#also miles literally sleeps with no bonnet on he needs black friends 💀

[beeheevs]

someone's probably already said this but atsv is so fucking cool not just for the animation and the characters and the plot, but for how realistic it is. while this isn't explicitly stated or shown, at least to me, miles is the ultimate representation for the black experience in a predominantly white atmosphere. you have to work twice as hard with not even half as much of the support for even less accolades as your counterparts, just to turn the corner and bump face first into a wall of doubt and degradation, of people telling you you're not supposed to be where you are like you didn't fight for your place while having a starting line ten yards behind your competition.

it's why I kind of don't get the gwen bashing, not that there's alot but it just sucks that there's any at all. the betrayal miles feels isn't a "you left me, you specifically weren't there for me," kind of sadness (even though what he felt was extrapolated for gwen in particular because he was the closest to her). it's a "no one was there for me," kind of betrayal. no one was in his corner. none of the people he expected to stand with him helped him when he asked for it. nobody fought for him like he would've fought for them. that's what fucks with his head the most. not that gwen wasn't there for him, because I think knowing what was going on with her dad and her would make him ultra forgiving of that.

for a lot of people, being a black person in a predominantly white centered atmosphere is about learning that no matter how hard you try, you will never be like your classmates or your peers. you can trick yourself into thinking you've found your people, even if you do look a bit different to them, but then it takes one offhanded comment, or one political discussion and all of a sudden that small little difference becomes a gap so wide it's hard to imagine it was ever closed. now they're on one side, and you're on the other, alone and hurt and confused and grappling for a feeling of connection and companionship you will never get back.

it's why those moments of support from hobie and margo are so important. there was no way they couldn't help him, even when margo knew it was against orders. they of all people would know what's it's like to be perceived as too loud, too wrong, someone who's not supposed to be there. and I'm not saying that gwen wouldn't get it in her own way, but it's just not same.

it had to have been people "like him." people that just got it. that didn't need to know him from a year ago, or have trauma bonded with him to stand in his corner when no one else was.