#diecomic

Die: Loaded #6 (I Hate Fairyland Team-Up variant) (2026)

redrew my favourite ash diecomic panel yay women

See, normally I'm that person, the "for fuck's sake, close, intimate friendship is a thing and it's beautiful and not everything has to be sex-related/shippy. I want to see close friendships portrayed in fic." person.

Sol/Ash is the first thing where I've felt strongly that yes, it does have to be a ship (or at least it has to have been a potential ship, if perhaps only in the past). Canon, up to volume 4 anyway, strongly suggests it. No, it doesn't come all the way out and say it, but damn does it get close. And there's an argument to be made here that the fact that it doesn't come all the way out is what makes me so not normal about this, to the point of writing tens of thousands of words of fic trying to make the two just... say it. Or at least gain some kind of mutual clarity about it, whatever form that may take.

(Of course you could also make a case for the comic not coming out and saying it just meaning that it's not actually a thing, at least not at present.)

So, this is Ash's reaction to Sol's first words to the group, to her, on their return to Die. This immediately, if only by way of simile, positions Sol as, perhaps not a former lover in fact, but someone who would think of Ash as a "lover you'll never speak to again". So, it introduces the idea of there being that layer to their relationship, at least in one direction, really early on.

(I completely missed this on my first read, btw, because I really am not reading with shipper goggles, basically ever.)

Then, we meet Sir Lane. Sir Lane, undead and eyeless, who was cursed by Ash with endless desire beyond death, to not be able to find rest until he laid eyes on her again.

Anybody see a parallel here?

And yes, all the eyeless characters in volume 1 are aspects of Sol: Sir Lane, cursed with desire beyond death; the eyeless hobbit soldier (Sam, who is of course famous for loving Mr. Frodo so so much); the wizard of the tavern tale who plucked out his own eyes after realising he hurt the people he loved most; the eyeless golems, game constructs without a will of their own.

This could still all be platonic, perhaps - if the very first of these characters we met wasn't Sir Lane; if Ash's first reaction to seeing Sol again wasn't (see above).

And then of course there's Sol's constant refrain, "It's all for you," and all that that involves. Which, yes, could also still be platonic, but in the context of the above? Hm.

And Ash herself? Well. In the real world, Ash is married, and when the hobbit soldier in issue 3 talks about the sense of committment of that, and the symbol of the wedding ring, Ash says that she feels the same - but he points out to her, then, that she's actually not wearing a wedding ring.

Later, there's this:

Then there's Ash's other spouse, who after months of Ash sneaking away to question Sol-in-a-jar in the dungeons, observes this:

Again: hmmm.

Then, there's "the boy I loved" - Ash talking about past Sol. Ok, yes, platonic love is a thing, but the incidental evidence has been piling up for a while here.

And then there's volume 4, where Ash constantly has her hands all over Sol (and we're not even talking about the very loud kink subtext, that's a whole other mini-essay, and I'm not the best person to write that), and after [REDACTED; still trying to keep this here at least slightly non-spoilery for some of the bigger stuff], when they hug, fuck me why does this look like a wedding picture:

So, yeah.

(And no, the big reveal(s) in vol. 4 actually, for the most part, don't influence my reading of how non-platonic this ship is. All of that, big and important as it is, could still be platonic. The fact that all of that is also there as an additional layer does make the ship more interesting, though. These two have the most fascinating baggage. And some of that baggage is sort of beautiful. But it's also still baggage.)

Where I'm willing to "compromise" here is that I think it's possible that, at least for Ash, the romantic(etc.) side of this relationship is mostly in the past, that Sol really is just "the boy I loved", past tense. 27 years is a long time, and Ash has lived a life since then. Emotions change.

I also think it's possible that Sol is not fully capable of "normal human emotion" at this point.

Haven't done much LeGuin, but this week's issue makes me want to.

Incredible swerves and deeply fucked up vibes. I'm in love.

I also see why the last party avoided Gondol in the original series; what the hell would their islands look like?

Stephanie Hans art appreciation for the maze and the cormorants...

Sol surname confirmed - Ervin. Same for Margaret, then?

A source of tension thus far is Sophie snapping, and what happens if she can't (in her words) "be an adult". I wonder if her breaking point will come, and having to micromanage the party and the gods is going to fall apart for her (I'm sure it will)