I'm not familiar with $encode. Does it retain length? My guess is it wouldn't. But it doesn't really matter as I do want to alter the contents along the way.

I'm not loading or saving. I'm actually displaying the text again right after I'm done with it. Problem is that I'm loading the text into another line that can be customized by the end user. Since I want to allow identifiers to work for the other line and on the text for the message, but keep the message itself as is (save for where outside identifiers affect it), I decided to temporary replace those 8 characters.

Code:
alias -l parse return $replacex($replace($+($chr(32), $1-), $+($chr(32), $chr(32)), $+($chr(32), $chr(160)), $+($chr(160), $chr(32)), $+($chr(160), $chr(160))), $&
$chr(30), $+($chr(30), 9), $chr(20), $+($chr(30), 0), $chr(21), $+($chr(30), 1), $chr(23), $+($chr(30), 3), $chr(24), $+($chr(30), 4), $chr(25), $+($chr(30), 5), $&
$chr(26), $+($chr(30), 6), $chr(27), $+($chr(30), 7), $chr(28), $+($chr(30), 8), $chr(123), $chr(20), $chr(91), $chr(21), $chr(93), $chr(23), $chr(34), $chr(24), $&
$chr(35), $chr(25), $chr(36), $chr(26), $chr(37), $chr(27), $chr(125), $chr(28))

alias -l unparse return $replacex($1-, $chr(28), $chr(125), $chr(27), $chr(37), $chr(26), $chr(36), $chr(25), $chr(35), $chr(24), $chr(34), $chr(23), $chr(93), $&
$chr(21), $chr(91), $chr(20), $chr(123), $+($chr(30), 8), $chr(28), $+($chr(30), 7), $chr(27), $+($chr(30), 6), $chr(26), $+($chr(30), 5), $chr(25), $&
$+($chr(30), 4), $chr(24), $+($chr(30), 3), $chr(23), $+($chr(30), 1), $chr(21), $+($chr(30), 0), $chr(20), $+($chr(30), 9), $chr(30))


The above code seems to work just fine, as far as I could have noticed. I'm just wondering where adding characters in the 20-30 range (skipping 22/29) could cause problems.