jen. she/her. old. sometimes i write or paint stuff. this is not an art blog; this is where i shitpost and scream psychotically into the void about baby sharks. header gif by @orangeflavouredchips
yoooo it’s finally here 🙌 had to post this before i drove myself crazy editing the same phrase six times.
under the exit light
Pairing: Macklin Celebrini/Will Smith
Rating: Explicit
Tags: Underage Sex, 2023 NHL Entry Draft, the inherent existential angst of sport injuries, is it possible to have a summer fling(?) with your ex-situationship(?) when you only kinda broke up? asking for a friend, bad sex experienced as good sex
Word Count: 8K (ch 1 of 2)
Summary:
Barely three months had passed since Will said no in that parking lot, said that they couldn’t be them. Mack had sort of accepted that Will had a line he didn't cross. Except this crossed it, pretty much obliterated it. Was there even a line anymore?
—
Or, Mack spends the summer figuring things out (badly)
Oh Whimsy OG bestie Jaydan Perron just made a comeback at Celebrini camp
yes, a return visitor to mack's hotel heart! another anon called it a "going back to your exes summer", which seems rather prophetic now that we know gabe will be joining will and leno at shoulder check.
nobody will ever know you like the boy who was your best friend for a year when you were both skinned-knee teens. before you learned to thicken your skin. sweet sixteen, and mack's practiced kissing a whole lot with his girlfriend, but it never felt like this, the rush of steel on ice, cheetah and puma on the hunt together, his best guy on his wing. teammates and linemates and billet brothers, spending every minute of every day together. they called him puma because it was catchy, because mack was cheetah, hockey loves a corny bit, but secretly mack thought jayden was more like a golden retriever. cheerful, easygoing, friendly. the kind of locker room guy that mack knew he himself would never be. mack could grab the room when he tried, but it was grudging, sometimes, forced, often, and because of his hockey first, always. (golden retrievers were cheetahs' emotional support animals, at zoos. mack knew dada hadn't meant it that way, when he'd hand-picked jayden as mack's billet roommate, he'll be good for you, macklin, you need a locker room guy like him, remember, balance is important; but sometimes it felt like being the last kid picked, needing his daddy to find him a custom best friend.)
but then it had ending up being good, really good. maybe even better than eisy back at shattuck, which felt disloyal to think, but mack's never been able to stop himself from comparisons. and then mack had gone off to boston, dropped the spots for a terrier's growl, and there had been the draft, and everything had changed. they'd still text, from time to time; close friends and finsta comments and replies; but it wasn't the same as drowsy eyed drives to early morning skate, slinging their gear bags together in the back of helene's car, chipper runs and cellies on ice and the rush of feeding the puck to your guy. and then there had been the national, for mack but not for jayden, and that had been another blow. and there had been will, of course. nothing and nobody could compare to will. sometimes mack thinks that every friendship he's ever had was in preparation for will, same way you gotta practice your shot a few thousand times before it takes. a deeply unfair thought, to himself and his boys; but mack can't help it.
and how do you think he feels now, twenty and all grown up (except not at all, except half the time mack feels like he's still that gangly oversized kid, too big for his skin), reuniting with his best guy who's no longer his best guy? jayden, who did end up getting drafted, but not til the third round; jayden, still in the ncaa, a junior year transfer; jayden, who never did get that growth spurt he'd dreamed of and hoped for. and mack, as macklin celebrini, and everything that entails, these days. do you think mack is thrilled to see his old best friend again, thrilled to try their old chemistry back on for size, but it doesn't quite fit? stretch marks on their friendship, from time and distance and age, growing tight. and maybe it's bc of will and maybe it's bc of hockey and maybe it's just bc mack is no longer sixteen, but any way you cut it, it's just another thing to tuck away in the back of his locker. just another thing to skate through. so mack does, and then he showers, and then he goes home and facetimes will.
below the cut: some more pictures of cheetah and puma from back in their old hunting days, bc chicago steel-era mack makes me feel very soft. just a kid! tall for his age, and big to boot! always hunched over bc his head and his hands were too big for his body. so so young and already so talented.
There's something romantic happening here. First, they clearly did the Grind the same day, probably the same hour, as Sam, Misa, and Luke— but instead of taking a picture with the group, they did this. They chose a song by the same artist and posted it within a minute of each other. You can tell from the compositions that they stood side by side when they took the picture of the same view (Gavin on the left, Ryder on the right).
"In the days leading up to the draft, McKenna admitted there were some butterflies churning in his gut.
Then came a pleasant surprise, one that helped settle him down.
Unknown to him, Ryder Ritchie, his former junior teammate and someone he considers to be like a brother, arrived in Buffalo on Thursday.
When McKenna was 12 years old, he left his family and moved to Kelowna, British Columbia, in order to play more competitive hockey. There he billeted with the Ritchie family and quickly became best friends with Ryder, a bond that continues to this day. To that end, every summer, Gavin and Ryder compete in something they call the Summer Games, trying to outdo each other in a variety of sports.
Ryder Ritchie, son of former NHLer Byron Ritchie, was selected in the second round (No. 45) in the 2024 NHL Draft by the Minnesota Wild. McKenna said he had no idea that Ryder was coming to Buffalo.
“He caught me off guard when he showed up here,” McKenna said. “It was great. We hung out, and he crashed in my room.
“I didn’t have the best sleep last night with all the excitement but it’s all good.”"
please be somewhere tonight (5809 words) by halidan
Chapters: 1/3
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Macklin Celebrini/Will Smith (b. 2005), Will Smith (Hockey RPF b. 2005)/Will Vote, Will Smith (Hockey RPF b. 2005)/Original Male Character(s), Will Smith (Hockey RPF b. 2005)/Dan Holland, Macklin Celebrini/Original Female Character(s)
Characters: Will Smith (Hockey RPF b. 2005), Colleen Smith (Hockey RPF), Macklin Celebrini, Dan Holland, Original Male Character(s), Original Female Character(s), Will Vote (Hockey RPF)
Additional Tags: walk with me and imagine an AU where being will smith hockey does not make the world fall at your feet
Summary:
It wasn't mind-blowing or anything, probably, by an objective standard. Maybe to Will, but just because he didn’t have that much to compare it to. It was better than Voter’s complete lack of enthusiasm, and it was better than closing his eyes and pretending a girl was Mack, or whoever back before he knew Mack.
hope everyone is ready for will smith hockey having a whole bunch of unenjoyable hookups with mid dudes! also featuring his mom and possible guest appearance from pope leo. stunning cover artwork by ME with assist from @zejeni and some of the many people who have been blessed/moved/had their lives changed by this story along the way......
I am way late to the party but YouTube just randomly showed me the video the warriors made in Mack being drafted.
A basketball team made a video about the hockey draft...
YEAH BUDDYY ITS CRAZYPANTS MCGEEE! This is why we tout the power of Rick Celebrini and sometimes talk about him having influence over how Mack's injuries are treated in the Sharks org. He has a ton of connections and the trauma of an athlete injured before his time, so of course he'd try to be more involved. The video itself is lovely but the fact of it is wild—Rick is not the coach, the owner, or even assistant coach, but he's so respected and well loved in the Golden State Warriors org as director of sports medicine that the Warriors made an all-access feature about his son being drafted to a different sport. You can see they were there behind the scenes of the NHL's 2024 draft day video and even riding with the Celebrinis to the Sphere so they followed the fam around filming all day (I wonder if they knew the videographer because they seem fairly comfortable with them). Credit to Rick or the interviewer for making the video related to GSW by talking about their family-oriented team culture, but even so a little extraordinary. It's clear Rick believes Mack benefitted from seeing day to day what it takes to be a pro athlete, and he's probably not wrong. It's a lot easier to follow a meal plan as a kid when you've seen Steph Curry do it too (and when you're in a half day program for athletes before being homeschooled, but I digress). If you haven't yet, I recommend searching 'macklin celebrini golden state warriors' in youtube, because there's a lot of postgame interviews of Rick and even Kerr talking about Mack. (What I wouldn't give to have NBA journalists like that covering the Sharks...) and of course, we get a treasure trove of baby!Mack pics:
Hi my name is Will Baby'blue Charles Patrick Comiskey Smith Hockey and I have curly blond hair with honey streaks and golden tips that reaches my mid-neck and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Renee Rapp (AN: if u don’t know who she is get da hell out of here!). I’m not related to Patrick Kane but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie. I’m a bunny but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I’m also a hockey player, and I play for a team called the Sharks in California where I’m in my third year (I’m twenty-one). I’m a prep (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly baby blue. I love Zara and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a baby blue quarter zip with a matching snapback and navy blue shorts, white scrunchy socks and white dirty sneakers. I was walking outside SAP Center. It was warm and sunny so there were no clouds, which I was very happy about. A lot of brunettes stared at me. I smiled at them.
"Hey Will!” shouted a voice. I looked up. It was…. Macklin Celebrini!
“What’s up Mack?” I asked.
“Nothing.” he said shyly.
But then, I heard my friends call me and I had to go away.
