on a darkling plain.

i am the child of the wasteland....a land of haunted houses and monsters i call father. dark talents run in the family, but i shatter the glass to let the moonlight in, not to destroy something fragile for the feeling of breaking beneath my fists. all i can do is scream, crawl out, and keep screaming. but i can hold the sparrow, mend its wing... i am the spring rain and the hurricane... the monsters cower now, not me, not you. *xn*

yeah, finally a nice review. not great as in "oh look how wonderful it is about me" but something i like reading because you learn something from it- a look at myself from another person's perspective. i often think my DL thing here is pretty obvious, the "what am i, what the heck do i think" etc etc. but its nice to know its not all that obvious, yeah i actually find i like that. i don't know why, its not meant to be mean, its just that, if i were all that obvious, would that really be a good thing?

Layout: Yeah, a dark layout!! ( I really do love dark layouts) Well, at first glance, my initial thought was, that the layout really doesn't go that well with your diaryland name, which is tornlace. When I think of tornlace I think of...(well, besides torn lace) something dark, depressing, rebellious. The colors give this expression, but I don't know about the picture. Speaking of the picture, it took me quite a while to sort out exactly what the picture was of.....I was staring at it, twisting around my head and everything trying to figure out what it was. What I got was that it was a faerie. Am I right? Let me know.. Now, the title of your diary is "on a darkling plain" I do think that your layout reflects that, the dark colors. So, then I kept on going, starting to read the diary and such. You mentioned that you like sparkly things and faeries. Faeries would explain why you have the picture up. That was the verification I needed. The only problem is that if you like cute, sparkly things, then why did you choose a dark layout? It's kind of a two sided effect, matching the layout with your name, yet you tend to like the opposite of the color of your layout...ok...(I am reading too much into this stuff)(29)

my favorite colors are the ones i use for my layout, its why i chose them to "represent me", but i also like other stuff- thats why it pops in. i used to be this really girly little girl i was told when i was tiny- i guess that as i am healing from childhood some of the pure things are coming back. i like little tiny sparklies and fairies and "cute" sites- i don't know why- so why fight it :) but i don't like them enough to have them be the main theme. tornlace is from a ghost story i read a long time ago- not the best story but the imagery of the tattered long lace gowns of ladies who died and still drift in the wind make me happy. and the main image is one i drew of a girl leading a storm in from the sea- i don't know why. i like that image too- storms rolling in and covering everything in that darkness, its beautiful to me.

Content: Whoaaaaaaaaa, at first glance I believe that you really do write for yourself. You write long entries (which is not necessarily a bad thing.) and it all runs into this big story thing. It takes quite awhile to get through one entry, sometimes I do get confused with how you word things. There are times that you sound as if you are speaking to your audience. You'll let them know about certain things, like that you have an entry somewhere else or something. That makes me think that you are thinking of your audience instead of just writing for you. But I still love how when you do write you seem completely oblivious to what is around you. You just write what is on your mind, and how you feel. That's cool. Also, I was reading how you felt about reviewers. Makes me feel bad to be one, buuuuuuuuut, it also makes me realize that I really need to be good at reviewing, I need to read in depth what is going on with each diary and stuff. See, you helped me out some!Actually I do like medium to long entries, I like to read (oh, I know I am pathetic) so reading your diary was fun, and you make everything sound like a story, which makes things much easier to read. I'm taking the points off because sometimes you address the reader, but besides that, I love your entries and how you write.(32)

its hard to ignore that you know people are "out there". so it gets like i am talking to myself sometimes so i'll talk to the person i think might actually care what i say, but would never write to try to fit what i think someone wants to read. i know there are sex diaries and made up story ones and thats just what that person decided to do with the DL space. so in that way i am never writing for an audience, but since i am new to this i still get that weird feeling i am talking to myself, so i'll talk to "you" or do an entry "about me"- but nothing is there for "entertainment" sake.

what i really hope one day is to have a record for a child of mine or their children to read, to help them feel like they got to know me, so sometimes i think i am "talking" to them. :)

as far as reviewers go, this is a great example
of one who really does something like read and care. i think that the "review" process will only improve if the ones who do a great job are encouraged and then ones who don't, they will just look bad compared to the good ones and will either give up or improve.

i think some get into the whole review thing to be able to be a critic without being critisized back. well they should be- the "rebuttal" that dragonreign got ( see the mention after the review, its petty and not what i think a "reviewer" should be doing
) for not liking a review i got ( this is what i thought of my review there
) was silly because there was nothing to say to defend such a lame review. what dragonreign said, was better written than the review, and the criticism she got seemed more like that reviewer hoping someone would come to her aid if told off like that rather than having anything to actually defend...

this question and answer feature in the "From The Heart" reviews is very cool. and i liked it a lot. they asked me three questions and posted the review after getting my answers.

~Ok, I really had to ask, how's the mouse Virgil doing? To make the question more in depth. Do you regret healing the mouse when you did?~

No i don't regret it- i went through something even more serious and involved with one of our other cats that lasted for months. the vets said she'd die. our cat cleo had a heart murmur, fluid in her lungs, was jaundiced, one eye had clouded over, and was like a little skeleton getting worse. no one could help us. then we found a vet who also practised homeopathic pet medicine. Dr Schaubut at East Village Vets (he is like a big gruff santa, but knows what he is doing) he told us that this was a very hard route to go but if we could do it it might work. we said to just prescribe everything he needed to and don't worry if we could handle it or not. he gave us instructions to force feed her (liquifeid special soft food), inject vitamin waters via needle into her back (cats can handle this due to a particlar fat layer they have) and use with droppers various aqua gaias and liquid remedies- all of these things several times a day. it was hard on us and her. she had also lost her desire to eat so we had to make her body strong enough to want to eat- but it was so wild- she seemed to want to live and never fought us on stuff... several months later she put on weight and we celebrated the first day she took a bite of hard food on her own. i can't even tell you the hell it was for all involved sometimes- but she lived and put on weight and seemed even healthier than she was before the illnesses. that was years ago! we have not had any troubles with her health since! when we take her in for check-ups just to be safe- they can never believe she is the same cat. other vets said to put her to sleep, well this also proved to us that not all "new age" stuff is bogus crap. we tried a similar way with my cat Sweets, but his illness was AIDS, and there was nothing we could do against an "enemy" like that in the end but make him happy and let him eat and drink anything he wanted. so i guess its just something in me, who knows what. the mouse virgil was nothing compared to that, i guess i just have to try until the very end. virgil is big now (by mousie standards) and happy from what i can tell. i wish i could pick her up and kiss and hug her but she's just a little mouse. plus with all my cats walking around i am petrified of one slip- one wrong move and virgil gets caught and killed. thats why we got her such a huge mouse house- so she has a lot of room to move around and won't feel cramped never coming out. she has a wheel and tunnels. she does a lot of "work" up there. its cute. when i clean up her cage i always find nest areas food caches, things set up for a busy mouse life. i feel bad sometimes throwing it all out but then she starts all over again setting up her house. she was busy today pulling big pieces of tissue into her mouse shack. then we see her sleeping. she is adorable.

~You mentioned that you are surprised when you hear them say nice things about you or when they support you. Have you gotten over the initial shock and surprise when they praise you? If not, do you ever think you will get over it?~

no, and i mean that here on diaryland. because when i get reviews back for my music, i know this sounds snobby but its not meant to be, but when its music related, i know i am the best i can personally be and i know - based on what i hear, better than many in my "field"- so i hear a nice thing back musically and i'll smile and think "yeah i think so too, i have worked hard". but when its about things i write regarding me, its not a scientific thing- if someone plays out of tune- you can say thats bad, and its bad and everyone knows it. but how do you judge what is "out of tune" in a person's personal experiences? there is no measure for that, just feelings, just a personal thing, and that anyone finds me, personally, interesting, worth saying nice things about- its pretty humbling and cool. when i draw a picture i am sure something will come out, when i walk out the door i have no idea what will happen. i feel like somewhere people saw something good, and thats pretty wild to me. pretty damned great, because many times i don't see it myself. if i ever get "used" to it, i will probably be a really rotten person.

~Under your favorite quote entry, you stated a quote by Tacitus. What is it about this quote that struck you the most?~

i read that when i was very young and it changed me. the whole quote is intense, the last line the most. it was as if i knew a truth that had been hidden, or was being forcibly hidden from me. i knew there was "something" wrong with my life as a child. people say "Peace!" and its like you'd be in the wrong to say- not all peace is good. but its not- the concept of "create a wasteland and call it peace" gets into many things. what good is a "well behaved" child when the child has been beaten into that submission- sure they may be quiet and well mannered but at what price? the soul of that child is destroyed, a wasteland, and that kind of peace is not good. if they live to adulthood they have to spend so many years re-building their damaged foundations they suffer, they are never what they could have been, if they live at all. you may have a world at peace- but if the people were raped and killed and burned and bombed into submission, what good is that peace? when my father defends his actions, to create obdient children- how can anyone outside think that is the wrong thing to want? it is when its that way. if you were taught well and reasoned with and loved and you are quiet and well mannered in public- called a "well behaved" child- thats good, but the kid next to you, if they were beaten down and hurt, but its the same outward appearance, its not good- even though you look and act the same. it gave me a defense, finally, against what some people called good. its not right, its not fine its not anything in the realm of decent and good "to create a wasteland and call it peace". the other lines are less in the realm of ethereal and just as amazing to me. no one will think much of what i say, but here is history to back me up, and if this is the kind of logic someone says is good then that person has lost their soul, - and probably raised by someone who believed a wasteland was peace. (30)

Total:(96/100) I liked your diary, the more I read it, the more I want to read more. You write details and that compells me to read more about your life.(that's the bad thing about being a reviewer and getting good diaries. You want to read them all and keep track of them all.)

i'd say that Jessica
, this writer
at Dynamic Duo, and Cara
at diaryland reviews are very good. (she wasn't my reviewer there but it would have been nice so ask for her if you like and hopefully she and Jessica here won't get so overloaded they'll stop!) they are best i've read so far. they make it an interesting and enlightening process. its what it should be :)

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