Snowflake Challenge 2024: Day 2

[lebateleur]

Challenge #2

In your own space, set yourself some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Behold: A List of 24 Goals for 2024

Watch

1. Good Omens: Season 2 (And boy do I feel some kind of way about it.)
2. Our Flag Means Death: Season 2
3. Dragon Prince: Book 5
4. One TBD documentary

Read

5. At least 100 books cover-to-cover
6. Reread Sugiura Shiho's 終点unknown series
7. Complete *mumblemumble* books from my TBR list
8. Finish my Squire's Tale readthrough

Write

9. My getyourwordsout pledge for this year
10. My inkingitout pledge
11. At least one fill for a fic or exchange
12. At least 100 words more days than not

Play

13. Irish flute almost every day
14. GHB for 10 minutes a day, more days than not
15. In at least one local session this calendar year
16. At least 20 new tunes by the end of the year

Game

17. Finish my BG2 replay
18. Finish my BG3 playthrough
19. Play Pentiment
20. Finish one game from my TBP list

Do

21. Keep my Duo streak going for another year
22. All the 2024 Snowflake Challenges
23. Some manner of exercise daily
24. Cook (at least) 4 dinners weekly

これで以上です。

Comments

[teigh_corvus]

I friggin' LOVE this format. Somehow, using verbs to categorize your goals makes them more actionable. Which is fantastic -and prolly overstating the obvious on my part, but this really breaks up inertia, right out of the gate.

I am rustling the pom poms of encouragement regardless *\o/* go you!

[lebateleur]

Haha, thank you! It definitely helped me to prioritize what I really want to try to do in each category, and not get overwhelmed by how many things I want to get to overall. So far it's had a good effect on the inertia for sure ✨

[pauraque]

A good list! I have to confess my ignorance - what is GHB? Something musical, I take it.

[lebateleur]

GHB = great highland bagpipes (although seeing as I live in an apartment, that currently means I'm using an electronic practice chanter with earbuds, not a full—or even physical—set.)

[sushiflop]

I love categories! This is so beautifully organized.

I've also been following The Dragon Prince! How do you feel about it, who are your faves?

[lebateleur]

OMG another Dragon Prince viewer! Have you seen the newest season yet (and if so, how does it stack up)?

I admit to being just kinda lukewarm on Book 1, but Book 2 reeled me in and kept me there ever since. Amaya is my MVP—she is such a badass. I'm ridiculously fond of Soren, which is funny because he is so not my standard favorite character type. Claudia's character arc fascinates me, and I love the stuff they've been doing with Rayla and Callum in later seasons.

All that said, my heart belongs to Bait. XD

[sushiflop]

Season 5? I have seen it and there were some things that annoyed me but also some big changes that were a refreshing change from Book 4, which kind of didn't do it for me. I actually really enjoyed Books 1-3, where the heroic group were proactive and pursuing goals of their own, and felt that Book 4 fell into a trap where every move Soren et al made was in reaction to Claudia doing something... I also felt that several episodes there were more about, "oh no! We have this new 1-ep hurdle to overcome! But we won't spend any longer than that on it!" rather than necessarily introducing significant new characters, worldbuilding elements that were going to be carried on throughout the whole season. Book 5 falls into that a bit but was better about it and is in places decently suspenseful. If I'm honest, I think I'm no longer in the target age range for the show, as kidly shenanigans when the world is at stake just make me want to lecture the kids to get serious xD

I really love Amaya! She's the MVP for me. I actually really loved Viren's complicated family dynamic with Claudia and Soren as well, and I think the writing cast does a good job at writing Ezran as wise beyond his years and yet still a child, so he's a fave. Claudia is also really good. Honestly I REALLY want more Aaravos, I'm convinced there has to be more to him than what's already been revealed, or at least I hope there is... it doesn't hurt that Eric Dellums has a voice I could listen to for hours 😌

[corvidology]

That's a really good list and a nice mix of doable and stretch goals which I think these things should always be!

[lebateleur]

Yup, yup, and if I don't do any of them, no big deal! I find keeping the pressure lower is better way to achieving more of them.

[svgurl]

I like the wide variety of goals and how you've organized them. Good luck! :D

[lebateleur]

Thank you—thinking through the list was really motivating.

[luthien]

I really like the format of your list of goals. It makes them feel doable and not overwhelming. Good luck with all of them (but especially the writing ones).

I have so many thoughts about Good Omens season 2 (some good, some less good) - but mostly I'm just really glad that we're getting a season 3.

[lebateleur]

Yes! When something starts to feel aspirational (let alone overwhelming) it's pretty much the death knell on my motivation to even make a start on it.

I'm in the same boat regarding Good Omens. It definitely helped that I came in with no expectations and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed so much of it. And yes, I think it would have been torches and pitchforks if there'd been no season 3 after that ending.

[luthien]

I enjoyed some bits - more on re-watching - but think I just about lost the will to live somewhere around episode 4 for a while.😂 I always want to like Neil Gaiman's writing more than I actually do. He's great at concepts, and at creating memorable characters, but he really needs actors of the calibre of David Tennant and Michael Sheen to bring out the emotional depths.

Those last ten minutes packed such a punch, though, that I can forgive an awful lot of the rest of the season. It was also interesting to me how my reaction was quite different from some elements within the fandom. I thought both A's and C's decisions were entirely true to their characters - while also being manipulated by a master. But there was a whole thing in the fandom at the time, speculating that the coffee was drugged and that's what made Aziraphale make that choice.

The main difference is that I hadn't spent four years as part of the fannish hivemind, busy making HEAs in fic, I guess. But anyway, I'm very curious to see where the storyline goes, and hoping very hard that it won't take another four years.

[lebateleur]

just about lost the will to live somewhere around episode 4 for a while.
For me that happened during the episode 3 flashbacks. 🤣 I liked episode 4 somewhat better.

I always want to like Neil Gaiman's writing more than I actually do. He's great at concepts, and at creating memorable characters.
Agreed, and I'd add that he also benefits from someone like Pratchett to bring out the humor and human-ness of his highminded concepts. One of the reasons I was so reluctant to even watch this season was because I was worried it'd be All Gaiman, and Good Omens has always struck me as 70:30 Pratchett:Gaiman. I didn't want it to be all Gaiman Big Concepts^(TM) and Moody Darkness^(TM). There was far more OG Good Omens flavor in this season than I'd expected, to my pleasant surprise.

I also feel like Gaiman has tended to rest on his laurel in a lot of his post-American Gods stuff, and I feared the S2 might be phoned in like that. But it wasn't, and I think a lot of that owes to Tennant and Sheen's work—they were phenomenal.

Those last ten minutes, though! I expected a big cliffhanger, but not that one. I'd speculated that Crowley'd be taken hostage in heaven, or that Gabriel would get his memories back and go balls-to-the-wall for a new Armageddon, or something external like that. I did not expect that their unexamined assumptions about each other would drive a wedge between them. I thought it was masterful—so much better than any of the scenarios I'd been hypothesizing precisely because their reactions were so true to their characters and because that's the sort of thing that breaks couples apart all the time. No drugged coffee needed. The script's foreshadowing was so excellently done.

I admit, I know nothing about the fannish hivemind when it comes to this show. I imprinted on the book so hard at an early age that just watching an adaptation was a lift for me. Having watched S1 + getting a season that isn't the original story let me take it on its own merits, and I really dug them.

[wendelah1]

My reading list is so energetic and ambitious. 100 books! Cooking! Writing!

[lebateleur]

Mine too, and it's so nice to see it. I'm really hoping to do a hard reset following 2023—here's hoping we all maintain that collective energy!

[vriddy]

That is such a satisfying way to list goals! I love that a chunk can be completed early to help with momentum. I'm also doing GYWO (and so happy to see so many Snowflake people also participating :D). Best of luck with your pledge(s) and with everything!

[lebateleur]

I love that a chunk can be completed early to help with momentum.
Yes! That's what I was going for. Either completing an entire chunk or a bunch of things across different categories is motivating.

What GWYO type did you pledge? I dialed back to the 75k pledge this year to increase my chances of hitting it. Whatever your pledge, good luck & happy writing!

[vriddy]

I pledged 150K words! I did write this much for the last couple of years (but had pledged 200K so I didn't meet that!) but I want to focus on some new editing techniques this year so who knows, maybe I won't meet it this year either but I'm sure I'll be learning something either way :D Happy writing to you too!

[royalblue31]

I had a fun time going through your list. I see you've already crossed the first one out so you're onto a great start. Good luck with everything! Also, by Duo do you mean duo lingo?

[lebateleur]

I put the list together and said, Why not get off to a good start by finishing the first item on it? 😁

And yup, I do mean DuoLingo. After breaking my streak in 2022 I hit 365 straight days last December. Do you use the app too?

[kalloway]

I like how you organized your list! Best of luck to you with it all.

Cook (at least) 4 dinners weekly

I should really try for this one...

[lebateleur]

Thank you! Designing it so I can feel like I've accomplished something by either crossing off chunks or crossing off single things across chunks will, I hope, help me to make progress on things.

I was crap about cooking last year (in part a holdover from the covid era when we were trying to help keep places open) but this year I can do better.

[kalloway]

I just keep collecting cookbooks and dreaming about trying all the things but then not doing it, so if I can get in the habit of just cooking, then I can try to rotate some new things in, too. Maybe. Hopefully.

[lebateleur]

if I can get in the habit of just cooking, then I can try to rotate some new things in, too.

It also helps that, once (universal) you start cooking, you end up with all these odds-and-ends ingredients you need to use up, which leads to other recipes, and more cooking.

That said, I (alas) still have plenty of cookbooks that are so far Just For Looking At.

[kalloway]

This is very true! Well, let's get cooking~

[wearing_tearing]

Lovely goals! I'm going to join in your *mumblemumble* books from my TBR list because that's... yeah lol

[lebateleur]

Yup, *mumblemumble* books, and you can hold me to that. 😁

[bethctg]

Good luck!! :D

[lebateleur]

Thank you!!

[tsuki_no_bara]

i love that you already crossed something off. :D (i liked a lot of s2 but yeah, "i sure do feel some kind of way about it" is a good way to phrase it.)

i also love that you play the bagpipes! how cool!

[lebateleur]

It was really well done, even a little too much. In hindsight I'm not sure I wanted an emotional punch to the gut that was that big.

And ha, I don't play them well. Yet. But that's what the daily practice goal is aimed at solving. :D