• Member Since 25th Mar, 2015
  • offline last seen 26 minutes ago

The Hat Man


Specialties include comedy, robots, and precision strikes to your feelings. Hobbies include hat and watch collecting. May contain alcohol.

Sequels1

T
Source

Hallo! Sorry I'm late. But then, it seems... so are you, Rainbow Dash.

And so the late Rainbow Dash comes face to face with Death himself! And he's... surprisingly cordial, actually.

But when Rainbow ends up in his debt, there's only one way to get back to the life she knew: take up the role of the Grim Reaper herself while Death takes a little holiday. Will Dashie be able to stay quick among the dead? Will she be the most awesome reaper ever... or will Death have to cut his vacation - and Rainbow's life - tragically short?

(Apologies and honors to the late Sir Terry Pratchett.)
Editors: Reese, GenerousGhibli, E3gner
Illustrations: Greenfinger

Chapters (7)
Comments ( 396 )

it sounds like dead like me the tv show or something from family guy

I love how offended Rainbow is when Death stops paying attention to her.

*sighs* Death's dialogue with the reader only reads in Text-To-Speech the normal uppercase letters. Shame, that.

Which font did you use for Death's sentences?

The salesman kinda reminded me of Gill from the Simpsons. I'm also really, REALLY hoping she runs into a ponyfied version of Rincewind the "wizzard" at some point. He's always running away from something and meets Death so often that it's almost an in joke. And before anyone gets on me for how i spelled wizard while describing rincewind, that's what the discworld books describe him having sewn onto his hat and the books describe him as "a cowardly wizzard" so I drew it straight from the source lol

...Oh. Now I'm gonna have to build an extension to my Text-to-Speech audiobook helper tool so it textreplaces all of Death's dialogue back with normal letters, or else I guess I won't be reading this story. :twilightoops:

9487434
Death's dialogue is the only "special alphabet" you use, right?

ᴀ ʙ ᴄ ᴅ ᴇ ғ ɢ ʜ ɪ ᴊ ᴋ ʟ ᴍ ɴ ᴏ ᴘ ǫ ʀ s ᴛ ᴜ ᴠ ᴡ x ʏ ᴢ

Ya know that there are stories where Rainbow Dash is always the first to die. Don't know why but eh it's alright.

9487460
Yes, that's correct.

9487323
Sorry to both of you for the trouble. I hadn't anticipated that the odd text formatting might mess up the text-to-speech functionality. I hope you're able to work around it.

Ri2

I get the feeling Death should've picked someone else for the job...

9487403
I am ferly certian that is suppose to be "Wizzzard" and that is what is on his hat.

This is fascinating and has the potential to be even funnier as it goes on. A great start, and I'm eager to see where you take it.

Something's up with your small caps, though, the Ss and Fs aren't formatted right. Don't know if that's Fimfiction's default font messing with it or what, but it's very distracting.

Well ... I see great amusement on the horizon ...
Concerning other matters: one small error I found:

NOT 'NECESSARILY.'

that quotation mark should be before the period, not after it

Well, what I've read of this thus far can be described as hilariously bizare ... Looking forward to more ...

*Three days later*
Death: I'm back chums. Let's do this!

I just realized something .... If she is gonna be at the house of a discworld Death then where are A) Binky, the still living horse that is deaths steed B) Death's assistant Albert who seems to cook everything in bacon grease, and C) Susan, death's adopted daughter?

This is such a fun concept for a story

Oki-doki-loki I'll track for now and read when it has a few more chapters, you're one of my favorite authors partially because you're consistent. This looks like a fun concept Mister Robophile.:twilightsmile:

This is interesting and I'm eager to see where this goes.

9487654
Yeah, it didn't look like that on the original document, so it's FiMfiction messing it up. Still, not a big deal, and Death won't be in every chapter anyway.

9487974
Sadly, I don't think I'll be including those characters, at least directly, as that would lean a bit too heavily on the Discworld influence, and I want this story to be accessible even by those who haven't read Pratchett's work. Explaining such characters might be problematic.

Lol, but why an oatmeal heart-attack and not gas pipes?

9488209
Fair enough. Though it would give rainbow her just deserts if she ran into a coward like Rincewind who attempts to run away like she did lol

Huh, and here I was expecting Billy to ask to make one final pitch... One for the Angels.

I have to say, you've absolutely nailed Death's dialogue - really reads like Pratchett's Death and I am a little sad we probably won't be seeing much of him for a lot of the story. Still, really enjoying this so far.

That said, I would advise you to drop the bit at the end going over the references. A reference should either be immediately understood or go unnoticed - explaining it, like explaining a joke, very rarely helps and runs the risk of spoiling it.

Still, that's just a personal preference and it's far from enough to ruin the story. Look forward to seeing where you go with this.

Wait a second isn’t this the plot of flipping death?

Oh lordy! This might mentally break her.

Wow what a throwback
Were you inspired by this story and disappointed that it never wrapped up? Or was it an independent idea?

9488368
is that a story title? Because, I vaguely recall reading another RD is Death fiction a couple of years ago. Unless I'm confusing it for one where she was a toga wearing god of some sort.

9488592
No there is this platformer game called flipping death that has this exact same premise with death taking a vacation and we look at the wacky things that happen to said replacement.

9487221
You just made me sad. I loved Dead Like me... Cancelled before its time (although the tail half of season 2 did have problems)

Oh boy, this is gonna get good, I can tell already!

9488640
same but. I think there was a movie of that show that came out

Always a tragedy when a good author passes. Pratchett was easily the greatest comedy writer I have ever come across.

Wonder if she will have to reap anypony that knows who she is.

9488674
No. I don't care about the existence of said movie. It doesn't exist. It was VERY bad.

Mᴏsᴛ ᴘᴏɴɪᴇs ᴄʜᴀʟʟᴇɴɢᴇ ᴍᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴀ ɢᴀᴍᴇ ᴏғ ᴄʜᴇss, he offered helpfully.

Nice reference. She COULD try checkers instead, though.

Death shrugged. Wᴇʟʟ, ɪᴛ's ʏᴏᴜʀ ғᴜɴᴇʀᴀʟ, he said.

Literally. Also, what font is that?

He wore a long, hooded black cloak and carried a tall, curving black scythe that looked as though it had been carved out of the purest obsidian in Equestria and sharpened so much that it cut

:facehoof:Ugh, talk about a glaring grammar err—

off the end of this sentence just by being talked about.

:rainbowderp:
:rainbowlaugh:
Okay...fair enough.

Ok two things:
The reaper in this story is surprisingly down to earth and chill which is quite unique in general media and gives a very good prospective of the character.
Second, three chimes, I soooooo hope that you did not just kill the CMCs...

I got a bit of a Twilight Zone vibe, but good work!

I'm even not read this yet, but take my respect just for annotation.

9488937

Death shrugged. Wᴇʟʟ, ɪᴛ's ʏᴏᴜʀ ғᴜɴᴇʀᴀʟ, he said.

Literally. Also, what font is that?

It's called Sᴍᴀʟʟᴄᴀᴘs.

9489130
Well, to be fair, I'm just cribbing the late Sir Terry Pratchett's characterization of Death, so I can take no credit there.

And no, I would never kill off the CMCs. :twilightsmile:

9488540
Well, we're both pretty obviously doing an homage to Sir Terry Pratchett, but no, I've never seen that story before. Looks a little too violent for my taste, and that's not really my thing when it comes to MLP, but I do see the similarities. Perhaps I'll give it a read sometime as well. Thanks for the tip! :twilightsmile:

9488596
:derpyderp1: Fascinating. Thank you. :heart:

:twilightblush: I was hoping I might rediscover a one shot I read two or three years ago.

The cover image was similar to Glim-glam in the following brutal weather short

but Rainbow Dash was a hoodie ninja instead of Starlight glimmer

9490384
If you want to play the game you can play it on steam or any of the online console stores
“flipping Death”. It’s a pretty funny and just weird wacky game.

He chuckled dryly. Iɴ ᴀ ᴍᴀᴛᴛᴇʀ ᴏғ sᴘᴇᴀᴋɪɴɢ, I sᴜᴘᴘᴏsᴇ, he replied.

I believe "in a manner of speaking" is the phrase you're looking for. Also, awesome story! I loved Sir Terry's work as well, and Death really was the coolest character in the Discworld. Looking forward to more, mate!

Rainbow is going to regret not reading that book...

I'm really loving this story so far. The equine-morphic personification of Death seems very Pratchettian in the best way possible, but also distinct enough to be his own character, and not just a ponified version of his Discworld counterpart.

I also like the fact that Rainbow actually tried to read the manual - sure, she may be impulsive, overconfident and a bit stubborn, but she's not foolish enough to completely disregard Death's advice, and at this point, she's vaguely aware that Tʜᴇ Dᴜᴛʏ can be challenging.

Keep up the good work!

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