Attention all readers of 'Dogstar Returns'! I have a few chapters written out in note form, and the whole series written out in even more scattered note form, but my muse has left- I'm finally interested in what I'm being taught, and so my mind doesn't wander into 'inspired by boredom' nearly as much. I have plans for the 'fic, but I can't make the words look right on the page. Sorry, and maybe one day I'll pick it up...

Hello all readers that are interested in well- ordered learning, or, failing that, interestingly dark humour. Or powerful emotions. They're good too.

My name is A. Blatchford. I am studying veterinary medicine, and loving every minute of it. I realise this makes Kathleen in 'dogstar returns' self projection, but in my defence when I started the 'fic I was still in school, and it was just an unrealistic dream that I couldn't get rid of.

My hobbies are reading, learning, figure skating, skiing and drawing little scribbles on every surface I come into contact with- It's an obsession! And handling animals. Any animals. Except babies. Foul creatures.

My pairings politics in fics go like this- gender doesn't matter. Only power matters. (In real life, I'm asexual, so a 'fic has to be pretty potent to grab me).

I have two cats. One of them I worship, called Belle. She stands on my lap when I sit and my shoulders when I stand. One of them I maintain respectful distance from, except when grooming her. She is called Silky. She sits in a corner, blinking and shedding hair. And eating cardboard boxes.

I tend to expect that people will have negative reactions when meeting me, and so I'm nervous when making new aquaintances. This leads me to wear a constant wide smile to disguise my nerves that makes older people like me and people my own age slightly leery. Although that seems to be fading now- I'm regaining the habit of smiling when I'm happy, and learned the art of keeping a straight face over the summer, so sometimes my smile means I'm happy and sometimes, I'm nervous. And sometimes my straight face means I'm relaxed, and sometimes I'm worried. So my expressions aren't an inversion any more, merely horrendously unreliable.

I live in the west end of Glasgow in Scotland, where violent madmen are run of the mill and, might even be your best friends not-so-secret identity. I have five friends. A massive fan of Fruits Basket who is quite similar to me in temperament, only more violent and obsessed with knives (dishrag-chan), a cute little pixie with a demon inside (Evil pixie of your sweet dream), a practical climber with an EdEnvy fetish (evil pixies are yummy), a disturbingly serious young woman with aspirations of world domination (lady perl of moonlight sea), and a rabidly cheery reader of all books(squibakou), who seems innocent at first, 'til you get to know her. On an additional notice, I have a joint account with N. James and Squibakou. We call ourselves the 'crazyrandompeoplethatstalkyou'. Be warned. We really are that bad.

Quotes (You might want to skip reading this part. Then again, you might not.)

If you do that again, I shall insert my hand down your throat, remove your bladder and use it as a shower cap.(Squibakou's dad)

I am ever so slightly completely obsessed ( dishrag-chan)

SEBASTIAN Are all the people mad?!

ARIEL Your charm so strongly works 'em
That if you now beheld them, your affections
Would become tender.
PROSPERO Dost thou think so, spirit?
ARIEL Mine would, sir, were I human (William Shakespeare)

Of course, just because we've heard a spine-chilling, blood-curdling scream of the sort to make your very marrow freeze in your bones doesn't automatically mean there's anything wrong.

The Patrician was a pragmatist. He never tried to fix things that worked. Things that didn't work, however, got broken.

Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.

"'Chapter Fifteen, Elementary Necromancy'", she read out loud. "'Lesson One: Correct Use of Shovel...'"

You did something because it had always been done, and the explanation was "but we've always done it this way." A million dead people can't have been wrong, can they?

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret

In the second scroll of Wen the Eternally Surprised a story is written concerning one day when the apprentice Clodpool, in a rebellious mood, approached Wen and spake thusly: "Master, what is the difference between a humanistic, monastic system of belief in which wisdom is sought by means of an apparently nonsensical system of questions and answers, and a lot of mystic gibberish made up on the spur of the moment?" Wen considered this for some time, and at last said: "A fish!" And Clodpool went away, satisfied.(Terry Pratchett)

"-What power would hell have if those imprisoned here would not be able to dream of heaven?"

Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes and forgot

Her kind walk amidst the flotsam of lives they have sacrificed, for their own purposes, till friendless and alone they needs must make the final sacrifice.

If my dream was true, then everything we know, everything we think we know is a lie. It means the world's about as solid and as reliable as a layer of scum on the top of a well of black water which goes down forever, and there are things in the depths that I don't even want to think about. It means that we're just dolls. We don't have a clue what's really going down, we just kid ourselves that we're in control of our lives while a paper's thickness away things that would drive us mad if we thought about them for too long play with us, and move us around from room to room, and put us away at night when they're tired, or bored..

I move from dreamer to dreamer, from dream to dream, hunting for what I need. Slipping and sliding and flickering through dreams; and the dreamers will wake and wonder why this dream seemed different, wonder how real their lives can truly be.

You shouldn't trust the story-teller; only trust the story(Neil Gaiman, sandman comics)

IMPORTANT NOTE

If you read this far, you can officially count yourself as crazy as me. And that's not a compliment.