#BB Press

[the-vivicast]

Made some wonderful little pins of blorbo from my shows

[xeemaee]

[datshitrandom]

Darren Criss | Los Angeles Times | Maybe Happy Ending | March 27, 2025 | 📸 by Justin Jun Lee

[acourtofquestions]

Aelin.

He had no voice here, but he spoke her name. Threw it across the gulf between them.

Slowly, she turned to him.

It was her face—or it would be in a few years. When she Settled.

But it wasn't the slightly older features that knocked the breath from him.

It was the hand on her rounded belly.

She stared toward him, hair still flowing.

Behind her, four small figures emerged.

Rowan fell to his knees.

The tallest: a girl with golden hair and pine-green eyes, solemn-faced and as proud as her mother. The boy beside her, nearly her height, smiled at him, warm and bright, his Ashryver eyes near-glowing beneath his cap of silver hair.

The boy next to him, silver-haired and green-eyed, might as well have been Rowan's twin.

And the smallest girl, clinging to her mother's legs ... A fine-boned, silver-haired child, little more than a babe, her blue eyes harking back to a lineage he did not know.

Children. His children. Their children.

With another mere weeks from being born.

His family.

The family he might have, the future he might have. The most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

Aelin.

[d-criss-news]

From Hedwig to Helperbot: Darren Criss Looks Back on His Stage Journey

It’s nap time for Darren Criss’s newborn son, Brother, when the Glee star hops on our video chat. The camera’s off, but he quickly turns it on to say hello face-to-face dressed in workout clothes — a green sleeveless top and a ball cap — as he tries to do some chores at the same time.

Criss has a limited window at home as he prepares to star in the new musical Maybe Happy Ending, now playing at Broadway’s Belasco Theatre. The story, with book, music, and lyrics by Will Aronson and Hue Park, takes place 100 years in the future in Seoul, South Korea. Criss plays Oliver, an obsolete Belperbot along the lines of Siri or Google, “except more human-like, who is definitely past his prime and has been just waiting [in a Helperbot retirement facility] for his owner to pick him up,” Criss describes to Broadway Direct of the role. He stars opposite rising star Helen J Shen, who plays Oliver’s retired Helperbot neighbor. “It almost feels like two people in an old-folks’ home trying to connect with a family member.”

The plot sounds dramatic, but “make no mistake: This is a musical. It’s a musical comedy,” says Criss. “It has a lot of heart and a lot of joy and a lot of humor and amazing music, and it’s a hell of a spectacle.”

His friend Michael Arden, who won a Tony Award for his direction of Parade, was a big reason for Criss to sign on to the project — and serve as an executive producer as well. Arden brought the show to Criss’s attention many years ago, and again recently when Criss was starring in Little Shop of Horrors Off-Broadway.

“This had been kind of percolating for a while, and between the pandemic and strikes and just a lot of other things, that really comes down to timing. So the stars just kind of aligned,” Criss says.

Criss, a figure on Broadway for well over a decade, started to gather a following while at University of Michigan as a founding member of Team StarKid, the student-run theater company behind the viral Harry Potter musical parody A Very Potter Musical. His big break came on the hit Fox TV show Glee back in 2010. The show had already aired for a full season before he was cast as Warbler Blaine Anderson and future love interest to Chris Colfer’s Kurt Hummel. If not for Glee, he believes his career would not have had the same trajectory.

“I felt like this was my master’s in performance of music on camera,” Criss says, admitting that, until Glee, he didn’t consider himself a singer — rather, a musician who acted. “I have that show to thank for giving me any headway in the musical-theater space.”

In the middle of filming Glee in 2012, his Broadway debut called. Criss was asked to succeed Daniel Radcliffe in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying for three weeks during a winter break from filming Glee. “I left on, like, a Friday night from my last day of shooting. I started rehearsal on a Saturday. Within 10 days, I was on a Broadway stage. I left my Sunday matinee, got on the plane, and went to work [at Glee] Monday morning as if nothing had happened. So it was a bit of a fever dream. It goes by as quickly as it came, like all other moments in life.”

Three years later, Criss stepped into his next Broadway role. This time, he played Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch for about two and half months, succeeding John Cameron Mitchell. “People always ask me, ‘What’s your dream role?’ I’m like, ‘I kind of did it,’” he says of the opportunity. “Hedwig was a role I always loved so much when I was a teenager, and getting to jump into it was so special to me and my wife. We both love Hedwig so much. It’s a big part of our relationship.”

More recently on Broadway, Criss starred in the play American Buffalo with Laurence Fishburne and Sam Rockwell in 2022 for a three-month limited run. “I completely idolized them,” he says of his scene partners. “I mean, if you see a pattern here, I recommend this to everybody, to just chase their heroes. I’ve just been chasing my heroes my whole life, and I’m not being bashful about it at all.”

Getting Rachel Evan Wood to play Audrey opposite Criss’s Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors at the Westside Theatre earlier this year was something that he says was his idea.

“I pitched her pretty hard,” he said of getting casting directors to choose the Westworld actress as his costar. “When they heard her sing, I think it was very clear that this wasn’t like a favor to anybody. She was doing us a favor. The fact that she said yes just blew my mind.” The role of the nerdy floral shop worker wasn’t something Criss thought he’d get the opportunity to add to his résumé “because it just was never something that I thought anybody would let me do. … I wasn’t sprinting to that in the way that I was the other things in my life.”

Criss welcomed Brother, his second baby, this past June with his wife Mia. The timing couldn’t be more coincidental, since their first, Bluesy, was born during his run of American Buffalo.

As our conversation comes to a close, Criss says he kind of got all of his chores done and haphazardly put things away and folded laundry. The next project he wants to pursue is his writing, something he hasn’t tackled much in five years. Until then, he’s reveling in Maybe Happy Ending.

“I do find myself at a loss for words, trying to truly put into words how special this experience has been,” he adds. “I think it really is a thing of beauty that can really add quite a bit of ornamentation in perhaps a grim world.”

[604to647]

*inhales* that’s the stuff 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨

Just something silly I made on IG 😂😂 had to with this trend and all the F4 press goodies 🤭

[atopvisenyashill]

not people calling george unprofessional for his post my god will u bitches never stop dickriding for this corporation is the man who created these characters not allowed to have an opinion on the way they’re adapting his work. they’re HIS characters!

[samijey]

Big Strong Boy more like Big Happy Boy

[sixeyesonathiel]

girl i discovered ur works like barely two months ago and youve already put out so MANY BANGER fics like its actually insane u must be built different anyway KEEP EM COMING I LOVE UR STUFF TEEHEE <33

AWHWWH thank youuuu!!! i quit fandom writing way back 2022 so now i’m just unleashing years of pent-up brainrot all at once. sleep? don’t know her. studies? on life support. satoru? my muse forever. this blog is just a shrine for him honestly 🙁🩷

[aethersflood]

[bonefall]

Now this had me thinking... Would Willowpelt die in the same way as canon (although to another creature im assuming since bb!badgers aren't as dangerous as they are in canon)? If she's getting kept around longer, maybe Cricketclaw is the one who sacrifices herself instead? That sounds like a fitting way for her to go, considering she couldn't protect her own siblings?

I feel like I should add a TM to anything that I'm working on in my drafts that has significant progress and is blog-plot-relevant, that will explain something exactly like this LMAO

Forgive me I am, at heart, a bear that eats half a salmon and then forgets I had a fish at all

Willowpelt's brush with death is staying, and is actually a bit plot relevant in Firestar's Quietus! I have a very specific scene which is actually totally written out-- actually fuck it, I'll just post it here

Context and narrative purpose of this scene:

Firestar is informed of a boar on the territory, and gathers a little scouting patrol to try and figure out what sort of hog it is.

VERY IMPORTANT SEGWAY. Because of how Willowpelt gets bitten here and Firestar loses a life saving Sorrelpaw, they all end up in the Cleric's den where Ferncloud is telling a story both to practice her new job as upcoming Educator and to comfort everyone.

The fact Willowpelt is not dead is how I get Littlecloud away from Runningnose and Firestar

Runningnose has a hunch, in this moment, that goody two-shoes little Firestar might be the perfect person to help Brokenstar, and teases the visions and revelations he's about to have

Establishes that boars are the new Big Bad Beastie of BB

Presents Sorrelpaw's epilepsy and demonstrates how it is a danger to her safety

(this is a lot of buildup but this is actually pretty short lmao)

So anyway before I let you go on to the readmore and a preview of Firestar's Quietus, no one takes Willowpelt's death here, and Willow is going to hang on for longer. I wanted to make sure I have a good amount of cats to kill off in the carnage of the White Hart's destruction.

Wherever Cricketclaw dies, it will be for a purpose. Either to show how bloody the TNP conflicts are, or in a greencough epidemic because I'm trying to make sure those aren't just "Kill a bunch of randos offscreen" disease anymore.

WILLOWPELT'S BOAR

The patrol is Sandstorm and Sorrelpaw, Willowpelt, Longtail and Sootpaw, and himself. It's just supposed to be for scouting, hence why the apprentices are coming along.

Unfortunately the hog has other plans, lunging out of a bush and going for Sootpaw

Willowpelt jumps in the way and gets bitten instead

Sorrelpaw acts quick, slashing its sensitive nose, drawing its attention and bolting as fast as she can

RIGHT as she crosses the Thunderpath, her body goes limp and she falls to the ground

She is having an absence seizure, and fallen flat on the road

The hog is hot on her heels, bowling after her, when a monster screeches to a halt out of nowhere

The hog is frozen in the headlights, Firestar bursts into action to pull Sorrelpaw out of the road

(i hear your heart beat to the beat of the drums) BUMP BUMP

The boar and Firestar have been hit by, have been struck by, an automobile

When he sees StarClan, they're about to greet him with love. But their faces turn to shock and fear, the scenery becoming sinister and trees falling down.

A fifth oak tree is crashing down towards them. Firestar stares at it, dumbstruck.

Just before it strikes him, his eyes snap open

Firestar resurrects with a burst of energy, dragging Sorrelpaw off the road and into the safety of a fern on the ShadowClan side

The humans are coming out of the car to examine the boar they struck, but Firestar doesn't have time to consider that or his vision.

Littlecloud's head pokes out of the foliage and he springs into action, checking them both for injury. Breathless, Firestar points behind him and rasps, "Willowpelt!"

Littlecloud nods and bolts across the road.

Runningnose saunters out from a different angle-- one where he would have been able to see the road. Everything that happened.

His gaze is unsettling as ever, pausing, eyeing the leader up and down.

He starts tending to Sorrelpaw, then mumbles,

"Brave of you."

"It's what any leader would have done."

"No. It's what you always do."

Firestar doesn't know how to respond to that, but he's glad Runningnose isn't staring at him anymore.

But continues, "You will learn terrible things in the days to come, Firestar, and StarClan will not answer the questions that find you. If you seek the truth, meet me by the mothermouth on the night after the next gathering."

Sorrelpaw is leaning up now, her eyes dazed and confused, as if she's trying to figure out what happened.

[datshitrandom]

Darren Criss and Helen J Shen | Machines Like Us by Lisa Wong Macabasco | VOGUE March 2025 Issue | Maybe Happy Ending | [PDF]

[hotfuss]

the killers in hot press july 2013. photos by lucy hamblin (cover), williams + hirakawa (page 2-3), anton corbijn (page 5).

[d-criss-news]

Darren Criss on counting his lucky stars

Thirty-seven-year-old Darren Criss is a star on Broadway, and a regular at piano bars. "Keep the music going, you know?" he said. "I think the expression goes, 'Life is a cabaret!'" When he's in Los Angeles, it's Tramp Stamp Granny's, where he and his wife, Mia, are the owners. "It's kind of a beautiful little Hollywood tale," he said. "She slings the drinks, and I sling the tunes."

One rule in a piano bar? Play the hits. Criss had his first hit at the University of Michigan. He starred as Harry Potter in an unauthorized student show based on the books that became a YouTube sensation in 2009. "This was a very interesting moment in time," he said, of "A Very Potter Musical." "That really did kind of change my life. That would kind of set me on the path to where I am now."

I asked if "A Very Potter Musical" was the first musical to go viral. "I don't know; I guess we'll let the YouTube historians sort of decide the validity of that," Criss said. But Criss took a detour on his way to Broadway, by becoming a TV star. "'Glee' was happening at the time," he said. "And I went out for it, like hundreds of thousands of other people in my situation at that time. And I happened to book it." He played Blaine Anderson, and quickly became a fan favorite. "I owe my tenure on that show to the sub-cultural fan base army that we had gathered from the Potter stuff," he said.

Criss went on to win an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his portrayal of serial killer Andrew Cunanan in "The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story." Now he plays an obsolete robot named Oliver in a new musical, "Maybe Happy Ending," one of the most acclaimed shows currently on Broadway. The New York Times calls it "joyful," "heartbreaking," and "supersmart."

Criss said, "This show begins with a song which is the question the show posits: Why love? Why do we do it? If we know that loving something enters you in a contract that has an inexorable back end – which is the loss of something – why do we do that, if we know that that's gonna happen?" According to Criss, this show came along at the perfect time. He and his wife, Mia, have a two-and-a-half year-old daughter, and earlier this year they welcomed a baby son. I asked, "Does this feel like the best year of your life?" "Well, it certainly is a blessed one," Criss laughed. "I've had some extraordinary years of my life, and I think this has been a certainly exciting time." He's had some hard years, too. In 2020, his father, Bill, died at 78 from a heart condition. In 2022, his brother, Chuck, died at 36 by suicide. Criss said, "I don't necessarily think of my own experience with those people specifically in my life that I have lost. But I do think about the feeling of loss, the sadness and emptiness and loneliness that that yields, because we all feel it. But the things that move me, in life and in ["Maybe Happy Ending"], are not the darkness of the loss, but the Herculean grace that it takes to be resilient in the inevitable truth of that." When he thinks about that, Darren Criss can't help but sing. "I count my lucky stars every day," he laughed. "I'm runnin' out of – there's too many! They're still showing up. I'm doing 'CBS Sunday Morning'!"

[bberetd]

found an ancient relic from the past 😮‍💨

I NEED TO STORM MY BROTHER’S APARTMENT SO HE CAN BOOT UP OUR WII AND WE CAN PLAY THIS AGAIN

[blue-eli]

Realised it’s @khoc-week so even though I don’t have the energy to do it daily have this I did a while ago but never posted.

Arxeht my beloved. They came to me in a dream where I was a replica (of multiple people but looked most like Vidar) made by apprentice Nort/Xemnas, who was the fifteenth member of the organisation and also had my knowledge of hit video games Kingdom Hearts and kept getting randomly thrown through space and time.