Snyder Backstory Poll

[hobgoblinn]

I've decided would be a good night to play with the poll creation thing in live journal. So, tell me, friends, what do you think on these burning questions?



[Poll #940771]

And, for extra credit, is there anything about Snyder that interests/ puzzles you? Share! I've got my own ideas, but I thought it'd be fun to see what other people noticed that I might have missed. (Not to mention, it distracts me from my own work.)

Icon, if it works, is from blueanddollsome. I'm not sure I copied it right.

Good night, all.

Hob

Comments

Synder's name, among other things

[theblackmare.livejournal.com]

Rudolph. Also spelled Rudolf or Rudalph, etc.
Imagine, for a delicious moment, the teasing. [okay, very squick-worthy, and no, I wouldn't wish that on anyone except a fictional snivel like him.]

I think he taught civics because it is usually the MOST boring required class for high school graduation. He gets all hot about city managers, town council proceedings, planning boards, and anguished cases of eminent domain where the town must tear down houses of elderly ladies who have lived there since childhood to make way for the new parking garage built in the hope that they can attract a bus line or other major transit vendor. That's why he was so hyped up about the fact that the major shook his hand -- twice! -- and felt he could get help from the real Movers and Shakers in the community's power base to keep Buffy out of school. [Ha. Little did he know what kind of movement, and how peculiar the shaking.]

Snyder's dad was a "pillar of the community" kind of man, sold used cars or vacuum cleaners at his own little business and was a member of a lodge named after a large mammal. Yet somehow the business never really grew, and the district around it never prospered, and thank goodness he didn't outlive his savings. When he was eleven, Snyder's mother ran off with a minister who ran a fire-and-brimstone tent revival program; very charismatic fellow who was making money hand over fist.

Synder's paternal grandmother, a German immigrant, had a heavy hand in his raising even before that. She was a neat freak of the first order and a member of one of those churches where the Flower Guild is the scariest group of snippy women you'd never want to meet. No red flowers on the alter: too provocative. Pinks were okay, but nothing wild orange. The year they had to replace the old, decrepit Advent wreath candle holder had almost caused a schism in the fold because they couldn't agree on the size or shape. When she was outvoted, Snyder's grandmother left the church and never went back, preferring instead to spend Sunday mornings in private meditation with the gorier passages of Scripture; Snyder was expected to memorize quite a few of these, and was expected to be otherwise silent the entire Sunday. Sunday dinner was always an overdone roast, dry potatoes, khaki colored peas, and iced tea. No alcohol was ever allowed in that house.

No pets. Snyder was never a scout ["too dirty"] but was allowed to be on the yearbook committee. In seventh grade, he was injured trying out for the badmitten team when he tripped and fell over one of the cables holding up the net poles and broke his nose and right wrist. After that, he was not allowed to participate in any sport. He did not make the first cut for the debate team because he got too worked up and his face turned red and he would fling spittle on the front row of spectators. Plus, they could barely see him over the podium. He had a secret, intense crush on the home economics teacher that lasted from his freshman through his senior years, although he never so much as said hello to her and would never have considered taking her class. But he thought about her all the time, to the point of staking out her car to watch her get in and drive away. One day, he'd prove himself worthy of her, and she'd recognize his potential when no one else did. She married a lawyer from Delaware and moved away the summer before his senior year and he never got over it.

I could keep going....it's procrastination because I'm supposed to be writing my own story...naughty me.

Re: Synder's name, among other things

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

I was going to suggest Rudolph also! Rudolph Synder. The man had demon parents.

Re: Synder's name, among other things

[hobgoblinn.livejournal.com]

This is great! You should condense it down a little and post it to "still grr" a new community (check my friends list in my profile for the link.) They're doing a minor character month, and quite few very cool Snyder drabbles have come out of it.

I see him more as a New York City Catholic Schoolboy who got his early moral training in order from the nuns. I actually got a piece of this in church on Sunday. (Not like I'd actually be listening or anything. Musician, remember?) How they succeeded in instilling the important values of discipline, responsibility, punctuality in him, but somehow couldn't get through on the idea of caritas.

I just realized-- that's also the name of Lorne's place in AtS. Hmm....

Thanks for commenting. I can't make him Rudolph, though. I just can't.