The Misfortunes of the Chronically Odd

by DivoTsvetche

(Currently under revision.) Arthur Kirkland is what one would call incurably cynical and simply hopeless. But when a disgustingly rich Parisian strolls – nay, jumps, with all the destructive force of a German bomber plane, – into his life, everything turns around. Now, he's cynical, hopeless, and irritated. Full summary and warnings inside. Human-AU.

14. PSA

This is a rather important PSA:

Hullo everybody!

So, you may have noticed that, come about autumn of 2013, my updates got more scattered and sporadic than even I like them to be, and I am here to clarify why. Being the mutable person I am (by which I mean, my tastes change as quickly as Canadian weather), I like to think that my writing style has somewhat...evolved since the time that I began writing this fanfiction (or I'm just having delusions of grandeur, who knows). That being said, I've not lost interest in it. The reality is actually a far cry from that, but looking back at the first few chapters of this fanfiction have made me realise that my original (and honestly far more basic and light-hearted) plans for this fanfiction have strayed very far from where I am now, and therefore miss not only consistency, but also characterisation and plot points that I now direly need in order to let this story develop to its full potential. So, with that in mind, I've decided to revise the first 9 chapters (albeit some changes might also transpire to the rest, but they'll be minor unless otherwise specified), and basically make them into something I'm at least mildly proud of and that flows with the rest of the story. Seeing as most fixes will be about forming less infantile sentence structure and adding enough foggy foreshadowing and motifs to satisfy my inner pedant, major plot points (such as established events not happening, or big new ones occurring etc...) will be included in the author's notes so that you won't be required to reread the whole damned thing, as I'm sure that'd be a hassle.

Just to further clarify a bit what my revisions will be (and this is for both personal and public reference), they'll centre around:

- not relying on archaic stereotypes from the 1900s to characterise anybody, but especially Arthur and Francis

- not introducing random side-characters unnecessarily and then abandoning them at random (such as Patricia, or Manon, or Andrea)

- creating this thing called 'consistency'; it and I are as of yet ill-acquainted and I intend to remedy that

- adding what I hope will be a certain degree of sophistication that it lacked (and this will be quite tentative).

To those of you who were still putting up with my updating schedule and were hoping that I might get myself into gear, I deeply apologise, as I realise that this is inconvenient, but if you'd still be interested in following this story, then I think that this effort would be worth it to make future chapters better. And on that subject, I anticipate that I will be able to put out at least one more chapter without needing to have finished the revisions, as it will be a rather stand-alone affair that will be based on the latest installments (that is, it belongs to the 'newer' plot).

Well, that's pretty much what I've got to say, so thank you for reading and bearing with this! Happy February! :)

**EDIT**: All Revised chapters will be announced on my profile but also here for the sake of convenience!

Revised:

Chapter 1 - Trudge