The Valthakan Times
Posts
Edition #11: The Holiday Special

Edition #11: The Holiday Special

Imagine If We Spelled Christmas like Hannukah/Chanukah/Hanukkah

Daniel Alexander
December 23, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 14 minutes

Welcome to The Valthakan Times

If you’re interested in joining 13,000+ other readers for the latest in all things fantasy, click below:

Disclosure: Some of the links in this edition are affiliates, meaning if you make a purchase, we make a profit at no additional cost to you!

Proceeds go to worldhopping and therapy.

Happy Holi-Slay!

Greetings Valthakai, carolers, candlestick makers, and people who know it’s technically a Chanukiah…

I cannot believe how close we are to the New Year.

Thank the fucking gods.

2025 is the year I buy a condo, get in shape, and commit to delulu being the solulu.

This year, Hannukah and Christmas start on exactly the same day— a function of the Jewish lunar calendar, which causes dates to “float” within the Gregorian equivalent dates.

The basis of Hannukah celebrates a miracle, specifically a single day’s worth of oil lasting for eight nights when lighting our menorah.

In this way, this newsletter and our other platforms have been a bit of a miracle as well.

What started as a tiny hobby has grown to reach hundreds of thousands of readers and viewers around the world.

So I wanted this edition to celebrate you, dear reader, because you’re a part of the miracle that is my life.

I hope you are having a wonderful holiday, you deserve all the happiness in the world.

Enjoy!

Love,

The Crone and Daniel

PS: Obviously, the Crone has gotten you something for the holidays, while she cannot find your address, you can take a free week of Cronium at the click of a button!

❝

If I want this $1.5m condo, all I need is $1.6m

Daniel

Daniel’s Books of the Month

Eon

Alison Goodman

Genre: Girlbossed a Bit Too Close To the Sun, High Fantasy, Folklore

Ripped straight from the memory of my middle school self, allow me to introduce you to The Two Pearls of Wisdom duology.

Meet Eon, a crippled apprentice hoping to take on the mantle of Dragoneye, giving him significant power over nature as well as a supernatural connection with a dragon spirit.

The minor hitch, of course, is that Eon is actually a woman by the name of Eona… and it is highly, highly illegal for a woman to pursue the path of a Dragoneye.

Obviously, that isn’t going to stop her, even as she gets closer to the emperor and is scrutinized by her fellow Dragoneyes.

All in a day’s work.

Stormdancer

Jay Kristoff

Genre: High Fantasy, Nobody is Having a Good Time, Japanese Steampunk

Welcome to the trilogy that I loved and will absolutely never read again.

My sister and I worked through this series at the same time and took turns calling each other crying over specific parts.

There. Is. No. Happy. Ending.

Join Yukiko as she falls under the employ of the Lord of the Shima Isles.

Her country is dying, choked by a virulent poison that infects every aspect of her way of life.

To make matters worse, her abilities make her Impure and an enemy of the Lotus Guild, so failure means you burn.

There’s no such thing as an easy life on Shima, is there?

Monstress

Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda

Genre: People Having Even Less of a Good Time, Dark Fantasy, They’re Lesbians Harold

This is a bit of a strange suggestion for today, as it is a graphic novel, not a book.

Maika Halfwolf investigates the death of her mother, all the while struggling against the eldritch entity that rests within her.

She is an Arcanic despite her human appearance, a descendant of one of the Ancients blessed with magic and immortality.

Society hunts her kind, specifically the witches known as Cumaera, who use Arcanics as fuel for their magic.

Oh, and everyone’s a lesbian.

Seriously, there are like 5 dudes in this entire series.

Fair warning, it’s GRAPHIC.

❝

What happened to your ceiling?

Commenters for the past three days

Dear Crone

An advice column

Dear Crone,

I have a background in roleplay texting dating back almost 20 years.

Recently, my friends (old writing partners) have encouraged me to start actually writing.

I adore high fantasy, spice, and detailed plots.

So I have to ask Lady Crone, Daniel... Would you read fan submission stories?

Literarily,

Draconic Tech

Dear Draconic Tech,

This is such an honor!

We would love to encourage fan submissions!

For now, you can send them to [email protected]

Depending on the response volume, it may take some time to get through them all!

We’ll also look into creating a formal submission form!

Encouragingly,

The Crone

Dear Crone,

I was a weird kid growing up, and friends didn’t stick.

I wanted friends and to hang out so bad, but now that I’m older and have my husband, I find new friendships tedious, even if they are really nice and deserve good friendship, it feels like a chore.

Sincerely,

30 But Not So Flirty

Dear 30,

It can be tough to establish healthy friendships as an adult, the factors that go into just finding people are a massive pain in the ass.

It’s great that you feel so close to your husband, but it is healthy to have a support group outside your partner.

The emotional exhaustion you’re feeling is likely a reaction from your younger years.

You tried so hard and didn’t achieve the results you wanted.

If you do want to try to develop new adult friendships, you have to reframe the approach in your mind.

You are not the child who is struggling to connect with people any longer. You’re an adult who is open to new filial relationships.

It may also be a good idea to speak to a professional; it feeling like a chore is a defense mechanism, and a completely understandable one.

However, you can protect the weird kid you were in a way that doesn’t preclude new experiences.

Reassuringly,

The Crone

Dear Crone,

With the upcoming TikTok ban, will the crone put all the videos and the literary universe on another social media platform?

If so, where?

I don’t want to lose you and the crone (I NEED YOU)

Platonically,

Sophie

Dear Sophie,

Your concern and love for the Crone (and Daniel, probably) means so much!

Currently, much of our content is available on Instagram!

Additionally, YouTube Shorts is finally allowing content over 1 minute, so our playlists will also migrate there.

Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel! We already have plans for unique long-form content that will go up within the next month.

If there are specific topics you’d like us to cover, contact us through the [email protected] email.

To start, we’re going to be doing a roundup of our best write-ins for 2024!

Endlessly,

The Crone

Deadest Lady Crone,

I really want to go to a Fantasy Ball, but I always find out about them when they are sold out or already happened.

I think my crystal ball has forsaken me.

Do you happen to know of any announcement boards whereupon they get posted, or do I just keep living vicariously through others?

Forever your greatest fan,

Always a Day Late

Dear Always,

Finding out about events is its own skill that needs to be developed.

It is one that I am quite acquainted with, though Daniel found out about his high school reunion about 6 months too late.

Personally, the event planners that I’m familiar with are:

Eudantria, which is based in Texas.

Gauntlets and Gowns, which is based in the UK.

And I recently found Second Star, which has upcoming events in NYC.

Now, I have yet to attend (or be invited) to their venues, so I cannot speak to their enjoyability (until I’m paid, anyway).

However, they all provide Discords, newsletters, and upcoming event lists!

Go boots hunty, the slay down!

Voguingly,

The Crone

Dearest Crone,

It's me again.

I'm not going to link this to my previous submission because it's an entirely new issue, but nonetheless.

So I have this friend who I am very close with and very flirty with.

It got to the point where we had multiple people ask if we were dating.

The issue is I don't want to accidentally develop a crush on her, especially because we have a large age gap for our age.

Pls help me prevent this.

A little bit terrified,

Always Falling Like Icarus

Dear Icarus,

… if you’re writing in about this, it sounds like you’re already into her, dearie.

If you don’t want anything to progress from that, you need to stop flirting.

Establish serious boundaries in regard to how you behave toward her, and what sort of behavior you are willing to accept in return.

Age gaps are tricky; I’m going to leave that in your hands.

But the secret to not accidentally falling for someone is avoid consistently behaving as if you’re into them in the first place!

Honestly,

The Crone

Need Advice?

❝

I swear we’re going to make YouTube content

Daniel

The Hard Covers

Reconciling Fantasy with Our Reality

Shitty Queer Representation

I have a controversial statement to make in regard to novels I enjoy:

The surest way to get me to drop your novel is to blatantly mention your character’s sexuality in your book blurb.

It tells me your character is boring as shit, and you’re hoping to appeal to a queer reader rather than actually write a good representation.

This doesn’t mean I won’t read queer characters— the reality is quite the opposite, but there is a massive difference between

“Lithala must prowl the underworld of Titiclitara, hunting for the bastards that stole her wife,”

compared to

“Follow the journey of Lithala, a polyamorous femme, as she follows the trail left behind by her stone-top wife.”

You have about two sentences to catch my attention, and if the only interesting thing you can mention is that your MC is a power bottom… I’ll pass.

As a disclaimer, I am talking about fantasy.

If we’re discussing a nonfiction story, then yeah, I’m approaching your novel with a different mindset. But as a high fantasy aficionado, I have to assume that there are more interesting tidbits than a guy being gay… like sexuality should be the least important aspect of your world.

Partially, this is because I expect a book to show, not tell. Have your MMC kiss his beautiful werewolf husband, whom we thought was the main villain, etcetera, etcetera. You get my point.

But another aspect of my opinion on this is that the goal of normalization means something isn’t special, it’s standard.

That is, queer representation should not be shocking, especially if it’s included in a world that is currently a battleground for the gods.

You don’t get fucking brownie points because two dudes cuddle during a literal apocalypse, I expect more of the novels I consume.

So how do you feel?