Hello, adventurers~!

Hope you're enjoying a fun and savvy life in Erinn!

When you're chatting in all kinds of situations,

sometimes you want to show your feelings a little more clearly, right?

Or maybe you want to soften the mood of the conversation,

or make things feel a little more warm and cheerful!

At times like that, tossing in one or two emojis here and there can really help,

and today, I want to talk about emoticons made with special characters

Before emojis made it quick and easy to show expressions and feelings,

people used to mix and match special characters in all sorts of ways to create different faces

So today, let's go over a few simple ones that are still easy to use!

Smile🙂 emoticons that pair well with this emoji

This is the "smile" expression you end up using all the time in light, quick conversations

For a special-character emoticon that matches it, I recommend the Western-style smiley :)!

If you tilt your head to the side, you can tell it's a smiling face~

The two dots are the eyes, and the parenthesis is the smiling mouth!

When you're chatting quickly while out adventuring, overly complicated special-character combinations

can be hard to use, so they're not very practical

So go ahead and send a quick little :) smile their way!

For a Korean-style smile emoticon, ^^ is the classic choice

The two pointy, mountain-shaped proofreading marks called "circumflexes" become smiling eyes

In the West, expressions tend to focus on the mouth,

while in Korea, it's fun to see how the eyes are treated as the most important part of an expression

Even emoticons like these can show a bit of each region's culture~

Eye roll🙄 emoticons that pair well with this emoji

When you're talking with another adventurer and they say something silly,

or pull out a dad joke, this eye-rolling expression and emoji are perfect!

So how can you show that with special characters?

Personally, I like using this face: (._.

It's one of those special-character emoticons that still gets used now and then, even in the age of emojis

The parentheses make the outline of the face, the two dots are the eyes, and the underscore is a straight mouth

It's a liiittle different from a true eye-roll expression,

but I use it sometimes because it's great for that looking-away, "umm..." kind of feeling

If you want something even simpler, :/ works nicely too

The dot eyes and crooked mouth give it this awkward-but-cute vibe~

It's not the easiest to type on the spot in chat, but if you want something more expressive,

how about an emoticon like (´◐_◐｀)?

At a glance, it really looks like a face staring off somewhere else to dodge the other person's corny joke!

Pleased😊 emoticons that pair well with this emoji

This is an expression you can use when you're feeling pleased, or even a little shy

//^_^//) ( *´ w `* ) Combining special symbols like this works perfectly~

The key point here is showing the blush on the cheeks!

In the emoticon on the left, the / slashes show the blush, and in the one on the right, the * asterisks do the same

Say you're out adventuring and you get a great item,

and another adventurer nearby congratulates you—that's a perfect time to use it

Thank you~( *´ w ` *)/

Bawling😭 emoticons that pair well with this emoji

The crying face is another one that gets used a ton, right alongside the smiling face!

In the online world, where we cry when we're happy and cry when we're upset, it's basically an essential expression b

Maybe you don't use the other emotion emoticons above,

but ㅠㅠ ㅜㅜ is probably one you're still using even now

If you add a mouth shape, it can make the crying feel even bigger

ㅠ0ㅠ) ㅠㅁㅜ) Oh no, it's ruined, totally ruined~!

Or, This is so goodㅠㅠ It's the best!ㅠ▽ㅜ)b

Adding a mouth really does make the emotion in the symbols feel more intense

Try using both eyes and mouth to really show how you're feeling in the moment!

The world of emoticons made with special characters~

These days, people don't use them as much, so they can feel a bit like a "back in my day~" kind of thing,

an old part of internet culture now...

but I still think this way of showing expressions has its own charm

Do you still use special-character emoticons, adventurer?

Or are you more in the "What's that? Emojis are enough!" camp?

Let me know in the comments~

That's all for today!

See you again next time~

Bye~ ^ㅇ^)/