I, Cielamara, was quite idealistic when I created this review site. I believed that the concept of a review of anything would be understood well enough by the diary community that I would simply have to provide detailed scoring and rules pages, and my intent would be understood. I was aware that I might hurt some feelings, but in all actuality, I wasn't expecting the disgusting behavior I have seen lately. Therefore, this is the official disclaimer of Starlit-Lily Reviews.

Reviews are entirely optional. We do not force them upon anyone. We do not force anyone to request, or to read. We are not always nice. We are not always unbiased; as a matter of fact, all of us hold a certain dislike for people who self-mutilate. (Strangely, we get more of this from those requesting than any other breed of people.) Are we judgemental? Yes, as a matter of fact we are. It's the nature of the review. Reviews are entirely about opinions; they should not be regarded as the truth by anyone, nor should they carry a great deal of weight with anyone. We criticize and we flatter. We may like you; we may not.

In recent events, we have been accused of not seeing beauty in others. Here's the thing: we cannot see beauty if you do not give us any of what we consider to be beautiful in your diary. For example:

If you write only about stuff that even you will find trite and trivial in two years, we will not find that beautiful, unless you present it very well. In fact, if that's all you write about, we will find it boring and eventually obnoxious.

At the other end of the scale that we seem to find here, if you write about wanting to kill yourself and how good it feels to slice open your skin with a razorblade, we are not going to find that beautiful. In fact, we find it repulsive. Death is a sensitive topic for most of us. I, Cielamara, lost two friends within ten months of each other in 2003. I was devastated. They were beautiful people, so beautiful that it still hurts to look at their pictures. It hurts to hear their names. And you wish us to find your talk of wanting to inflict that pain upon your own friends voluntarily beautiful? Quite honestly, are you insane? Or are you just an immature attention whore?

On that note: yes, so often we feel that such talk is insincere; that it is a bid for attention. This is not coldness on our part. It is only a small part our cynicism and jadedness. It is honest emotion that we feel upon being presented with the stimulus which is your diary. Everything we write about in your review is our emotions, our opinions. We have the right to express them to you, because you have asked us to do so.. Even if you hadn't, we could still do so--however, your request doubles our right to do so. It seems people have difficulty understanding that.

Just as many of you have kindly invited people finding you offensive to exit your diary, we politely extend the same offer to you. Your opinions are virtually worthless to us, unless you can give us a truly good reason why they should be otherwise. If you don't like what we do here, please have a nice life while leaving us the hell alone.

Thank you. Have a lovely day.

Fade - Glow

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~*~Recently Reviewed Lilies~*~
Hiatus - August 02, 2004
Another Note From The Lilies - July 15, 2004
A Second Note From The Lilies - July 01, 2004
False-apathy's Review - June 08, 2004
A Note From The Lilies - May 12, 2004