#mycompass

info

warnings

🐚there will be spoilers! i am currently all caught up! if i post something related to a brand new canto/intervallo, i will add a spoiler warning and put it under a read more

🐚if there are any common triggers i'll list them above a read more

🐚i am going to do my best to keep everyone in character but i'm shy be nice 👉👈

requests

🐚i can do headcanons, scenarios, and oneshots! please specify which you'd like or i will decide for u >:3

🐚no nsfw sowwy

🐚reader will be written as gender neutral

🐚i can write for mirror worlds! it might take me a bit longer sometimes bc i wanna make sure im portraying them right

🪼request tracker

characters

🐚limbus company

yi sang, faust, don quixote/sancho, ryoshu, meursault, hong lu, heathcliff, ishmael, rodion, dante, sinclair, outis, gregor

🧭limbus company masterlist

𓂃𓂁𓂃

🐚distortion detective

moses, ezra, vespa

🧭distortion detective masterlist

nautical dividers by @.solitary-serendipity

blog icon and headers by me

🫧ryoshu likely wouldn't try to become anything "official" until after canto 9, but the feelings she harbors for you have likely been there a while. it just took a lot of unraveling them, trying to sort them out in between moments that felt much too tender to mean nothing. she doesn’t confess in a conventional sense, because that just isn't her. rather, she sort of just... decides you're together? which, to be fair, you basically have been for a while without any label. but so long as you don't actively object to it, she just sort of acquires you. and with that acquisition comes a side of her that slowly starts to appear more and more around you

🫧i've mentioned before that she's an "i can touch you but not the other way around" person, and to an extent i do stand by that, but i feel like once she really got comfortable, that rule wouldn't be so rigid anymore. gentle affections fluster her easily, the sincerity of them being what catches her off guard again and again. she does her best to hide it; flicking your forehead, blowing smoke at you, hiding her face in her hair or scowling behind her cigarette. but she still always gets a little blush and never resists very hard. something about receiving your affection feels different from giving, when she's not the one trying to tease or get a reaction out of you

🫧she's very touchy with you, but ryoshu is tender in smaller ways. she likes to link your pinkies together rather than holding hands, or draws on your palms with her fingertips when you're sitting together. she prefers to have something to do with her hands; when cuddling, she'll play with your hair or trace your back, writing in invisible SANGRIA that she'll wait to see if you can guess. i also think she'd definitely be the big spoon, as she sleeps best when she has something to hold onto

🫧sometimes, when you're already mostly asleep, you'll hear her softly humming to you

🫧she tries to recreate you in just about every artistic medium she knows. it starts as something to keep her mind and hands occupied, and you just happened to be the subject she chose. but then there were things she just couldn't get right, so she kept trying. and trying. and trying. and by the time she was satisfied with her attempts, she realized you made a really good subject. whether if that was because you were just that visually interesting or because she was already somewhat fond of you, she would never tell. but ryoshu is naturally observant, and there's very little about you that can slip past her.

🫧she values quality time together the most. she can sit and listen to you talk for hours, so long as she isn't expected to force a reply when she doesn't have anything to say in response, just because she enjoys the sound of your voice. she won't do anything she explicitly doesn't want to, but she'll still do little things just because it'll make you happy, and accompany you places or to activities she usually wouldn't enjoy herself.

🫧while if you're a sinner she's aware that there's very little dante can't bring you back from, she's still inclined to keep an eye on you during battle. she won't babysit you, but she also doesn't like seeing you hurt; something so SUBPAR (suffering uninspired, bastardized performance of "artistic" rendition) is beneath you. and it's totally not anything beyond that. of course not. she does look at your "work" with a curious, critical eye after the fact though. (if there isn't the option of revival, she does tend to stick closer to you. not enough to smother you, but enough that she knows for certain that she can do something about it. she won't admit to it though; she's just standing there, what are you looking at?)

🫧she doesn't expect you to "get" every piece of her work. not everyone can take to it, stomach it. but she does expect you to understand what it means to her, that in letting you witness it, letting you watch her process, she's baring herself to you.

once she trusts you enough to do so, ryoshu approaches your relationship with the mindset of "this is me, take it or leave it." she's aware of her crueler, uglier aspects, just as she recognizes the parts of her that can be tender and loving in ways so small yet so large. she doesn’t do anything half-assed, and now that she's unraveling her own mind, she won't hold anything back. if you have her, you have all of her-- and she expects the same in exchange

You’ve really done it this time.

All you can wonder, with your back pressed up against the wall and the green eyed consequences of your actions staring you down, is if it makes it better or worse that quite a bit of it had been accidental. Some of it hadn’t even been your fault, and you intend to inform her of that as soon as she gives you a second to breathe again.

The teasing had been completely on purpose. Obviously. You’d do just about anything to get her flustered, to get to banter back and forth with her and see whether she’d run out of steam or use her annoyance as a motivating force. Maybe you’d pushed your luck a bit too far, caught up in the love of the game as she got snippier with you. Many things you said were knee-jerk reactions at this point, playing off of inside jokes that would usually earn you a scoff and a roll of her eyes when she wasn’t already irritated. But! Not everything had been intentional. Really, how were you supposed to control your back to back to back critical rolls during J&J tonight? It wasn’t like you’d meant to totally derail the session! Several tests of your dice proved that they weren't loaded.

Whatever the final straw ended up being, you can't quite recall. Anything that isn't Ishmael's hand fisting in your collar, her lips on yours, doesn't seem so important anymore. Even any attempt at trying to explain your motivations, your hands raised in surrender, falls apart.

“In my—“

She chases after you before your can get much further away, her other hand on the back of your neck, practically scruffing you to keep you from pulling back. You cling to her shoulders for dear life, still deadset on making your point even against her lips even when it dissipates into the cold air.

”Defense—“

“Do you ever shut up?” Ishmael huffs, still hanging onto that glare even with her cheeks flushed, eyes half-lidded.

‘You’re cute when you’re mad.’ Is what you want to say. That’s your justification for your actions, one that would only add more fuel to the fire. She clearly revels in the few seconds of silence she gets when you’re trying to figure out if you want to get burned. There’s no point in taking it personally; you started it, after all. She leans back a bit, and for a moment, it’s clear that she’s proud of herself. Proud that she actually managed to get you to just be quiet. For once. No witty comebacks, no taking it on the chin no matter how snide of a comment you got. Once or twice, with a scowl and a heavy sigh, she’s accused you of practicing your retorts beforehand, but she still always gives you a reaction.

A grin creeps onto your lips. Ishmael doesn’t seem like she can even find it in herself to be surprised by you anymore, poised to shut you up again because she knows you too well. Just as you know the perfect answer to that question every time.

There’s no need to take ahold of her tie— she’s already moving back in. But your fingers wrap around it anyway, tugging. Your other hand mirrors hers, slipping through waves of orange hair and settling on the back of her sweat damp neck.

“Only when you make me.”

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mustve been the wind...

credit for the J&J idea bc i was so tickled at this ask i couldnt help myself:

For all of her attempts at appearing aloof and over every bit of the company’s bullshit, Ishmael has had a fiery temper for as long as you’ve known her. While the resolution of collecting the last Bough had certainly given her a lot to think about, a lot of drive to take charge of her life and claim responsibility for her own actions from here on out, the waters of the Great Lake had done little to douse it. To your relief, but not quite your surprise, she was still herself.

The shore is about six days away now. She no longer locks herself in her bunk, roaring tides are no longer a prominent staple of your walk past her room each morning. On clear and peaceful nights, she comes to find you, rather than retreating into solitude as soon as work hours are called to a close. Only tonight, where it would usually be quiet, accompanied by the occasional question about things that felt inane compared to all you'd just faced lately, the atmosphere is much less… tranquil.

Ishmael has just ranted to you for so long that the sun has finally dipped below the horizon, and you can't quite recall if she had stopped to breathe at any point. And it's not that you mind, of course not. It’s not as if it’s unimportant. But she's looking at you, finally waiting for your reply, and you're finding it a little difficult to format one.

Calling Heathcliff an asshole would also be the easier option. It’s what Ishmael is waiting to hear, since she so firmly believes that she must be in the right, and maybe some other time she would be. But despite your better judgment, you really didn’t think Heathcliff was an asshole. Or, well, not in this specific case. Plenty of other times, for sure. But who wasn’t sometimes? You drum your fingers on the wall of the vessel, sucking on your teeth as you try to find the best way to phrase this.

“...you know, you two do try to piss each other off–”

Her glare is so full of malice at the very hint of your suggestion that your jaw snaps shut of its own accord.

”You can’t be serious.”

”I’m pretty serious. You guys are constantly going back and forth.”

After all that they’d been through in the whale, you would have expected them both to have turned over a new leaf. Maybe not go frolicking through any flower fields together or anything, but at least not actively antagonistic. And they were fine for a little while! At least, up until this afternoon.

Ishmael rolls her eyes, crossing her arms. “Lover boy can dish it out, but he can't take it.”

You run your finger along a groove on the wall, looking out into the inky black water. “What you said did go kinda far, Ish.”

Ishmael gets quiet then. You can feel her looking at you, see her shoulders droop from the corner of your eye.

You hadn't been there when it kicked off. You'd had the nerve to leave the cabin, stupidly assuming that nothing could possibly go wrong in the five minutes you were gone. The tail end of the ordeal, Ishmael's biting retort to something you hadn't heard, followed by the two of them throwing punches, had been your welcome back. At the very least, they'd stuck to fists instead of raising their weapons. Vergilius did say he better not hear weapons clashing on the bus all of those months ago, but judging by the vein popping out on his forehead, that wasn’t the best loophole.

If it wouldn’t get her started again, you’d ask Ishmael what exactly had been said. All the insight you’d gotten was that everything snowballed much faster than it should have. Faster than it would have if deep down, it wasn’t actually about something completely unrelated to what they’d said to each other. It didn’t seem to bring either of them any peace of relief or some sort of resolution. It didn’t even really burn off any residual anger. Instead, what they got were black eyes and a busted lip. You heard somebody setting Heathcliff's nose, not from any real reaction on his part, just the sickening crunch that ensued. Dante wouldn't be expected to rewind injuries that trivial, and even if they were, you sure wouldn’t have. The whole thing was ridiculous. It makes you a little peeved just to think too hard about it.

Ishmael thumbs at the split in her lip. “...I guess it did.”

That admission makes you whip your head to face her so quickly your neck twinges.

It isn't like Ishmael is… impossible to get through to. Not if she doesn't want to be. Her behavior the last few weeks threatened to prove you wrong, but all it took was a few (a lot) nudges (shoves) in the right direction, and she eventually came back to her senses. You just aren't used to hearing her admit to her wrongdoings so easily, so dejectedly.

Even after numerous rewinds and a handful of days between then and tonight, her wounds from the whale are still raw and stinging. And really, maybe she's more sensitive right now than she's willing to admit to even herself. That was somethting her and Heathcliff certainly had in common. If only the two of them would just realize that themselves. That they actually had quite a few similarities.

A hand rubs at your neck, and she glares at you to let you know just how dramatic she finds your startled reaction, but she doesn’t call you out on it aloud.

“I think you're both just kinda wound up. Everything out here, and then where we're going…” Allowing her to fill in the blanks, you trail off for a bit. Really, you had no idea what was awaiting the company once you all reached Districit 20. But Heathcliff likely had some semblance of an idea, and you know that when it comes to your turn, you won’t be in a much better state.

Ishmael doesn't say anything, doesn’t even show that she’s listening. But she’s still standing there, and she’d walk away if she didn’t want to be there, so you continue.

“I mean, how did you feel when you found out it was your turn? Because I remember you being ready to drown any of us if we looked at you wrong.”

“I was not–” That bad, but she was pretty bad. That's why she abandons any attempt at defending herself then. Or it could just be that she's gone and burnt herself out. She doesn’t try to defend herself any further, like she’s burned off all of her energy for the night.

It's pointless with the winds, but you reach out to brush some of her hair away that quickly just blows back into place. There's a big purple bruise on the side of her face, already much darker than it was a few hours ago. Your hand finds her other cheek, chilled a bit in the air of a cool summer night, unmarked by her fight.

“Maybe just… show him some patience? You guys could do a lot of good if you’d just get along.” You ask softly. It feels like a much larger request than it really should be, but Ishmael doesn’t have a great track record of denying you anything.

Her eyes flit around. To the water, the door to the cabin, and then back to you. And to your surprise, rather than (unimaginably gently) swatting your hand away, she leans into it the slightest bit. Her brow furrows, reluctance seeps into both syllables of her concise reply.

“...Maybe.”

Her reward is a kiss on her injured cheek, and she huffs and rolls her eyes, but her face turns red and she refrains from making any comments about you kissing it better.

You’ll give her a few minutes to recover before you insist that she go apologize.

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