#Jake Dillinger/Michael Mell

[sochilll]

Day One of Pins and Patches Week! (See the prompt list here!)

Day One: Crushes/Gaze

Read on Ao3

Michael was not pathetic. He was actually very cool. But cool in an “I don’t actually care about being cool” kinda way. He was above lowly concepts like “popularity.”

That’s why it was so annoying that Jake Dillinger really was that hot. And that Michael couldn’t stop staring at him in English. Him and his stupid smile and his stupid dimple and his stupid-

The bell rang, startling him out of his daze. He started shoving stuff into his backpack. 

“Can you just admit you like him?” Jeremy sighed, leaning on Michael’s desk.

“To whom are you referring?” Michael asked innocently. 

They fell into step as they joined the hallway stream. Jeremy elbowed him.

“It’s obvious. Like, really obvious.”

“I’m thinking pizza for lunch today.”

“Michael,” Jeremy yanked him to a halt just outside the cafeteria. “It’s not a big deal. Everyone has a crush on Jake.”

“Well I do not. I’m not obsessed with these dumb social hierarchies like some people.”

Jeremy snorted. “Yeah fuckin’ right,” he mumbled, pulling the cafeteria door open.

Michael held his ground. He was not going to admit to being a glasses-wearing loser who had a crush on the varsity basketball star because that was stupid and cliche and life was not an 80s romcom. 

The next day was Friday and Michael was considering leaving at lunch. His last two periods were photography and econ. He was passing econ easily and photography was a bullshit class anyway. The teacher gave them vague assignments and spent the whole period with his eyes glued to his computer. Michael would be fine. 

He’d survived math and bio and psychology. Now he just had to get through English. He was currently surviving by playing hangman with Jeremy.

He was puzzling over Jeremy’s five letter word with no a’s s’s or m’s when Jeremy suddenly elbowed him sharply. 

Michael looked up. The slide show projected onto the board said “Group Presentation Partners.” Michael ran his eyes down the list. He caught on “Heere” next to “Duke” and groaned internally. He kept reading.

“Holy shit,” Jeremy whispered. 

“No.”

“Holy fucking shit.” Jeremy was practically cackling now. 

“No. No. Absolutely fucking not,” Michael hissed. 

“Why’s it such a big deal? I thought you didn’t even like him,” Jeremy teased.

Jake Dillinger stood up, scanning the room. “Who the fuck is Mell?”

Michael slid down in his seat. Jeremy, shedding his social anxiety for the sake of humiliating his best friend, raised his hand and pointed at Michael. 

“Sick.” Jake sat back down, apparently assuming Michael would come to him. 

“Have fuuuun,” Jeremy sang, shoving Michael out of his chair. 

Michael gathered his things as slowly as he could and then dropped into the chair across from Jake. “Uh, hi.”

“Hey.” Jake nodded but didn’t look up from his phone. 

Michael was about to suggest they start brainstorming when Jake glanced at the board which now had the instructions up and said, “I’ll do the summary, you can do the critique, and we split the literary devices?”

Michael blinked. “Um, yeah. Sure.”

“Cool,” Jake jotted something on a piece of notebook paper and ripped it out sloppily. He passed it to Michael and stood up. “See you.”

Michael watched Jake go over to Rich’s table. 

Jeremy slid into his vacant seat. “What’s that?”

“Project notes.” Michael shoved the note into his pocket. “Shouldn’t you be with your partner?”

“She’s already assigned me my homework. She pulled her laptop out and put headphones on. I don’t think she wants company. What’s the note say?”

“I told you, it’s about the project.”

“I saw numbers.”

“It’s a list.”

“Horizontal numbers,” Jeremy insisted. 

Michael huffed and pulled the paper out and read Jake’s messy scrawl. 

M: Critique, lit dev. 1-3,

D: Summary, lit dev. 4-6 

Underneath their assignments, he’d written his phone number. 

Jeremy nodded seriously. “So he wants you to call him.”

“That’s not what it means.” Michael shoved the paper back into his pocket. 

He wasn’t planning to call, obviously. The project was pretty straight forward. The sections all stood on their own, so there was really no need for them to actually work together. Except, they needed something to actually present. A slideshow or a poster or something. And they hadn’t discussed that. So, they needed to figure that out. 

Michael’s finger hovered over the call button. He hesitated. What if Jake didn’t answer? What if he did? 

“Hello?”

“Hi,” Michael was sort of surprised. “Um, it’s Michael.”

“Oh, yeah, what’s up?”

“Um, we need to make a slideshow. Or something. For the project?”

There was a lot of talking in the background as Jake thought about that. 

“Yeah. How bout we meet somewhere for lunch tomorrow and figure it out? Bring whatever you’ve done so far, yeah?”

“Yeah. Okay. Sure.”

“Cool. See ya.” Jake hung up without waiting for a reply. 

Michael showed up to the cafe Jake had texted him about. It seemed like one of those places that would charge him way too much for a single drink, but he pulled the door open anyway. He scanned the small seating area and spotted Jake immediately. There were only two other people there. Michael skipped the order counter and made his way over to the other seat. 

Jake looked up. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“I made a slide show thing.” Jake flipped his laptop around. He’d selected a basic premade template and written the topic on each slide. 

Michael inwardly grimaced at his color scheme. “Are we… attached to that? Design wise?”

Jake looked at the screen, confused. “Uh, no?”

“Okay good.” Michael pulled the laptop toward him and started digging around the Google Slides settings. He found a better template and changed the colors, opting for earth tones instead of the garish orange Jake had been using. 

Jake was craning his neck, trying to see the screen.

Michael finished and returned the laptop to him. 

“Whoa, that looks way better.” Jake looked up at him. “How’d you do that?”

“Gay magic,” Michael said without thinking. His face went red. “Um, sorry. That was a bad joke.”

Jake just snorted, already directing his attention back to the slides. They worked for a while longer, even though, once Jake had emailed Michael the link, there was no real need for them to be in the same place. Mostly, they worked in silence. But every once in a while a question would come up and they’d chat for a few minutes, usually getting mildly off topic, before slipping into silence again. 

Michael’s phone buzzed and he was surprised to see it had already been two and a half hours. He hastily started shoving his stuff into his backpack. 

“Sorry, totally lost track of time,” he muttered. “I gotta get home.”

“Okay.” Jake leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms above his head. “I should probably get back too.” He looked at Michael. “Free tomorrow? We could probably finish in a couple hours.”

Michael faltered, frozen in his tracks. “I-uh- yeah? If you wanna meet up. I just thought-I mean yeah. I’m free.”

Jake gave him a weird look. “That sounded like a lie.”

“Not a lie,” Michael shook his head. “I just didn’t think you’d wanna actually meet up again if we didn’t have to?”

“Why not?” Jake shrugged. “You’re cool. Plus I hate being home.” He stood and grabbed his backpack, sliding his laptop inside. “Same time tomorrow.” He walked out.

Michael stood there, staring after him. There was probably something worth investigating about that “I hate being home comment,” but Michael couldn’t think about that right now. Because Jake Dillinger had just called him cool. 

[tacccalb]

boops ur favs

live cher reaction under the cut

[objectivesthatareobjectified]

BE MORE CHILL FANDOM PLEASE SEE THIS

So a while back I had made Broadway BMC Youtooz plushie designs and Youtooz said that if enough people wanted them there was a chance they could be made

It would be super coolio if a ton of people asked Youtooz for them because I NEED Be More Chill plushies 🙏🙏

Here are the designs btw :3

[golden-geeks-art]

ITS FROM JAPAAAAAAAAAAAAAN

[milolovesbmc]

Some stuff I posted on tiktok because I think these are funny

[marchofthewitchhunters]

how i think bmc characters would react to being asked to buy pads

[kadziduo]

Squip squad mario kart tournament (but if you look closely mario kart isn’t the only competition going on)

[cj-isout]

gee golly

[h0n3yk1tt3n]

Bmc zine art dropped, which is a redraw of smth from 2021

(Closeups under the cut)

[im-not-a-l0ser]

Be More Chill time loop fic ideas

Michael: Repeating the day of the play until he fixes everything. First loop he doesn't even go. Last loop is the canon. Or, yknow, go further than that and make him confess to Jeremy too.

Michael: Repeating the day of the party. I'm not sure exactly what you'd do here, but it felt like a shame not to include it.

Jeremy: Repeating the day of the play. Michael seems to be the only unpredictable variable, as nearly every loop has him arrive at different times, if at all. He figures out eventually that the factor is actually his dad and he's been butterflying this whole time without realising it.

Jeremy: Repeating the day of the party. Hiding in the bathroom early maybe? Him and Michael hanging out in there for a bit. Maybe he saves Rich and Jake? Idk.

Rich: Day of the party. Him setting the fire is more of him losing his mind about the time loop, less about the squip. The first time. The second time, it's about the squip.

Jake: Day of the party? One of the loops he gets mountain dew red and learns the real story, falling in love with the real Richard Goranski in the process. Good thing Rich is bi then.

Christine: I don't have like big ideas, but the small fluffy one I have is repeating the 'guy I'd kinda be into' day, or the day of the party, and slowly being convinced Jeremy is in love with Michael, and she's trying to show him that.

[dragonairice]

Compiled enough posts to make another one of these

[ssyoi]

My squip and bmc cast designz

[kingdreverette]

Good party 👍

[rebuke-me]

hi it's. my bmc character designs :3 featuring my ideas of their outfits, individuals under the cut!!

[misterpoofofficial]

vampire au 🧛 jeremy is a poor fool in love with lady christine, a performer at the opera but can't find the courage to confess his love--only for it to be too late. michael is a vampire hunter, becoming one after losing his brother to one. squip is a vampire count, looking out for fresh blood to take from unfortunate souls.

[thesquirrelqueer]

thinking about deaf west spring awakening so here’s how i’d do a deaf version of be more chill

jeremy, michael and christine are deaf, all three of them sign

brooke is a CODA and knows sign language fluently, but she is hearing

jake does not know sign language at the beginning of the show, but you see him learn a little bit of it for christine as a way of showing him actually putting effort into his relationship with her

chloe can barely sign but knows some basic words from brooke

jenna cannot sign at all but is HOH and can read lips

rich is hearing and unable to sign UNTIL he syncs with jeremy squip, then he is suddenly fluent

mr. heere is hearing and is learning to sign for jeremy, this is part of why there’s a disconnect between the two of them

jeremy, michael, and christine have counterpart actors who act as their “voices”

jeremy’s “voice” is with him until the squip enters, then his “voice” is replaced by the squip until voices in my head

christine’s “voice” is with her the whole show EXCEPT for the guy that i’d kinda be into reprise and when she’s squipped in the play. so you actually see christine’s squip onstage because it replaces her “voice”

michael has a “voice” for everything except michael in the bathroom, which is only signed with backing music