Casusfere

I freely admit that almost all my favorite characters are jerks. Vortex is a sadist, Red Alert is high-strung and paranoid, Slingshot could be pictured under "jerk" in the dictionary, Blitzwing is so much of an asshole that even the other Decepticons avoid him, and Motormaster- I don't think I need to explain Motormaster.

Writing jerk characters has always been more fun for me than making everyone get along, but they're often misused in fanfiction. And when they are, the author isn't just doing them an injustice, they're doing their entire story an injustice. Jerk characters properly characterized provide interesting dramatic tension in a way that a two-dimensional pseudo-villain never could.

( Uh... this got long. )

tl;dr... Some characters are jerks. They have reasons to be jerks. Please be remembering these reasons.

-.- I could continue, but it's late, and this thing is already way too long.