Throwback Thursday #16: Top Five Favorite Fanfictional Howie Roles

I’m back with the next installment of my twenty-fifth anniversary blogs, and in honor of Howie’s birthday tomorrow, I’m looking back on my five favorite fanfictional Howies! To be honest, Howie has never been one of my favorite Backstreet Boys to write about. I love him, but I also find him kind of… dare I say boring? But, over the years, I’ve learned that when I add some “flavor” to spice things up a bit, he can become an interesting character. Here are my favorite versions of Howie I’ve written.

5. The Latin Lover

Little known fact: my first attempt at writing a Howie romance was way back in the year 2000. Back then, I wrote almost exclusively Brian stories, but I had decided to branch out and try writing about the other boys more. I started a Howie story called Spanish Eyes and worked on it for a few weeks before I got bored with it and decided to discontinue it. It’s the only story I’ve ever deleted from my site after posting, so it has sadly been lost to history. Howie didn’t get another romantic role in my fics until 2013, when I decided to challenge myself again by writing my first slash story. Unsuspecting Sunday was inspired by a radio interview Howie and Nick did where they teased Howie for being fixated on Nick’s pubic hair. The awkward way Howie reacted to that made it possible for me to suspend my disbelief and imagine him as a closeted gay man who had been harboring feelings for Nick for years. That’s the character Howie plays in Unsuspecting Sunday and its novel-length sequel, Sick as My Secrets. By putting him with Nick in a cramped cruise cabin and adding a large quantity of alcohol to lower his inhibitions, I created a fateful opportunity for him to explore those feelings. At first, it felt weird for me to write about two Backstreet Boys fooling around together, but, as I eventually discovered, the true beauty of BSB slash is that it’s romance that centers solely on the Boys – no need for original female characters. While I may never write another Howie romance, I enjoyed writing from his point of view and describing Nick through his eyes.

4. Sweet D

Howie may not be a main character in many of my stories, but he often plays a supporting – and supportive – role, showing up in the background and standing behind his brothers because he always has their backs. In Broken, Howie moves in with Nick after the amputation surgery to help him until he gets back on his feet foot. In Secrets of the Heart, Howie holds down the fort for his best friend and business partner, helping AJ’s small business stay afloat while his life falls apart. And in both The Call and A Heart That Isn’t Mine, Howie drops everything and rushes to Nick’s side after hearing that he’s in the hospital. But one of my favorite Sweet D moments comes in Chapter 17 of The Road to Bethlehem, when Howie keeps watch over a critically-injured Kevin while they wait for help to arrive, softly singing to bring him a bit of comfort and pass the time. It’s a sweet, tender scene in which Howie lives up to his nickname.

3. Hemophilia Howie

Howie’s character in Song for the Undead is quite different from his “Sweet D” persona. At the beginning of this AU, Howard is a wealthy businessman who seems to care more about himself than anyone else, although he does change for the better over the course of the story. Some of his self-interest stems from the fact that he has hemophilia, a bleeding disorder that prevents his blood from clotting properly and makes him more susceptible to bruises and prolonged bleeding. The hemophilia storyline came about as part of the backstory that explains how this particular group of characters survived a virus that killed most of the other people on the planet. The short version of that story is that they all received antibodies through a blood transfusion that made them immune, which meant that we had to give each character a reason to have required a blood transfusion prior to the start of the story. In our effort to vary those reasons, we decided to make one of them a hemophiliac – and, since “Hemophilia Howie” has a certain ring that made us laugh during our planning chats, we picked Howie. Giving him a chronic condition that we could use to add to the suspense and drama made him a more interesting character. He’s the last person you’d expect to survive a zombie apocalypse. And, yet, Hemophilia Howie doesn’t just survive; he thrives, gradually growing into a kinder, more selfless human, more like the Sweet D we know and love. His character arc over the course of the novel is one reason why I love Hemophilia Howie!

2. The Indestructible Howie D

As if hemophilia and zombie viruses weren’t bad enough, Howie gets put through the ringer in Sick as My Secrets, leading Nick to start calling him “The Indestructible Howie D.” This version of Howie ranks highly on my list because he’s the only Howie who “gets” to be the main character of a novel. Of course, being the main character in one of my novels also means that he’s going to suffer. Majorly. As if contracting an incurable virus wasn’t bad enough, Howie inadvertently infects his wife, son, and best friend. Overwhelmed with guilt and self-hatred, he then intentionally overdoses in an unsuccessful suicide attempt that leaves him with acute liver failure, leading to a liver transplant and a lifetime of antirejection meds that weaken his immune system and make him more susceptible to other infections. If it sounds like a lot, that’s because it is. SAMS is a soap opera that would have been better set in the 80s, but even though it’s melodramatic and far-fetched at times, I still find it compelling. You can’t help but root for Howie to conquer every obstacle thrown his way and come out okay in the end. But, sadly, that is not the case. Spoiler alert: The Indestructible Howie D is, in fact, destructible. Honestly, out of all the character deaths I’ve written, this is the one I feel the worst about. Fun fact: I finished writing SAMS less than two weeks before I saw BSB in Vegas during their first residency. My friends and I did VIP, and while I would normally choose to stand next to Brian, I insisted on being by Howie for our photo. I just wanted to give him a big hug after what I did to his fictional counterpart. I guess that’s why I felt compelled to put him in second place on this list.

1. Dr. Rough

There was never any question about who my favorite Howie character was going to be. It’s Dr. Rough from 00Carter! Howie’s alter ego, the supervillain Dr. Rough, is head of the terrorist organization known as FANS, which stands for Forgotten Agents Need Status. Rejected from becoming a secret agent like his best friend AJ, Howie turned to a life of crime instead and vowed to take revenge on the organization that had snubbed him. The idea of Howie “Sweet D” Dorough becoming a supervillain has always been hilarious to me because he’s the boy you would least suspect to be the bad guy – which is exactly why we made him one. His villain name, Dr. Rough, is a play on the original Bond villain, Dr. No, while his first appearance in 00Carter was modeled after one of the most iconic Bond villains, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who also inspired parodies such as Dr. Evil in Austin Powers and Dr. Claw in Inspector Gadget. Like all of these characters, Dr. Rough has a beloved pet, but instead of a cat, it’s a ferret named Dr. Twitches. Dr. Rough’s love of animals is one of the many reasons why I adore his character. In addition to Dr. Twitches, he also has a moonwalking rockhopper penguin named MJ as one of his animal minions. Another reason why I love Dr. Rough is that he is such a caricature of Howie. In creating him, we took some of Howie’s real characteristics and twisted and exaggerated them for comedic purposes. Howie’s signature wink became a tic, an involuntary eye twitch that intensifies whenever he’s in a heightened state of emotion. His short stature became a major source of insecurity for him, leading to a Napoleon complex that drives his desire for world domination. His affinity for the color purple became an infatuation, causing his secret lair to look like it was decorated by Marie from Breaking Bad. But the main reason I love Dr. Rough most is that he’s so much fun to write! Early on in the development of 00Carter, when it was still being written by a group of eleven writers, we divided ourselves into two teams, one that focused on the heroes of HimTak while the other focused on the villains of FANS. I joined Team Villain and never looked back! Since most of my fics don’t really have villains, writing about the bad guys was both a refreshing change and a fun challenge for me. I love writing Dr. Rough’s cartoonish antics and outlandish schemes, which usually end up failing, thanks to the work of his nemesis, Nick, otherwise known as secret agent 00Carter. Now that we’re down to three authors, I’ve branched out to write about more of the good guys as well, but Dr. Rough will always be my favorite character!

Welp, that wraps up this month’s retrospective blogs! Wishing the real Howie a very happy birthday tomorrow, and I’ll be back with more in September!