#will!

hiii twin how do you do

sort of! i've talked a little bit on here about how important it seems to be to will to kind of be a group guy and how easy it seems to be for him to get people on his side and how much validation he seems to receive from that. interesting from a hockey meta perspective anyway where mack can get away with being less of a locker room guy because he's better than will and is always going to be invaluable on the account of his talent versus will who does have to think about his reputation at least a little bit because he can't just coast on how good he is. also something extremely us program pilled about how he cannot do a single thing on his own. the compulsive plan making and organizing where it felt like a 'long day' because mack had to do one thing by himself which meant that will had to do one thing by himself and it immediately was the longest morning ever. when he's not physically with someone he's on the phone with someone! what voice are you trying to quiet! thinking again about the delly fight where will very much waited for delly and mack to figure it out by themselves until the both of them were looking at will like you gotta help us out here. and then he did immediately fix it! not desperate to keep the peace -- or he wouldn't associate with mack to this degree -- but he does end up being the peace keeper etc. the go to guy to organize the sleep overs and invite a bunch of the boys to his hotel room! loyal enough he went to see zeev getting drafted! remembers birthdays and mother's day! knows the names of everyone at the org, even the security guards and the social media girl! already endeared himself to all the danes working in that empty arena! definitely knows the value of like, being a nice fucking guy! also love how he's good at keeping up with his outer circle but seems to be very legit about having an inner circle too. you can all have a kick, of course, but don't outstay your welcome is kind of the metaphor for how will goes about it so far...

he would have been the man! he would have probably had an even sicker season than the year before and fr won at least one big tourney and gotten a legit hobey nom at least. the sharks hfboards would've gone crazy hyping him up every game and counting down the days until he'd joined the team! but he would have also learned nothing useful and he knew that. and that is why will is kinda the blorbo to me. has the vision to know what's good for the long term, or at least has enough people around him who know their shit giving him solid advice, and doesn't let ego or short term satisfaction get in the way of that. he knew the nhl was going to take some serious getting used to and he knew it'd be intense for him to move there and make it work on a brand new team for the first time in years and he knew macklin was always gonna be the standard he'd be held up against and he still chose to go, even over the delicious warm bath that was bc where he would have gotten to be the guy for a year longer. because it was the smart thing to do for his future!!!!!! love that!!! willll!!!!

very interesting to webweave about but hard to say! i do think will seems very set on sharing the spotlight. slaying in a group setting seems to be his comfort zone vs having to be the guy by himself. he had a lot of opportunity to kind of break free from the mythical gabe/will/leno line narry and carve out a reputation of his own but he very deliberately did not do that -- he made sure they were part of the story until the very end. and even with the macklin of it all, you could argue him signing as the same time as mack, when he knew how big of a deal mack would be star factor wise, was a choice. he could have stayed at bc another year, been a big dick 1c, kill it and let the hype around him ramp up and let mack's rookie year pass by until a new exciting rookie would take the spotlight off of him and will could slide in there. i still think bc would have had a better chance winning something big if will had been there and if he'd had a better second year than a first year, you can bet the narrative would've been very different if will had come in now. but he didn't. add to that that he was all about the wacklin vibes all year... like he could've talked to the org and put some more distance between them socials wise but he very deliberately sought it out even by himself. that's a choice! out of anyone, i think he cares very very little about being the star to the audience/media etc and would always pick having more of a sidekick role over having to do shit by himself. but you can also imagine that there is a scenario where it does start chafing the ego as they say. especially with what's currently going on, it's hard to imagine there not being a little bit of frustration within will at how everyone is just falling over themselves hyping mack up and he's stuck in third line hell slowly turning into a crusty dog in his hotel room. i think for me, as long as mack has his back and functions as his hypeman, plus the team is on his side, he doesn't give a whole lot about mack always being the star of the show. but if mack were to move on from him, i do think it'd start to hurt. to me, will's someone who cares about his inner circle and if that inner circle is on his side it's not a super big deal what randos on reddit have to say about him.

and with Monty, we learn that we're all wrong and he's actually terrifying