omg hi literally have been thinking abt will mack characterization endlessly and came across ur fic recently and it's been indelibly pressed into my mind like in a forever and ever way. not even a huge rpf person but just the potential in wm and specifically will drives me insane because will comes from a community so preoccupied with image and family and what is correct--the in-group tags u had on an ask were like. soo exactly it for me like oh yeah that hits the spot
and i talked abt this in another ask recently lol but i think the funny thing about hrpf is u cant really make assumptions abt the sexualities or mentalities of these players BUT in my head will in the context of willmack really would be this insane neurotic pretend chill boy and you write him in a way that highlights all the emotional appeal of him being that person and what it means for all his very complicated dynamics in life that he can never fully understand or articulate not bc he is dumb but bc he chooses not to. and i know ur will is gay in shadow in the sun but i kind of cant think of him as anything but how you write your will anymore--forever convincing himself he will grow out of it and like girls but he wouldn't even engage in any of his bro stuff if he didn't only want that no matter how much he lies to himself.
okay i was going to make this a super short ask lol but just like want u to know that i think u write them soooo well and just like on a personal note i get a lil irked when ppl make will out to be some cool idiot who is super enlightened and mack is like a tiny baby even though it is genuinely not that serious because i feel like there's so much thinking to do about how growing up they way they grew up shapes you and you are like. a genius about it. ok. that is all.
much love!
i loveee a long ask no worries bc i loveee essays!! and thank you so much omg i'm so glad you enjoyed the fic <3 i love thinking about what makes these guys tick. i'm not going to speak to willmack getting nerfed in fics generally bc i just have not been in the tag recently but what /i/ personally enjoy most in writing them is just trying to figure out what's going on in their crazy lil noggins and seeing how they react by putting them in situations... they are individuals; separate people who process and approach things their own ways and it's fun to think about what those ways might be. like willmack are guys that i think see the world very differently even though they get along well and in many respects are absolutely very similar.
for example: they're both aware of how they're perceived by others, but it manifests differently. outside of hockey (where mack can be a high maintenance little freak because it's okay it's just a symptom of his excellent compete levels), he's kind of a sweetie. see, e.g., zeev buium relentlessly teasing him about the win streak that coincides with mack's losing streak and mack still not really lording any of his wins over zeev, versus mack's obvious comfort in being kind of a little shit to will and toff since he knows he can push the envelope because they won't actually rip him apart. he's very hesitant about chirping most guys and is a little bit of a slow warmer because i think he has a harder time at figuring out what's acceptable conduct. he can absolutely be funny and clearly is capable of letting loose and having a good time but he's also not explicitly a "glue guy" in the locker room. in my head this is because he approaches socializing kind of manually, if that makes sense. he's self-conscious and prone to being shy when it's in a context outside of the rink; someone who does not find small talk natural and hates shmoozing, with fans or otherwise. but he's very cognizant of what it means to be in the public eye, and it shows.
on the flip side, will's a natural socializer--automatic as opposed to manual. he's not overthinking how he comes off to the world at large (separate from the sort of vanity that leads someone into having a very curated insta page and kind of an embarrassing tiktok) which seems to come from being a secure guy, generally. he's sort of lived life on "easy mode" (like a lot of nhlers tbh but to an even more extreme level because of how carefully he was coddled) and there's not really a basis for him to be insecure about things like his family and the people that love him. he's got a big family who's showing up whenever he needs them to. the furthest he's ever been from home for a long stretch of time is san jose, and even then his parents and family are around often. but this isn't to say he doesn't have hangups, maybe in part because of how he was raised. he's good at small talk, well-liked by everyone around him. guy who grew up going to church and going to country clubs and interacting with all his parents' peers, etc. look at all the old media guys in san jose that adore him; look at all the guys on the team that little-brotherify him like nobody's business. he knows to go up to cat during thanksgiving and ask her if she needs help setting the table! he's good with people.
but what do you do when you're always surrounded by people? maybe you're not so good at being by yourself, right? enter the sleep anxiety and the constant facetimes and the social chairing of events and all of his and his buddies' plans. coaches call him easygoing, steady, and yeah sure he is but he's also extremely competitive (e.g., literally passing out for a breath-holding competition lmao) and he has the relentless drive that pushed him to the nhl when he wasn't in a hockey family. and then there's the reneging from his commitment to northeastern. legacy matters to him. he is so fucking proud of where he came from. he is unabashed about going to the battle of lexington's reenactment every single year with his family even though it's kind of corny. he went to mass every sunday with grace when they were at BC. he likes romcoms and katy perry but he's also undeniably a bro (he's definitely not anything like barbie, per that post-draft tiktok he did somewhere out there). there are "girl things" that he can like but he's not that. what he likes and who he is are separate things. and so on and so forth.
these two are SUCH rich texts it is just. soooo much fun to think about.
