⛥𝕬𝖒𝖕𝖍𝖔𝖇𝖊𝖙⛦

1. make sure your game is properly set up in your emulator of choice so you don't have to come back to that later
2. open the emulator's folder and create a shortcut to its .exe (right click => "create shortcut")¹
3. right click on that newly created shortcut and rename it to your game's title (or whatever else, i'm not your mom). then click on "properties". in the "target" field, add the full path of your game between quotations. it should look something like:

"x:\path_to_emulator\emulator.exe" "x:\path_to_game\game.format"

4. we go further by adding arguments (a text setting, essentially) to this "target" line so that our games start in fullscreen and in some cases, without the emulator's GUI in background. (feel free to add others i'm unaware of/don't use in the comments)
   this step is not possible with some emulators which use the last window state they were in, such as PPSSPP. others like Dolphin have a toggle in their options to start in fullscreen.

• PCSX2: -fullscreen -nogui

"x:\path_to_emulator\emulator.exe" "x:\path_to_game\game.format" -fullscreen -nogui

• RPCS3: --no-gui --fullscreen

"x:\path_to_emulator\emulator.exe" --no-gui --fullscreen "x:\path_to_game\game.format" 

or for games installed in the emulated console's storage

"x:\path_to_emulator\emulator.exe" --no-gui --fullscreen "%RPCS3_GAMEID%:ID"

• Ryujinx: -f

"x:\path_to_emulator\emulator.exe" -f "x:\path_to_game\game.format" 

⚠️ some emulators, like Dolphin, may require an argument between emulator path and game path for the emulator to recognize that the shortcut is asking it to "open with this file".
(feel free to add others i'm unaware of/don't use in the comments):

• Dolphin: -e

"x:\path_to_emulator\emulator.exe" -e "x:\path_to_game\game.format"

• CEMU: -g

"x:\path_to_emulator\emulator.exe" -g "x:\path_to_game\game.format"

5. let's give this shortcut a cunty lil icon to tie it all up.
   head to https://www.steamgriddb.com/, search for your game, and download whichever icon you like (or create your own and contribute to the place if you feel fancy).

chances are it'll be in .png format which you'll need to convert for Windows. a simple search for "png to ico convert" should have you set; i've tried https://www.freeconvert.com/png-to-ico and https://convertio.co/png-ico/ without any issue.

back to your shortcut's properties, click on "change icon", navigate to where you saved the file and select it; and finally place your shortcut wherever you want, such as your desktop or pinned to the taskbar.

¹ you may be able to skip 2) and 3) with some emulators such as RPCS3 or Ryujinx which include an option to create a desktop shortcut for each game.

Steam and Steam overlay

the procedure is extremely similar:

1. add your emulator of choice as a non-Steam game

2. follow 3) and 4) as above

3. same as 5) above, pick whichever combination of grids, hero, logo and icon you desire. you can then set them up by right-clicking on each of these elements in Steam and selecting "manage" => "set custom picture". for the icon, right-click then "properties" and click on the emulator icon set as default to select your custom icon.