Blocks, ropes and bots

This is another 💦 Quickie with Angelo.

In this issue:

• Trying (another) way of time management

• BDSMtests needs to get updated

• New weird possibilities in my favorite game ever

Blocking time

I'm a time-management freak. I've read most of the books, done some courses, and tried some techniques. None of them were even close to perfect — except two, which I still use and will write about in the future. I'm trying a new calendar blocking, and so far, it's interesting enough to keep trying.

The whole thing revolves around blocking your calendar with tasks, filling up your day with stuff like "waking up routine" to "15-minute coffee break". It is proposed to those who want a little more control and vision of their routines and how much time they actually take to do stuff.

I, for instance, had no idea I take almost one hour from waking up to being ready to go out to work. I also blocked 1 daily hour for studying, and that time is not negotiable — and then I woke up later today and fucked my schedule up.

The idea behind it is to make a commitment to yourself and actually go do stuff you told yourself you'd do. Otherwise, if you're like me, you know you will prefer to spend 12 hours playing this new DLC than doing your dishes. I did block "doing dishes" in my calendar on Saturday and ended up doing them.

It's also suitable for those — like me — that can get impromptu meetings and calls. If you block your calendar — especially your company one — people might not book events on an already busy day. They will see the time is being used for something else.

Could you try it and book some actual relaxation time for yourself?

Evolution of kink

BDSMtest is a website in which you can answer a few questions about kinks and fetishes and get a graph of where your kinky interests might be.

It's really outdated and screams a need for a graphic update, but it's enough for those starting in the whole BDSM scene.

I found the links to my BDSMtests from 2018, 2020, and 2022 and decided to do a little visualization of my interests.

The issue is: e-mails are SHIT. They don't allow you to embed anything and have a good visualization, so I'll put up some images here, and clicking any of them will take you to this link, an animated, accessible, and toggleable version.

Turning shit into gold

Want to know more about what you can or cannot do in your newsletters? What are the best platforms, which ones gave me problems before, and what other tips on how to make your e-mails shiny? Get a ticket to O Texto e o Tempo, a Brazilian even on newsletters! It’s only in Brazilian Portuguese, but who knows if we don’t make it international soon 👀?

Back to the subject

So, the first visualization has every category together. It’s a mess, with many lines going around, so I’ll clear them up on the following charts.

It’s possible to see below my highest and lowest values:

• I was always a 100% non-monogamist.

• Don’t degrade me in bed (or in life). I will cry.

Two interesting evolutions were the values of submissive and dominant. I always saw myself as a sub, especially with my love of movement and sensory restriction, but something happened in 2020 that showed me that dominating significantly turns me on. I’m still high in the sub numbers, and the lack of experience as a dom made those numbers fall in 2022. Let’s see what 2024 brings us, but now I know for sure: I’m definitely, at least, a switch.

Another interesting number is the contrast between being a rope-bunny — someone who likes to be bound — and a rigger who enjoys binding. I always loved having my sense limited, but the lack of partners to get me bound made me feel interested in actually learning how to do it. I'm sure these numbers will continue high in 2024, especially if I get to a decent shibari or bondage course in Munich.

What do you think about these charts and visualizations? Do they change how you see me in any way? Did you do your test? Did you find anything new in yourself? Tell me in the comments!

I can tell you about Douglas.

RimWorld is a game about, amongst a lot of things, incidental narrative. There's no fixed story, no fixed characters, nor fixed events. Every story that happens while you play happens because you are playing it, and if I tell you the stories that happened in my playthroughs, it will sound silly and weird unless you are also a RimWorld player.

See, I can tell you of Douglas. He crashed in my colony when I barely got electricity from poorly positioned wind turbines and was quickly invited to stay with us. He was a passionate cook, had a green thumb, and was also an excellent researcher... but the crash made him lose his right arm, severely crippling his manipulation abilities. He did his work on his own time and bravely fought to defend our settlement from invaders.

At some point, I got the opportunity to give one of my characters — in-game lingo, pawns — a fantastic ability: whoever got this unique injection would be able to control a few machines and robots. Of course, I chose Douglas: he was the most intelligent of them — and, honestly, all other pawns could do manual labor better and faster than him.

The robots built, cleaned, and hauled stuff around. They were quick and capable, doing things other pawns were too busy to do. I recruited another pawn for my cooking duties, so Douglas became my full-time researcher while commanding his bots and doing multiple chores. With his expertise, we soon got to a technological level to be able to create bionic limbs and implant them.

Douglas lifted from the hospital bed, dazed by the anesthetics, and tested his newly acquired bionic arm. Of course, he deserved it — he survived the crash, the poor initial state of the settlement, the multiple raids and attacks, that time a group of manhunting rats tried to chew him down, and now, the surgery itself.

Then, the other robots attacked. They came from the sky in high-tech drop pods, landing inside my walls. Two of them had long-range guns, and two had blades for arms. In one strike, Douglas went down, bleeding profusely, armless.

After we barely got out of that situation — we lost a few animals and got some rough wounds — Douglas was taken to the hospital in a rush. Everyone did their best to save him — even getting over an infection. He was alive, happily, but had lost his remaining human arm.

As the group manager, my quest was straightforward: get Douglas another arm. After a few in-game days, I ended up doing all of that, having to steal a bunch of steel and components from a neighboring mining encampment. Soon enough, Douglas was walking around the hallways, commanding his small bot assistants with his bionic arms swinging around him. He was happy, with his hunger satisfied and a roof over his head. He helped me build it.

I think I'll make Douglas a full cyborg — bionic everything, robot army included. While that happens, my other paws continue their personal stories: Timmy, the child refugee, learns how to live in our settlement while he grows. Ampara, a gray-skinned genetically modified woman, grows better and better at mining and recruiting new colonists from our prisoners. A guy called Vinnya is a gun-loving freak and might kill someone in a mood break someday.

The beauty of RimWorld comes from those stories — not coded in the game but happening because of how things develop. It's a treat to be able to live that and, at the same time, sad that no one will ever have the same experience.

Of course, the possibility of killing a raider and turning him into prisoner meals and a masterwork human-leather hat exists and entices many players — but not me. Really. I swear. Don't look at me like that; my hat just looks like a belly button.

RimWorld — my favorite game ever — has a new DLC about robots, genetics, and vampires.

That’s all, folks

This has been another 💦 Quickie with Angelo.

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and that we can do this again soon.