when I am at peace with the future, call that hopepunct

the tryhard friend. sincerest little teacup. collector of blorbos. (icon by peeptier)

[interropunct]

Periodical 'About' Post

You can call me Punct (he/him)

Older than Jumanji, and if that bothers you then kindly hit da bricks

Queer as in 'it's complicated' and also queer as in 'fuck you if you tag my identity as a slur'

Not interested in seeing or being seen by TERFs, exclusionists, racists, or puritanical sex negativity disguised as self-righteous moral absolutes. Like I can't actually stop you from following me, but I really hope for my sake and yours you go somewhere else and one day grow as a person. Also if you're still drinking the semi-ironic "#misandry heehee" poison, so long and log off.

Have been known to peddle the raven cycle, the magnus archives, homestuck (recent convert, category 6 autism event, I'm happy living that 'whomstve' life aka post canon denier), as well as other fandoms best left to distant memory

Engaged in a grand battle to kill the part of myself that cringes

My tag game is off the charts, has got people saying things like "#punct you motherfucker #you can't do this to me" and "incredible tagging work. absolutely unique emotion"

A friend (@napalmstrikebarbie) once told me "it's not a competition but I think you might have one of the more debilitating cases of perfectionism I've ever seen" lmao yeah... 😅 (I took it as a compliment)

I got a doctorate. literally like, the other day. It means nothing other than I'm a determined motherfucker, but c'mon for all the blood, sweat, and tears I put in I should at least get to mention it

Forget graphic design, spreadsheets is my passion. I've got spreadsheets for obscure shit you can't even dream of

You can catch me on spotify as Punct, making playlists soooo unhinged, and on AO3 as interropunct, writing fics soooo self-indulgent. Find me also on other platforms as interropunct, idk consider it a treasure hunt.

I'm actually very nice and approachable if you're not a dick, there are just plenty of people out there who react to visible kindness like there's blood in the water, so I gotta do the internet equivalent of showing off my personal collection of switchblades and pocketknives (yes I have this collection in real life)

welcome, take a seat, sample the wares, the performance is happening everywhere all the time

[hylianane]

functionally suicidal character saying “I would die for you” to their significant other and its like. I get the sentiment, honey, but if a hot dog vendor told me he’d sell hot dogs for me, I wouldn’t feel very moved now would I

[stackslip]

NOAH CALDWELL GERVAIS CAME OUT AS TRANS WE FUCKING DID IT

[stackslip]

A Major Personal Update | Noah Caldwell-Gervais

A Major Personal Update by Noah Caldwell-Gervais on Patreon. Join Noah Caldwell-Gervais's community for exclusive content and updates.

worth reading the entire thing. has some really good thoughts on why transitioning is worth it even in this day and age + when you're older, and is also genuinely wonderful

[mollyjames]

I'm seriously gonna cry over this

[accessible-tumbling]

ID: A screenshot of text reading: "Ultimately, that's the reason I'm writing this at all: it's a common thing to say that transitioning saved my life, but it did. I have been looking for a version of myself I could actually live with and enjoy all my life, and just doing girl stuff worked better than a truckload of sertraline and hundreds of hours of therapy ever did. I hated myself for thirty-five years, and when I decided to just send it and trans my gender, that all evaporated. And evaporated for good.

For two years straight I've enjoyed being me immensely, and throughout my entire life before that point I struggled to make it through a single week without a depressive episode."

End ID.

[interropunct]

good news

amount of curskel currently edited: 35,034

amount of curskel left to be edited: 32,844

[ostentenacity]

me, describing my copy-editing process: "now, normally, when i see an uncontracted form of the verb 'to be', i'm like GET THEE TO AN APOSTROPHE, but--"

[somepomegranatetea]

Grace tries copying the tones using the keyboard.

Rocky hums. “Close. Skip first note.”

“Why? You always include that.”

“This means… of Rocky, possessive. Of the speaker.”

“My.”

“Correct. But only for names.”

“So you’re calling me…?”

Rocky repeats the word: “My Grace. Yes.” 

“Are there other Graces? Why do you need to specify?”

Rocky considers this, tapping his xenonite-encased claws idly against the floor. 

“No other Grace,” Rocky says. “We just do this.”

“Like an honorific,” Grace guesses. “It goes before everyone’s name? Everyone you know?”

Rocky whirs in surprise. “No, no, no. Not at all.”

“Okay, then who? What makes me qualify?”

Rocky is silent for a moment.

“...Does this offend Grace?” he asks, voice lower. 

Grace blinks. “No! I don’t think so. Is there a reason to be offended?”

“Good,” Rocky says, relieved. Grace is starting to recognize what Eridian relief sounds like. “No, no reason.”

“Who else do you call that?”

“You don’t have this on Earth?”

Grace considers. What for, friends? He couldn’t call Marissa “my Marissa.” That would be weird.

“I still don’t know what it means,” he settles on. “So I couldn’t tell you.”

Rocky groans in frustration. He’s a very impatient tutor. “We just say it.”

“Are you my Rocky?” Grace asks. He hits the two keys to make the my note. 

“I don’t know!” Rocky says. “You decide this.” 

“I decide? Who do you use it for?” 

“You. Adrian. I will use it for my pebbles.” 

Grace blinks. “So few?”

Rocky shifts. “I am… you do not have the word yet. Eridian who works alone often, not close to many other Eridians.”

“What, mechanical engineer?”

Rocky chitters. “Acceptable.”

“Is Adrian your only friend?” 

Rocky draws back, like he’s taken offense. “I have friends. Coworkers. But different.”

So just Adrian. And him. 

“This worries you,” Rocky says.

“Adrian is your mate,” Grace points out. “I’m not your mate.”

“Correct. You are not. You do not like to be a mate.”

Grace isn’t sure how to respond to that, so he ignores it.

“I’m your friend,” Grace says. 

Rocky hesitates, for a second. “...Correct.”

“Like your coworkers.”

“No.”

Grace sighs, rubbing his hand across his face. Okay, maybe that’s fair. It’s not like he felt about any of his coworkers like he feels about Rocky.

“Best friend,” Grace amends. “You’re my best friend, too.”

Rocky hums. “Acceptable.”

“Just acceptable? Now you are offending me. Can you just explain?”

This makes Rocky fall silent for a minute longer than usual. Grace is half-ready to apologize and to say let’s move on and to retype his own name without the superfluous my. 

“The Earth ‘best friend’ is not strong enough,” Rocky says finally. “It does not translate this way.”

Grace runs his fingers through his hair, a little nervous, for some reason. “Okay.”

“It is…” Rocky pauses. He has to pause more often, now that they’re not using the translator, to simplify his language. “It means that I am not Rocky without my Grace. You are part of… of the whole. When I wake up, I think of you. When I work. When I eat. When I think I am going to die.”

Rocky speaks slowly, but it’s still a lot of Eridian for Grace to grasp all at once. Even as he works out the sentences in his head, he can feel hot tears rising in his eyes.

“It means that when you are sick, I am sick,” Rocky continues. “And it means I will take care of you, because taking care of you is taking care of myself.”

Grace bunches up his sleeve, wiping it across his face, blinking furiously.

Rocky’s voice is soft. “So Grace is part of Rocky. Grace is like a cell. You see? My Grace.” 

Grace is quiet, for a moment, trying to get himself together. When he speaks, his voice is shaky.

“...Oh.”

Rocky hums, pressing his carapace gently against Grace’s arm. “You are leaking. Does this make you sad?”

Grace shakes his head, sniffing, crossing his arms across his knees and resting his chin on his sleeves. “Not at all.”

“Good, good.”

“I feel like that,” Grace mumbles. “Just like that. Just exactly—exactly like that.”

“About your old mate?”

“Don’t act stupid. You know I’m talking about you.”

Rocky hums, burrowing closer. Grace curls one arm around his carapace. That’s not enough, so he leans over, dropping his head down so his forehead presses against the xenonite. 

“My Rocky,” Grace whispers in English. 

“My Grace,” Rocky echoes in Eridian. Grace can recognize the note at the start. He will add it when he plays Rocky’s name. 

“How long have you called me that?” Grace asks. “Must’ve been a while. I didn’t notice it change.”

“Long time,” Rocky agrees. “Long, long time.”

[free-my-mindd]

[interropunct]

@ostentenacity has been dutifully beta'ing my witcher longfic for me. We've made it through 1/5 of the document by chapter count (we also divided it into chapters! which I did not have any ideas about whatsoever while I was writing! hurrah!) and the fic's already picked up over 2k words in the edit WHOOPS

[ostentenacity]

What are the odds the draft hits 70k before we’re done? :P

[interropunct]

Magic 8 ball says "VERY LIKELY" considering it's just shy of 66k at the moment lmao

[interropunct]

@ostentenacity has been dutifully beta'ing my witcher longfic for me. We've made it through 1/5 of the document by chapter count (we also divided it into chapters! which I did not have any ideas about whatsoever while I was writing! hurrah!) and the fic's already picked up over 2k words in the edit WHOOPS

[flowerytale]

Susan Sontag, from As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks 1964-1980

[justsomeguycore]

#mycorner #mymonstrousneeds

[cloudabserk]

rocky is both touched by the sentiment and disturbed by human medical practices

inspired by this grace quote:

[interropunct]

currently 63,390 words, the first draft of my witcher longfic (colloquially named "curskel") is done!!!!!!!!

[shakespeareaddict]

ao3 tagging isn’t always intuitive and some tags are highly subjective but some are really really not. If I see “mutual baby trapping” I’m expecting two people in a situationship who’d rather engage in absurd manipulations and shenanigans to obtain a baby rather than communicate clearly “hey I want to be serious with you”; if they’re *already talking about marriage and kids* then it’s not babytrapping. If I see Underage I am expecting at least one Mrated scene with a minor, not “two teens kiss but don’t even get to second base”. If I see the big Rape/Noncon tag and then the authors note says “the Rape tag is cause they have sex while A is slightly drunk” then I am backing out of the fic and never trusting your tagging again!

Like! Tagging is for two populations—the people who explicitly want to see X and the people who explicitly don’t want to see X—and neither population is served by overtagging! If there was a fic tagged, idk, “Swedish Politics” because in one throwaway line someone mentions Sweden has political parties, I’d be upset if I was looking for Swedish Politics and this was all that came up. And I’d be just as upset if I was filtering out fics with Swedish Politics and missed the perfect fic that was overtagged!

[interropunct]

That second paragraph is also VERY relevant to ships. Like "minor/background pairings" is a tag for a reason. I promise if a pairing you kind of like but don't really care about gets mentioned in one scene of a 50k word fic, then you don't have to tag that pairing. You have never known pain until you've been in a big fandom where your favorite ship is a "secondary" ship that most people have as a sort of perfunctory "pair the spares" addition to their fics

[witcherscreenshotsdump]

R I S E   A N D   S H I N E ☀️ | 𝕃𝕒𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣𝕥

[captainkirkk]

What they don't tell you about writing is that as you write, you discover scenes and entire plots that you hadn't accounted for that need to be written. So you can spend two hours writing and editing only to realise you're further away from the finish line than you thought you were when you started

[specialagentartemis]

I think if you are a married character and you go to space and you meet your new best friend forever there and then you two go through an extended period of harrowing crises together and then you bring them home with you because you are now a Bonded Pair Do Not Separate with a codependent thing going on… you should get to have some marital problems when you get home. And Martha Wells is the only author brave enough to agree with me

[interropunct]

fic progress

I need everyone to know I'm still working on my Witcher longfic and today specifically between adding stuff to the last section of the outline and writing in the main document I wrote 8,237 words

and the draft is now just over 48k words total which makes it the longest single, solo-authored fic I've written since 2016 and the second longest single, solo-authored fic I've ever written (I'm almost certain by the time I'm done it will have eclipsed the current number one)