2.

[sigune]

A century or something ago I posted this meme in which people could ask me to blog about something I don't usually blog about.

Now, as my new job has disastrous consequences on my leisure time and I don't get round to checking my private e-mail anymore, my journaling activities are at an all time low. But that doesn't mean I don't try to keep in the loop, and I do attempt to do something with all those hours I spend on the train. As I have no means to be on the Net while on the move, the best thing I can think of is to draw. The circumstances are not ideal, but I do manage more or less. In any case: the next entry in the meme blogging series is a picture, drawn on the train.

ellecain asked, "What d'you think would happen if Oscar Wilde and Severus Snape met accidentally on the street?"


Well... Actually I would have a hard time thinking of two men who are more unlike. Wilde was by all accounts a charming (if pretentious) man, a very talkative man also, who liked to laugh out loud at his own jokes. He loved life, he loved art; he was whimsical, promiscuous and absolutely artistic. Of course he could be deeply serious also, and he had great learning.
Now, Snape... Frankly, I have never bought any of those stories in which Snape is cultivated or artistic, much less both. In fact I am inclined to believe that Snape would despise most of the things Wilde stood for. Oh, and I do think it likely he's homophobic, despite all the slashing that goes on in fandom. So here is what I make of that chance encounter:





;-)

Comments

[protowilson.livejournal.com]

Hahaha! That's great!
BTW, what's that on the next page that I can just see? A pram?!

[sigune.livejournal.com]

Heh. No, it's a (very wrong-looking) chair - I have been trying to draw a portrait of Snape as headmaster, but I can't manage the perspective of the chair. *sobs* I can't keep doing all my seated figures full frontal! *whines*

...Anyway. Glad you like my train exercise :-)!

[protowilson.livejournal.com]

Ah, I've been lecturing my students about perspective techniques so if you want me to forward some stuff to you, please let me know. Can you access Powerpoint files? Otherwise I can cut and paste into a word doc. The techniques are really handy!

[sigune.livejournal.com]

I am seriously perspectively challenged, I have to say. A friend told me that's only logical in view of my total lack of insight in mathematics. Maybe she's right. In any case, I bought John Raynes' Complete Guide to Perspective in the hopes of finally getting to understand how perspective works, but though I do understand what Raynes is saying, I am absolutely incapable of putting the theory into practice. I don't even know how to start - where to place the horizon line, where to place objects in relation to the horizon line in order to get the view I want. In fact I can't create space or measure distance AT ALL. It has convinced me that I am a complete idiot.

...If you can explain perspective in a way that I can understand and *work with*, I am very tempted to promise you my first-born child.

Powerpoint is no problem.

[protowilson.livejournal.com]

Augh! I've misplaced your e-mail address! Can you drop me a line? amdpoptastic(at)hotmail.com and I'll send that perspective info to you.
BTW, I don't think being challenged at maths has anything to do with perspective going awry. There're really easy methods that you just need to consciously apply until it becomes second nature. Trust me!

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

I love this. <3

I think that even if Snape is queer, he's still homophobic. That's just the kind of self-loathing guy he is.

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

That makes sense to me. : )

[sigune.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. I think he'd be absolutely closeted, and loathe people like Wilde. Poor repressed thing... ;-)

Glad you like it!

[nemesister.livejournal.com]

LOL, agreed!

[sigune.livejournal.com]

;-)

[veradee.livejournal.com]

Perfect!

Admittedly, I know next to nothing about Wilde and make the mistake of equating him with some of the characters in his play, but I can very well imagine that he and Snape wouldn't have much in common.

[sigune.livejournal.com]

You don't want to get me started about the differences between Wilde and his characters... ;P
I guess that before DH I could have believed that those two could have had some interesting conversations about the morality of transgressive behaviour and the nature of crime, but I'm far from sure anymore. After DH I have difficulty believing that Snape has any transgressive desires in him to redeem his priggishness. Twu Wuv - Wilde would call that 'tedious, dear boy, very tedious.' ;-)

[veradee.livejournal.com]

So Wilde wasn't like Arthur Goring? What a pity!

[sigune.livejournal.com]

Ah, but as Lord Goring says himself, he is quite perfect - therefore it follows that he is too good to be true... Poor Wilde was a real man - always much more difficult to live with ;-).

[color-me-verde.livejournal.com]

LOL @ Snape calling Wilde a Poofter! I love that sketch XD

[sigune.livejournal.com]

:D

Thanks!

[bluestocking79.livejournal.com]

~cackles~

That's so perfect! I suspect you're right about a streak of homophobia in Snape, especially given his background, and the philistine comment is probably on the mark, too. Although Snape obviously has some artistic flair (a certain fondness for poetic phrasing, the way he swishes his robes and makes dramatic exists and entrances), I can't believe in sensitive aesthete!Snape, who plays the piano like a virtuoso, when he's not reading Shakespeare and Tennyson. ;-)

[sigune.livejournal.com]

I think I mentioned in an entry or comment once that I do sometimes imagine Snape as a singer in a church choir :P...

It's true, he does have some artistic flair, and he is certainly image-conscious - but I don't think he'd cultivate an artistic temperament as such, or admit to himself that it's artistic - if that makes any sense *g*.

Thank you!

[redvelvetcanopy.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think you captured it very well!

[sigune.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :D

I'm glad my train effort can please *g*.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Hee! That is BRILLIANT!

[sigune.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

Thank you!

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

I agree with everyone else - brilliant! I will add that I can't believe you did that on a moving train! You should see my handwriting in such circumstances. )

[sigune.livejournal.com]

Well, my pseudo-Wilde handwriting would have looked a lot less shaky if the train had collaborated a little better... But on the whole it worked pretty well. I took advantage of the stops (five!) to correct the important lines :-). The train does force me to draw in a way unusual to me, though - with lots of sketchy lines that I do in very light pencils, then to cover the right ones with darker pencil. I'm glad that at least I can draw during the commute, because I rarely have time at another moment except the weekend, and I just can't go that long without drawing!

[venturous1.livejournal.com]

wonderful!

[sigune.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[perverse-idyll.livejournal.com]

Also, Wilde was a hedonist and I'd bet money that part of Snape's repressed nature is due to his Puritanical streak. The drawing catches that perfectly. What's more, Snape's considered ugly, and Oscar generally didn't waste his time on chance encounters with ugly men.

So, yes, it's likely that Wilde would find Snape distasteful and pathetic, and he'd probably drive Snape up a wall.

A marvelous idea, and a marvelous drawing to go with it.

[sigune.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

Yes, you are right, Wilde very simply wouldn't like the sight (and grease) of Snape to begin with :-). There would have been far more chance of a chat if he had been blond golden-haired and angelic Greek-looking, no matter his temperament...

Ah, those boys!

[perverse-idyll.livejournal.com]

no matter his temperament...

*cough* Bosie *cough*

[msavi.livejournal.com]

I largely agree with you about cultivated!Snape. Although a part of me really likes to think that he plays an instrument. Don't most parents force their kids to learn an instrument? Maybe that wasn't such a big deal to Tobias, but if the Prince clan was one of those high-powered pureblood families, I think it's at least possible that Eileen wanted little Severus to be familiar with some of that stuff. Then again, maybe she chucked it all when she married Tobias. Who knows? Still, even if Snape does play an instrument, I could never see him as a secret virtuoso who sneeks out of Hogwarts on weekends to play to appreciative audiences packed into a smoky Muggle piano bar. More like he sneeks off to play by himself in the Room of Requirement, and under a Muffliato.

Anyway, lovely and amusing pic!

[sigune.livejournal.com]

Hee hee... So you vote the piano too? It seems he must either play the violin (like Sherlock Holmes, yay!) or the piano :-)... If anything, I think he might be a decent singer, though I know _vocalion_ disagrees with me on that point *g*.

I have trouble believing the Princes were an important family. We haven't heard a word about them. Though of course with all the other holes in canon that you can drive a truck through, they may have been great and wealthy regardless :P.

[msavi.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm rather biased as I play piano, so it's near and dear. Plus the thought of those long, spider-y hands moving over the keyboard is...enticing. X) But I could definitely see a string instrument as well; violin or cello. Imagine Snape furiously bowing out a Bach piece on a cello fitted snugly between his legs...

::spends several moments daydreaming::

There's arguably some proof in canon that Snape can sing (the incident with Draco), although for me there's something much more intimate and expositional about singing, so even if Snape can sing, I somehow doubt that he would.

I agree with you about the Princes. I interpret Snape's nickname to mean that he is proud of being a Prince, which makes me think that it has some significance...but not necessarily importance. It's perhaps significant because the Princes used to be a well-known pureblood family, but no longer. Eileen might have been disinherited like Andromeda Black and that's why the Snapes had no money (or so we're meant to infer, I think), but I kind of fancy the idea that the Princes were like the Malfoys many generations ago and then with every generation, lost more and more money and status until by Eileen's generation, they were like the Weasleys. Except much smaller in number, heh.

I'm babbling, sorry. Snape does that to me. X)

[pennswoods.livejournal.com]

LOL! You are an inspiration m'dear.

[sigune.livejournal.com]

Hee! I'm immensely flattered that you thinks so :-)... Thank you!

[ex-neke.livejournal.com]

Lovely! ^^

[sigune.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :-)

[redwine333.livejournal.com]

He He!
I think the picutre is great- I love their postures- says so much about the charecter inside ! Thanks for sharing :)

[sigune.livejournal.com]

My pleasure ^_^! I'm glad you like it.

[ellecain.livejournal.com]

Hahaha! This is so perfect. Wilde probably would not look twice at Snape and Snape would think Wilde was pompous and full of himself. It's fabulous! And I've secretly disagreed with violin-player versions of Snape, so this post and the comments make me smile. :-)

[sigune.livejournal.com]

*g*

I'm glad :D. Thank you!

[lunafish.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha! That's excellent--the positioning of the shoulders and chins esp.

[sigune.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It was funny to me that physically, too, they are so different :-).