#no work starts until jayce gets the right amount of attention

[hokanm]

Procrastination… Jayce good at it

[faemoria-arch]

                       a supposed kiss prompt except  .  .  .  woops 1800 words of making out for @hamartio​

           as expected  ,  he returns to his home later than she does this night  ,  &&  makes not a single detour from his workshop despite the nearing dawn  .  she has rarely witnessed more  desperation  in a person's eyes than the one jayce has to return here after attending such events  :  a gala  ,  he had told her  ,  hosted by the giopara itself  . the city's poster boy is held to expectations to attend all  𝓶𝓪𝓷𝓷𝓮𝓻  of flaunting spectacles so far as she's seen        even finds ways to  enjoy  them  &&  their company on occasion          but the particular way his jaw tightened  &&  focus drifted when speaking of this one had offered plenty evidence to its particularly acrid nature  .

           less  expected is that he does not make it far past the entryway before freezing in his tracks  &&  letting his gaze linger in empty space  .  from her typical seat on his workbench she can see the subtle fidgeting of his hands at either side  ,  leading tooth to recognize one of  many  tells that he is lost in thought  .  so toothiana pushes from the table to transition effortlessly into a hover to approach  ,  at which she ushers him forward enough for the door to automatically close now that nothing is in the way  .

         she spins him slowly by the shoulders  &&  it seems enough to bring him a little more attentive  .  on the streets of piltover  &&  through the pipelines of zaun she is quite certain what she must look like          𝓼𝓱𝓪𝓻𝓹  edges  &&  bared teeth that the memory queen hardly bothers to disguise as a smile  ;;  a frenzy of colours  &&  animalistic instinct wrapped up in the  facade  of graceful poise while she thinks to herself how strange all these people are  .  toothiana isn't certain what she must look like to  him  ,  here  ,  except that it is probably different because it  feels  different  (  'though never entirely  )  .

         likewise when she lifts his chin  &&  looks at him now  ,  away from a cacophony of city-life  &&  countless layers of  𝓼𝔂𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓶𝓼  ,  she sees a very specific hue of  exhaustion  in which the time of night has little bearing  ;;  a man subject to relentless scrutiny while simultaneously being looked through like glass  ,  both  by the city he loves with such devotion  .  perhaps they are similar in that regard  ,  for all the love she once held for civilization  &&  its people  ,    &&  perhaps she is a culprit  .  her forehead presses against his brow as if to say she won't contribute to that this night  .  she sees him  𝓹𝓵𝓪𝓲𝓷𝓵𝔂   &&  understands there is a difference between loneliness  &&  being alone  .

         it is such a  small  motion for his lips to press against hers that it is nearly unnecessary to move at all  .  the gesture is chaste in practically every manner  ,  except that it lingers a moment too long as such before he seems to come to his senses  &&  pull away  .  &&  she is left with the taste of him  (  faded cologne  &&  aftershave  ,  coffee  &&  coolant sometimes  ,  a pleasant faint tint of copper  ,  always  .  )  but also wine on her lips  ;;  the amount of someone who had spent the night politely drinking what was expected of him  &&  not a drop beyond what would make them  improper  for flaunting in front of influence  .  certainly not enough that it can be faulted for the decision  ,  &&  so the kiss would be harmless  ,  in theory  .

        but the look on his face  screams  apologies before the words can leave his mouth  ,  &&  even then the tips of her fingers reach his lips before they have a chance to  .  &&  it is  ,  in some way  ,  𝓲𝓷𝓯𝓾𝓻𝓲𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓰  to her that after all these months he still believes he would ever be able to get so close          would ever be able to kiss her , to do  anything  to her          were it not something she  𝓮𝔁𝓹𝓵𝓲𝓬𝓲𝓽𝓵𝔂   allowed .

         &&  so they have passed the question back  &&  forth too many times to count          in a look  ,  or a gesture  ,  assurances  &&  restraint          but this time toothiana does not  ask  .

                                           '  trust me  ,  jayce  , '  she says  .

        her hand lowers to press lightly against his chest  ,  &&  she leads him to back up until he pushes against the chair at his workbench  .  when he takes his seat she joins to  tower  over him with her knees at either side of his legs ,  but she does not sit  .  the weight of her much smaller body remains propped by her arm with her hand pressed right below his collar  ,  where she can feel the rise  &&  fall of every breath  &&  a heart racing beneath her palm .

        the vastaya’s eyes  burn  violet even in artificial light  ,  but despite the undoubted role of authority she steps into so naturally  ,  toothiana  𝓵𝓾𝓵𝓵𝓼  in acting further  .  she wonders if he is accustomed to this from any of the recreational company he occasionally spends a night with  .  not through jealousy          of which she cannot even fathom feeling on behalf of someone who has never been  ,  to put it simply  ,  𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓼  in any sense          but a simple gauge of comfort  ;;  a question to whether the look of surprise that has yet to fall from jayce's face is out of displeasure or a moment needed to catch up  ,  or perhaps it was too overwhelming after the day he'd finally escaped from  ,  or something else entirely  .

        her free hand rises to cup the side of his face  ,  thumb gliding over the contour of his cheek  .  a  𝓻𝓮𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓭𝓮𝓻  that it is only the two of them here now  ,  &&  that there is something  unique  in being unraveled by the fingers of someone who sees him like this  .  toothiana can practically  hear  a flurry of his thoughts by watching him  :  his cool-blue irises scan hers for clarity  ,  his shoulders relax  &&  his lips part  &&;;  &&  finally the crowning reassurance is the way jayce leans his head more into her palm  ,  brushing his lips against the crease of her fingers  &&  murmurs  .

                                             '  i do trust you  .  '

        a hum of contentment  &&  she leads him to face forward again  ,  capturing his mouth with  languor  control  &&  frustrating reservation  .  there is no  𝓷𝓮𝓮𝓭  for it anymore  .  she can tell now that he would match a more  ravenous  enthusiasm at her lead  .  but it is something to savor when so much  else  in this city cannot wait to rush ahead  .  the memory queen will forget nothing of course  ;;  not the scent of being so close or the taste of his mouth or the shiver that runs through her when she feels rough working fingers brush over her waist where feathers border skin  .  she would like to ensure that he remembers just as well  .

       as always there is impossible precision to the work of her hands  :  deadly talons finding ways to navigate against delicate cloth  &&  buttons to unfasten his jacket without so much as a glance to what she is doing nor lost attention from the work of their mouths  .  when he leans forward in his seat to aid in pulling the clothing free of his arms  , toothiana's back arches tantalizing in kind  ,  never allowing their bodies to actually  press  together  .  she revels in his dawning awareness of just how little contact there is  ;;  how even the  𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓲𝓼𝓬𝓾𝓵𝓮  amount of time between taking away his jacket  &&  having to move his hands again when she finishes with his vest  &&  tie is  still  taken to hold her with a growing desperation felt underneath his efforts of calculated restraint  .

        the faequeen runs her tongue over his teeth  &&  she smiles against his mouth as though daring him to try the same with much deadlier fangs  .  when he very  aptly  does not  ,  she nips his lower lip with just enough pressure to draw a bead of blood  &&  licks it away with just as much  𝓲𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷  .  a line crossed  ,  it would seem  ,  in expecting him to remain so  pliant  as she catches his wrists at the start of him unbuttoning his dress shirt  .

       toothiana lifts her head away from his with a small tilt  (  far too innocuous  &&  aloof in expression for it to even be an  attempt  to convince him of anything  )  .

                                      '  are we losing our patience  ?  '

                   '  you're being intentionally  .  .  .  agitating  ,  '  he retorts  ,  breathless  .   but to her pleasure jayce relaxes his hands  &&  moves them back to her waist when she releases them .

        &&  she gives another hum  ,  with no effort to deny  .

                                      '  i imagine there is plenty for you to gain from being on the receiving end of  that  .  i also think  .  .  .  '  she continues so casually          𝓽𝓸𝓸  casually         leaning over his chest again  &&  allowing her lips to brush against his ear with every word . ' .  .  .  that another day i might actually test the limits of that so-called  ' agitation  '  .  i will tell you exactly when you can touch  &&  taste  &&  even look         or maybe i won't let you at all , even if you beg          &&  show you how rewarding it is to willingly give someone else  complete control  over every aspect of your gratification  .  '

         she is satisfied by his response  &&  lack  there of  .  the energy she can feel radiating from his skin  .  the racing pulse she can hear drumming from his entire body and the breath he’s yet to release  .

                      '  but that is not what you need  𝓽𝓸𝓷𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽  ,  is it  ?  '

         it is more statement than question  .  her hands run up his chest  ,  &&  then her nails suddenly  dig  into the fabric of his shirt  ,  dragging down to tear through it with a  perfect  rigor that has the tips of her talons scratching against his skin as she does without enough force to bring him to bleed  .  the effortlessness of it all is a stark reminder of how easy it would be to  𝓽𝓮𝓪𝓻  𝓱𝓲𝓶  𝓽𝓸  𝓹𝓲𝓮𝓬𝓮𝓼   just as well  ;;  that every moment jayce ever allows her teeth near his throat the way she has them  now  is in faith that she will not  𝓻𝓲𝓹  𝓲𝓽  𝓸𝓾𝓽  .  &&  it is a faith toothiana intends to utilize to both their benefit  .         delicate  ,  demonstratively lethal fingers trace up the contours of his torso  ,  painting a picture of his frame  &&  muscles without having to look at them for now  .  she enjoys  feeling  his responses enough  ,  noticing the patterns of his breathing  &&  the efforts to keep himself at least  moderately  under control  .  she finally settles into his lap and simply pressing against him after so much anticipation earns her a modest groan  ,  almost  𝓰𝓻𝓸𝔀𝓵 -like  ,  breaking his silence  &&  making her feathers bristle  &&  wings twitch ever slightly  .

         ‘  ah  .  instead  ,  tonight we will settle for seeing how  loud  i can get you to make that sound  .  ‘

[glaedrlol-blog1]

SKT vs LZ Season 7 LCK Finals

So we got a crazy playoffs run from SKT after what seemed to be one of the worst slumps SKT has ever had in the regular season, including a great reverse sweep against their telecom rivals, but what if it wasn’t really a slump? 

This seems to be the same SKT that lost those four matches in a row after seeing their performance against Longzhu. When SKT can take a finger, they go for the whole arm, but when presented with a Goliath sized beast that is Longzhu, those games don’t work anymore. SKT went with the same strategies of attempting to make ridiculously aggressive proactive plays against an unsuspecting team with the help of massive frontline tanks, but it simply wasn’t coming to fruition against an opponent whose top laner understood his role and how to shut down the weak links of the team along with a supporting cast who played intelligently around presented information. 

SKT appears to have stagnated while their opponents have gotten better over the past split. They may have demolished SSG in two games forcing three players to get substituted for inferior players in a high pressure situation and punished an overly confident KT Rolster after banning away their Kalista, but the puzzle that was Longzhu was not solved in this series. 

Game One

In game one SKT went with a pick comp with a first draft of Ashe and Gragas which lead into Faker’s Leblanc being supported by Wolf on Tahm Kench and Untara on Shen. This style of draft would normally dominate any lower tier teams across other regions, but Longzhu has been preparing Khan to rise to a superstar position and gave him Jax which Longzhu knew SKT would not be able to match with this teamcomp. 

Twelve minutes into the game a fight breaks out which results in a 2 for 2 with Untara even getting a kill on Khan to even out the bad matchup into a Jax, but a series of misplays on SKT completely destroy any lead they had hoped to gain this game. After having no vision on Cuzz’s Zac for over an entire minute, Bang felt safe enough to engage on Pray for what he thought was an easy kill. If only he remembered he’s fighting the bottom lane who were his biggest rivals just last year. It was incredibly obvious that this was a bait when playing against a team of this caliber, but Bang latched his mouth onto that hook instantly only to have an instantaneous reaction from the enemy Zac and Jax.

SKT had backup prepared for the contingency of Zac appearing thanks to Untara’s Stand United, but they clearly did not prepare for Khan to react faster, resulting in two immediate kills onto Wolf and Untara. Bang was able to retreat to his tower after the sacrifice of his team mates, but Peanut feeling he had to make a hero play and equalize the situation used the Explosive Cast which knocked LZ’s two tanks right next to Bang and himself. This mistake cost the game.

Faker was able to arrive to get one kill as a participation prize, but it simply was not enough to turn this game around. Throughout the next several minutes SKT makes plays to catch members of LZ, but they go after the members which have flash and cannot confirm any kills, which furthers Longzhu’s lead in this horrendous game one performance. In a desperate attempt to match Khan’s now 4 kill Jax at 23 minutes, SKT assigns Faker to challenge him in bottom lane and halt his splitpushing rampage which Untara has no chance of staying in lane with. This results in the demise of SKT as Faker gets solo killed and LZ takes Baron.

Longzhu then proceeds to knock down the gates to SKT’s base with no contest from SKT as Bang made the decision to go with a crit build against two tanks and an incredibly beefy fighter. SKT without a consistent damage threat falls in 31 minutes.

Game Two

With Peanut’s play in the bottom lane that resulted in two completely unnecessary deaths and a tower given to Longzhu, he was swiftly subbed out for Blank. Not wanting to deal with the overwhelming Jax again, SKT bans it out immediately only to be met with an even worse matchup for Untara of Shen into Jayce. The draft doesn’t matter at this point because Untara is not strong enough to handle the pressure of these types of matchups. 

The game begins with SKT going with an extremely slow and predictable dive onto Khan which gives Longzhu an abhorrent amount of time to respond immediately resulting in Blank’s death and Untara’s flash. 

One of SKT’s few chances to make a successful play and give Bang a dominant lane this series is blown ten minutes in when Blank’s Sejuani and Wolf’s Rakan successfully lock down Pray with chain cc, but Bang has poor target selection opting to go for Gorilla instead which results in Pray escaping with his Featherstorm. SKT manages to confirm the kill with another play on Pray two minutes later, but this game could have gone much differently had Bang had that additional kill to snowball his lane on Twitch.

Immediately after killing Pray SKT decides to push aggressively into Longzhu’s jungle for a blue buff and potentially a dragon afterwards, but they did not respect BDD’s Weaver’s Wall and got three-man body slammed into a clean up with the Threaded Volley. Faker escaped, but this is again another overly aggressive play with lack of information from the side of SKT which is the whole story of this series.

It’s still anybody’s game despite those mistakes, but Khan is still a ticking timebomb as he builds up a 40 CS lead against Untara in 20 minutes. The game moves to domination by Longzhu with another mistake of Bang and Wolf as they decide to push for a 2v2 all-in. This is swiftly countered by Gorilla hooking Wolf before he can even use The Quickness while Khan completes his teleport cast before Untara even reacts to cast Stand United on Bang. 

Fast forward to 30 minutes and Khan outclasses Untara again while in a superior lane matchup resulting in a solo kill. This leads to baron and Longzhu close out the game five minutes later with no threat from SKT outside of Faker attempting to save the game on his Ekko.

Game Three

SKT has a dominant performance in their only victory against LZ with a sub-in for Huni along with a good matchup for him with his Gnar against Khan’s Camille. SKT won the game off Cuzz’s inexperience which lead to him crumbling under the pressure of Blank and Faker’s early harass in his jungle. 

The third game of the series quickly ran out of control once Cuzz died twice in the jungle along with BDD and Khan sacrificing their lanes in a desperate attempt to keep him relevant. With SKT’s bottom lane winning off a single gank, Cuzz seemed lost not knowing what to do to negate the losses after all three lanes fell behind.

Nearly thirteen minutes into the game Cuzz seems prepared to commit to his first gank against Bang and Wolf, but his laners die before he can even channel his Elastic Slingshot putting SKT up six kills to nothing. 

There’s really not much else to say about this game, it was lost from the very start once Huni could hold lane in a good matchup leaving Cuzz clueless on where to focus his attention throughout the game. SKT cleans house in 29 minutes.

Game Four 

After the third game and SKT seemingly finding an effective strategy for a reverse sweep, there are only question marks with how they drafted this game. As a spectator it’s easy to look at a draft and think “What the hell are they doing?” when not given the context of scrims or what has been played in solo queue practice, but I was truly at a loss as to how to explain why SKT would choose a massively losing lane of Cho’Gath into Jayce after opting to wait until LZ’s top lane pick before that decision.

Bang and Wolf have not been performing well at all this series with the only game they won lane being the result of a successful gank from Blank, so I could only hope that SKT opted for a triple damage threat that would also equally match Khan in the top lane, but they went back to their old draft in the previous games to just leave it to Faker and Bang, one of which who has not been pulling his weight. 

As expected looking at the previous games, top lane was a lost cause in under five minutes. Khan chunks out Huni to 300 HP while Cuzz rotates up to SKT’s krugs to harass Blank resulting in a kill and Faker’s TP being drawn out. Once Longzhu tasted weakness in toplane, it was party time up there and Huni was promptly slain just one minute after Blank’s death. Just one minute again later, guess what happens. Time for Huni to die again!

There was nothing SKT could do with a nonexistent top laner and a bottom lane that simply failed to at least hold lane for more than 10 minutes. SKT has much work to do if they don’t want to lose again in 25 minutes at Worlds.