#barabas dantioch

[casualevan]

Decided to build my own Barabas Dantioch from the books.

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

I had to combine wormget's iconic post with marsskop's gorgeous art. I had to. It just worked too well.

[alternativeminiatures]

Source lemoots

[tagedeszorns]

Marine Meat Monday: Barabas Dantioch

I haven't drawn any MMM for a while. But someone got me off my butt with a really great IW-pic, and so I drew the complimentary loyalist-IW-pic! 😊

[marsskop]

Polux decides to stay with Dantioch on Pharos, a moment from The Unremembred Empire 🤝

[picatea]

Bo's a good boss, really.

[ladymirdan]

Alexis Polux: “Eww an Iron Warrior. Leave me alone you filthy degenerate. Im not done killing Iron Warriors.”

*Dantioch blushes an kicks his feet*

Dantioch:“Aww the new guy I work with is so sweet and cute, and he is really putting in the effort to make me feel just like home.”

[the-daily-male]

Today's daily male is Barabas Dantioch from Warhammer The Horus Heresy!

for @icecatnaturals

[shampoopheasant]

pui pui but wh40k

[eddiebreeg666]

Just finished my mini Iron Warriors binge.

[battlecatbeta]

Bearbas

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

the night lords are torturing polux in front of dantioch, i cannot handle this

[inquisitor-gayfax]

✨ Fic Planning and Outlining ✨

Outlining is a huge part of my writing process and something I love talking about, so since I’m currently suffering something of a writer’s block, I’ve put together a step-by-step explanation of my process below. It is important to note that there is no right answer or best way to outline; as with most things it’s just a matter of finding what works best for you!

I would love it if other folks chimed in and added to this with their own tips and tricks!

Let’s learn from each other!

Outlining Tools & Overall Organization

To start with, I use OneNote to organize everything, but there are a ton of programs out there, and you could even do this with different .txt/word files! The main reasons I like OneNote: (1) oo pretty colored tabs (2) tab folders for making sense of the giant pile of WIPs:

So, I have all the things I’m “actively” working on out in the open, then squirrel away everything else in one of five categories: completed (yay!), short, medium, and long WIPs, then a catch-all category for everything that doesn’t really fit anywhere else.

The Outlining Process

To demonstrate and (hopefully) have a little fun, I’m going to pick a half-baked idea from the “WTF – Miscellany” category and create a new tab as if I’m actually going to write it! So, without further ado, let’s dive in and begin outlining for a multi-chapter AU fic wherein Rogal Dorn and Perturabo are high school girls’ volleyball coaches!

First Page: Tags ‘n Such

I often hear that tags can be the hardest part for writers, which is interesting because this is usually where I start! Something about seeing my fic in the summary format it will eventually appear in on AO3 is very motivating to me, and helps guide my writing. You can always add/change later.

Here is the template I use for easy copy/pasting!

Title: Fandom(s): Rating: Category: Archive Warnings: Relationship(s): Character Tags: Other tags: Summary:

And here’s a screenshot of my first pass for this WIP:

This gives me a chance to talk about one of my FAVORITE writing hacks, which is… [BRACKET TEXT].

I don’t know about everyone else, but my brain consistently feels the need to get everything perfect on the first try, which is very unhelpful and actively counter-productive! I’ve found that when I can’t get the phrasing of something just right, or I’m still not sure what I’m going for, putting some brackets around the text in question and just scribbling whatever’s in my mind at the moment allows me to move on without getting bogged down.

If it’s in brackets, I give myself permission to be silly, OOC, anachronistic, or messy, and boy is it a lifesaver sometimes.

Once I have the AO3 info fields done, I draw a little line below the summary and start filling in what I call the “brainstorm space” (that inevitable turns into a mini-outline I need to move over to another page at some point). This is another place I allow myself to be messy. I scribble down thoughts on narrative structure, inspirations, setting, key moments/scenes, themes, motifs, stuff I absolutely need to include, and any overarching things that will be helpful to have before planning in earnest.

Here’s what it looks like for this fic:

Not much there now, but it’s a start, and that’s what outlining is all about!

Second Page: Detailed Outline

A bit of a note here – I used to have a separate page for a “mini-outline,” i.e. a less detailed version, but the brainstorm space basically serves this purpose now, so it’s less common.

This is where the actual structural planning starts to take place. I’ve gotten into the habit of using bracket text here, too, to serve as shorthand summaries of each point. For a multi-chapter fic, I’ll also make sure to note where I think the chapter boundaries will fall, though obviously this is subject to change.

So, a barebones one for this fic might look something like this:

There’s not much there right now, but that’s fine, because (1) it’s in bracket text and (2) this is just the skeletal structure for what comes next: filling it in as you get inspiration.

My brain tends to want to write longfics, but never linearly, of course. Sometimes I get raw bursts of inspiration for scenes, so the way I work with this is to scribble (on my phone, on the computer, in a physical notebook) whatever it is down at the moment I get it, then plug it in to the existing outline later. This way, I end up building a pretty comprehensive plan for the fic before I even open a word document, and it’s easier to make big choices like chapter contents, scene order, and story progression without feeling like I need to tear apart something that’s already fairly set in stone.

Here's an example of what a partially filled-in outline looks like, from my Celefax Gothic Mystery AU WIP:

Note that this one is in chart form, which is what I usually go with for longfics for better separation of scenes and ideas.

Pagestravaganza: Additional Pages for Longfics

For one-shots and shorter multi-chapter fics, typically the Tags/Brainstorming and Detailed Outline pages are enough to get me ready to write, but for longfics, there’s a lot more to think about, and additional places to take notes can be helpful.

Here’s an example of all the pages in the tab for that Celefax AU I mentioned above, which has a lot of characters and worldbuilding and all sorts of things that would be difficult to encapsulate in an outline alone:

For one of my other longfic WIPs, I also have a page where I write down revision notes for the parts I’ve already written as they come to me, so it’s easy to refer back to during the editing process (which I could write a whole other post about).

Another thing I sometimes like to do, especially for one-shots or fics that are from only one character’s POV, is write out a paragraph or two about character emotional arcs. Plot is great, but it can be hard to know where that takes you if you don’t know where each character is starting out and where they end up.

To summarize: The sky’s the limit here. Whatever you need to do to make sure everything comes together, however you need to organize it, however little makes it into the final draft, your outlining/planning document is for you, and you shouldn’t get too bogged down into what needs to be there or whether it’s clean and pretty. As long as it’s helpful to you, it is serving its purpose admirably, and even if it isn’t you’re still learning what does and doesn’t work for you. The way I outline is a constantly evolving process, and different things work for different fics. Feel free to play around!

Writing the Dang Thing

This is the end result, the task for which all your outlining has (hopefully) prepared you!

I’ll be honest: I loathe first drafts. (See above comment about everything needing to be perfect the first time around.)

It’s probably for this reason that I outline so fastidiously, because when I plop my bracket text outline and any pre-written snippets into my first draft, it feels so much less daunting than staring at a blank page.

I can start to fill in the pieces I neglected (scene setting, always), figure out where there might be a need for more connective tissue, and tackle the bite-sized chunks my bracket text outline has created one at a time.

I keep doing that until, ta da! A workable first draft emerges, and we move on to editing, my beloved.

Hopefully this has been interesting/helpful, and please please pleeeeease feel free share your own methods and thoughts and funny bracket text!

[tagedeszorns]

Yeah, I know. I can't draw Polux' Big Naturals and not draw Dantioch's.

[legiopraesagio]

I've got a new fic about Dantioch and Polux's LDR. There’s lots of love, admiration, and fear of being vulnerable in it. Dantioch is his father's son, although he won't admit it.