I just woke up, im hungry and i have to get up and start my day in about five minutes or so but im having thoughts so let's talk about them. I'm once again thinking about how the attitude proshippers have towards minors is genuinely damaging.

So like i said, i just woke up and my mind is blurry so i legit have no idea what this thread is gonna be like so i guess we'll figure it out.

What i'm thinking about is specifically the way proshippers have a tendency to paint this as an "adults vs minors" instead of a discussion between proshippers and fantis.

obviously most proshippers are very aware of the existence of adult fantis, they've been here long enough to see minors aren't the only ones pulling the anti crap. and yet, we still constantly have discussions that put minors in the center of the argument.

If you've been here long enough there isn't a way you haven't noticed the weird hostility proshippers tend to display towards minors. If you're a minor yourself, this becomes EXTREMELY noticeable.

And before we even move forward i want to clarify what i even mean by hostility. I'm not talking about adults having adult oriented spaces that don't allow minors. I'm not talking either about adults who don't want to interact with minors. Those are all very reasonable things.

I'm talking about the constant talk EVEN THOSE ADULTS WHO DON'T BAN MINORS FROM INTERACTING WITH THEM about how all minors are these dumb children who are too sensitive and way too unreasonable to be argued with.

And boy, i don't think proship adults realize how damaging this constant minor trash talk can be, in MORE than one way.

First of all, i get it, there are definitely a lot of annoying minors in fandom. God, i've met some of them myself. But this isn't a minor issue, it's a FANTI issue. Adult fantis are also there and they are spreading the same kind of harmful ideas.

The issue here has never been minors as a whole. All minors are different from each other and expecting all of us to be the same annoying brats who only want to invade fandom spaces is weird as fuck, not to mention incredibly insulting.

And the first issue i have with this is the way fantis can easily use this in their favor. If adults in proship spaces are constantly demonizing minors and putting the blame on them, fantis will ALSO start framing it as "minor vs adults" issue.

in fact, they ALREADY STARTED DOING THIS. One of the main defense fantis use is that this is ALL for the protection of minors in fandom. What inspired this thread was an ADULT anti who was framing this as adults not wanting to empathize with minors. This is BULLSHIT.

And you guys are GIVING IT to them for FREE. Fantis will constantly use minors as an argument, saying minors are more comfortable with them and that they care about us and only want to keep us safe.

Not only is this surely gonna end with someone groomed, IT'S ALSO JUST FUCKING FALSE. You know who doesn't feel safe with antis? Me. My friends. Pretty much every proship minor i know. Because they would easily turn around and treat us like shit for our ideas.

So i don't want to be used as an argument. I don't want them to talk about how they only want to protect us because i know how false that is. And i don't want the adults inside proship spaces to unknowingly repeat the same arguments.

My other issue with this is going to sound a little weird, but bare with me: you shouldn't infantilize minors. Most of the minors engaging with the shipcourse are teenagers. And you know what teenagers aren't? Children.

So don't talk about teenagers as if they were children? You don't know how condescending that is. One of my biggest issues with fanti groups is the way they treat all teenagers as children who need to be protected by adults and who'll get brainwashed by fanart.

So it's frustrating to me that adults in proship spaces also talk about minors in a similar way, acting like we need our parents to be taking care of us all day, like we're too dumb to tell fiction from reality. I'm sixteen, not seven.

And lastly, MINORS ARE ALLOWED TO HAVE A SPACE IN FANDOM AS MUCH AS ADULTS. We don't need to talk to each other, if you find that icky or whatever but when we engage in fandom don't shut us down just block us and move on. Noone is forcing you to be with us.

Even when minors are just minding their business and trying to create spaces or visibility for themselves inside the proship community, i still see adults GOING OUT OF THEIR WAY to tell us we're unwanted.

i once got a message from a proshipper telling me to leave the discourse because i'm a minor and that makes the rest of the community look bad. Then where the fuck do i go?? You guys do realize antis don't want people like me, right?

Fantis don't respect all minors because they aren't a space for minors. They only respect those that agree with them. I'm far from what fantis would want me to be so they would never respect me. They've treated me like shit.

Basically, start treating us more like humans and less like your enemies. Just fucking leave us alone, i've seen adults say the most disgusting crap about minors when we really do deserve basic respect.

If you keep this up you will only push minors into fanti spaces and later those minors will turn into adult fantis. See how well that works for you.