"He hadn't done 'paperwork' for at least four million years – admittedly, he had been unconscious for that period, but it still counted as time that he had had to forget quite how to go about this business."
More Fragging Paperwork
is a The Transformers fanfic set after the events of the movie. Or something like them, anyway; the fic's premise is wholly incompatible with canon due to involving characters who should be dead by this point but aren't.
Following the loss of four of his greatest warriors in a Decepticon ambush, Optimus Prime must engage in a tradition that usually happens when someone kicks the bucket: paperwork, in the form of condolence letters to their loved ones. Unfortunately, Prime has a severe case of writer's block.
This fic contains examples of:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: A hypothetical epitaph for Brawn includes the phrase "He might have been a bit keen to kick keister..."
- Alternate Continuity: The fic is set after a Broad Strokes version of The Transformers: The Movie where the Decepticons still ambush an Autobot shuttle and kill all aboard it, but Optimus Prime is still alive and Megatron hasn't been reformatted into Galvatron. The author's note admits the fic can't fit into canon due to Optimus being mortally wounded shortly after learning about the shuttle ambush.
- *Cough* Snark *Cough*: Ultra Magnus asks Optimus Prime just what he's been asked to do while the latter is busy. Optimus' response of "Paperwork" sounds suspiciously like a cough, despite the two of them being robots who don't need to breathe. Regardless, it prevents Magnus from understanding what he said, allowing Optimus to leave before Magnus realizes he has to do paperwork.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: One of the problems Optimus faces while writing commiseration letters about his fallen warriors is that while he'd like to write that they went down in a blaze of glory, they actually died when their supply run got ambushed and they were repeatedly shot by "some power-hungry lunatic with more testosterone than sanity".
- Funetik Aksent: Optimus' first attempt at writing Ironhide's condolence letter derails because he accidentally types out the subject matter's name in Ironhide's Southern accent.'I regret to inform you that Ahnharrd perished in the course of carrying out his duty to the Autobot cause...'
- Got Me Doing It: When Optimus Prime is drafting a letter of condolence to Chromia about the passing of Ironhide, he accidentally misspells the name of the fallen Autobot as "Ahnharrd", unconsciously mimicking Ironhide's accent. Later, when thinking about Prowl's letter being easier to write than the others, Optimus thinks of Ironhide's name as Ahnharrd again and just barely catches himself.Optimus: (thinking) Oh, frag, I'm even beginning to think in his accent...
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: According to Optimus Prime, most of the Decepticons are "a few diodes short of a logic circuit ."
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Optimus Prime, desperate to not fill out paperwork, decides to delegate it to Ultra Magnus by claiming "My attention is, uh, urgently required elsewhere."
- Irony: After struggling to write letters about the passing of Ratchet and Ironhide, Optimus Prime decides to try writing about Prowl instead because he can think of more to say about him. Optimus then realizes writing a letter to Prowl's significant other about his passing is pointless because said significant other is Jazz; not only is the sub-commander already aware that Prowl is dead, but Optimus has been helping him with the grieving process. The narration even notes the irony present in the only letter Prime having an easy time writing also being completely unnecessary.
- Never Speak Ill of the Dead: Optimus Prime struggles to write about Ironhide's positive qualities in a letter about the latter's passing because the majority of Ironhide's virtues were side-effects of him being annoying to deal with. Prime specifically thinks about Ironhide inspiring others to not be as old and Southern as him, encouraging people to go into battle to avoid him threatening them with liquid nitrogen, and most wonderful times involving him being the product of Ironhide being drunk out of his mind.
- "No. Just… No" Reaction: Optimus, trying to figure out the best way to start a condolence letter to Ratchet's family, tries out 'Dear Ratchet's womanbot' as an opening sentence. His thought on how that sounds is "No. Just... no," causing him to give up on Ratchet's letter for the time being.
- Shout-Out: Optimus getting sidetracked by the thought of Great Danes while writing letters includes him wondering what a Scooby Snack even is.
- You Put the "X" in "XY": Optimus Prime's opinion on Starscream is that the latter puts "the 'fun' in 'fundamental genocide'."
