Team Update: The Mystery Blogger Award! [2020]; Everyone Go Get MORE Cake!

a MASSIVE Update by the Azure-Winged “Shimmering” Magpie! (a.k.a. the Extinction Entity)

We Won A Shiny-Shiny!
^{(kinda… sorta… Okay. We did!)}

So… this is something new! Two weeks ago, just before the Cap’n’s birthday, the awesome Amanda Hurych from the Below Average Blog (which is totally NOWHERE near “average”) nominated us for the “Mystery Blogger Award”. And! And…!

(❤◡❤^✿) ^!

So. That’s a shiny in the bag far as I can see it (I’m pretty sure Froley put in a good word for us too). And I know. I know we’re late to the whole thing, but we got really backed up this the last week. But anyway! Back to the shiny! We’d like to thanks our friends, and our families, and that one cousin who lives in the middle of nowhere Timbuktu… You get the drill! This is a long list and it’s going to go on forever if I went through each and every name on it. So…

(◔ _ ◔^✿)╯ ^📝 📝

Just like every official everything, the Mystery Blogger Award comes with rules. And here they are!

…………….1. Put the award logo/image on your blog
…………….2. List the rules
…………….3. Thank whoever nominated you and provide a link to their blog
…………….4. Mention Okoto Enigma, the creator of the award and provide a link as well
…………….5. Tell your readers 3 things about yourself
…………….6. You have to nominate 10 – 20 people
…………….7. Ask your nominees any 5 questions of your choice.

Oooh! So many people to nominate!
*evil laughter!*

Now since we can’t keep our hands off PhotoShop, we made a custom image for the award (it’s ’cause we want these banner images to fit our upcoming redesign whenever it happens). We tried to make it pretty close to the original picture, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out! So if anyone wants to use it (them! We made more! Kinda!) in the future… go ahead. And say hi to the Cygnus Loop while you’re at it! (Click on the image for full view.)

Now I’m pretty sure that I don’t have to say that we’ve got HEAPS of thanks to give to the very Above Average Amanda (and Froley!). She’s been a long-time friend of the blog’s now and all the love we get from her is appreciated three thousand. You should totally go and check her blog out!

She’s got everything from travel to reviews to thoughts about videogames and SO MUCH more! And it’s real funny that her last post’s about a D&D story ’cause… guess what’s coming up down below?! (Remember that D&D isn’t the only game from Wizards of the Coast…)

We’ve also got some big heaps of thanks to send Okoto Enigma‘s way (and all the people in the chain so far) as well! This is a really cool idea! I’m not a fan of chain-anything but this one… this one’s cool!

And now… because we’re rule-abiding (lol) birds here on The Corvid Review, let’s talk about the…

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THREE THINGS ABOUT OURSELVES:

Let’s do this one at a time! ^{(I won’t mess with anyone else’s answers. promise… )}

……..The Azure-Winged “Shimmering” Magpie (a.k.a. the Extinction Entity):
• My favourite ‘Western’ fast food is KFC (GET YO’ ACT TOGETHER KFC! I DEMAND GOOD CHICKEN!)
• I’ve had a whopping two drinks since the great tummy purge of Jan ’19, so I’m actually… ‘officially’ sober?
• I did actually get an ‘azure’ magpie tattoo. I’m thinking of getting another one later this year (when we can go out lol). Something small. We’ll see.

……..The Crow:
• I have — with one major exception — always lived close to a famous sporting venue
• I have a “uniform” of sorts. On some days, I find it difficult to do anything right unless I’m in said uniform
^{He does the Picard manoeuvre and everything!}
• Aside from a chipped tooth from fifteen years ago, I’ve never broken a bone in my body.
^Showoff!

And you didn’t think we were coming alone did you?

Oh no! We got MORE team members to fill in while we were at it. We wanted to make this a party! (And make sure you got more bang for your click when you got here!)

……..The Nutcracker:
• My favourite podcast is Radiolab.
• I actually like Surströmming (I know). Make a sandwich with it and you’re good. The sandwiches are like 50% potatoes. And everyone likes potatoes.
^{ewww! Stinky! STINKY!}
• I get blonde jokes often. Too often.
^{I have nothing to do with this…}

……..The Swan(!):
• Honest
• Aloof
• Considerate (sometimes).
^{So brief and to the point…}

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Q&A:

So we’re on the spot! Amanda asked us some really good questions in her blog post and here are the answers! (Buckle in! This is going to take a while!)

1. What moment of gaming triumph (be it board, video, or, hell, even a physical sport) do you love to tell people about?

The Azure-Winged “Shimmering” Magpie (a.k.a. the Extinction Entity): Oooh! Tough one! I talk a lot about the games I play, so I’ve got a lot of war stories to choose from! I’m going to go with… two stories! (‘Cause they’re similar see?)
Story number one (the big one) is about that one time I was playing darts at one of my old local pubs. I’ve never thrown a dart in my life since this happened, and never threw one before this happened either… so it makes this story THAT much more IMPRESSIVE. Well guess who threw a perfect OOONE HUNDRED AND EIIIGHTY?! (After which I nearly took some random girl’s finger off by managing to throw a dart… backwards… over… my… head…)
…………….(◔ _ ◔^✿)╯ ^🔪 🔪
So… yeah. That’s story NUMBER ONE!

Story number two! I managed to one shot a pilot who was flying through the sky with a 180 (or maybe it was a 210) no-scope headshot in Battlefield one week into playing. So…
*Skrillex noises*

Yeah. Call me Sniper Magpie. ^{(And don’t stand behind me when I’ve got darts in my hand.)}

The Crow: Quite a number of incidents come to mind, but to keep it strictly “gaming” related (i.e.: sports physical or digital), I’ll go with a particular incident from around a decade ago. [Long story warning.] There was a man named J.B.. He was an alright-enough guy, but he had certain issues. He would challenge newbies to games of Magic: the Gathering (which has recently been outed as one of my hobbies), and proceed to stomp on them with his “special deck”. He used to play a White/Green deck chock-full of gigantic creatures and spells to buff said creatures. This deck rang in around US$ 1,500, and the people he’d face would be people who had just learnt the game in the last few days. Not to say that money = quality in MTG, but in this case, his opponents had nothing to threaten him with, given the way money works in the game. That US$1,500 was derived from a collection which cost over US$5,000 to accrue. Statistically, any deck (no matter how expensive) stands a fair chance of losing an engagement due to chance, but J.B.’s never seemed to. Odd, but I put it down to him having fair fortunes on these nights.
What really ground my gears about him is how he’d turn to taunting his victims afterward, stopping people from ever trying to play the game again on at least two occasions. And on the night of the second occasion, while I was still unsure about joining the “Gamer’s Guild” (I never did), I noticed something that royally miffed me. Not only was J.B. using a superpowered deck of cards, but he was using sleight of hand to turn games into his favour. I considered exposing him right then, but eventually settled on an alternate course of action, since he was invariably surrounded by a number of cronies who could see no fault in what he did.
The next week, at our friendly local game shop, I decided to finally come out of my mini-retirement and challenge him to a game. And not just him. I wanted to face that deck of his (which wasn’t allowed to be played barring special circumstances) with a deck I would put together in front of him. In effect: I’d play with cards I had never seen (in real life) before. Of course, I was scoffed at by most, since J.B. was a rather good player, but they let me have my go. He had two hundred-something cards on him, and I could only afford enough to scrounge up forty-something (again, this makes little difference). I bought a number of booster packs (packs containing a random assortment of cards) and built a somewhat-functional deck, but bought a few other cards individually to “stand a chance” against him.

Since this was strictly a casual game, there was a stand-in for the judge, who ended up being distracted by J.B.’s friends (a fact I was counting on). The combo I proceeded to pull off was the most ludicrous, once-in-a-million event that might have ever happened in Magic: the Gathering. Nearly beaten, and with nothing to defend with, I turned all of his attacking creatures against him, stomping him to defeat instead of myself. To add some flavour to the affair: this just so happened to occur in front of the exact people he’d been stomping over the past few weeks.
Of course, I knew exactly what cards I needed to fire my combo ahead of time; and as for how those cards magically appeared in my hand, in the exact manner in which they had to, I’ll leave to your imagination to fill in. That kind of magic, after all, is what we were playing against each other. The beatdown put J.B. off bullying people in MTG for a long, long time. I never saw him using sleight of hand ever again, either. It might not be a victory that matterd outside that shop on that specific night, but it felt great to give him a taste of his own medicine.

The Nutcracker: I don’t really play videogames or sports a lot. But I do play a lot of Jenga when I’m out. I think I’m the only person who’s beaten the Magpie and the Crow at Jenga and still haven’t lost to them.
Sorry guys. People need to know.
…………….😉

The Swan(!): Don’t really have a gaming triumph.

2. What is your ideal reading situation in terms of environment?

The Azure-Winged “Shimmering” Magpie (a.k.a. the Extinction Entity): First up! I’m going to need magpie-cosies! I need to be all comfy and everything with a blanket and maybe a pillow for my back. And it needs to be Q.U.I.E.T! If anyone talks around me reading… they’re getting stabbed through the soft bits with a spork. And I mean that!

The Crow: Quiet; well-lit, but not overly so; preferably between 10 and 15 degrees celsius, but slightly-lower temperatures are fine. As long as I have enough space to use my notebook, I’ll go with it. If you add in a cup of tea and a few snacks, we can call it ideal.

The Nutcracker: At my desk.

The Swan(!): Somewhere quiet, with no people.

3. What three movies would you recommend to anyone, regardless of their personal taste in film?

The Azure-Winged “Shimmering” Magpie (a.k.a. the Extinction Entity): Let’s see… this is another good one! I’m gonna go with… Godzilla: King of the Monsters (’cause it’s AWESOME!), A Streetcar Named Desire, and the The Dark Knight (y’know… the last one. There are only two…). Go watch all three of them!

The Crow: Interstellar, Possession, and Seven Samurai. I believe that’s a varied-enough diet. Interstellar continues to be one of the finest science fiction movies of all time, Possession is a mind-bending movie which raises many more questions than it answers, and Seven Samurai is the blueprint for the entirety of action cinema. There’s a little bit of everything between those three movies.

The Nutcracker: My favourite films of all time are: The Fall, Titanic, and Avatar. So those three. ……..🙂

The Swan(!): Good Will Hunting, Licence to Kill, any movie of the Cornetto trilogy.

4. What aspects of a series (book, comic, or television) make you want to binge it?

The Azure-Winged “Shimmering” Magpie (a.k.a. the Extinction Entity): Mysteries! Good stories! Cool characters (who’d better be villains)! Good visuals! Great action! Who am I joking…?! It’s hot people. No. Okay no. I’m still joking.
I guess it’s got to be stories that do something new. So much of everything’s la-dee-dah same old same old. I want new things that I haven’t seen before. And I want them to be done up to the tens.

The Crow: I’m not a person who binges often. But if I do, it has to be because of the story. If it engages me with a good hook and keeps its tempo up — be it through density of story, style of narration, or interesting characters (although most characters claimed to be interesting usually fall far short of the mark) — I’ll be interested. Above all and beyond, however, it is the plot that’ll keep me going. I have no idea why so many people seem content with characters and characters alone, especially when there is no good story to tell. I have a feeling it might be something to do with the nepotism that’s crept into the “behind the scenes” of the writing world over the past few years.

The Nutcracker: For me, it’s the characters. I’ll watch anything as long as I have someone to root for or someone to hate. That’s why shows like Game of Thrones get to me so well. I also like good romances, so if there’s enough relationship drama going on, I’m in as well!

The Swan(!): Relatable characters, compelling storylines, emotional moments, great dialogue.

5. Why did you start writing and maintaining a blog?

The Azure-Winged “Shimmering” Magpie (a.k.a. the Extinction Entity): My original blog (before I took over TCR) wasn’t really about films or anything. It was just a random blog with thoughts about pretty much anything under the sky. I had one or two film posts but I wouldn’t really call them reviews. I liked having it until one of my stalkers tracked me through it and I had to get rid of it and all my social media AGAIN. A few years later, the Crow asked me to fill in over here and I dropped in to take over *cough* work on TCR *cough*. He’s technically found this blog too, but hey! This is all nice and secretive!

The Crow: Blogging came to me long before TCR. The first blog I ever ran (all of my previous blogs have since been deleted) started out of boredom, mostly. I usually have a ton of things running through my head after I’ve experienced something, and these blogs have been a place for me to present those thoughts to the public. That said, the final few months of TCR‘s immediate predecessor, as well as the first two years of TCR itself, do attest to the fact that — at some point during those years — I’d mentally checked-out of the game. It was only at the end of 2018 that I became serious about blogging once again. With TCR coming to an end in its current incarnation, I’m quite pleased with the work that’s cropped up in the second half of its life.

The Nutcracker: The Magpie bullied me into it. Although I do have a lot coming up for this blog, so I might be getting more into it because I’ll have a lot more to say in a few months.

The Swan(!): To talk about stuff I love watching and to try and get other people to watch them too
…………….🙂

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NOMINEES / QUESTIONS FOR NOMINEES:

The Azure-Winged “Shimmering” Magpie (a.k.a. the Extinction Entity): And thaaat’s us! Now let’s get to our nominees for the Mystery Blogger Award and hand out a few hard questions!

OUR NOMINEES

EATTHEDEAD | HANNA LAASBERG | IN THE NAME OF SEITAN | JASON’S MOVIE BLOG
THINK (AND WRITE) LIKE A SHARK | TIMEWALKERAUTHOR | MR BOBINSKY’S UNCLE
EMMA K WALL | PIED TYPE | SIMPLE ULA | TRENDY LATINA | ZORYANA

(I really hope this pings everyone…)

QUESTIONS FOR OUR NOMINEES

1. The last book you read is your source material for a lecture. What is your lecture about?
2. You have to calm down a hundred angry lemmings. What special skills do you have which you can use to do calm them down?
3. Who/what is your favourite monster from fiction and why?
4. What are your go-to, and your never-ever, pizza toppings?
5. What is the one work of fiction you find yourself going back to over and over again, and why?

And just before we go… here’s a Tiny Team Update:
I was actually holding off on this post until we could get our newest review out, but since certain people are being busy and all… we’re going to have to wait for a few more days before it’s actually done. And you betcha we’ve got a LOT to talk about. This is gonna be a big one!

Azure-Winged Magpie up! Up! ^{And Awayyy! *BONK!*}

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