Feel free to not respond to this if it makes you uncomfortable.
I'm in another fandom where a LOT of people (20 year olds and plus more often) have proship DNI in their bio, I try to ignore their blogs as much as possible and block them, but then other artists who I follow and don't have proship dni in their bio, reblog their stuff and interact nicely with them.
This is confusing because now I don't know if I should interact with others, if they start bullying me or insulting me or making witch hunt postings, etc.
I just don't know what to do in this situation, I've recently moved from the utmv fandom to find something more welcoming but if the artists I admire interact with people who call proshippers disgusting in their pinned post then I'm just feeling confused in who to trust and talk freely to.
If you don't know what to say it's okay, it's just that, you were my first introduction to proshipping and correctly explaining what it is so I see you as more knowledgeable than me on this subject. That being said, maybe I'm not in the fandom anymore but I still follow you, for your art and for your kind personality and words on the internet.
I’m so happy I could provide a happy positive space for you, especially if you’ve switched fandoms. My advice? Do it scared.
Find the few chill people and chill with them. Fandom is you and the 5-10 other feral gremlins in your friend group. And also go to them if people mess with you to talk about things and make jokes about it (joking helps)
You’re always gonna be scared of being hurt for being who you are, for simply enjoying fiction in a way that makes you happy. It’s up to you to decide whether you want to hide that part of yourself to be safe (which is completely valid, many people have to hide parts of themselves for their irl safety) or do to it scared.
Enjoy yourself and do your best to ignore the people who want to hurt others. Don’t give them that power over you. Block and mute them. It gets easier with time to ignore them. For me the first hurt was the worst, but after that it got easier. Once it actually happened, the world didn’t end, my friends supported me, and I moved on. It gets easier to handle and in the end you’ll get to be yourself.
The fear never completely goes away, but it lessens to the point where you don’t give a shit who fucks with you. Or who rejects you. Because why would we want those people in our lives anyway?
I’ve never been happier than I am now, getting to enjoy myself to the fullest :’)