#bc it requires talking about the attempted murder element in detail

[satellitesoundwave]

top five IDW1 dynamics? doesn't have to be ships!

This was harder than I expected! A thing that varies by fandom for reasons completely unknown to me is that for some media I get more attached to the dynamics between characters, and for others I get attached to particular characters themselves. tf is firmly one where I get attached to individuals, so a fair few of my favourite dynamics kind of end up being ones where it’s a “look I really like character A, and I may not feel as strongly about character B but what they bring out in A is fascinating” situation, which for me is a distinct feeling from when I get attached to the dynamic itself

Now, for the actual top 5:

5) Rewind/Chromedome my beloved. James Roberts has an excellent grasp on utilising foils which I covet from a skill standpoint, and cdrw is like, the pinnacle. The memory surgeon. The archivist. The one who lets go too easily. The one who holds on too tightly. Together they bring each other into a sharp relief that clearly defines them as individuals, but they also feel like two halves of a whole. And then they build a better understanding of each other across the series? Ideal

4) Hmm. you know, I think I’m gonna say Tracks & Jazz in Spotlight: Jazz? There’s something neat about Jazz taking his anonymity with a stranger and using it to style himself as this kind of platonic ideal of an Autobot solider. And how it being framed as a memory Tracks is retelling gives us insight into Tracks, but leaves ambiguity around what Jazz is thinking and feeling that the reader can read into

3) Whirl and Cyclonus. As an enthusiast of both slow burn and characters going from enemies to friends and/or lovers, their gradual development from actively trying to kill each other to friends who care deeply about each other really hit the spot for me. Also, it feels like they’re on the same axis of fucked up, but Whirl’s at the end labelled ‘mouthy’ and Cyclonus is at the end marked ‘silent.’ It’s nice to see them meet in the middle

2) We see very little of it but Pharma and Ratchet, because the professional side of things with those two is a question I rotate in my mind regularly. I haven’t studied medicine myself but I work in patient-facing medical administration, so I have first hand experience with how the interpersonal skills of doctors affect their ability to provide adequate healthcare to their patients. A lot of what doctors do depends on a bond of trust between them and their patient; a patient’s willingness to initiate contact with the doctor when they’re concerned (which patients don’t do if they feel like their doctor doesn’t take them seriously), mention symptoms that might be relevant, answer questions honestly, etc. And doctors are gatekeepers in several ways (of advanced medical knowledge, of medications, of services you can only access through them) and it gives them a lot of power. Patients’ who’re sensitised to that power imbalance often have their guard up, and a doctor who can’t or won’t use interpersonal skills to get the patient to lower their guard and extend trust will struggle to provide that patient the best possible healthcare, no matter how good that doctor is in terms of their medical knowledge.

I reckon this would be actually kind of critical in a place like the Lost Light where Ratchet is essentially a GP in a very small pool of GPs (though this issue does apply to specialists/surgeons/etc to a degree as well). His grouchy and gruff demeaner and tendency towards dismissiveness could really work against him here, and it’s not like patients who find him alienating can go to a different medical centre and see a doctor they know isn’t friends with him or potentially asking him for his professional opinion. And you have the contrast of Pharma who we get the impression is a lot more interpersonally astute. That he was able to negotiate a deal with the DJD, and that he could keep running Delphi while experiencing the worst god-awful stress of his life without his coworkers noticing how far off the deep end he was being pushed, suggests he’s decent at reading people/situations and willing to pack away his negative emotions and only present affableness or something similar when a situation calls for it. and because of this I think there’s a real possibility that Pharma could have been the better doctor compared to Ratchet, due to putting more work into his interpersonal relationships with his patients and so putting himself in a position to provide better long term health outcomes for them (which imo is the main metric by which how ‘good’ a doctor is should be gauged). Add how this also provides room to explore how much awareness Ratchet might have had about this difference between them, and it has secured its spot as a compelling dynamic to me

1) Tarantulas and Prowl, surprising absolutely no one. They are such a mess, it is very fun