizing ,  i  find  it  in  myself  that  i  cannot  stop  thinking  about  you .  ’

‘  tomorrow ,  when  i  wake  up ,  i  promise ,  i  will  be  better .  ’

‘  someone  has  to  leave  first .  this  is  a  very  old  story .  there  is  no  other  version  of  this  story .  ’

‘  when  i  imagine  myself ,  i  am  always  leaving .  i  couldn’t  draw  my  own  face  if  god  asked .  ’

‘  do  we  simply  stare  at  what’s  horrible  and  forgive  it ?  ’

‘  i  wanted  to  let  go  of  the  pain  even  though  it  was  the  last  thing  that  felt  alive  from  you .  ’

‘  have  i  endured  loneliness  with  grace ?  ’

‘  i’ll  be  your  slaughterhouse ,  your  killing  floor ,  your  morgue  and  final  resting ,  walking  around  with  this  bullet  inside  me  ‘cause  i  couldn’t  make  you  love  me  and  i  am  tired  of  pulling  your  teeth .  ’

‘  and  then  my  soul  saw  you  and  kind  of  went ,  ‘ oh ,  there  you  are .  i’ve  been  looking  for  you . ’  ’

‘  sometimes  it  feels  like  someone  else  is  wearing  my  body .  ’

‘  i  spent  my  life  arguing  how  i  mattered  until  it  didn’t  matter .  ’ 

‘  who  knew  my  haven  would  be  my  coffin ?  ’

‘  dead  is  the  safest  i’ve  ever  been .  ’

‘  i’ve  never  been  so  alive .  ’ 

‘  you  know  what  i  was  gonna  tell  you  before ,  but  didn’t  have  the  nerve ?  you  got  your  name  written  all  over  me .  i  got  my  name  written  on  you ,  too .  ’ 

‘  you  already  are  something .  you  always  were .  and  you  still  have  time  to  be .  ’

‘  you  know  me  by  heart .  it  infuriates  me  that  you  know  me  by  heart .  ’ 

‘  why  am  i  waiting  for  you ?  hungering  and  thirsting  for  you  in  every  cranny  of  my  soul  and  even  in  my  ribs ?  ’ 

‘  you  came  with  a  handful  of  pain  and  a  smile  which  broke  the  ground  under  my  feet  as  the  earthquake  does  when  two  people  meet .  ’

‘  the  only  good  thing  is  that  i’m  getting  used  to  suffering .  ’

‘  the  return  to  time  was  not  my  choice .  ’

‘  we  are  built  to  live  inside  each  other .  this  means  we  are  built  to  ruin .  ’

‘  time  does  not  bring  relief ;  you  all  have  lied .  ’

‘  time  does  not  know  how  to  keep  our  hopes  safe .  ’

‘  you  needed  me  so  much  that  you  had  to  end  me .  ’

‘  there  are  days  where  i  am  morbidly  in  love  with  you ,  and  this  is  one  of  those  days .  ’

‘  i  know  no  end  to  desiring  you .  ’

‘  i  fear  that  i  am  both  too  much  yet  not  enough .  ’

‘  yes ,  yes ,  yes ,  i  do  like  you .  i  am  afraid  to  say  the  stronger  word .  ’ 

‘  a  heart’s  a  heavy  burden .  ’

‘  life ,  as  i  see  it ,  is  all  about  farewells  rather  than  reunions .  ’

‘  heaven  is  real  and  you  only  had  two  minutes  to  prove  it  to  me .  ’

‘  it  was  already  love .  ’

‘  everyone  desires  love  but  also  finds  it  impossible  to  believe  that  they  deserve  it .  ’

‘  i’ll  love  you  until  i  forget  how  to .  ’

‘  i’ll  love  you  until  i  forget  how  to  and  then  i’ll  fall  like  my  knees  aren’t  already  bruised  from  doing  it  and  i’ll  remember  why  you’re  worth  the  ache .  ’

‘  of  course  i’ll  hurt  you .  of  course  you’ll  hurt  me .  of  course  we’ll  hurt  each  other .  but  this  is  the  very  condition  of  existence .  ’

‘  nothing  makes  me  sadder  and  nothing  makes  me  happier  than  you .  ’

‘  i  love  you  and  i  do  not  want  to  love  you ,  it  is  too  much  and  too  difficult .  ’

‘  grief  is  just  love  with  no  place  to  go .  ’

‘  i  felt  my  life  with  both  my  hands  to  see  if  it  was  there .  ’

‘  you  do  this ,  you  do .  you  take  the  things  you  love  and  you  tear  them  apart .  ’

‘  i  hope  it’s  love .  i’m  trying  really  hard  to  make  it  love .  ’

‘  if  you  touch  me  again  i  might  burn  up  in  the  cold  air .  ’

‘  i  asked  you  not  to  leave  several  times .  ’

‘  i’ve  only  adored  you  lifetimes  ago  and  here  we  are .  it’s  nice  to  see  you  again .  ’

‘  all  time  ever  does  is  pass  and  all  i  ever  do  is  remember .  ’

‘  i  feel  as  though  we  were  never  strangers ,  you  and  i ,  not  even  for  a  moment .  ’

‘  i’d  choose  you ;  in  a  hundred  different  lifetimes ,  in  a  hundred  worlds ,  in  any  version  of  reality ,  i’d  find  you  and  i’d  choose  you .  ’

‘  nothing  about  this  is  soft  but  we  pretend .  ’

‘  maybe  you  and  i  are  just  a  dream .  ’

‘  i  know  you  loved  me  too ,  you  knew  me ,  and  it  gladdens  my  heart .  ’

‘  i  promise  i  shall  never  give  up  and  that  i’ll  die  yelling  and  laughing .  ’

‘  i  don’t  do  anything  with  my  life  except  romanticize  and  decay  with  indecision .  ’

‘  the  world  was  made  so  that  we  could  find  each  other  in  it .  ’

‘  you  don’t  meet  the  people  you  love ,  you  recognize  them .  ’

‘  i  think  you  and  i  have  known  each  other  a  few  lifetimes .  ’

‘  this  body  knows  fear  like  a  front  porch  knows  welcome  –  it  is  always  coming  home .  ’

‘  i  miss  you  more  than  i  remember  you .  ’

‘  if  i  could  have  done  it  all  again ,  i  would  have  loved  you  better .  but  i  could  not  have  loved  you  more .  ’

‘  we  could  have  been  happy .  i  know  that ,  and  it  is  perhaps  the  hardest  thing  to  know .  ’

‘  you  want  a  better  story .  who  wouldn’t ?  ’

[oncejaw-a]

YOUNG WARRIORS - SHINGEKI NO KYOJIN

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