We Ride Again

Newsletter 2.0, and an Important Lesson

Author

Emily Cambias
April 13, 2025

A great deal has happened since my first, abortive attempt to start a newsletter three years ago. The world has undergone several worrying regime changes, I quit my old job (yay!), fell in love (double yay!), had a very bad, no-good hospital stay (I’m okay!), and now I am living with my partner, writing away in our home office and babysitting a small gaggle of toddlers.

When I first envisioned this newsletter, I told myself it would be three or four mini-essays each week on games, reading, and writing, with a smattering of self-promotion at the end. This in combination with my paying, has-a-deadline work immediately made my brain short-circuit. Going forward there will indeed be mini-essays, but there probably won’t be three or more, and it’ll come every two weeks…unless I’m really in the zone, and then who knows what will happen. There is guaranteed to be blatant self-promotion.

The Parable of the Thrush

Once there were two kingdoms of small creatures: The darting birds who nested high in the trees, and the moles and shrews who scurried beneath fallen leaves. They lived quick and fearful lives.

One day the Thrush King alighted on the earth beside the Queen who dwelt below, and said, “O lady of roots and burrows, I am weary of the sky and branches. Let us exchange places for a while, you and I.”

The Queen of Roots considered this for a time, and asked “How will I reach the sky?”
“You may take my wings,” said the Thrush King, “to convey you.” So the Queen bit off his two brown wings at the joint, and smeared them with pine-tar, and affixed them to her back.
“How will I build my burrow?” the King asked.
“You may take my teeth,” said the Queen of Roots, “To gnaw with.” So the King took her two great front teeth in his claws and broke them from her jaw, and placed them inside his beak.

The Queen of Roots flew up to the high tree branches and danced on the breezes, and the Thrush King delighted in the juicy grubs nestled within old wood.

When Winter came, and the leaves provided no more camouflage, a fox spied the Thrush King upon the snow. It crept up alongside the tree and pounced on its prey. The Thrush King dealt it a mighty bite with his two sharp teeth, but the fox could not be deterred. Soon there was nothing but a pile of feathers where the Thrush King had once hopped.

And the Queen of Roots lived happily high among the new leaves and down on the earth as she pleased.

MORAL: DO NOT EXCHANGE DEXTERITY FOR HIGHER DAMAGE UNLESS YOU HAVE ARMOR TO MATCH.

The Blatant Self-Promotion

Linx