For DIE:
Dominic/Ash is transgender.
On the first page of the first issue, Dominic notes that Solomon’s mum is “the only person outside my family to use my first name.” When the group reunites 25 years later, Isabelle pulls Dominic aside, calling him “Ash” before correcting herself. She then apologizes for her unspecified past behavior, saying she wasn’t “as the students would put it, ‘woke.’” Dominic is also the only CrossPlayer in the party, his Dictator character being female. He could be genderfluid, but Isabelle correcting herself on his name comes across as her accidentally using his deadname and trying to atone for it.- My reading of the above details is that Ash is bi (he mentions “straight and mostly straight boys” when talking about Maria Wardell). I assumed that Isabelle was apologizing for the “Gaylord of the Assrings” comment, which is itself another possible hint at his bi identity. And the inconsistent use of names seemed to me a way for Ash to distance himself from his in-game identity. Prior to the game, he went by Ash, the name he used as The Dictator in-game. After coming out, he goes by Dominic as an adult, a way to remove the reminder of his fantasy identity. Once back in the game, the party slips back into using “Ash”. Also being a cross player tends to be common among boys who like boys (of which I am one). Just offering my own reading, not discrediting the trans reading, as that is super interesting!
- I read Ash as genderfluid, but whatever Ash’s identity, I think the comic is unambiguous about Ash being bi. Ash is married to a woman in the real world; a flashback shows Ash having a romantic encounter with a male knight as a teenager, had a child with another man in the game and was in love with Sol.
- Re: "I assumed that Isabelle was apologizing for the “Gaylord of the Assrings” comment" — later issues make it clear that Isabelle and Ash have a lot of jealousy and conflict both from both being in love with Sol (as girlfriend and best friend respectively) and from both being manipulative in similar ways, especially in the game, but that what Isabelle is specifically apologizing for is a particular incident where Zamnorna, ruler of Angria, is courting Isabelle but seduces/is seduced by Ash behind her back. Subsequently we see Isabelle and Ash being restrained by party members to stop them fighting, and it's implied that Isabelle used homophobic and other prejudiced terms to insult Ash.
- Confirmed as genderfluid (which is a kind of trans) in issue #19. Ash refused to ever actually confront it in the real world, which comes back with a vengeance in DIE.
The world really was built for them...
Although the players create bespoke classes and concepts on the day they start the game, they (mostly) seem to be standard parts of the world of Die - there are other Neos, Dictators and Emotion Knights out there. Which suggests that the world was created - or significantly changed - to match their ideas. And, perhaps, that Sol was on the Grandmaster’s side all along...- Jossed - DIE twists time and causality. While the players and the dice were important to its plans, Sol's one of the people it manipulated, not the creator.
The geas doesn't work in the real world.
It's not immediately clear why the characters can't talk about their experiences. It all seems like collective PTSD until the geas is mentioned. But the geas is caused by a magic power from the game world. It's a bit of a departure from the portal fantasy to have it still work in mundane world. So it doesn't, and it really is PTSD and fear of promoting the game that stops them talking, not magic.- Seemingly Jossed - the ending suggests that DIE does have some power in the mundane world, and that their second return home goes differently when not bound by geas.
