i haven't really decided where i fall on the rick celebrini: father of the year or heartless monster spectrum. i think parents have complicated relationships with their kids at the best of times, and i think that raising a once-in-a-generation athlete is not the best of times. i think that a lot of what is integral to mack is because of rick--the good, the bad, and the ugly. i think that's what happens when you build a machine out of your boy. you make metal out of flesh and blood, you put wires where the heartlines go, and it's going to hurt. i think rick is probably a very good father and also a really awful father, probably in equal measure. very ladybird "i wish that you liked me" / "of course i love you." / "but do you like me?" unconditional love that is kind of conditional. that is what makes an interesting dynamic to me.
what is also an interesting dynamic to me (wee-woo, wee-woo, hrpf zone warning) is will hating rick's guts. because when will looks at rick, he sees the reason for all the worst parts of mack. the unregulated kid who broke his windshield because will made him wait, the asshole prodigy who won't give anyone the time of day if he doesn't think that they can keep up with him, the broken, beaten, neurotic fight dog; only one thing that he's good for. he looks at rick and sees all of the ways that mack's life is empty, devoid of color that isn't blood or ice or electrolyte powder. he sees all the hotel rooms where he's walked mack off that ledge - you are more than one bad game, mack. you are more than hockey, and mack says, i don't think that's true in the smallest voice. on the nights when it's really bad, when will is up against a wall fighting for the mack that exists outside of generational talent, he thinks about rick and he just. hates. him.
and it's a projection thing too, right? a place to put all the bad shit that hockey has done to will - that his mom has allowed to be done to him, witnessed with her own two eyes--not something every parent can claim! - without having to face the repercussions, actually deal with any of his shit. hockey hurt me, and by the transitive property, rick hurt mack. and will can't hurt hockey back. hockey? the thing that he loves, the thing that has made him, that he has devoted all of himself to? the thing that is his and mack's? no. he can't get mad at his mom, who picked up her whole life for him. he can't fight the fans and the press, his coaches, the world, can't stop their expectations from tearing mack to pieces. can't fix the way that mack sees himself--good on the ice, or no good at all. can't even talk down the voice in his own head telling him he isn't good enough to be standing by mack in the first place.
but he can hate rick. and so he does. doggedly.
i also think the feeling isn't reciprocated. i think rick is not threatened by will, so much that he doesn't even clock his antagonism. yeah, maybe the kid's a little stiff, a little curt, but it doesn't matter to rick all that much because will is ultimately only a means to an end. mack is the thing he built with his own hands, his very own son. and what's one - admittedly intense - friendship in the face of a father's love? in rick's head, there is no will v. rick. mack will always pick his father. will does not factor into any equation other than how well he can play.
and that pisses will off, because will does love mack unconditionally, actually. loves the winner and the loser, the boy and the boyking. it makes him want to test exactly how far mack's blind loyalty to his father extends. makes him wants to find the edge of it, because there is an edge, he knows there's an edge. wants to make rick feel - at least once - just as scared of losing mack as will feels every second of every day.
and mack doesn't like it, can't understand it, won't ever understand what it is about his dad that gets under will's skin so bad. makes him pace around the room while rick debriefs over the phone after a game. why will - so charming, so well-mannered - refuses to shake rick's hand. turns down dinner invitations when he can get away with it; spends the ones he can't escape glaring down at his food, answering questions about his season with clipped sound bites. why sometimes, almost like he can't help himself, will puts himself between mack and his dad. like, physically stands between them. and mack thinks it's so weird, because like, where is this energy when they're on the ice? will won't protect him from a handsy blueliner, but he'll get in the way of mack's dad??? who, by the way, again - it's his dad! his dad who is so cool and mack respects so much, and he just wants them to get along so badly.
(but a part of him is maybe a little bit thrilled every time it happens. because people have never tried to protect mack, have barely ever thought to themselves 'there's a kid who needs protecting'. and no one, not one person, not one soul, has ever stood in the way of rick and his son-machine-boy-prodigy. and here's will fucking smith with his blonde curls and his bitten nails and his unrepentant refusal to get physical on the ice, acting like he's going to body rick into next year whenever he gets within ten feet of mack.)
jbbartram-illu
dededos
tangentwithtanner
germansingergirl
areudirty
jacobvanloon
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