[adamesque]

I love this nongrammatical/idiomatic use of parentheses actually. Language is a tool, and its rules can be just as powerful when violated as when upheld.

In this case they convey a subtext you can’t get as gracefully by being a slave to syntax— that the author hoped the post would be about how they did achieve success, but that didn’t happen, forcing the parenthetical qualifier. I don’t think another treatment would express that quite as well; you can almost feel the wince.

[laborcontract]

you’d normally use square braces [for this kind of thing]

[sdwr]

Square braces are used to show you are editing a quote for grammar or brevity, not to change the meaning of your own sentence. Ex:

> I love this [...] use of parentheses. [Rules] can be just as powerful when violated as when upheld.

[laborcontract]

you can also use it in place of commas.