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I agree the prison breakout went too easily. We should have seen something cooler than just a buncha good benders getting trounced by a buncha better benders. If they want to establish Team Evil as powerful then it would have been nice to see them have to deal with some sort of wrench in their plans. It was basically just the same as the other breakout scenes but this time the people they beat up have names. This was also a bit of a problem in the first series however. Fights would basically go the way the plot required them to. Remember Azula escaping when Aang, Katara, Toph, Sokka, Zuko, AND Iroh all had her cornered because because of a mere split second distraction on the part of one of the six people watching her ready to attack instantly? It's kinda dumb that stuff like that happens. But sometimes it's a whole lot of legwork to have all of the fights happen the way they 'really' would and also for your plot to be interesting. In writing this is sometimes called violating the principle of "maximum capacity," that is, it seems like bullshit whenever one character wins simply because of unimportant side stuff getting in the way or their opponent just didn't seem to be trying that hard for whatever reason. Maybe in real life one person will beat another in a fight because the other person was hung over when normally they wouldn't. But in a show that just robs situations of their drama. Zuko and Tonraq should have been extremely emotionally invested in stopping Team Badguy and pulled out all the stops, instead they just kinda stand there and wait when they could have done a variety of things like move the prisoner or filled the jail with knockout gas, or have Zuko take advantage of the fact that ice conducts electricity, or anything, but instead we basically get "well it's not even the middle of the season and these aren't main enough characters to beat the bad guys, plus the story is that they get broken out, so they lose." Not that the fight didn't look cool and was decently interesting still. I agree with what a lot of other people have been saying that it was cool that being an old person in The Last Airbender didn't mean you were weak, and if anything your experience meant you were even more powerful. I do like the argument that Earthbending is an easier old-person art than Firebending, but we never saw that slow Iroh or Jeong Jeong down. I'm okay with the White Lotus being reduced to bitches though because they're clearly not remotely the same organization. A secret organization can be, and has to be, very selective about who they bring in, so they would mostly have very valuable agents. Now they're out in the open and need to be way bigger to still fulfill their purpose. I think Lin is infertile. I had just kind of assumed that, but apparently it wasn't outright stated? I think that's why she's acting so defensive and angry. She was in love with Tenzin, but he was the Last Airbender and had to continue his family line no matter what, and Lin couldn't do that for him. She maybe adopts the stance that she doesn't want children as a defense mechanism for the fact that she can't have any. So she loses the man she loves because of her biology, but she can kinda get over that as she has her own life going on which isn't so bad. Then later she ends up having to team up with the man she loved and the family she couldn't give him. Then she goes to meet her sister who does have the big perfect cool family she just seemingly up and decided to have at a whim where Lin probably tried and really hard and failed. Another reminder that, from Lin's perspective at the time, that she doesn't have a happy life because of her own fundamental biology. And it gets shoved in her face again when she'd rather just not think about it and move on. Then the Avatar you have sort of sworn to protect kinda betrays your trust and lets it all get shoved in your face some more, and then Lin can't really handle that well and reacts badly. Korra then yells at her for being sad and lonely and Lin feels super sad and lonely. She should probably just come out and saying it but always being in such a competitive macho environment like having Toph as your mom or being in the police force has made it very hard for her to admit any sort of weakness. Then the arc will probably end with Lin realizing she already does have a family, but she will have to accept whatever faults her sister has just like she has to accept she can't do everything. I do think there's more to her not liking her sister than just envy. When Korra asked her "What do you not like about your sister, she seems perfectly nice!" Lin gave her the classic stare that I'm pretty sure means "Anyone can SEEM nice for a few hours, try living with her for your whole life and see who she really is." Korra's only real exposure to intense, decades-of-hatred sibling rivalry so far has seemingly been evil Waterbending brothers, so she doesn't get it, she just thinks Lin is being mean because that's who she is. It is kind of weird that Toph's kids seem to be under the impression she was disappointed in them. One went on a cool big adventure, the other became chief of the metalbending police. Maybe Toph really, really didn't want her kids to follow in her footsteps. But she also didn't want them to be boring shut-ins. So I don't know what she would have expected. We'll probably have Toph show up later and say of course she's proud of them, she just wanted them to be motivated and might have been too hard on them. I am glad would could have been a dumb teen drama arc with Bolin and Opal about learning to just be yourself lasted one scene instead of a season.
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Jul 13, 2014 23:51
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The villains are kinda old too.
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Jul 13, 2014 23:52
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DrSunshine posted:Actually, the fight scenes were the only reason I really watched ATLA or Korra; I heard that there was cool, well-choreographed kung fu magic fights in it and it sounded neat. First to last blow, the big fight in The Chase is 2:20, or 20 seconds longer than the one in In Harm's Way. The whole thing from Zuko's arrival to the pan off the burning town is about 3:40, or 25 seconds longer than the recent episode. And the whole thing was given to the antagonists fighting people who aren't even in the primary cast. The complaints just don't add up well.
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Jul 14, 2014 00:12
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Fried Chicken posted:Your examples also had a much longer total season time. They can afford to digress without cutting into storytelling. And if it had happened, would you have been complaining? I doubt it. Again: if 10 minutes is too long (an extreme example) how about 5? How about more than 10 seconds? It was a badly conceived fight. It doesn't mean the show is bad (everybody is jumping on me for a post that was 90% positive), it means people are way too defensive of this show.
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Jul 14, 2014 00:22
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Tezzor posted:And if it had happened, would you have been complaining? I doubt it. Again: if 10 minutes is too long (an extreme example) how about 5? How about more than 10 seconds? It was a badly conceived fight. It doesn't mean the show is bad (everybody is jumping on me for a post that was 90% positive), it means people are way too defensive of this show. I wouldn't have complained but it is remarkably hard to care about a long fight with no actual stakes at play.
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Jul 14, 2014 00:23
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Well hey I mean they did blow up a dragon in the escape Also the shortcomings and sometimes outright villiany of the adults in LoK compared to ATLA in my reading stems from the fact that unlike the Gaang, who were a bunch of tweens, this Team Avatar is composed of teenagers. I mean, when you're a kid, adults are your role models and idols; when you're a teenager, they're at best incompetent or undermining and at their worst actively hindering or working against you. Sorry if that was worded awkwardly, I've been up for over a day now.
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Jul 14, 2014 00:27
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Tezzor posted:And if it had happened, would you have been complaining? I doubt it. Again: if 10 minutes is too long (an extreme example) how about 5? How about more than 10 seconds? It was a badly conceived fight. It doesn't mean the show is bad (everybody is jumping on me for a post that was 90% positive), it means people are way too defensive of this show. If we cut something that advanced the plot and showed the development of the main characters to instead have some c-listers throw flashy blobs of color even longer? Yes, I would be complaining. You can go back a few pages where I was doing just that, complaining about pro bending being over used in the first season. And again, it wasn't 10 seconds. It was about 10% of the whole episode.
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Jul 14, 2014 01:37
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achillesforever6 posted:So basically she got the Nero treatment where all we learned of her was from the writings and propaganda of her enemies? Yes. The late Ching dynasty was also a complicated period, with a lot of players, a succession of bad/lazy/dumb emperors, and the CCP was not super interested in understanding the past they turned their back on.
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Jul 14, 2014 01:39
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nutranurse posted:Well if we get to argue hypothetical and speak to what might have happened rather than talk about what's actually happened, then I think that LoK would have been a much better series if Mako Mako is just fine when he isn't dating anyone. He and Bolin play off each other well. I am enjoying the period until he inevitably gets back together with someone. I don't care who it is.
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Jul 14, 2014 01:43
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I like Mako this season as well. He's basically the cynical voice of reason to Bolin's big heart and it works way better that in season two, where he was the saintly voice of reason to Bolin's stupid douchebag.
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Jul 14, 2014 01:56
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Mako is better the further he is away from Asami and Korra, basically. I think even the writers realize that which is why we've had Asami and Korra's bromance and Bolin and Mako's Brotherhood instead.
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Jul 14, 2014 02:14
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ImpAtom posted:Mako is better the further he is away from Asami and Korra, basically. I think even the writers realize that which is why we've had Asami and Korra's bromance and Bolin and Mako's Brotherhood instead. Yeah, they've finally found the best smaller character groupings within their big cast and it's been great.
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Jul 14, 2014 02:16
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Fried Chicken posted:If we cut something that advanced the plot and showed the development of the main characters to instead have some c-listers throw flashy blobs of color even longer? Yes, I would be complaining. You can go back a few pages where I was doing just that, complaining about pro bending being over used in the first season. I disagree with you on pro-bending (though I'll be fair and say I enjoy the concept more than the execution), but I do fully agree that I'd probably be bitching if we'd gotten a 10 minute fight with the final in the Quartet of Evil's escape. Even if it was the flashiest, best animated, most super-awesomest fight ever it would have sucked a lot of rear end to piss away half of an episode at the beginning of a 13-episode season on a meaningless fight. The fight itself might have been cool, but if literally the only reason you're watching this series is for the fights you might want to just stick to YouTube where they'll stitch them all together for you. I'd rather get some plot with my sexy magic kung-fu fighting.
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Jul 14, 2014 02:57
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The fight didn't have any real stakes (what, are they not going to free the villain?) but it was nicely animated. The fights are some of the best poo poo in this show, and it was nice to see the twins again, though honestly I was more worried about Zuko's dragon. I heard Diko wants to end the comics with The Rift, but seriously, I want to know what the gently caress is up with that dragon.
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Jul 14, 2014 03:56
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I'd say the fight beteween Kya and Zaheer was better not only because it was in a more personal location but Kya actually got some knocks in and I'd say that fight probably wasn't actually over when Zaheer fled. It's one thing for the bad guys to beat the good guys (especially when they're still be established as a threat) but its another to have them basically dance around the good guys and make them look like fools. But that's really a complaint about any TV show with a skilled fighter bad guy or group; they'll kick the hero(s) around at the start of the story so we'll believe they're trouble then, with no real change in the status quo, have an evenly matched fight at the end of it.
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Jul 14, 2014 05:02
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after watching the episodes again alls I can really say is that Zuko's dragon had better be hardier than that because that would just blow if we find out Zuko's got a dragon and then it dies because of Sparky Sparky Boom Girl 
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Jul 14, 2014 08:36
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"Why didn't someone tell us we had a secret ice prison we could have been throwing people into ?" Whether the fight was a letdown or not (not), the sequence gave us the twins' best line of the series.
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Jul 14, 2014 10:51
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Say what you want about Probending, the inevitable rule rewriting to allow a fourth member, air bending, will make it that much better.
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Jul 14, 2014 16:33
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I like that they showed that Pro bending isn't the only bending sport, to be honest. That's a nice bit of worldbuilding because why would it be?
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Jul 14, 2014 16:37
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ImpAtom posted:I like that they showed that Pro bending isn't the only bending sport, to be honest. That's a nice bit of worldbuilding because why would it be?
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Jul 14, 2014 18:39
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I also liked seeing metalbending used for art-- those sculptures Huon was making looked cool.
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Jul 14, 2014 19:40
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In a banana-y kind of way, sure.
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Jul 14, 2014 19:44
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SpiderHyphenMan posted:The idea of metalbending ballet is loving amazing and I love it.
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Jul 14, 2014 20:26
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Deep Winter posted:Say what you want about Probending, the inevitable rule rewriting to allow a fourth member, air bending, will make it that much better. Air bending would be pretty overpowered for that sport. How many times have we seen Korra or Tenzin send out a wide blade or gust of air? And we recently saw a bunch of amateur airbenders hold off elite trained earthbenders, who actually had earth to grip onto and not whatever plastic or metal the Probending platform is. Air is also obviously much harder to see coming than the other elements. I suppose the main saving grace would be that nobody would know what the heck they're doing. I do like the idea of Probending being another viable way to use the revived airbending though: for all of Tenzin's love for air nomad culture, it's clearly not for everyone and frankly shouldn't be in the more modern Korra setting. Mako and Bolin are prime examples of being a bender without really caring about the philosophical and cultural ties of a bending style, and they turned out pretty good. Bolin was even in movers! Lastly, I wonder what commercial purpose airbending will have. Earth and Metalbenders can obviously get construction work, and we saw Mako working at a power plant just spamming his lightning. Maybe they'll just make existing blimps and other flight technology even better/more efficient? I suppose wind-power is a possibility, but that doesn't seem likely.
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Jul 14, 2014 20:38
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NowonSA posted:Lastly, I wonder what commercial purpose airbending will have. Earth and Metalbenders can obviously get construction work, and we saw Mako working at a power plant just spamming his lightning. Maybe they'll just make existing blimps and other flight technology even better/more efficient? I suppose wind-power is a possibility, but that doesn't seem likely. New massive city-wide HVAC system!
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Jul 14, 2014 20:46
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The fights so far have been used like the sex scenes of GOT: They're used for pacing and breaking tension.
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Jul 14, 2014 20:58
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thexerox123 posted:New massive city-wide HVAC system! They could pretty much monopolize the mail system of all four nations if they wanted. Hard to compete for speedy package delivery with people who can fly.
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Jul 14, 2014 21:16
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Spergatory posted:They could pretty much monopolize the mail system of all four nations if they wanted. Hard to compete for speedy package delivery with people who can fly. Nomad paperboys: I like it.
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Jul 14, 2014 21:46
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NowonSA posted:Air bending would be pretty overpowered for that sport. How many times have we seen Korra or Tenzin send out a wide blade or gust of air? And we recently saw a bunch of amateur airbenders hold off elite trained earthbenders, who actually had earth to grip onto and not whatever plastic or metal the Probending platform is. Air is also obviously much harder to see coming than the other elements. I suppose the main saving grace would be that nobody would know what the heck they're doing. I'm sure they'd be able to come up with some rules governing airbending that could integrate it into pro-bending, just like how firebenders aren't allowed to just light the other team on fire and waterbenders can't just make freeze everyone in blocks of ice or whatever.
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Jul 14, 2014 21:55
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NowonSA posted:Air bending would be pretty overpowered for that sport. How many times have we seen Korra or Tenzin send out a wide blade or gust of air? And we recently saw a bunch of amateur airbenders hold off elite trained earthbenders, who actually had earth to grip onto and not whatever plastic or metal the Probending platform is. Air is also obviously much harder to see coming than the other elements. I suppose the main saving grace would be that nobody would know what the heck they're doing. In the probending, the fire and waterbenders can only do quick bursts, and earthbenders can throw rock discs. Air benders could be limited to air bullets/bursts.
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Jul 14, 2014 21:59
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Rincewind posted:I'm sure they'd be able to come up with some rules governing airbending that could integrate it into pro-bending, just like how firebenders aren't allowed to just light the other team on fire and waterbenders can't just make freeze everyone in blocks of ice or whatever. Proceeding is all about dodging and pushing people back, which is the only technique airbenders are traditionally skilled in. Hit the monk interludes could be a nice alternative to bikini sign girls.
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Jul 14, 2014 22:00
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The season three pass is out on Amazon Instant Video and Xbox Video, but I can't find it in the iTunes store (probably will be soon, or maybe I'm just stupid). Regardless, it's out now.
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Jul 14, 2014 22:05
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Deep Winter posted:In the probending, the fire and waterbenders can only do quick bursts, and earthbenders can throw rock discs. Air benders could be limited to air bullets/bursts. Maybe airbending could be limited to defensive stuff, like they can only destroy the other team's projectiles? Could be interesting to add dedicated defensive aspect/position to the game. 
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Jul 14, 2014 22:34
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Deep Winter posted:Say what you want about Probending, the inevitable rule rewriting to allow a fourth member, air bending, will make it that much better. So in stead of 3 people in a static no stakes environment shooting red, blue, and brown blobs at each other like little turrets, we will add a 4th person who stands there and shoots grey blobs? I'll pass, thanks. Probending was interesting in that it showed the development of the world and how teaching and styles adapt (and a way for Korra to translate air bending lessons into something she understands) but compared to regular fights it is boring as poo poo
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Jul 14, 2014 23:50
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I adored pro bending and it still feels weird to me that, despite Mako and Bolin having thrown their entire lives into the sport as of season one, they just kind of flit away from it in season two. I get that it's a result of them wanting to put the characters in new situations but it's still slightly jarring from a "wait, wasn't this like, your core motivation?" perspective.
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Jul 15, 2014 00:00
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Android Blues posted:I adored pro bending and it still feels weird to me that, despite Mako and Bolin having thrown their entire lives into the sport as of season one, they just kind of flit away from it in season two. I get that it's a result of them wanting to put the characters in new situations but it's still slightly jarring from a "wait, wasn't this like, your core motivation?" perspective. They met the Avatar, deal with it.
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Jul 15, 2014 00:00
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Android Blues posted:I adored pro bending and it still feels weird to me that, despite Mako and Bolin having thrown their entire lives into the sport as of season one, they just kind of flit away from it in season two. I get that it's a result of them wanting to put the characters in new situations but it's still slightly jarring from a "wait, wasn't this like, your core motivation?" perspective. They both met the Avatar which redefined their world and made them get different jobs. Well, mostly Mako. Bolin kept trying to do it but he wasn't good enough without Mako and Korra.
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Jul 15, 2014 00:02
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Android Blues posted:I adored pro bending and it still feels weird to me that, despite Mako and Bolin having thrown their entire lives into the sport as of season one, they just kind of flit away from it in season two. I get that it's a result of them wanting to put the characters in new situations but it's still slightly jarring from a "wait, wasn't this like, your core motivation?" perspective. Pro bending is one of the aspect that really suffered due to the reduced episode order. If season one would have been a normal 22 episode length, they would have had much more time to flesh out these non central things. It really hurt the series, because they created a pretty interesting world, modern fanatsy settings are pretty rare, but they never had any time for an episode that would just focus on worldbuilding. The Last Airbender had a lot of such episodes and it gave the world a much more organic feeling, because you got the impression that it actually was a real place and not just a backdrop for our heroes to have adventures in. Korra's world in comparison feels a lot smaller.
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Jul 15, 2014 00:22
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Has there been any concrete, official(ish) word given about why Nickolodean didn't order a normal season's worth of episodes?
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Jul 15, 2014 00:28
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nutranurse posted:Has there been any concrete, official(ish) word given about why Nickolodean didn't order a normal season's worth of episodes? The answer is most likely "budget."
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Jul 15, 2014 00:30
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