modernmythsnet

[modernmythsnet]

Modern Myths Network will now be closed.

After a great two years, I am sad to say that the Modern Myths network will be closing. I will still have this page open but it will not be reblogging any new events or other posts and will strictly be an archived page.

I want to sincerely thank all members, past and present, as well as my amazing admins: @thewinedarksea and @anneelliots!

Going forward, just because the group is close doesn’t mean modern myths is over! We’ve all decided to make our discord channel public (link is here). Please be kind and considerate, as you always are, if/when you join!

Best of luck to everyone and thank you for sticking with us!

- Nyx

[modernmythsnet]

Modern Myths Network will now be closed.

After a great two years, I am sad to say that the Modern Myths network will be closing. I will still have this page open but it will not be reblogging any new events or other posts and will strictly be an archived page.

I want to sincerely thank all members, past and present, as well as my amazing admins: @thewinedarksea and @anneelliots!

Going forward, just because the group is close doesn’t mean modern myths is over! We’ve all decided to make our discord channel public (link is here). Please be kind and considerate, as you always are, if/when you join!

Best of luck to everyone and thank you for sticking with us!

- Nyx

[modernmythsnet]

Modern Myths Network will now be closed.

After a great two years, I am sad to say that the Modern Myths network will be closing. I will still have this page open but it will not be reblogging any new events or other posts and will strictly be an archived page.

I want to sincerely thank all members, past and present, as well as my amazing admins: @thewinedarksea and @anneelliots!

Going forward, just because the group is close doesn’t mean modern myths is over! We’ve all decided to make our discord channel public (link is here). Please be kind and considerate, as you always are, if/when you join!

Best of luck to everyone and thank you for sticking with us!

- Nyx

[modernmythsnet]

Modern Myths Network will now be closed.

After a great two years, I am sad to say that the Modern Myths network will be closing. I will still have this page open but it will not be reblogging any new events or other posts and will strictly be an archived page.

I want to sincerely thank all members, past and present, as well as my amazing admins: @thewinedarksea and @anneelliots!

Going forward, just because the group is close doesn’t mean modern myths is over! We’ve all decided to make our discord channel public (link is here). Please be kind and considerate, as you always are, if/when you join!

Best of luck to everyone and thank you for sticking with us!

- Nyx

[modernmythsnet]

Modern Myths Network will now be closed.

After a great two years, I am sad to say that the Modern Myths network will be closing. I will still have this page open but it will not be reblogging any new events or other posts and will strictly be an archived page.

I want to sincerely thank all members, past and present, as well as my amazing admins: @thewinedarksea and @anneelliots!

Going forward, just because the group is close doesn’t mean modern myths is over! We’ve all decided to make our discord channel public (link is here). Please be kind and considerate, as you always are, if/when you join!

Best of luck to everyone and thank you for sticking with us!

- Nyx

#announcement #modernmythsnet

[modernmythsnet]

top ten @modernmythsnet events: [8/10] colour palette

In Aztec mythology, Chantico was the goddess of volcanoes and fire. 

#aztec #edits #creations #event six #metaphysical

[modernmythsnet]

“To Hades … all-ruling, holy god, with glory bright, thee sacred poets and their hymns delight, propitious to thy mystics’ works incline, rejoicing come, for holy rites are thine.”

#greek #edits

[modernmythsnet]

mythology moodboards: draupadi/bheem

requested by @chaanv

#hindu #edits

[modernmythsnet]

THE OLYMPIANS FANCAST = nikolaj coster-waldau as zeus.

#greek #edits

[modernmythsnet]

top ten @modernmythsnet events: [9/10] symbol

In Tumbuka mythology, Chiuto was the Supreme Creator, and was symbolised by the rainbow. 

#african #edits #creations #event three #metaphysical

[modernmythsnet]

Fair Use in Novels

I often get questions from Anons asking me what is appropriate to use in a novel, from song quotes to character names of wildly popular characters from other books (names that are obviously more unique than just Sarah or Alice or Amelia). So I’m going to lay the groundwork of what writers can and can’t use in their novels—or for their novels.

Quotes from song lyrics. You can’t do this. Period. If you want to use quoted song lyrics, you would have to get permission from the artists themselves—and you would likely have to pay a heady sum of money to obtain that permission. A big part of the reason why you can’t do this is because song lyrics are often so short in the first place, and if you misquote even one word, you run the risk of being sued. In fact, you run the risk of being sued period if your book is somehow published with quoted song lyrics from an actual band. 

Names of fictional characters. One Anon asked me if he or she could use a fictional character’s name as a nickname for one of his/her characters. As far as I know, this is not copyright infringement, especially if the character whose nicknamed Harry Potter does not in anyway resemble the actual Harry Potter. It is also not copyright infringement to use a fictional character’s name in passing. For example, in Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick, Leonard frequently mentions Holden Caulfield as a comparison to himself. Holden Caulfield, however, is not an actual character in the book. There’s also the question of cameos, and whether or not a writer can use an actual character as a cameo in the book. This is on shaky ground, because using a published fictional character as a cameo technically is not copyright infringement, until that character actually starts talking. However, from the article I linked to you, you still run the risk of being sued. Fan fiction is an entirely different matter, as most writers don’t profit from this work, and authors want to please enthusiastic readers. (I would both cry and feel EXTREMELY flattered if someone were to ever write a fanfiction of my book, When Stars Die.)

Public domain. Any book before 1923 is fair use. Granted this does not mean you can re-write the entire book. Basically this means you can quote these works, while attributing their authors to them, in your novels. Frenchie,from Death, Dickinson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia by Jenny Torres Sanchez, frequently talks about Emily Dickinson and quotes her as well. Libba Bray puts a part of Tennyson’s poem, The Lady of Shallot, in A Great and Terrible Beauty. And when I do revisions for my novels, I’d like for my protagonist to quote parts of Edgar Allen Poe. 

Titles. You don’t need permission to use song titles, movie titles, book titles, television titles, and so on and so forth. You can also include the names of things, place, and events and people in your work without permission. I mention Paula Dean in brief passing in the current work I’m writing, because she owns a restaurant in Savannah, Georgia, the place my character lives. 

Pictures. I’m primarily talking about if you’re self-publishing or are allowed to work with your publisher (usually small press) on designing the cover. ANY stock photos listed on any stock photo website is fair game and can be photoshopped as much as you want to. However, you often have to buy these photos, but once you pay for them, they are yours to do with what you want. Unfortunately, you run the risk of having a similar book cover as another book, especially if you don’t do too much to that image beyond slapping your name and title of the book on it. The cover for When Stars Die received a heavy makeover, so it is not likely that I will find another book using my exact cover. I may find a book using the girl on the cover, but the plum blossoms, the colors, how the girl was edited, and my title and name are probably going to be next to impossible to find on another book. 

Quoting famous people. If the quote from, let’s say, a famous speech in the past, is over 100 years old, that work is likely in the public domain, so it’s fair to use quotes from  Georgie Washington or another popular figure. 

Referencing facts. If you’re referencing facts, like how the universe was made, this is not copyright infringement—they are unadorned facts. For the current novel I’m working on, I did use a website to help Gene’s teacher explain black holes, because Gene uses black holes as a motif to describe how people can have an effect on one another. However, because this is knowledge that you can pick up from any text book or even an astronomy class you took, I don’t need to quote the source I took it from because I did not repeat word-for-word what that website said. The website simply listed facts that you can find anywhere from a legitimate source. 

Using quotes from TV, films, or advertising. These are copyrighted, so don’t use them, unless you want to get sued. 

For now, these are the only points I can think of on what writers are allowed to use and not use in their novels. If someone can think of anything more, feel free to re-blog and add to this list!

Ask Box is always open, and I think this is the last day for my book/Amazon gift card giveaway, so you better enter while you can!

#resources

[modernmythsnet]

top ten @modernmythsnet events: [7/10] love

Lancelot and Guinevere - they looked like two flowers, bright enough to turn to each other for sunlight.

#european #edits #creations #event thirty four #metaphysical

[modernmythsnet]

Greek Mythology Meme // ᵗʷᵒ ᵖᵉʳˢᵒⁿᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ ᶜᵒⁿᶜᵉᵖᵗˢ ⁽¹/²⁾ • PEITHO

In Greek Mythology, Peitho was a close companion of Aphrodite, the goddess who personified persuasion and seduction.

#greek #edits

[modernmythsnet]

Injury angst for writing dummies.

Hospitals and injury are always such a staple of angst fics, but 9 times out of 10 the author has clearly never been in an emergency situation and the scenes always come off as over-dramatized and completely unbelievable. So here’s a crash course on hospital life and emergencies for people who want authenticity. By someone who spends 85% of her time in a hospital. 

Emergency Departments/Ambulances.

Lights and sirens are usually reserved for the actively dying. Unless the person is receiving CPR, having a prolonged seizure or has an obstructed airway, the ambulance is not going to have lights and sirens blaring. I have, however, seen an ambulance throw their lights on just so they can get back to the station faster once. Fuckers made me late for work.

Defibrillators don’t do that. You know, that. People don’t go flying off the bed when they get shocked. But we do scream “CLEAR!!” before we shock the patient. Makes it fun.

A broken limb, surprisingly, is not a high priority for emergency personnel. Not unless said break is open and displaced enough that blood isn’t reaching a limb. And usually when it’s that bad, the person will have other injuries to go with it.

Visitors are not generally allowed to visit a patient who is unstable. Not even family. It’s far more likely that the family will be stuck outside settling in for a good long wait until they get the bad news or the marginally better news. Unless it’s a child. But if you’re writing dying children in your fics for the angst factor, I question you sir. 

Unstable means ‘not quite actively dying, but getting there’. A broken limb, again, is not unstable. Someone who came off their motorbike at 40mph and threw themselves across the bitumen is. 

CPR is rarely successful if someone needs it outside of hospital. And it is hard fucking work. Unless someone nearby is certified in advanced life support, someone who needs CPR is probably halfway down the golden tunnel moving towards the light. 

Emergency personnel ask questions. A lot of questions. So many fucking questions. They don’t just take their next victim and rush off behind the big white doors into the unknown with just a vague ‘WHAT HAPPENED? SHE HIT HER HEAD?? DON’T WORRY SIR!!!’ They’re going to get the sir and ask him so many questions about what happened that he’s going to go cross eyed. And then he’s going to have to repeat it to the doctor. And then the ICU consultant. And the police probably. 

In a trauma situation (aka multiple injuries (aka car accident, motorbike accident, falling off a cliff, falling off a horse, having a piano land on their head idfk you get the idea)) there are a lot of people involved. A lot. I can’t be fucked to go through them all, but there’s at least four doctors, the paramedics, five or six nurses, radiographers, surgeons, ICU consultants, students, and any other specialities that might be needed (midwives, neonatal transport, critical retrieval teams etc etc etc). There ain’t gonna be room to breathe almost when it comes to keeping someone alive.

Emergency departments are a life of their own so you should probably do a bit of research into what might happen to your character if they present there with some kind of illness or injury before you go ahead and scribble it down.

Wards

Nurses run them. No seriously. The patient will see the doctor for five minutes in their day. The nurse will do the rest. Unless the patient codes.

There is never a defibrillator just sitting nearby if a patient codes. 

And we don’t defibrillate every single code. 

If the code does need a defibrillator, they need CPR.

And ICU. 

They shouldn’t be on a ward. 

There are other people who work there too. Physiotherapists will always see patients who need rehab after breaking a limb. Usually legs, because they need to be shown how to use crutches properly.

Wards are separated depending on what the patient’s needs are. Hospitals aren’t separated into ICU, ER and Ward. It’s usually orthopaedic, cardiac, neuro, paediatric, maternity, neonatal ICU, gen surg, short stay surg, geriatric, palliative…figure out where your patient is gonna be. The care they get is different depending on where they are.

ICU.

A patient is only in ICU if they’re at risk of active dying. I swear to god if I see one more broken limb going into ICU in a fic to rank up the angst factor I’m gonna shit. It doesn’t happen. Stop being lazy. 

Tubed patients can be awake. True story. They can communicate too. Usually by writing, since having a dirty great tube down the windpipe tends to impede ones ability to talk. 

The nursing care is 1:1 on an intubated patient. Awake or not, the nurse is not gonna leave that room. No, not even to give your stricken lover a chance to say goodbye in private. There is no privacy. Honestly, that nurse has probably seen it all before anyway. 

ICU isn’t just reserved for intubated patients either. Major surgeries sometimes go here post-op to get intensive care before they’re stepped down. And by major I mean like, grandpa joe is getting his bladder removed because it’s full of cancer. 

Palliative patients and patients who are terminal will not go to ICU. Not unless they became terminally ill after hitting ICU. Usually those ones are unexpected deaths. Someone suffering from a long, slow, gradually life draining illness will probably go to a general ward for end of life care. They don’t need the kind of intensive care an ICU provides because…well..they’re not going to get it??

Operations.

No one gets rushed to theatre for a broken limb. Please stop. They can wait for several days before they get surgery on it. 

Honestly? No one gets ‘rushed’ to theatre at all. Not unless they are, again, actively dying, and surgery is needed to stop them from actively dying. 

Except emergency caesarians. Them babies will always get priority over old mate with the broken hip. A kid stuck in a birth canal and at risk of death by pelvis is a tad more urgent than a gall stone. And the midwives will run. I’ve never seen anyone run as fast as a midwife with a labouring woman on the bed heading to theatres for an emergency caesar.

Surgery doesn’t take as long as you think it does. Repairing a broken limb? Two hours, maybe three tops. Including time spent in recovery. Burst appendix? Half an hour on the table max, maybe an hour in recovery. Caesarian? Forty minutes or so. Major surgeries (organs like kidneys, liver and heart transplants, and major bowel surgeries) take longer. 

You’re never going to see the theatre nurses. Ever. They’re like their own little community of fabled myth who get to come to work in their sweatpants and only deal with unconscious people. It’s the ward nurse who does the pick up and drop offs. 

Anyway there’s probably way, way more that I’m forgetting to add but this is getting too long to keep writing shit. The moral of the story is do some research so you don’t look like an idiot when you’re writing your characters getting injured or having to be in hospital. It’s not Greys Anatomy in the real world and the angst isn’t going to be any more intense just because you’re writing shit like it is. 

Peace up.

#resources

[modernmythsnet]

top ten @modernmythsnet events: [5/10] alternate universe

In the 21st century, Blodeuwedd, a woman made completely of flowers, owns a florists in rural Wales. 

#celtic #edits #creations #event fourteen #metaphysical

[modernmythsnet]

top ten @modernmythsnet events: [4/10] black history month

In Egyptian mythology, Nut was the goddess of the sky, stars, cosmos, mothers, astronomy, and the universe.

#egyptian #edits #creations #event sixteen #metaphysical

[modernmythsnet]

Random, but a really handy way to make things seem creepy or wrong in horror is to make them incongruously neat or clean:

In the middle of a horrific battlefield, you find one corpse laid aside neatly, straightened and arranged, its arms crossed neatly across its chest

As you walk through the garden, you gradually realise that the oddness you’ve been noticing about the trees is that they are all perfectly symmetrical

As you move through the abandoned house, you realise that suddenly that there’s no dust in this room, no dirt or cobwebs

You hear hideous noises coming from behind a locked door, screams and pleas, and visceral sounds of violence. When you manage to break down the door, there is no one there, and the room is perfectly spotless

In the middle of a horrific battlefield, a hollow full of churned mud and blood, you find five corpses cleanly dismembered, each set of limbs or parts neatly laid out in their own little row

You witness a murder, a brutal, grisly killing that carpets the area in blood. When you return in a blind panic with the authorities, the scene is completely clean, and no amount of examination can find even a drop of blood

You run through the night and the woods with a comrade, pulling each other through leaves and twigs and mud as you scramble desperately towards freedom. When you finally emerge from the forest, in the grey light of dawn, you turn to your companion in relief, and notice that their clothes are somehow perfectly clean

You hand a glass of water to your suspect, talking casually the whole while, and watch with satisfaction as they take it in their bare hand and take a drink. There’ll be a decent set of prints to run from that later. Except there isn’t. There are no prints at all. As if nothing ever touched the glass

You browse idly through your host’s catalogue, and stop, and pay much more attention, when you realise that several items on a dry list of acquisitions are ones you’ve seen before, and it slowly dawns on you that each neat little object and number in this neat little book are things that belong (belonged?) to people you know

Neatness, particularly incongruous neatness, neatness where you expect violence or imperfection or abandonment, or neatness that you belatedly realise was hiding violence, or neatness that is imposed over violence, is incredibly scary. Because neatness is not a natural thing. Neatness requires some active force to have come through and made it so. Neatness implies that the world around you is being arranged, maybe to hide things, to disguise things, to make you doubt your senses, or else simply according to something else’s desires. Neatness is active and artificial. Neatness puts things, maybe even people, into neat little boxes according to something else’s ideals, and that’s terrifying as well. Being objectified. Being asked to fit categories that you’re not sure you can fit, and wondering what will happen to the bits of you that don’t.

Neatness, essentially, says that something else is here. Neatness where there should be chaos says that either something came and changed things, or that what you’re seeing now or what you saw then is not real. Neatness alongside violence says that something came through here for whom violence did not mean the same thing as it does to you.

Neatness, in the right context, in the right place, can be very, very scary

And fun

#resources