#perfectly balanced as all things should be

[mixolya]

ᓚᘏᗢ — unspoken !

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ᯓ★

pairings﹕rin itoshi x gn!reader

contents﹕one shot, fluff, academic rivals to friends to ???, wc: 1257, proofread

the steady hum of bright lights filled the lecture hall, a faint undercurrent to the low chatter of students settling into their seats. you flipped through your notebook, barely glancing at the professor as he outlined the term’s schedule. your attention was elsewhere, fixed on the boy sitting three rows behind you, rin itoshi.

you hated the way he carried himself, so calm and detached, like the world revolved around his perfectly measured strides and unbreakable confidence. and yet, every glance his way was a betrayal of the very dislike you clung to.

“it’s always him,” you muttered under your breath, staring at the list of rankings on your phone. of course, there he was again - top of the class, a position he had claimed since the first semester. your name followed closely behind, second place. always second.

as if on cue, rin’s gaze flicked up. those sharp teal eyes locked onto yours for a brief moment, and you felt your stomach twist. you quickly looked away, heat creeping up your neck. it was maddening how someone so infuriating could leave you feeling like this - off-balance, exposed.

by the time you reached the library that afternoon, your frustration had bubbled into determination. if you wanted to beat rin itoshi, you needed to outwork him. and if there was one thing you knew, it was that effort always triumphed over talent.

you spread your notes across the table, highlighting passages in your textbook with mechanical precision. hours passed, and the sky outside darkened to a soft navy. you were deep in focus when you felt it, a presence. familiar. unmistakable.

“you’re here late,” rin said, his voice low but distinct.

you looked up, meeting his impassive stare. he stood across the table, hands in his pockets, a textbook tucked under one arm.

“so are you,” you replied, forcing nonchalance into your tone. “what do you want?”

he shrugged, his expression unreadable. “this table has the best lighting.”

“there are other tables.”

“but this one’s the best,” he said simply, sitting down across from you without waiting for permission.

you scowled, shifting your focus back to your notes. his presence was intimidating, but you refused to let him see how much it rattled you. the two of you worked in silence, the air between you thick with unspoken tension. every so often, you caught him glancing your way, and each time, your heart betrayed you with a quickened beat.

the rivalry between you and rin was silent yet persistant. every assignment, every exam, every project; it was a silent battle for supremacy. and yet, there were moments that blurred the lines between competition and something else entirely.

like the time you caught him watching you in class, his expression difficult to read but his gaze intense. or the fleeting conversations that felt heavier than they should, words tinged with a meaning neither of you dared to acknowledge.

it wasn’t hatred, but it wasn’t friendship either. it was something in between, something risky and fragile, like a thread stretched too thin.

the turning point came when the professor announced the midterm project.

“you’ll be working in pairs,” he said, scrolling through a list on his tablet. “i've already assigned partners to ensure a balanced workload.”

your stomach dropped as the names were read aloud.

“y/n l/n and rin itoshi.”

the room spun. of all the people, why him?

you risked a glance at rin, whose expression remained confident. if he was annoyed by the pairing, he didn’t show it.

“guess we’re stuck together,” he said after class, falling into step beside you.

“don’t make it sound like a death sentence,” you retorted, though your voice lacked its usual bite.

he smirked. “i’ll try to survive.”

the first meeting was awkward, to say the least. you met at the library, your usual spot by the windows now shared territory. the air was awkward with unspoken rules - boundaries neither of you dared to cross.

“let’s just divide the work,” you said, pulling out your laptop. “i’ll handle the research, and you can focus on the presentation.”

“why not the other way around?” rin asked, arching an eyebrow.

“because i said so,” you snapped.

he leaned back in his chair, studying you with that annoying calm expression. “fine. but don’t complain if my part overshadows yours.”

you glared at him, your pulse quickening. “don’t underestimate me, Itoshi.”

“i wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, his voice low, almost teasing.

as the days passed, the initial tension began to shift. you fell into a rhythm, your conversations less antagonistic and more collaborative. but the underlying current of competition remained, fueling your mutual drive.

one night, as you worked late in the library, rin surprised you with a rare moment of vulnerability.

“you’re always so focused,” he said, breaking the silence. “it’s impressive.”

you looked up, startled by the compliment. “thanks?”

he hesitated, his gaze dropping to the table. “i mean it. you push me to be better.”

for a moment, you didn’t know how to respond. the weight of his words hung in the air, a fragile truth neither of you had acknowledged before.

“you do the same for me,” you admitted quietly.

his eyes met yours, and in that moment, something shifted. the rivalry, the tension, the unspoken yearning - it all formed into something unquestionable.

the night before the project deadline, you found yourselves in the library once again. the work was done, but neither of you made a move to leave. instead, you sat in companionable silence, the weight of the past weeks settling between you.

“do you ever wonder why we’re like this?” rin asked suddenly, his voice breaking the stillness.

“like what?” you asked, though you knew exactly what he meant.

“this constant thing between us,” he said, gesturing vaguely. “rivalry. tension. whatever you want to call it.”

you looked down at your hands, your chest tightening. “maybe because we’re too similar.”

he shook his head, a faint smile playing on his lips. “no. it’s because you’re different.”

your breath caught, and you risked a glance at him. his beautiful eyes were softer than you’d ever seen them, filled with an emotion you couldn’t quite name.

“you make me want to be better,” he said quietly. “not just as a student. as a person.”

the vulnerability in his voice was shocking, and for a moment, you forgot how to breathe.

“rin,” you began, your voice trembling.

but he shook his head, cutting you off. “you don’t have to say anything. i just needed you to know.”

the silence that followed was heavy, charged with the weight of unspoken feelings. and yet, in that silence, there was a sense of understanding, a shared truth neither of you could deny.

when the project presentation ended the next day, your professor praised your work, calling it the best in the class. but as you stood beside rin, the usual rush of victory felt different. this time, it wasn’t about beating him. it was about standing with him.

as the class filed out, rin caught your arm, his touch sending a jolt through you.

“walk with me,” he said, his voice low.

you nodded, your heart pounding as the two of you stepped into the crisp afternoon air. the campus was quiet, the golden light of the setting sun casting long shadows on the ground.

“what happens now?” you asked, breaking the silence.

he glanced at you, his expression thoughtful. “i don’t know. but i’d like to figure it out.”

© mixolya 2025. do not copy, remake or edit any of my works.

[greenleaf777]

Its funny how SJM directly compares elriel and nessian(confirmed mates) and people still refuse to see that shes very likely writing elain and azriel to be mates. Theres constant parallels but also anti parallels, where they have the same reactions tot he sisters but they result in the opposite things.

Like Nesta and Cassian interactions go 📈 . Elriel interactions go 📉(which also matches their colors 😂 ). Its like Introvert vs extrovert, cold vs hot, loud vs quiet. Nessian and elriel almost balance each other. Elain and Nesta are opposing sides, Azriel and Cassian are opposing sides and sjm paired the two males and females together to match perfectly.

For example, when discussing the sisters using the dread troves Azriel is focused solely on Elain using it while Cassian is protective of solely Nesta.

Amren said, “We do not have the time to wait for Nesta to decide. I say we approach Elain tomorrow. Better to have both of them working on it.”

Azriel stiffened, an outright sign of temper from him as he said quietly, “There is an innate darkness to the Dread Trove that Elain should not be exposed to.”

“But Nesta should?” Cassian growled

When Nesta and Elain fight at the HOW i always got the impression Cass was a bit annoyed with Elain making Nesta mad “the shit with Elain” And Azriel focuses on and gets angry that Elain was potentially hurt with the exchange.

In ACOMAF, its clear as day Cassian focuses on Nesta immediately while Az is all about Elain and making her comfortable.

In ACOWAR, “Both males went a bit still.” Seeing the sisters, then Cassian goes to get a rise out of Nesta where Azriel immediately volunteers to take Elain out to the garden for peace and quiet.

During Solstice both males give gifts, one ends up throwing the gift into the sidra in a fit of temper while the other quietly tries to get rid of their “rejected” gift.

And on and on….you could probably write a 40k word essay comparing contrasting and paralleling nessian, elriel, and cassian vs az and elain vs nesta and how it relates to how well they work as couples and how they compliment each other as siblings too

This may be super convoluted cause i didn’t sleep after my night shift but i trust you will understand it 😂

[rivetgoth]

hi do you have any music recs for somebody who's trapped in the industrial rock/metal (kmfdm, nin, etc) cycle and wants to explore more lesser known and weird industrial artists?

Yesssss of course! I’ll try to list some artists I think would directly interest you based on your liking industrial rock. Hopefully this isn’t too much, for each band I’ll link a song from an album I’d recommend starting with :) I’m also not sure how much you know BEYOND the two bands you listed so if these are really obvious and you already know them I’m sorry 😭🙏

My immediate biased answer right now is Foetus because I’ve been obsessed recently. If you like the rock elements of industrial rock I genuinely think Foetus is perfectly accessible but he’s also so deranged and theatrical. Raymond Watts of KMFDM would collaborate with him and honestly once you get into Foetus you realize how much of Raymond’s early stuff is just directly taking inspo lol. Check out the album Nail.

I don’t know from the list you gave if you listen to Skinny Puppy or not, if you don’t you definitely should though. Incredibly important to the formation of what would become industrial rock and also my favorite band of all time. Trent even directly sampled the Skuppy song “Dig It” for “Down In It.” I’d specifically recommend checking out The Process (the most industrial rock of their discography) or Rabies (the most metal—they collaborated with Al Jourgensen of Ministry for it!) to start in your case.

The cool thing with industrial is so many of the older bands are all connected once you go back a bit, so if you find yourself liking a certain artist you can start exploring who they’ve worked with and a whole world of music opens up to you. Two early Skinny Puppy collaborators are The Legendary Pink Dots and Severed Heads. Both of those are also all time favorites and they can really shift your sense of what industrial music is and means because they sound very different from what industrial would become over time. Both formed between 1979-1980. Two favorites from them (off albums that I think are the best starting points!):

Going back a bit further, for the early pioneers I think you’d enjoy Einstürzende Neubauten and Cabaret Voltaire. Both of them were involved from the very beginning of the development of the genre and everything that came after them is in part thanks to them (as well as the other pioneers, but I’m trying not to overwhelm and I think these guys are really good starting points). You can really hear their influence if you trace the progression of the genre from them to the bands they worked with. Start with Neubauten’s Haus Der Lüge since that’s their most well known, & I’d say Cabaret Voltaire’s Code is a good balance between their very experimental early stuff and their most synthpop later stuff.

Of course I do think it’s worth checking out Throbbing Gristle if you haven’t. They’re the OG OGs that actually named the genre and everything. They are significantly less accessible and might not as quickly be your thing but imo they are worth knowing about so you can really hear where it all comes from. Maybe this is just my own preference but I feel like going back through the history and watching the progression and evolution of all of this was a huge part of what made me fully fall in love with the industrial genre and all of its weirdness. It made it feel like such a full and lively subculture of so many different people taking direct inspiration from each other over the years. Coil and SPK as well.

(SPK has very little on Spotify so a Bandcamp link it’ll be, and I’d recommend starting with Coil’s Horse Rotorvator which is not on Spotify but IS on YouTube, though one of the songs IS on Spotify…. lol)

What I basically gave you is a very very quick descent from 90s industrial rock to the beginning of the genre, obviously give or take a couple hundred bands lmao. I guess to me the best thing to do when you’re looking into these genres is to get deeper into the history of ‘em. There’s nothing wrong with preferring bands like NIN or KMFDM to bands like SPK and Throbbing Gristle, but I think it can really deepen your relationship to the former to at least know about the latter and what they sounded like and were doing.

I’m out of song links I’m allowed for a single post but I’ll also share a handful of other bands you can check out:

Nocturnal Emissions (start with Viral Shedding)

Fad Gadget (start with Fireside Favorites; Tovey was influential for both industrial and goth!)

Babyland (I’ve just recently been listening to them more, check out You Suck Crap)

Lead Into Gold (the solo project of Ministry’s Paul Barker, extremely good both old and new material, check out The Sun Behind the Sun)

If you haven’t yet just in general check out Wax Trax! Records because NIN and KMFDM were directly working with all those guys and that label put out some of the greatest music of all time. Ministry I assume you know if you like industrial metal but you gotta listen through Ministry’s discography starting from Twitch to Filth Pig, Revolting Cocks’ first two albums, My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, Front 242, Nitzer Ebb, Die Warzau, they’re not actually Wax Trax! but Electric Hellfire Club… etc. That’s obviously a lot of names and might be a bit more overwhelming but just starting with one and going thru who each band member has worked with will open up a MASSIVE world of music.

Umm or disregard all that and if you truly want weird music just listen to Caroliner.

^picture of their stageshow

[mctwinkdom]

The fact they gave us both pov...

[agendratum]

the spirealm ep 33

[il-predestinato]

Things we love to see: Maxsplaining. 🥰

The top 3 debrief after Qualifying at the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix. 🎥: F1TV

[atissi]

forgot to post my actual artfight ocs. these two are from a project i lovingly dubbed "furry period piece yuri" because i wanted to write about gender androgyny in animals and muesli for sheep. on the left is ewenice (she/her) and on the right is calliope (she/he)

[nomsfaultau]

Problem solving is their forte.

[paradivis]

solmare taketh away the demon smut from the wenches but prettybusy gaveth back

[manyrandomfandoms]

George Rexstrew has mastered the art of heart eyes. Half the time Edwin looks at Charles he’s just like 🥰

[buckgettingstruck]

Apropos of nothing been thinking about Buck warming his hand on Eddie's meat and also. Cockwarming for Eddie. Being so good for him all pink mouth stuffed full and staying still as much as he can kneeling between Eddie's legs while Eddie watches idk HGTV or something

yay this is a comfort to him also. also eddie is probably having a normal conversation w him like oh bud we need to get orange juice the next time we go to the store ill add that to the list

[leolingo]

it seems cellbit is back from his date with his irl girlfriend and hes now online for his date with his minecraft husband

[near-dareis-mai]

the taivan kiss in one gif, for my own sanity

[piratebuttercup]

You know what's funny? My mom reading Quran in the next room while im reading someone deep throating their boyfriend in my room :)))

[kakosbogey]

She 💛

[sketchnskribbles]

Thanos in Planet of the Apes.

Asked my bros for a drawing prompt and this is what they asked for, lol. They’re so big brain, sometimes.