My new favourite idiom is 画蛇添足 basically meaning to ruin something by overdoing it
Quite literally ‘draw snake add feet’
Pinyin: Huàshé tiānzú
Traditional: 畫蛇添足
Hat tip @phrygianmodus
what do they mean “ruin something”
OK I’m going to need some confirmation before I get this tattooed
Is it right!!! The story behind it is even better! You have a buch of smarty pants playing drinking games and they make a bet on “who is the fastest to draw a snake, will have his food and drink paid for.” And this dude that finishes the first makes a big show boasting about how fast he was that goes “you know what? I am so bored with how slow yall are imma make my snake even better by giving him footsies hehe”
But the thing is that bc he made the legs, he has been instantly disqualified bc “well… it has legs… that is positively NOT a snake.” So the winner was the next dude that drew the snake :)))
So kids, don’t 画蛇添足!
Smarty pants go on smarty legs!
snake…adjacent? snadjacent, if you will
𓆙thank you for the tag!𓆙