diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
index 9e7541a..df50195 100644
--- a/AGENTS.md
+++ b/AGENTS.md
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ public/            ← build output (generated)
 | `content.odin` | `Page` struct, content walker, page loader, cmark integration, full markdown pipeline |
 | `footnotes.odin` | Note definition stripping (pre-cmark) + sidenote/marginnote injection (post-cmark) |
 | `alerts.odin` | GitHub alert post-processor (`> [!CAUTION]` → styled blockquote) |
-| `emoji.odin` | Emoji shortcode expander (`:shrug:` → `¯\_(ツ)_/¯`) |
+| `emoji.odin` | Emoji shortcode expander (`:shrug:` → `¯\_(ツ)_/¯`), post-cmark |
 | `highlight.odin` | Post-cmark Tree-sitter syntax highlighter; loads grammars/queries from Helix, caches loaded grammars, reports syntax errors with file/line |
 | `tree_sitter.odin` | C FFI bindings for Tree-sitter (TSParser, TSQuery, TSQueryCursor, node traversal, dlopen/dlsym) |
 | `sectionate.odin` | `wrap_sections` proc — splits HTML at `<h2` into `<section>` wrappers |
@@ -71,6 +71,7 @@ raw markdown
   → expand_emoji          (pre-cmark: :shortcode: → unicode)
   → strip_definitions     (pre-cmark: extract [^id]: definitions)
   → cmark markdown_to_html (Unsafe mode for HTML passthrough)
+  → expand_emoji          (post-cmark: :shortcode: → unicode, avoids cmark escape issues)
   → inject_sidenotes      (post-cmark: [^id] → <label><input><span> markup)
   → inject_alerts         (post-cmark: [!TYPE] blockquotes → styled alerts)
   → highlight_code        (post-cmark: tree-sitter per code block, with error reporting)
@@ -148,7 +149,6 @@ Extracted `template_process_tokens` from `template_eat_tokens` to separate ROOT
 
 - cmark allocates via C malloc, not the arena. HTML output leaks until process exit.
 - CSS/JS cache busting uses manual `?v=N` query params instead of content hashing.
-- The `shrug` emoji has a backslash that may not display correctly.
 - `json.Value` params require 64-byte aligned arena (workaround for `dynamic_arena_allocator_proc` ignoring per-allocation alignment).
 - Tree-sitter grammar/query paths hardcoded in `tree_sitter.odin` (Nix store hashes, Helix-version-dependent).
 - `TSQueryCapture` needs explicit `_padding: u32` field for C ABI compatibility (40-byte sizeof).
diff --git a/TODOS.md b/TODOS.md
index 465843f..1072489 100644
--- a/TODOS.md
+++ b/TODOS.md
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
 - [ ] mustache data keys for opengraph, etc.
 - [ ] Block attributes on code fences (`{ #ex-1 }`) — hello-world.md
 - [x] Emoji shortcodes (`:shrug:` etc.) — 2 instances
-  - [ ] Backslash in shrug not visible.
+  - [x] Backslash in shrug not visible.
 - [ ] include-code shortcode (`{{< include-code ... >}}`) — i-ported-fd-to-odin
 - [x] Nix build integration — main flake runs thor + tailwindcss instead of Hugo
 - [x] OpenGraph meta tags
diff --git a/content.odin b/content.odin
index d9479d3..d0d9518 100644
--- a/content.odin
+++ b/content.odin
@@ -182,9 +182,9 @@ load_page :: proc(
 	if strings.has_suffix(file_path, ".html") {
 		page.body_html = strings.clone(body)
 	} else {
-		expanded := expand_emoji(body)
-		clean_body, sn_defs, mn_defs := strip_definitions(expanded)
+		clean_body, sn_defs, mn_defs := strip_definitions(body)
 		html := cm.markdown_to_html_from_string(clean_body, {.Unsafe})
+		html = expand_emoji(html)
 		html = highlight_code(inject_alerts(inject_notes(html, sn_defs, mn_defs)), file_path)
 		if sectionate {
 			html = wrap_sections(html)