Oh, for heaven's sake.

[apocalypsos]

Mika and Canaan were at the top of the water slide for forty-five minutes.

I'm going to pretend at least a third of those minutes were spent with Canaan blowing up Mika's cute wee pink swimmies so that I can focus on something other than the fact that the other thirty minutes probably involved an angry man physically intimidating a terrified woman and threatening to push her down a six-story-high incline. Because I'm apparently weird for finding that creepy rather than hilaaaaarious.

Comments

[neonhummingbird.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I doubt he was haranguing her the whole time, just going from what we saw onscreen. Those 45 minutes probably also involved a lot of Mika pouting and looking for sympathy instead of trying to focus on getting over it and going down the slide.

Canaan was an inexcusably abusive douche, no question, but Mika wasn't exactly covering herself with glory here, IMO. I have loads of sympathy for the terror and having to deal with Canaan, but not a lot for the in-between pouting.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely, he wasn't like that all the time. I think he would have burned himself out being that mad for an hour straight, and they did show a considerable amount of him being just regular-old frustrated, but is right. He showed up and he was ready to be aggravated then and there. Granted, he was blowing up freakin' swimmies for a grown-ass adult, but he wasn't prepared to talk her down. I don't even know Mika and I figured out yelling at her isn't going to work.

Was she acting like an idiot? Yes. Swimmies, for fuck's sake. I just feel really, really uncomfortable being all, "Well, she was being a whiny princess," because it rings of victim blaming to me. (Hitting the TWoP boards was a mistake. The majority opinion over there before I closed the tab before I screamed was, "She was whiny and he should have shoved her.")

In retrospect, I would have called her bluff and went down the slide before her. I'm not knocking on Canaan for staying, because I think that's the obvious decision -- the stronger teammate staying up there to encourage the less fearless one -- but I think Meghan and Cheyne had the right idea. He went down first and at that point she HAD to go after him. (Granted, they have a functional relationship, but still.) I'm not sure it would have worked with Mika, but I think it would have worked better than what happened. His being frustrated that she didn't pull a Flight Time the second she saw the slide was just winding her up even more.

[neonhummingbird.livejournal.com]

I'm not blaming the victim at all -- there was no way Canaan was in any way justified in laying hands on her at any point. I hit the TWOP boards for a bit and was equally appalled -- she could have been seriously hurt if he'd succeeded in forcing her down the slide, and there's no justification for any of it. But I also don't believe it's necessary to gloss over said whininess, which, she was, IMO. Mika's behavior wasn't on the level of his for appalling, not even close; it just didn't really win her any points with me, either. Hopefully that doesn't put me at the same level as the TWOP Crowd O Crazies.

I can't decide whether not having him up there (if he went first) would have made it easier for her to get past the fear and go (without him psyching her out so much more), or if not having him there would have made it easier for her to talk herself out of it. It could go either way, really.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not trying to imply you're victim-blaming at all, sorry about that. (God knows you're not the TWoP crowd. UGH.) And I'm not ignoring her behavior at all. Every time I think about that whole sequence, "Swimmies?!" just pops into my head. That one word's come to encompass, "God, what a whiny sack of pink sparkles that twit was." God, she was SUCH a spoiled princess. What did she think was going to happen? She'd cry enough and they'd go, "Oh, you're pretty, we'll give you a pass this time"? And why the hell would you sign up for the race in the first place when you're afraid of water and heights at the same time? I mean, Brian's afraid of heights and Erica's afraid of water, but it balances out and they STILL got down the slide. If she's so freaking terrified of water slides, go on Big Brother, for heaven's sake.

Yeah, I think I'm clinging to the alternative because clearly the one where he stays up there and stresses them both out didn't work at ALL.

[neonhummingbird.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with all of this except objecting to the swimmies. Weirdly, I kind of respect the swimmies. She knows she's scared of water, so she brings a security blanket. The swimmies made her look like an idiot (which I'm sure she knew) but didn't hurt anything, and in a different situation, like just having to swim in a pool like the sisters last Race, might have actually helped her out a little mentally. Sadly, they were completely useless here even for that, but I give her little props for at least trying to think ahead about her issues, and being willing to look like a moron when facing them. (Too bad she looked like way more of a moron than she'd planned.)

Coming on the Race afraid of heights and water isn't great, but she'd successfully addressed both of those fears to some extent already. She went out on the water and up in the really high building. I think it's unfortunate that she ran into a task that so horribly combined both of those phobias, which was not predictable. On the other hand, I also don't think she could have bungeed unless it was a tandem, so... Yeah. Some props, but not a lot.

Everything else? Oh, totally. She was totally hoping someone would say she didn't have to do it if she cried enough. :P Ugh! "Whiny sack of pink sparkles," indeed!