Community Focus - Ansonikage

Feeling great, Liana, thanks for having me! Hi, everyone, my name is Anthony. Most know me as Ansonikage, or “AK,” for short. The name kind of has a cool story, it reflects my name translated in Japanese (Ansoni) and a title from my favorite anime show: Kage. I know a lot of people can sometimes struggle with pronunciation, which is why I usually go by “AK.” If anybody is curious though, it’s pronounced: an-so-knee-ka-gay.  

I'm a husband and a father to three Little Lights, and outside of content creation, I work as an AV/smart home technician. As far as what is special that I bring to TikTok, well... simply put, it just allows me to blend my passion for video editing, directing, and gaming. Maybe that passion is that special ingredient.  

Well, when I first started using TikTok, I enjoyed seeing how well people could lip-sync to other sounds. Something about seeing people act out a sound as if they have been given a script and are able to drive any given emotion, I found that interesting. 

Then, one day I came across a gaming clip that was acting out a meme-inspired song about the ice cream machine always being broken at McDonalds. When I saw the clip, it was funny for sure but the only emotion that could be delivered was the characters just swaying their arms left and right to represent them talking. That was when I had the idea, “Yo, I could bring this song to life with emotes in Destiny!” Then I thought about it, laughed, and legit just left it at that and did nothing! (At first.) 

Then about two weeks went by, and as I’m scrolling Twitter, I stopped at a tweet from @vNogi. To no one, in particular, he tweeted something along the lines of, “You know that idea you have in the back of your mind, I dare you to go do it.” When I read that, I felt heavily called out. He was right, and in that second, I got up and logged into Destiny and started capturing the footage for what was my first "emote-acting" TikTok (which is what I call it), and it took off! The response was amazing and it’s now been over a year’s worth of posts that have led to a lot of laughs and smiles, and I am proud of that. So again, to you vNogi, I truly am thankful to you for putting out encouraging words, you never know who you’re going to impact and how far it will launch them into their own future. Much love, brother. 

My most beloved piece of the Guardian Avatar Edits must be the compilation piece that features 80 Guardians from across our community. It was just nice to see so many of the edits that I did over that year come together like that, it made me feel grateful for every single person. 

The inspiration for that piece, and the avatar edits, all started—funnily enough—with the very first Solstice of Heroes. In the article that broke down the event were three images that represented each Guardian class. The image was half of the helmet armor and half of the Solstice logo and when I saw that I was like, “Huh, imagine custom profile pics of our Guardians with logos and wording…” From there, I took to Twitter and found posts that other Destiny players uploaded showing off their Guardians that they were proud of. I added some effects, text, filters, a couple more layers, and voilà! I would then reply to their post with the finished avatar edit as a gift and people loved that. 

Some of us have been with our Guardians for over seven years now, so seeing your Guardian in a more personalized way made a lot of people happy. It is a fun way for me to challenge myself creatively and give something back to this community that I’ve been a part of since Destiny 1’s launch. 

Titan strong, all day every day! That lion in the Tower owns most of the real estate and deserves to be covered in gold. When I first read the breakdown from Destiny 1 about the classes, I knew instantly I was going to be a Titan main. I am all for getting up close and personal and the Titan class does not disappoint with that!  

I still recall the audible gasp that I let out when I turned the corner on the Moon during the Shadowkeep expansion and saw a Pyramid ship in front of me. That campaign, as we know, eventually led to us exploring the inside of it and when our Ghost started being taken over by the Darkness so that it could speak to us, that is when I started questioning the Light. I started thinking that if our Ghost could be that easily interfered with by Darkness, their relation to each other might be much closer than we think. As opposed to two separate beings, they may in fact be two sides of the same coin. All the events since then have only added fuel to that fire. 

We have made some unlikely allies of recent; I foresee us making some unlikely enemies. The idea of a civil war amongst Guardians could be a possibility as the "Light is good, and Darkness is bad" philosophy continues to wither away. I think the breaking point for something like that would likely involve another major loss within the Tower. 

So, I mentioned before about how I like to get up close and personal, so you’d best believe that my choice here does just that. My favorite right now is Code of the Missile paired with Synthoceps and a triple-100 -stat build around Mobility, Recovery, and Strength. Basically, death from above followed up with an extended melee reach. This is my go-to, especially in Control and Iron Banner. Map knowledge is key here, understating what routes I can run to get up in the air and slam around a corner or off an object and catch players off guard is just a lot of fun. Pairing that with Forerunner is nice since I can use Inertia Override to slide over Special ammo for the auto-reload and damage boost. Add an SMG with Preputial Motion/Swashbuckler and I’m having a lot of fun. So, I guess you could say, “Eyes up, Guardian.” 

As far as creating a subclass, I’m not really sure, now that I think about it. If anything, Sunbreaker has a hammer, Sentinel has a shield, maybe Striker could have a lance? Sort of like the Stasis Diamond Lance Aspect or the Synaptic Spear. Heck, why not make it an axe that can boomerang back to us? [laughs] 

The timing couldn’t be better on this one since it’s Guardian Games time. The idea of playing how you want to earn Laurels across the core activities is great, but I would love to see something special come in that isn’t just scoring on strikes. Something that feels like sports. Imagine a playlist across different locations that feature obstacle course-themed strikes. Each one features three segments:  

1. Platforming like we did in the recent Exotic quest while holding the worm. 
2. Sparrow racing as we’ve done in both the Scourge of the Past raid and the Grasp of Avarice dungeon. 
3. Trivia-based selections that reward and penalize based on right and wrong answers like that of Dares of Eternity.  

Having something that feels more sports-like as a core activity during Guardian Games would be fun to see come in and out each year, in my opinion. 

As far as something I’d like to see return, I think full-fledged Sparrow Racing League during Guardian Games would also be a nice touch. But I really would like to see Rift come to Destiny 2; I miss dunking on Guardians. 

Cayde-6. When I saw the reveal teaser for Forsaken, I was hell-bent on revenge. Cayde was always the most relatable character for me because I am just as much of a goof as he is—was. His carefree and sarcastic humor was always something I looked forward to in cutscenes, and to have that source of joy taken away was tough. But I can also admit that for a major character death to happen in Destiny, nobody at that time would have had a bigger impact than Cayde’s. 

Laugh. Life is going to throw a lot at every single one of us, it is never going to be easy, but that does not mean we do not deserve joy. We cannot wait for everything in our lives to go well before we decide to be happy. I create the kind of content I do because it can make people smile or laugh—that has always been, and always will be, the goal. 

Every time I get a comment that is something like, “Thank you for this, I really needed that laugh today,” I cannot help but wonder what troubles they could be dealing with. At the same time, I find comfort in knowing that I helped provide some much-needed joy. Sadly, there are plenty of people making life more difficult to deal with, so why not play a part in trying to make life a little bit easier? 

Major shout-out to my clanmates and to our lead PvPer who has helped many of us up our game). A huge shout-out to NerdyJay and Bueller, who make up the foundation of our clan since Destiny 1, our West Coast dynamic duo in Ace & Batz, our East Coast family in Andi, Jrdn, Sin, “old and new" Will. Also, a blast of love over in the UK with JayPalma, also known as the Grandmaster God. I just want to add to that while most of my clan has helped quite a bit with the more difficult skits we’ve created over on TikTok, I have to give some extra big love to Cam for playing a very consistent part in that. I cannot forget the Masanko family for every bit of love they have shown to help me elevate my content in order to reach my goals. And finally, massive love to everyone supporting me within my own community, The Hidden Village; I love y’all so much and I cannot thank you all enough for holding me down. 

For where to find me, you all can catch me live on Twitch and find my sillier content on TikTok and Twitter!