I feel like I'm seeing only one interpretation of "Who We Are" and the iconic line "To hold me like water/Or Christ, hold me like a knife" and as someone who has done martial arts and knife work, as well as an English major, I'd like to throw in my two cents.

So what I've seen are the metaphorical interpretations (mostly on TikTok too) where they compare water to life/sustenance and a knife to death/injury to the narrator, and so the narrator wants to be held like something life-saving or, in a desperation to be held at all, held like they're something dangerous.

I think the opposite.

From a martial arts perspective, if you're the one holding the knife, you're not a danger to yourself. Obviously, if a weapon is involved at all there is a level of danger, but it is way more difficult for the person/thing on the other end. They have to be concerned about near 360-degree mobility of the wrist and the ability to change hands quickly, so targeting the hand holding the knife becomes trying to completely isolate it from the other side of the body while also preventing the wrist from rotating. I'd much prefer to be the one holding the knife.

Meanwhile, there are other lines in the song to suggest that the knife is more valuable than water.

The opening lines are:

You only feel it when it's lost Gettin' through still has a cost Quietly, it slips through your fingers, love Falling from you drop by drop

This is what it sounds like when you're trying to hold water. No matter how tightly you cup your hands, it will find cracks and spill through. And you'll feel it when it's lost; your empty hands will be wet.

Now look at the chorus:

We're born at night So much of our lives Is just carving through the dark To get so far

The knife is being used to carve through the dark. It is vital, a means of survival.

And also, just think of how your hands are when you hold something like water versus something like a knife.

One is loose and gentle, open. The other is gripped, tightly. If I were touch-starved, I wouldn't want a gentle hand to cup my face, I'd want someone to hold me in a vice as if doing so would mean they are protected from danger, ready to face the darkness.

This is the circle of anger, after all.

Who We Are - Hozier lyrics sketch

I feel like its lacking something tho. Suggestions are welcome.

can i inject hozier’s song “who we are” directly into my bloodstream please and thank you (hold me like a knife)

the horrible nice thing about hozier songs is that sometimes i’ll be listening like “ah yes, mr bog man is feeling yearning, me too” and then i pay attention to the actual lyrics and promptly pass away

hold me (like a knife) sounds fascinating, what is it about? 👀

WIP SNIPPETS GAME🌸

god okay so, buckle up because this is so dumb and convoluted.

basically during the kpts rewatch event @porschesbabydaddy made this shitpost and i said in the comments oh dont make me write it, to which dizzee of course encouraged me

so then i started writing it and @haahka made this meme about it before i'd even really gotten that far in the plot.

and what tumblr doesn't know about me is that i need VERY LITTLE encouragement to write the most batshit, in depth character analysis pieces ever.

so here i am, a few months later, writing an early 20s chan and gun are in love but can't be in love longfic, where gun destroys their relationship in an effort to keep up with his older brother and create a legacy; all leading to the inevitable end of him putting 4? 5? bullets into his ex lover and leaving him for dead on the steps of the theerapanyakul main compound. (:

if you wanted another little taste of it--

“Come here.” He stops when Gun gently tugs at his wrist and guides him to sit beside him on the sofa. Little moments like this have a way of bringing a flutter to his chest and relaxing all his bones. He misses his best friend in the tower, misses these scarce days when they can shed their roles and settle back into what they were before they became entangled in the dichotomy of the major and minor families.  They clink their glasses and each takes a sip before settling against the cushions at the back of the couch. Gun’s hand falls to rest on his thigh and Chan hides a smile behind the rim of his glass at the sensation. It’s grounding; draws him back to the now, and pushes away his guilt and his worries.  He turns his head just in time to feel Gun’s lips press against his, his stubble scraping against the corners and the hand on his thigh tightening its grip until it almost feels like he’s extracting the tendon from his flesh. Kissing Gun is something like pouring gasoline on a house fire; explosive, volatile, untamed. He wishes he wouldn’t get swept away in it each time he feels the flames lick up the walls of his ribcage. He doesn’t think a tidal wave could cool the burning longing in his chest. 

Apparently much-needed reminder that reposting artists' art (by saving the images or screenshotting them and reuploading them yourself) on other platforms without the artists' expressed permission and without credit is theft and an insult to their passion and craft. You are profiting (in views, in attention, in feedback) from someone else's work and ideas, who do not get that feedback for sharing their creation.

If you are an art reposter, you are a thief and I have no respect for you.

Dabi might keep his past a secret but the league definitely know he (used to have) siblings

oh

i am. unwell.

in the last art post i made i said that hollow deserved soup, and i think quirrel does too, so now i offer you some sketches of the sillies making some soup :)

not to be a fangirl but i simply do not understand how so many people spend so much time dissecting taylor swift lyrics when hozier is out there hoziering

sometimes i think i'm okay about láeg/lóeg literally meaning "calf" but figuratively being a term of endearment meaning "beloved" or "favourite" and i'm like. that's fine. totally okay for him to be called that. i'm normal about it.

and then i consider that in cú chulainn's lament for fer diad when he directly address fer diad as "beloved", that is the word he uses. a lóeg.

and on the same page: a lóeg, a phopa láeg, help me cut the gae bolga out of him, take this message for me, be there with me, be the only person i trust in this moment when i am falling apart,

and his name is fucking beloved

and fer diad is beloved and fer diad is fucking dead and láeg is fucking culpable because he helped and i don't even know where i'm going with this it's just something about being loved as an act of violence i think. beloved as a weapon. a bloody favourite and a mirror and a double and

they ARE going to be talking shit about you later

thank you so much @tadpole-apocalypse for drawing my boys!!! xarrai looks soooo good in this style i’m so so so obsessed it’s perfect

so not only is “hold me like water, or Christ, hold me like a knife” the CRAZIEST METAPHOR EVER, it also just struck me what that would look like if it was taken literally

so take your hands and cup them like you’re holding water. it’s like holding someone’s face, gentle and adoring. now pretend you’re holding a knife. it’s constricting, like a choking motion. basically, when taken literally, “caress me or choke me, I don’t care” which is CRAZY

man, but like.... why is there a contingent of jiang cheng stans who are incapable of stanning their special guy (totally justifiably! i support you!!) without shitting on jin guangyao in the process? why are these fans capable of doing deep narrative dives to understand and contextualize jiang cheng's justifiable actions re: wei wuxian and the wen remnants pre-timeskip, who write thoughtful screeds in defence of his feelings of anger and betrayal vis-a-vis the golden core reveal, but lose that capability entirely the second jin guangyao shows up?

is it because jin guangyao is mean to jiang cheng while trying to not get murdered as his whole life collapses around him? jiang cheng is a big boy, jin guangyao's carefully calculated spiel to provoke him during the guanyin temple confrontation doesn't even make the list of top ten most traumatic things to happen to him, he'll be fine.

feral jc stans should be friends with feral jgy stans because nobody else likes us 🥲

can two bad sad girls fall in love? can two bad sad girls destroy each other?

not to be a bitch but like. i can never take "ohhhh kon is soOOoOoo sad about tim/ber uwaahhhh he's in love with tim but it's unrequited waaahhhh" angst seriously because like... i get it, the only thing you know about kon is that he's the other half of a popular m/m tim ship, but uh. rebirth kon is living an existential fucking nightmare. i think he's got way bigger fish to fry than whether the tim who only kind of remembers him at all is dating some other guy lmao