Aesthetic/cute idioms
My personal selection of idioms collected here and there. Inspired by this post by @rmscarpathia - my posts - resources masterpost | aesthetic idioms | words with cute literal meaning
Japanese 🇯🇵
木漏れ日 Komorebi - The sunlight that filters through the leaves of the trees. 🌳 🌞
鏡花水月 Kyōka suigetsu - Flower in the mirror & a moon in the water 🌸 🌙 : something which is visible and cannot be touched as well as the profound beauty of poems that cannot be described in words.
花笑み Hanaemi - flowering smile/ the smile of flowers 💐: old Japanese, a smile as beautiful as blooming flowers, calling people to feel happy.
浮世 Ukiyo - The floating world - depicts a place of fleeting beauty and living in the moment, without worries. It described the urban lifestyle, especially the pleasure-seeking aspects, of the Edo-period Japan (1600–1867)
Chinese 🇨🇳
海誓山盟 Hǎi shì shān méng - The promises of mountains and vows of seas 🏔 🌊 : A proverb of eternal love.
日三 秋 yí rì sān qiū 🍁🍁🍁- One day, three autumns: when you intensely long for and miss someone, one day feels like three years.
Swedish 🇸🇪
Mångata - moon road 🌙 🛣The glimmering,roadlile reflection of moonlight on a river. see also Hungarian 🇭🇺 Aranyhíd - The golden bridge 🌞 🌁: A term for the reflection of the sun as it shines on water and can literally be translated to.
Gökotta - Dawn picnic to hear the first birdsong 🎶 (gök=cuckoo), Swedish tradition which often takes place around Ascension Day in late May or early June.
Smultronstället - Place of wild strawberries 🍓: a special place discovered, treasured, returned to for solace and relaxation; a personal idyll free from stress or sadness
Mellan hägg och syrén - the time Between Bird Cherry and Lilac: corresponds to försommar (pre-summer). The expression is said to originate from a cobbler’s sign saying his shop was closed “mellan hägg och syren”.
Att vara blåögd - to be blue eyed: to be naive =🇩🇪 blauäugig
Norwegian 🇳🇴
Å leve på luft og kjærlighed - live on air and love: to be so madly in love you don’t think about anything else
gjensynsglede - see-again-happiness: feeling of joy, anticipation, love you experience when you are about to meet someone you haven’t seen in a long time.
Det er bare blåbær - It’s just blueberries 🫐: Expression, meaning something is simple, or something is only a minor issue.
Danish 🇩🇰
det er fest og farver 🎉🟥🟨🟦- it’s party and colors: A lively and festive mood or way of living
Finnish 🇫🇮 @suomipaskea @depressingfinland
Kaiho - hopeless longing: an involuntary solitude in which one feels incomleteness and yearns for something unattainable or extremely difficult and tedious to attain.
luonnonlapsi - nature’s child 🌿: a genuine and sincere person who’s carefree and down to earth, a scatterbrained, someone who doesn’t care about the ways of society. Slightly negative but in an endearing way [- @evelhak]
siirtyä ajasta ikuisuuteen/iäisyyteen / potkaista tyhjää- went from time to eternity / kicked the emptiness: said about someone who has died
Olla hyvällä tuulella— To be on / To have a good wind 🌬: To have a good mood. To be mildly happy.
oma maa mansikka, muu maa mustikka 🍓🫐-our land strawberry, other land blueberry: there’s no place like home
German 🇩🇪 This post with additions of @germanenthusiast
Etwas durch die Blume sagen 🗣️🌼- to say smth thorugh the flower: used when conveying something dramatic in a gentle or roundabout way
Habseligkeiten: have-holy-things: individual possessions that might be seen as useless/of little value, but regarded as valuable treasures
Fingerspitzengefühl - fingertips-feeling: good skill in handling things/ sensitivity and empathy
Sehnsucht - longing-search: intense inner longing for somebody, something or a place
Weltschmerz - world pain: gratuitous melancholia / kind of feeling experienced by someone who believes that physical reality can never satisfy the demands of the mind / the feeling of anxiety caused by the ills of the world
Zeitgeist - spirit of the time: the dominant set of ideals and beliefs that motivate the actions of the members of a society in a particular period in time
Engelsgeduld 👼- angel’s patience: a lot of patience
Schokoladenseite - chocolate side 🍫: refers to your better side (e.g. when taking a photo) sich von seiner Schokoladenseite zeigen (to show oneself from one’s chocolate side) = to show oneself at one’s best
Sich aufbrezeln - to bretzel oneself up 🥨: get all dressed up
Friede, Freude, Eierkuchen - freedom, joy and omelette 🥞: everything’s hunky-dory
sich freuen wie ein Schneekönig 🤴❄️ /Honigkuchenpferd 🍯🍰 🐴 - to be happy like a snow king/honey cake horse: to be very very happy
Dutch 🇳🇱 @docnederlands
uitwaaien 🌬️ 🌳 - to go out in windy weather, particularly into nature or a park, as a means of refreshing oneself and clearing one's mind
over koetjes en kalfjes praten - talking about cows and calves 🐄: smalltalk
kalverliefde - calf love 🐮: A word for the temporary affection and infatuation usually experienced by two young people in love.
De bloemetjes buiten zetten, to put the flowers outside 💐: to have lots of fun
Italian 🇮🇹 this by @sectioavrea
Se son rose fioriranno, If it’s roses, they will bloom 🌹 : if something is bound to happen, it will
all’acqua di rose - blanded with rose water: used when something is very moderate
Non è tutto rose e fiori - it’s not all roses and flowers 🌹💐 : it’s not all nice and perfect (as you think it is)
il sole bacia i belli - The sun kisses the beautiful 🌞: said to someone who complains about sitting in the sun
baciato dalla fortuna - kissed by luck 🍀💋: to be very lucky
Ragazza acqua e sapone - soap&water girl 🧼 the girl next door, with a natural look
Avere l’argento vivo addosso - to have quicksilver on your body: to be energetic, active, lively. Often used for kids
Spaesato(m)/spaesata(f) -out of (one’s) country/native place “mis-country-ed”: to be bewildered, disoriented, confused
Sognare ad occhi aperti 👁️ - To dream with open eyes: to daydream
essere al settimo cielo ☁️ - to be at the seventh Heaven: to be over the moon, see 🇫🇷 below
French 🇫🇷
Être aux anges 👼👼- be where angels are
Être fleure bleue 🌼🔷- to be a blue flower: be sentimental to the point of naivety [apparently from an expression by the German author Novalis]
English
Serendipity: an unplanned fortunate discovery
Apple of my eye 🍎👁️ - 🇮🇹 Luce dei miei occhi (light of my eyes) 🇩🇪 Licht meines Lebens (light of my life)
Greek 🇬🇷
petrichor: the earthly scent produced when rain falls on dry soil 🌧️ . from πέτρος pétros (stone) + ἰχώρ īchṓr (the fluid that flows in the veins of gods in Greek mythology)
Phosphene - light-appear: a sensation of a ring, stars or spot of light caused by rubbing your eyes ⭐️ 👁️
🇻🇳 In Vietnamese, “to miss someone is the same as “to remember someone“. So to ask “do you miss me?” You’ll say Do you remember me?
🇮🇷 in Farsi, to answer to a compliment you say “it’s your eyes that are beautiful”
Idioms found among others through: @mylanguagesblogger, @wonderful-language-sounds @thenoaidi
🌼 started: spring ‘20, posted: march ‘23, last updated: 20.4.2023
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Mizu, femininity, and fallen sparrows
In my last post about Mizu and Akemi, I feel like I came across as overly critical of Mizu given that Mizu is a woman who - in her own words - has to live as a man in order to go down the path of revenge.
If she is ever discovered to be female by the wrong person, she will not only be unable to complete her quest, but there's a good chance that she'll be arrested or killed.
So it makes complete sense for Mizu to distance herself as much as possible from any behavior that she feels like would make someone question her sex.
I felt so indignant toward Mizu on my first couple watchthroughs for this moment. Why couldn't Mizu bribe the woman and her child's way into the city too? If Mizu is presenting as a man, couldn't she claim to be the woman's escort?
However, this moment makes things pretty clear. Mizu knows all too well the plight of women in her society. She knows it so well that she cannot risk ever finding herself back in their position again. She helps in what little way she can - without drawing attention to herself.
Mizu is not a hero and she is not one to make of herself a martyr - she will not set herself on fire to keep others warm. There's room to argue that Mizu shouldn't prioritize her quest over people's lives, but given the collateral damage Mizu can live with in almost every episode of season 1, Mizu is simply not operating under that kind of morality at this point. ("You don't know what I've done to reach you," Mizu tells Fowler.)
And while I still feel like Mizu has an obvious and established blind spot when it comes to Akemi because of their differences in station, such that Mizu's judgment of Akemi and actions in episode 5 are the result of prejudice rather than the result of Mizu's caution, I also want to establish that Mizu is just as caged as Akemi is, despite her technically having more freedom while living as a man.
Mizu can hide her mixed race identity some of the time, and she can hide her sex almost all of the time, but being able to operate outside of her society's strict rules for women does not mean she cannot see their plight.
It does not mean she doesn't hurt for them.
Back to Mizu and collateral damage, remember that sparrow?
While Mizu is breaking into Boss Hamata's manse, she gets startled by a bird and kills it on reflex. She then cradles it in her hands - much more tenderly than we've seen Mizu treat almost anything up to this point in the season:
She then puts it in its nest, with its unhatched eggs. Almost like she's trying to make the death look natural. Or like an accident.
You see where I'm going with this.
When Mizu kills Kinuyo, Mizu lingers in the moment, holding the body tenderly:
And btw a lot of stuff about this show hit me hard, but this remains the biggest gut punch of them all for me, Mizu holding that poor girl's body close, GOD
When Mizu arranges the "scene of the crime," Kinuyo's body is delicate, birdlike. And Mizu is so shaken afterward that she gets sloppy. She's horrified at this kill to the point that she can't bring herself to take another innocent life - the boy who rats her out.
MIZU'S ONE MOMENT OF SOFTNESS AND MERCY, COMING ON THE HEELS OF HER NEEDING TO KILL A GIRL TO SPARE HER THE WORST FATE THAT THIS RIGID SOCIETY HAS TO OFFER WOMEN, AND TO SPARE A BROTHEL FULL OF INNOCENT WOMEN WHO ARE THE CASTOFFS OF SOCIETY, NEARLY RESULTS IN ALL OF THEIR DEATHS
No wonder Mizu is as stoic and cold as she is.
And no wonder Mizu has no patience for Akemi whatsoever right before the terrible reveal and the fight breaks out:
Speaking of Akemi - guess who else is compared to a bird!
The plumage is more colorful, a bit flashier. But a bird is a bird.
And, uh
Yeah.
I like to think that Mizu killing the sparrow is not only foreshadowing for what she must do to Kinuyo, but is also a representation of the choice she makes on Akemi's behalf. She decides to cage the bird because she believes the bird is "better off." Better off caged than... dead.
But because Mizu doesn't know Akemi or her situation, she of course doesn't realize that the bird is fated to die if it is caged and sent back home.
Mizu is clearly not happy, or pleased, or satisfied by allowing Akemi to be dragged back to her father:
But softness and mercy haven't gotten Mizu anywhere good, recently.
There is so much tragedy layered into Mizu's character, and it includes the things she has to witness and the choices she makes - or believes she has to make - involving women, when she herself can skirt around a lot of what her society throws at women. Although, I do believe that it comes at the cost of a part of Mizu's soul.
After all, I'm gonna be haunted for the rest of this show by Mizu's very first prayer in episode 1:
"LET" her die. Because as Ringo points out, she doesn't "know how" to die.
Kind of like another bird in this show:
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soap's whole deal being sniper and demolitions gets me going bc on the surface they sound so different but when you get into it, you realise it's bc soap's smart
sniping is all math; calculating distances and wind interference and bullet drop. something i think people overlook is he was listed as a sniper first so it can be implied that he's better at it than demolitions. he does more sniping in both campaigns than demolitions work; in capture or kill, ghost specifically calls on him to take down the aq snipers
and demolitions is math with a hit of chemistry; knowing what mixes with what, knowing how much to use, recognising environmental factors and adjusting accordingly. it's not just about the boom; so much work goes into contained/ planned explosions. especially when having enough power for a breacher charge and not bringing down the whole building is the difference between mission success and failure
the chemical bombs he makes in alone can't just be any old cleaners, they have to have the correct reaction to each other; he just knew off the top of his head what would mix with what to create what reaction. he would also potentially have to recognise them by sight/smell bc they would’ve been written in spanish
soap would also have to know architecture; recognising structural integrity and weak points so he knows exactly where to plant a charge to bring it down and how it'll come down
he has an incredible soldier's mind people just forget that bc he's sociable which itself is a skill
we know he tends to buck against orders he doesn't agree with like when he pushes back against ghost in capture or kill and shepherd when he tells them to release hassan
he gets closer to people and sees if he can trust them and that's when he follows them without question. really think about how he talks to alejandro and rudy; he asks about their home and alejandro's family and rudy's relationship with him. those aren't questions you ask a stranger after a few hours of knowing them. that's not even touching on his relationship with ghost
he also deliberately brings people of higher ranks down to his level; talking informally with ghost and giving him a shoulder punch, addressing alejandro (a colonel!!) by his first name and rudy by his nickname despite literally just meeting them. he personalises all of them and it’s in direct opposition to the reason most characters do that; it’s not due to insubordination or lack of respect, the more he respects and trusts someone, the more casual he is with them
he digs into people; he wants to know what makes them tick and that determines if he can one, trust them and two, follow their orders. once he decides that, he's the ultimate soldier; he bleeds loyalty which makes him vicious when that loyalty is taken for granted
he isn't naive or bubbly or insecure; he's an incredibly smart and aware soldier. he's aggressive and bloodthirsty and loyal and intuitive and i love him so much
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