[Ranylyn]

I was thinking. And when I think, I come up with things. And when I come up with things, I ask questions. If you don't want me to think, buy me beer. Keep me buzzed enough that I can fall asleep instead of staying up with random thoughts.

Okay. So. On to the topic.

Generally, aliases follow the same rules as names. These rules include...

2 - No names with numbers or special characters. (I.e., 'Duke Nuk3m 123'.) The only exception would be for diacriticals[1] in appropriate names. Mechanations can, within reason, use numbers in their names (for example, listing their model number or something else like that).

But then I wondered about... what if something wasn't quite right? What if a character was... playing a prank and pretending to not be right in the head, or if two people OOCly agreed to create an IC scenario with an impostor? And you wanted to use the alias to clue people in that things weren't exactly what they appeared to be on a surface level?

Sample scenario (the prank; pretending to be possessed.)

Person A: Hey!
Person B: ...
*person B changes to their alias*
Person B(?) turns toward them. Slowly, he takes a single uneasy step forward.

This simple touch would probably hammer the point home much more strongly that "oh crap, something's wrong." It shows that the characters themselves can ICly detect that this isn't normal, instead of people playing dumb or needing to OOCly explain what's going on. I personally like it, buuuuuut it does involve "Special Characters" so I wanted to ask.

Is this okay, for aliases?

[Dystopia]

I kind of figure you don't really need that sort of thing in your alias to get the point across. For example I think it would be better if the description were slightly 'off' or the icon wasn't quite right but believable enough. That takes time and prior planning, I know.

Personally, I think there's no need for parentheses in aliases unless you're stating that you're OOC, or something.
You could probably have the same effect with '???' as your alias, or 'Person B?' as your alias. I don't see a problem with either of those.


(also there's already a thread for questions like these)