Happy birthday, Brian! I can’t believe you’re fifty! But still looking fine. 😍 In honor of the Birthday Boy, I’m throwing it back by blogging about five of my favorite portrayals of Brian in my fics.
I’ve always been a Brian girl and have actually written a lot of Brian stories, but it doesn’t feel that way because the majority of them were written almost twenty-five years ago! After Brian got married and became a father, I moved away from writing so much about him and started focusing on Nick more because, honestly, it was a lot easier to come up with ideas that involved a main character who was less settled in life. But, since those super old Brian stories I wrote back in high school suck, I’m focusing on my more recent Brian characters in this blog.
5. The Rok
Coming in at number five is Brian’s 00Carter alter ego, The Rok. Unlike most of the other heroes in this story, The Rok is not one of Himitsu Takana’s secret agents. Instead, he works for the CIA and occasionally collaborates with HimTak agents on missions, much to Nick’s annoyance early on in the story. As much as I love the friendship Frick and Frack have in real life, it was fun to write a more adversarial relationship between Brian and Nick toward the beginning of 00Carter. Of course, that relationship has since grown into a partnership that more closely mirrors the one their real-life counterparts have. As a character, The Rok is similar to the real Brian in a lot of ways. He’s a charming Southern gentleman with traditional values and respect for the government, although his views on the latter have changed since the beginning of the story. That being said, it’s always fun to write him with a completely different career than he has in real life. That’s the beauty of AU!
4. Heartbroken Brian
As I talked about briefly in my last blog, I tend to focus more on Brian in my AU (alternate universe) stories because it frees me from having to deal with Leighanne and Baylee. Most of my AUs have been big collaborations that feature all five guys, but Secrets of the Heart is different. At only twenty-five chapters, it’s a short novel compared to some of my other stories, and I wrote it by myself. While all five of the guys are in it (albeit not as the Backstreet Boys), only Brian and AJ are the main characters. Although I’m a Frick and Frack girl, I’ve always loved Brian and AJ’s friendship, too. At first glance, they look like complete opposites, but, of course, they have a lot more in common than it would seem. I tried to show some of those similarities in this story, making them both family men with a partner and a baby to provide for, fathers who would do anything for their children. And, by the end, they had both done some pretty dark things in the name of protecting or avenging those babies. Turns out, I really like Dark Brian! But I also liked making him a music teacher instead of a Backstreet Boy and imagining where he might have wound up if he had taken a different path in life. In some ways, he ended up in a similar place with a wife, a son, and a career that involved music, but there were also clear differences, most notably with his health. In real life, of course, Brian thankfully had open-heart surgery back in 1998 to repair the defect he was born with, but in this story, he had a congenital heart condition that had worsened and apparently couldn’t be fixed with surgery, leading to the need for a transplant. I’ve always been fascinated by organ transplants, which is partly where the premise of this story came from. It’s a darker twist on the old “Brian’s heart problem” fics I used to read and write. Secrets is really more of a psychological thriller than a medical drama, but I enjoyed combining those two elements with Brian’s storyline and taking it in a different direction than I’d done before. As a fanfic writer, I love having the freedom to pick and choose which elements of “canon” to keep the same and which ones to change to make a character or plot more interesting or suited to my preferences.
Case in point…
3. Ridin’ With Biden Brian
Crazy years call for crazy fanfics, which is how The Road to Bethlehem became the perfect quarantine project for me during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. It’s the only “recent” fic I’ve written in real time, and since it took place in the present, I was able to incorporate a lot of current events from both the real world and the fandom into the fictional parts of the story. That included both the pandemic and politics – probably the two biggest things most people remember from 2020, at least in my country. I don’t usually get political in my fics, since fiction is supposed to be an escape from reality. But I couldn’t help it with this story. I wrote it at a time when the fandom was as divided as my country, and Brian’s wife was only adding fuel to the fire with her bigoted Facebook posts. Because she and Brian have always been attached at the hip, people assumed he shared the same views as her, even though he didn’t post anything himself. As a Brian girl, I chose to assume the best of him, since not all conservatives are MAGA. In my headcanon, Brian was embarrassed by his wife’s unhinged behavior but too afraid to stand up to her or speak out against her. That became a part of Brian’s subplot in Bethlehem. Of course, I took it a step further by having Nick get shot by a gun-toting Trump supporter, which changed Brian’s mind about who to vote for in the 2020 presidential election. Do I really think Brian voted for Biden? No, not really. But half the fun of fanfic is being able to make the boys do whatever I want. (Bwahaha!) That’s not the only reason why Ridin’ With Biden Brian comes in at number three, though. I also admire his strength and bravery, how he literally dragged himself up a hill and down the road (to Bethlehem) with a broken ankle to find help for his brothers. Let’s hear it for heroic Brian!
2. Murse Mannequin Brian
Brian also got to play the hero in The Pandaskunk Saga, my trilogy of Christmas comedy-adventure stories. I had a lot of fun writing Brian in this satirical series, which combines real events from the fandom with other pop culture references to create a pretty epic parody. The first part, The Gift of the Pandaskunk, is a spoof of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer that revolves around Brian struggling to find his place and prove his worth within the group after he botches his part of the Backstreet Boys’ performance of “It’s Christmas Time Again” at Disneyland. I’m pretty sure this was the first time I ever wrote about Brian’s vocal condition in one of my stories. At the time, we didn’t yet know his diagnosis, but the fandom had been speculating about what could be wrong with his voice for a couple of years by that point. Despite his muscle tension dysphonia, Brian managed to save the day (and the planet) with the help of a mystical flying pandaskunk and prove that he was more than just a “murse mannequin,” as Howie called him at one point, making fun of the leather Wylee man-purse Brian used to wear to promote his wife’s business. In the second part, Return of the Pandaskunk, Brian helped Nick save Christmas (and the planet) after Santa Claus came down with Nick Plague and vengeful aliens invaded the Earth. That time, he did it with the help of a mystical flying pandaskunk, a Wylee scarf, and a magic basketball. And in the third part, The Year Without a Pandaskunk, he rescued Nick from the clutches of evil Melissa Schuman and fearlessly subjected himself to Christmas with the Carters. I loved writing Brian as the brave badass and loyal brother that he is, but I also loved poking fun at his family. After all, the whole point of satire is to critique people’s flaws in a humorous way – hence, Murse Mannequin Brian for the (second place) win!
1. Reverend Littrell
I struggled with ranking my other four favorite Brian roles, but there was no question of which one would take the top spot. Brian in Song for the Undead is my absolute favorite Brian character that I’ve written. Like Brian in real life, Reverend Littrell was a devout and devoted family man with a flair for music. But the tragic and terrifying turn of events early on in this apocalyptic tale traumatized him, turning him into a hardened cynic who struggled to come to terms with the sudden loss of his family and his faith. Over the course of the story, Brian found love again and reaffirmed his faith. I really enjoyed writing his character’s journey from light to darkness and back again. Sometimes you have to break a man down in order to build him back up again and make him better than ever. That’s why this Brian is the best!
That does it for this month’s Throwback Thursday blog! I’ll be back in March with a blog about my favorite female characters. Thanks for reading!