Questions.

How do you feel about smilies? How do you feel about emotes? Do you use them often? Have you ever made your own? What smilie do you like the best on EoFF? What smilie do you think is the worst? Any smilies you'd like to suggest for the fora and have shot down?

To give my own answers:

I dislike smilies. When I was younger, I went into a chatroom and it was full of these emotes. They were quite large and intimidating, so I felt small and intimidated. It was a busy chat, with people messaging here and there; people chatting to twelve others and those twelve believing the wrong message was the one intended for them and sending back garbled replies to make it a further mess. It was crazily confusing, so I backed up against the wall and tried to make like a flower. Unfortunately for me, I leaned up against not a wall, but an emergency exit door. Fortunately, when I fell, I caught myself and only scraped my hands. Unfortunately, these two burlesque emotes, >D~ and 6: followed me out (not falling) and proceeded to, ah, take advantage of me.

After that night, I was never the same. I avoid using emotes like the devil, for fear that they may turn on me. I have made a few of my own, but like Dr. Light, I am capable of creating things that do not tend to backfire much and #-key you like a simian. Some of them include this, this, and this. I tend not to over-use them, however, once again because of my case of emotephobia.

I do like sprites, though, and the "smilies" at EoFF that I do bear a love of are , , and .

The rest are the worst, and I'll refrain for the time being at suggesting additions.