Hey, adventurer!

Having fun and making the most of life in Erinn?

In all the different conversations you have,

sometimes you want to make your feelings a little clearer.

Or maybe you want to make the conversation feel more relaxed,

or give it a warm, friendly vibe!

An emoji or two can help with that,

but today, let's talk about emoticons made with special characters.

Before emojis gave us a quick and easy way to show expressions and emotions,

we used to mix and match special characters to make all kinds of faces.

Let's look at a few simple ones that are still easy to use today!

Smile🙂 — Matching emoticons

First up is the smiling face that often comes in handy for quick, lighthearted chats.

For a matching text emoticon, I recommend the Western-style smiley :)!

Tilt your head to the side, and you'll see a smiling face.

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

When you're chatting on the go during an adventure, complicated combinations of special characters

can be tricky to type, so they're not very practical.

Send a quick :) their way instead!

For a Korean-style smiley, ^^ is the classic choice.

Those two pointy, mountain-shaped marks, called “circumflexes,” look like smiling eyes.

It's interesting how Western emoticons focus on the mouth,

while Korean ones put more emphasis on the eyes.

Even the way we make emoticons reflects our local cultures!

Eye roll🙄 — Matching emoticons

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

or crack a dad joke, an eye-rolling face or emoji is just the thing!

So how can we express that with special characters?

Personally, I use (._. —this little face.

It's a text emoticon I still find myself using, even now that emojis are everywhere.

The parenthesis outlines the face, the two dots are the eyes, and the underscore is a straight mouth.

It's not quite the same as an eye roll,

but I use it sometimes because it captures that looking-away, “hmm…” feeling nicely.

If you want something simpler, :/ works too.

Those dot eyes and that crooked mouth look a little uneasy, but still cute!

For something more expressive, though harder to type on the fly in chat,

(´◐_◐｀) how about this one?

You can tell at a glance that it's looking away, trying to dodge someone's corny joke!

Pleased😊 — Matching emoticons

This expression works when you're feeling pleased or shy.

//^_^//) ( *´ w `* ) A combination of special characters like this does the trick!

The key is to add a blush to both cheeks!

The / slashes in the left emoticon and the * asterisks in the right one show the blush.

It's perfect for when you find a nice item on your adventures

and the other adventurers around you congratulate you.

Thank you~( *´ w ` *)/

Sobbing😭 — Matching emoticons

Crying faces get used just as often as smiling ones!

They're an online essential—we cry over things we love and things we hate b

Even if you don't use the other emoticons above,

ㅠㅠ ㅜㅜ are probably still part of your chats today.

Add a mouth, and you can make it look like you're crying even harder.

ㅠ0ㅠ) ㅠㅁㅜ) Oh no, it's all gone wrong!

Or, I love it so muchㅠㅠ This is the best!ㅠ▽ㅜ)b

Adding a mouth really seems to bring out the emotion in those characters.

Try using both eyes and a mouth to show just how you're feeling!

And that's a little look at the world of text emoticons!

We don't use them as much these days, so they've become

a bit of old-school internet culture that makes us say, “Back in my day…”

But I still think this way of showing expressions has a charm all its own.

Do you still use text emoticons, adventurer?

Or are you more in the “What's that? Emojis are all I need!” camp?

Let me know in the comments!

That's all for today!

See you next time!

Bye for now~ ^ㅇ^)/