*Stop Fandom Hatred

(Slightly edited from original posting on November 11th, 2011.)

It's hard enough for us adult Transfans who get ridiculed and bullied for liking what society considers "a child's cartoon" or "a 30 minute toy commercial" without us turning on each other like rabid animals with zero intellectual quotient altogether. I write and draw a number of subjects, including Transformers. I have friends who adore or are even in love with the characters. We as a fandom promote open affection and love between these characters, even openly accepting "homosexuality" despite the fact that Transformers are inherently genderless and that masculine and feminine personalities are strictly that, a personality archetype and not a physical or biological component.

We KNOW they are a fictional sentient giant alien robotic race, key words being fictional and robotic here, yet we love and accept their vastly wide ranging differences, not only from ourselves but between each other as well. We have become the intellectually advanced members of our society because we accept and embrace those who are so different from ourselves. Hatred, jealousy, spite, ridicule, bullying, harassment, stalking, and attacks against others goes against EVERYTHING that Transformers as a whole stand for: acceptance and freedom for all of regardless of our differences or interests, and those who insist upon such vile and negative behavior towards others are shunned and pushed away for their hateful actions against others.

To say someone is bad at writing or drawing and will never improve so they should stop trying is neither helpful nor acceptable. Telling someone they are sick or crazy for loving a fictional character when that person knows the character is not real is hateful and unacceptable. Attacking someone's art or writing and saying they traced everything out of books or that they stole everything they wrote from others is a blatant display of jealousy and spite. Lashing out at someone because they have some of the same Transformers toys and memorabilia you do is pointless and childish, not to mention just plain idiotic. Transformers was never about war, hatred, and spite; it was about coexistence in peace and finding a way to reconcile our differences and find peace with ourselves and others.

Thus Optimus Prime vs Megatron and why the Autobots are the good guys, the ones we are meant to look up to. Those who display hatred, spite, even violence towards others are no better than Megatron and his rage and jealousy over the fact that Optimus was chosen by Primus over him to be Prime, to be leader of their world, their race, while Optimus is both humbled and strengthened not only by what he was given, but also goes out of his way to help and protect others to the point he willingly puts himself in harms way to save a single life even when that life is not of his own kind or even to save the life of an enemy. He looks to the strengths in those around him and gently pushes them to extend themselves towards self improvement, and gives praise and a kind word of appreciation when they need it, like when he told Ratchet that he was irreplaceable as a medic and as his dear friend in TFPrime: "Stronger Faster". And Optimus, unlike Megatron, is willing to give a truce, give peace, a chance when asked for, and he would not turn and back stab or take advantage of an ally, unlike Megatron.

Megatron and people like him are the ones to be rejected, Optimus and people like him are the ones meant to be heroes we look up to. Thus the phrase "Don't be a Negatron. Be an Optimist Prime." which was coined by a fellow Transfan. A sentiment I would agree with.