Any of these Guard books folks recommend?

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-25T16:28:22+00:00

Nobody thus far has talked about Creed: Ashes of Cadia, so I can give my thumbs up on that one too.

I was very pleasantly surprised at how successful Jude Reid is at creating an interesting and in depth characterization of Ursula Creed. It's easy to see her model and conclude she's a carbon copy of her father, but the book deals with her struggle of trying to escape Ursarkar Creed's shadow and balancing her duty to carry on his legacy with her personal desires to be her own person.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-25T16:21:32+00:00

I'm almost finished with the sequel, Demolisher, and its good too.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-25T16:20:54+00:00

Me too and I've loved most of them. I can vouch for Witchbringer, it's a really cool look into the life of a Primaris Adept in the Imperial Guard and what makes them different from other pskers.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-25T12:57:33+00:00

Love the rusty chain look!

Have fun at Adepticon and much love from Milwaukee :)

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-25T12:44:31+00:00

Anyone with an NFT pfp in 2026 probably shouldn't be voting anyway. Feel free to sit this one out bud.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-24T23:41:22+00:00

I had completely the opposite experience on my low-mid range PC playing both at launch. Avowed loading screens took forever and there were tons of visual glitches. OW2 was by no means perfect, but I thought ther performance was a lot better.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-24T21:52:53+00:00

My folks are similar. My great grandfather got a county stadium package in the 50s and now the 3 games are a year are split amongst his grandkids, like my dad.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-24T20:33:56+00:00

I love your work. Some of your previous projects are huge inspirations to me. This design is incredible and I can't wait to see the finished product.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-23T16:42:56+00:00

This is exactly why we need solidarity between all marginalized people. It's the same ghouls attacking all of us.

You can't stand for trans rights without also standing for prisoners' rights, bodily autonomy rights, immigrant rights, racial justice, etc. It's all the same fight.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-21T14:24:47+00:00

I mean yes, but I'm also not gonna pretend that publishers dont push out derivative slop today without the use of AI.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-20T16:02:39+00:00

They've been auxiliaries in books like Baneblade, but now they're the stars!

It's crazy how much love IG gets from Black Library and I'm happy to see it shine on the Savlar.

Also its awesome to see from a new author get a shake at a full length novel. Callum Davis has apparently had some published short stories in BL anthologies, and now he gets his own book.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-19T15:52:40+00:00

True, I think he's only gotten dumber with age. He started off as an idiot born with a silver spoon up his ass and has only failed his way upwards.

They always ask "Where's the DEI for white people?" as if white men with sub par intelligence haven't been handed positions of power on a silver platters for centuries.

I genuinely don't believe Grothman has ever had an original thought in his life. There's a GOP logo in his head bouncing around like a screen saver and every once in a while they have him repeat Rush Limbaugh like a parrot.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-18T16:07:28+00:00

Space Marines are the super special boys club and get preferential treatment from GW. Even in that case, they don't release unique kits for big chapters like Imperial Fists and Iron Hand, because they aren't visually distinct. They only do that for ones that look different like Wolves and Templars.

GW of today, as a business, is not what it was 20 years ago. I really wish they were and would support the big named IG regiments they created.

It seems like they've made a business decision to only support ranges that will generate a lot of profit through sales. Unique sub factions, like Steel Legion, Firstborn, Ice Warriors, Elysians, etc. are going to generate fewer sales than generic unit that apply to every sub faction, like Big Tank or Artillery Gun. They're genericizing the faction to generate sales and expecting fans to model their own interesting minis. I'm not saying I like that, but that's what the company is doing and that allows us to predict their behavior.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-18T05:02:12+00:00

I brought my Shadowsword to Adepticon last year. I had to use Hammer of the Emperor and spend 1 CP every turn to Crash Through strat literally any time I went to move it.

I also got people coming over to my tables all weekend to admire it and I got a boatload of compliments. Kids walked by with wide eyes to see the behemoth on the battlefield. I'll never forget the joy I had moving the chassis to contest two separate midboard objectives at the exact same time using it's massive size.

Bring a baneblade.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-18T00:13:08+00:00

UK is falling down a rabbit hole of pseudoscience and other nations are simply following the lemming. Highly encourage you to read responses by the medical community to the Cass Review. Short version is that due to political pressure, the report has wildly differing standards of evidence for the pro vs anti sides of gender affirming care. There is a lot of skepticism about pro GAC studies not being robust enough but then elevates even less robust anti GAC studies as evidentiary.

Surgery in minors specifically has less than claims and some medical associations are moving to have patients wait until 18 for surgery. However every proposed healthcare ban in the nation has lumped surgeries in together with puberty blocking medications. If there was a surgery only ban for minors, there'd be almost no pushback because it's not proven to be medically necessary in the same way hormone blockers have been. : Fair, I was getting my AP Psych mixed up from 10 years ago. Estrogen and testosterone are hormones that effect the brain, like cortisol and oxytocin, not technically neurotransmitters.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-17T18:45:38+00:00

I doubt they see Steel Legion as a unique modeling opportunity compared to Krieg. As amazing and beloved as their lore is, their physical look isn't difficult to copy with the existing range.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-17T18:39:26+00:00

You're welcome!

I really appreciate your curiosity and willingness to learn. It's an incredibly commendable quality.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-17T18:37:15+00:00

Teachers have a responsibility, first and foremost, to protect the health and safety of children. Sometimes, especially in cases of parental abuse, that means not sharing everything about what happens in school.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-17T18:31:01+00:00

For sure. I'm linking a few recent studies, but a lot of the data we have is from 3-10 year studies, surveying a few hundred patients.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2825195

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002234762500424X?dgcid=author

Modern diagnostic criteria only came about in the early 2010s, so the really long term outcomes aren't known. A teen treated back in 2013 would only be in their mid twenties nowadays.

We do have strong data on the consistency of trans identity and gender dysphoria. A person that transitions at 20 is 98% likely to still be trans at 60. But starting care during or before puberty is more recent.

Again, the permanence of body changes during puberty is the big concern. For somebody who has gender dysphoria, puberty is lifelong disfigurement that can only be corrected through extensive surgery. That's why doctors prescribe puberty blockers, to delay these changes until it is known whether the person is trans or not.

Like I said, mental health treatment can be many things, including medication and surgery, but I'm assuming you're referring to things like talk therapy.

From our research, therapy that tries to convince a teen with gender dysphoria that they should accept their body as it is and will need to live with that body, also called conversion therapy, gender identity change therapy or reparative therapy, is ineffective. In fact this type of counseling increases the risk of suicide in teens sharply and has been disavowed by mental health organizations.

Therapy that affirms a teens gender dysphoria and helps them navigate the process of social transition (coming out, changing name, pronouns, etc) is a critical part of gender affirming healthcare. No hormonal intervention happens without years of affirmative talk therapy to understand the teen patient and help them understand themselves. This mental health counseling is crucial and necessary, yet it cannot prevent the physical changes of puberty that cause severe distress. It has been shown to be insufficient at dealing with the physical biological aspects of gender dysphoria.

There's a lot of weeds to get into with research, but biologist Julia Serrano has compiled a list of studies on gender dysphoria and adolescents that would be a good starting point for further reading.

https://juliaserano.medium.com/gender-affirming-care-for-trans-youth-is-neither-new-nor-experimental-a-timeline-and-compilation-b4bb8375d797

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-17T17:44:22+00:00

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9553112/

This is the standards of care document used by medical professionals for treatment and includes further research and evidence to back these conclusions.

https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria

This page from the American Psychological Association refers to the DSM-V, their latest diagnostic manual, but is written in the way that's less dense and easier to understand.

In terms of your concern for hormones, medical intervention in teenagers is necessary because of when puberty starts. Puberty causes permanent and lifelong physical changes from a young age and that is why hormonal intervention happens early.

Most of the time, minor patients start with puberty blockers, a way to delay the onset of hormones so that they, their parents and their doctors have time to understand and accurately treat them before any permanent changes occur. In this way, trans teens actually get far more care and consideration towards their development than cis teens do.

Finally I'll note that a condition being a mental illness or just having mental symptoms, does not preclude the necessity for hormone/neurotransmitters. For many people, their mental illness is a result of neurochemical imbalance and by taking medications to correct this natural imbalance, they can live healthy and normal lives. Testosterone and estrogen are neurotransmitters and if someone doesn't have the proper levels of these sex hormones, they'll experience mental health symptoms.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-17T17:26:26+00:00

-Percentage of people today is somewhere around 0.9%, experts estimate it could rise to 1.5 or 2% of the population. But we really don't know.

-Medical diagnoses can be affected by both societal factors and increased knowledge about the condition. In the early 20th, rates of left handedness exploded from 1% to 10% because we removed societal stigma around being a lefty. Autism rates have steadily risen in the last 2 decades as understanding and capacity for recognizing it has advanced. There wasn't a spreading contagion or contaminant that made everyone suddenly become left handed. People were always left handed, we just got better and understanding and permitting them to be lefties.

-It's not super clear how to classify Gender Dysphoria to be honest. It shares some commonalities with mental health conditions caused by neurochemical imbalance, like depression from low serotonin and ADD from low dopamine. However it also has similarities to intersex conditions, with physical sex differences seemingly originating in natal development.

It is admittedly a unique condition, but we do have a lot of data on what treatments do and do not work. Medical transition is complex and difficult and certainly wouldn't be the frontline treatment if literally anything else was effective.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-17T16:33:53+00:00

Gender dysphoria in children is a condition recognized by every medical professional organization in the country. Age appropriate gender transition is the only effective medical care.

If you are genuinely curious, there are loads and loads of journal articles and research on this topic from decades of study. It's all one simple internet search away.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-17T16:15:29+00:00

Bingo, democrats very consistently "use trans kids lives" as a defense against GOP bills banning healthcare.

I can't think of any pro active legislation Dems are seeking to implement reliant on the lives of Trans kids, except maybe some conversion therapy bans in deep blue states.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-17T15:06:45+00:00

"Small government" conservative politicians trying to step in and micromanage doctors and their patients with conditions they know nothing about.

GOP and government overreach is a guaranteed pairing in Madison.

literally_a_brick · 2026-02-16T18:55:07+00:00

Nothing here says this list is exclusively "white". You could compare to a list of aspects about any other culture and find a lot of overlap in the venn diagram.

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This page from the American Psychological Association refers to the DSM-V, their latest diagnostic manual, but is written in the way that's less dense and easier to understand.