u/Competitive_Law1063

The other day, I was reading a comment on reddit about the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown. The comment was discussing what the reader didn't like about the book, which is fair, and then punctuated his post by calling it absolute dogwater.

Which is completely unfair.

First, it is an objectively bad opinion. Now, before anyone jumps down my throat, this is not to say that disliking Red Rising is in any way wrong. What was most frustrating about the comment was there were entirely valid points. But calling it a bad series is an entirely different matter. Anyone who reads Red Rising should, at the very least, recognize that first-person present-tense aside, the worldbuilding, the political intrigue, the plots and subplots, and the characters are intriguing and unique.

Calling a well-written book bad just makes no sense to me. It's like calling a Michelin-starred chef's award-winning salmon dish disgusting because you don't like fish. If you want to assert your opinion on the food, you should at least have the maturity to understand that the quality was high, but it was not for you.

This sort of all-or-nothing mindset is especially common among LitRPG readers. "I don't like this type of arc. I don't like this type of MC. I don't like it when MCs do X instead of Y. I want to read something more like this other book I loved." Reviewers seem to get caught up on one tiny point all the time, which crashes their rating of the work dramatically.

Can we, as readers, recognize that sometimes, we might absolutely hate an incredible book, and that doesn't take away from it?

I'm kind of playing around with the idea of making a fresh zero to hero, and one mechanic I've never really put much time into was Expedition. I hate the idea of running in circles planting the explosives, and I'd rather go Extreme Archeology if possible.

For a day one T16 Extreme Archeology build, what's a pretty decent go-to choice? I know that explosions are generally good, but there are a few choices here:

Blight of Contagion Occultist. (A bit squishy early?)

Retaliation Gladiator. (Enough damage?)

KBoC Necro/Heiro/Inquisitor. (No explosions, but maybe it works?)

Any ideas/experience would be appreciated!

I've been working at my current company for about two years now. Generally, I get along with everyone, except for one woman. I'll call her Cindy in this post.

Cindy is a middle-aged Karen who virtually never does anything for herself. At first, I thought that she was simply that incompetent. But then I began to learn her incompetence was essentially learned. If she does the equivalent of flopping onto her side and going limp like a possum, unfailingly, someone will come rescue her, and she will be saved from the five minutes it would have required to figure it out for herself.

We have another co-worker. His name is Jerry. Jerry keeps to himself, sticks to his work tries to stay unengaged with anything related to office politics. These are two things which Cindy absolutely cannot abide. Jerry is competent, and he's usually not willing to do other people's jobs for them, and he's entirely uninterested in the stupid shit Cindy wants to talk about.

One day, during lunch, Jerry took out his headphones and listened to music. Cindy loitered by his cubicle, out of his sight, as he minded his own business. Well, later, Cindy went to HR to file a formal complaint. The reason? She recognized the song that Jerry was listening to as misogynistic. She didn't actually hear the lyrics, by the way; she simply heard the beat, and knew what song it was, and decided that she would report him for creating a hostile work environment.

Jerry was given a formal warning. One that will likely act against him on his next pay raise discussion.

About a week later, I heard Cindy say to another woman, "Men should be put in prison until they prove they're decent people. Then we should let them out."

Now, normally, this is just a typical femcel TikTok talking point that Cindy absorbed. Her favorite work activity happens to be watching TikTok on her phone under her desk with an empty Google Doc open, so she has abundant time to consume this nonsense.

For the first time in my life, I went to HR. I told the director what she said, and the director said to me, "She's just venting."

When I asked her to escalate it, she refused.

When I asked her why it's OK to say that men should all be thrown in prison, she didn't have an answer.

When I pressed her, she told me to leave because I was making her "uncomfortable."

Later I heard the HR lady snickering with Cindy behind my back.

I'm quitting my job with no notice in a month, as I've already secured employment at another company (for higher pay). I actually have a qualification that's both in high demand and is going to be extremely difficult to replace on short notice. Oops. Well, good luck with that, I suppose.

I just hope Jerry gets out too.

I've been enjoying zero to hero runs lately, each in which I focus on a single farming strategy/Atlas tree, building my character to excel at that specifically. This time around, I want to try to get an Eater/Exarch run done on Reliquarian, and then see where to go from there.

The problem is as a zero to hero, I'll have to start from scratch, and I don't really know what kinds of Reliquarian builds were successful this league. I've checked PoE Ninja of course, and found that Pyroclast Mines was the most popular, with Split Arrow with Jack the Axe being the second.

Have there been any other Reliquarian builds that've flown under the radar but have a lot of potential to be strong? I'm open to playing just about anything.