I haven't posted about Transformers on this account for a while, but this very special package is a good opportunity to rectify that

Yessssss. Yalls have NO idea how I have ***yearned*** for this

So this is only gaddang NURSE RATCHET, as Budiansky intended! Customised by my very good friend @TheLastGherkin, who is more powerful than you could ever imagine

So Nurse Ratchet's entire deal is that she's an incredibly good medic with an acerbic bedside manner, she likes to party when not working, and Optimus trusts her deeply.

Compared to the cartoon we eventually got, that's a TREMENDOUS flippin' downgrade.

But parts of this personality persisted. The Marvel comics had a guy Ratchet go through the absolute wringer, from needing to repair almost every single Autobot at once, to having to make a bond with the despotic Megatron to survive!

Ratchet's popped up a few times since then, cribbing bits and pieces of that personality (but not the deco) since the cartoon one didn't have any to mine - but the true contender to the throne came in 2005 with Infiltration, and the long-running comic continuity it spawned.

It's a bit of a long story, but eventually Ratchet's age catches up with them, and they start simulstaneously mentoring a successor and putting up with slash dating a white guy who went native with space-Japanese robots I'm not even kidding look it up. It's mostly great

Honestly, the character of Ratchet has taken a lot of flak over the years. They've continually mesed up the deco, never rectified the original gender switch, among other little flaws. But the core still traces all the way back to Nurse Ratchet.

And that's why she will always be the center of the Transformers universe to me.