Deserved Better - Loser's Bracket Round 1: Dean (Pit Babe) vs Zhao Yunlan (Guardian)
[Submitted Reasons Under Cut]
Who deserved better?
Dean (Pit Babe)
Zhao Yunlan (Guardian)
[See Results]
Dean: "First off: no he obviously did not handle it the right way, HOWEVER that doesn’t disqualify what happened to him from being complete bull. Reacting poorly doesn’t retroactively make poor treatment acceptable. When the show starts he’s just a sweetheart who wants to be seen and valued by the people who he considers family and who claim to think of him the sane way. He put in years of work and dedication, was shown to be a devoted member of the team who pulled his weight and looked after the others (working to figure out who sabotaged babe’s car -yeah he was wrong but everyone else believed it based off the evidence he’d seen too, constantly shown working on the cars in the background after they lost their mechanics whereas the other team members aren’t shown doing that nearly as often if at all) and the whole time Alan is dangling promises that his time will come soon in-front of his face. He even promises Dean the next opportunity will be his, a fact Dean brings up later. And when that opportunity comes around what happens? Alan picks the nepo higher Charlie, who is only even allowed into the garage in the first place because babe likes his smell/having sex with him, has no experience racing, could barely stay on the track a few weeks before that (and only suddenly became able to because he stole babe’s powers without his knowledge which is arguably cheating) and won one (1) race, and who coincidentally is also the beloved brother of the twink Alan pretty clearly wants to sleep with. When he brings his feelings up to Alan AGAIN he’s dismissed and has that carrot dangled in-front of him yet again with more empty promises that his time will come, so he lashes out at North later (obviously not okay to do but who can say they’ve never lashed out while under emotional distress atleast once in their life? It’s human.) and what happens? He’s told actually no he sucks and that’s why he didn’t get the chance he’s been promised for years, hit by the leader of their family, kicked out of his job and then told to keep chasing that empty promise that he can reasonably assume Alan has no intention of fulfilling since he just told him he essentially thinks he sucks. Then no one even mentions him again until they suddenly need his help, then conveniently they are happy to have him back with them. Obviously he shouldn’t have damaged Charlie’s car but he didn’t intend for him to die and the show stresses that multiple times (and given that in universe he’s show to know a lot about cars so if it was likely to kill him Dean should know that, suggesting that the show doesn’t want us to think it would have killed him even if that’s admittedly not how cars work in real life) and then Jeff sits back and let’s him go to prison for a murder that 1) Jeff knows HE caused since he sabatoged Charlie’s car and 2) didn’t even happen since Jeff and Charlie planned and staged the whole thing. Charlie isn’t dead. And when it all comes out after the confrontation with babe he breaks down sobbing and asking Alan to hit him and is called and idiot and his feelings and the teams mistakes never acknowledged and he’s sent off to jail for, again, a murder he didn’t commit and that didn’t even happen. Obviously he shouldn’t have done what he did but damn do I get why he felt pushed to that point. That was all a load of bullshit he didn’t deserve considering he was just a good guy who wanted his family to value him in the beginning."
"All he ever wanted to do was be a race car driver, and be an important part of the team. Instead he got repeatedly pushed to the side in favour of the new guy who had never driven a race car before because the new guy is fucking the teams best driver. Sure he didn’t handle the situation well after that, but the worst things he did were after he was targeted and manipulated by a guy working for a human trafficking ring, which he also didn’t deserve."
"Dean is by no means perfect but honestly I get why he was so pissed. After waiting for his chance to race for so long Charlie who’s barely been racing for weeks gets his spot because he’s Babe’s boy toy. Was cutting the brakes unhinged and not well thought out? Yes (although supposedly that’s not actually that dangerous in the show). His pseudo family turned against him, Alan beat the crap out of him, and now he’s in jail for a murder he didn’t commit for a person who is not even dead."
Zhao Yunlan: "he's got trauma about seeing his mom die, a shitty dad, and a tragic love story. I want to wrap him in a warm blanket and give him like hot coco or something."
