#trilby | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

random-meme-bot · 7 months

Text

I don't have a name.

I used to have one, and a lot of people would like to know what it is.

Some call me Trilby, and as a name it suffices.

I've been called many things.

A burglar, a hoodlum, a criminal...

I prefer to think of myself as a gentleman thief.

And tonight, I've something potentially very rewarding in store.

My fence phones me in the middle of the night and asks if I know about DeFoe manor.

Apparently the last of the DeFoe line has died without heirs, leaving all the family values up for grabs.

The lawyers have got the place locked up tight, of course, but that's never stopped me before.

And the place is, of course, deserted...

Yes, this should be a painless and rewarding evening's entertainment.

- 5 Days a stranger Intro.

20 years ago on this same day 5 Days a Stranger was released, the first in the four game series that is Chzo Mythos, the series that got me into horror games and one of my favorite videogame series in general, I discovered this game way back in 2014 thanks to Patron L's let's play, and like to come back to replay it as well as it's sequels every few years.

They are really great, completely free, and coud run on a toaster, I'll leave a link to the post I did a few years back recomending the games for anybody interested as I also link them there.

The original idea was to mix both images into one, but I didn't like how the cut looked and also it kinda makes it look like the fire part happened firts due to being on the left, which isn't the case.

Drawings from the Gif & the original screenshots for comparation under the cut.

The first image is of course the Iconic tittle screen, changed the mountains in the back, added more shadows to the mannor and less to Trilby, widened the space since I think it looks better, and changed the doors to the ones you actually see in game.

The second image is of course of the ending cutscene as it pararels the tittle screen, added a bunch of police cars as well as Jim, Niccole & the Policeman from the close up cutscene, completley reworked how the fire, the windows and the door look & added a little John DeFoe easter egg. Honestly this is my favorite of the two, I think the fire came out really great, even if the glow looks kinda bad.

30 notes · View notes

paperandsong · 2 years

Text

Parts of a Villain

Gaston Leroux’s Erik is a chimera, constructed from the parts of other villains, literary, historical, and mythological. He seems different from every angle and yet, despite his mental instability, somehow has a coherent personality that we recognize from page to page to stage.

Here is a look at some of the villains Leroux references in his unique character. This is not a complete list, so please let me know if you have meta to add - I’m here for it!

1842 Masque of the Red Death - Edgar Allan Poe

Illustration, Arthur Rackham, 1935

In the novel, Erik wears his famous Red Death costume at the Masked Ball, held at the Palais Garnier at Carnival time. In this case, it isn’t only Leroux making the literary reference - Erik himself is making a point about mortality to the other masqueraders. In Poe’s short story, the plague of the Red Death becomes personified as a masked reveler, intruding on Prince Prospero’s belief that he can literally lock death outside his party. At the end of Leroux’s novel, Erik threatens to blow up the entire Opera house, with everyone inside. Presumably, the barrels of gunpowder with which Erik planned to accomplish this are already in place beneath the Opera house during the Masked Ball. He stalks about the party dressed as a literary plague that kills everyone by the end of the story. He is a very clever corpse.

I’ve written more about these themes here: Phantom of the Opera and Carnival. Read The Masque of the Red Death for free.

1894 Trials and Executions of Anarchist Terrorists

In 1894, Gaston Leroux covered the trials and executions of three anarchists who had committed acts of terror in public spaces. A year earlier, anarchists had also bombed the Liceu Theatre in Barcelona during an opera performance. Leroux’s direct experience listening to the words of these men during their trials most likely influenced some of Erik’s more violent ideas, especially his final plan to blow up the Palais Garnier while it was at full occupancy.

I’ve written much more about Leroux’s coverage of the anarchist trials here.

1894 Trilby - George du Maurier

Illustration, George du Maurier, 1894

I have not read all of Trilby, but I’ll start by saying that yes, even the little I have read is just as anti-Semitic as everyone says. Svengali is a terrible caricature. It’s still relevant to point out that Leroux most likely took some inspiration from Svengali for his Erik. Svengali hypnotizes a young woman, Trilby O’Ferrall, giving her a mesmerizing voice (which she does not possess when she is not hypnotized). While Svengali does not hide in the shadows or pretend to be an Angel of Music, his influence on Trilby is similar to that of Erik’s effect on Christine Daaé, giving her career several “triumphs” while also diminishing her health and happiness. Svengali is also seen as the “other” among the novel’s characters, because he is Jewish and foreign. While Erik is born French, his many travels East also mark him as “other”.

1897 Dracula - Bram Stoker

Illustration, Edward Gorey, late 1970s

Details about Erik that indicate Leroux read and loved Dracula: the Tokay and roast chicken dinner, the coffin bed, the glowing eyes, reptilian description, the thing with the mirrors. I’ve written more about it using the tag #poto-dracula, starting with this post.

Hades & Persephone

The Fate of Persephone, Walter Crane, 1877

Despite that all of Leroux’s direct references to Hades were removed from the original English translation (thanks for nothing, Tex!), most readers can still see the parallels between Erik and Hades, Christine and Persephone. Erik not only kidnaps Christine, but he lets her go, knowing that she will return. No word about whether the Opera house withers in her absence, but Raoul’s heart surely does! Beyond Hades & Persephone, Erik & Christine belong to the Death and the Maiden tradition. @thephantomessoftheopera has written a great post dissecting these themes: Eros, Thanatos and the Underworld - Death symbolism in Leroux

I know there are more references to be found in Erik’s character - let’s talk about it in the notes.

#phantom of the opera #gaston leroux #poto-dracula #dracula #masque of the red death #edgar allan poe #bram stoker #trilby #george du maurier #hades and persephone #erik x christine #dracula daily #le fantôme de l'opéra #gothic literature

302 notes · View notes

anhed-nia · 6 months

Text

BLOGTOBER 10/13-14/2023: THIRTEEN WOMEN, SVENGALI

I really loved this. I wonder what the book is like, I might have to read it! Author Tiffany Thayer sounds like a pretty interesting guy as per this collection of provocative reviews on Wikipedia:

I don't know about you, but that makes me want to read everything he wrote. THIRTEEN WOMEN concerns a circle of grownup sorority sisters who are beset by an anomalous series of murders and suicides. It so happens that all of the women recently received damning horoscopes in the mail from a self-styled New York Swami--but the Swami himself is just a pawn in a greater conspiracy masterminded by Ursula Georgi (Myrna Loy). The master hypnotist has a bone to pick with these smug society ladies, which I am about to spoil so plug your ears if you'd rather watch the movie first (and you should! It's only an hour long): As a half-Javanese girl "saved" by a missionary who sent her to a western finishing school, Ursula believed the key to her future was to pass for white. Therefore, she's vowed revenge on the racist sorority that rejected her in college, and honestly the revenge she has plotted should have earned her an honorary PhD. It's hard to imagine that either a 1930 novel or a 1932 movie really mean to say "fuck racism" so frankly, but the sharp premise and Myrna Loy's incredible charisma make it hard not to side with the ostensible villain in this picture.

Some people have remarked that THIRTEEN WOMEN is an early iteration of the slasher movie, with its female ensemble (of sorority babes no less) being picked off one by one. To me it was more reminiscent of the cursed media motif familiar to J-horror. Maybe I'm just saying this because I rewatched RINGU this Blogtober and I was encouraged by the documentarians behind THE J-HORROR VIRUS to consider its influence on SMILE, which I also rewatched, and which I'm realizing I love. The victims in THIRTEEN WOMEN have signed a round robin chain letter, for which they each receive a star chart describing their imminent doom; the power of suggestion takes the place of power tools here, with Ursula's sheer force of will acting as a free-floating contagion that rots the guilty and weak from the inside out. I was reminded of movies like RINGU and JU-ON as much as of Jorg Buttgereit's DER TODESKING, an experimental horror film about a chain letter that causes its recipients to self-destruct. It's fun to think that THIRTEEN WOMEN is a progenitor of movies like BLACK CHRISTMAS, but I see reflections of it elsewhere, too.

I wound up pairing this with SVENGALI just because they're both hypnosis movies, but that movie turned out to have its own racial tensions. In George du Maurier's foundational 1894 novel Trilby, the evil hypnotist is explicitly Jewish; in Archie Mayo's 1931 adaptation, Svengali is referred to abstractly as "Polish or something", which seems to be a euphemism for a Semitic Eastern European identity. This might not invite such analysis if it weren't for the styling of John Barrymore as a swarthy, rodent-like embodiment of greed. When I say that, it sounds pretty negative, but I'd still insist that SVENGALI is a great movie well worth seeing for its perverse humor, surprising grimness, expressionistic design (courtesy Anton Grot), and unusual horror elements--in addition to Barrymore's unforgettable performance.

I guess there has been some debate over whether SVENGALI is properly a horror movie, and I refer you to author Tony Burgess who once said that if you have to argue about whether or not something is a horror movie, then it's probably a horror movie. The only causes to argue are if you insist on an extremely narrow definition of horror to guide your personal consumer habits, or if you're squeamish about admitting that you've ever enjoyed or respected anything that falls under the horror umbrella (and I tend to think the latter case is more prevalent). Admittedly, SVENGALI blends comedy, romance, and musical elements such that the viewer is never quite sure how dark things will get until the very end, but I think that anyone should be able to see the horror in the incredible sequence of the eponymous villain sending his disembodied consciousness through the CALIGARI-like city to possess the unwitting Trilby (played by Marian Marsh who must have been the most adorable person alive at the time). A few different visual effects are used to evoke Svengali's power, some of which are still modern-looking and scary, and the film's breezy humor and charm do not promise any particular safety.

On some level, the aura of antisemitism and xenophobia itself lets us know we're in horrific territory. This is the genre of fears, rational and irrational, where we face whatever society perceives as threatening. Today we're in the midst of a lot of arguments about whether or not "separating the art from the artist" is ever appropriate, with full cancellation of the art AND artist positioned as the only alternative, but both of these options suggest that we must never have to face immorality, ambiguity, or ambivalence in art at all; we're forced to either avoid it or ignore it. This denies us the opportunity to understand what these darker emotions consist of, and understanding is the only way to defang them. Personally, I don't think it's any more helpful to condemn e.g. Dracula or the Wicked Witch of the West for their bigoted elements, than it is to simply pretend those things aren't there at all. SVENGALI provides us with a similar opportunity to confront antisocial phobias, with its troublingly caricaturesque villain and the unavoidable fascination one feels when his hypnotic gaze projects itself at us from the screen. Recommended viewing.

#blogtober #2023 #horror #thriller #slasher #adaptation #racism #thirteen women #george archainbaud #tiffany thayer #myrna loy #svengali #trilby #george du maurier #archie mayo #john barrymore #marian marsh #pre-code #anton grot

18 notes · View notes

angelic-writer · 4 months

Text

Whumpcember Day 27 - Bleeding Out (Alt 1. Stabbed)

Trilby stared at the stump that was flashing in and out of the hell dimension. Finally, he found the source of the reality shift. If only he could find some way to stop it.

"Trilby!" A familiar voice rang out behind him. He whirled around to see a familiar red-headed girl.

"Siobhan? You were supposed to leave!"

"I couldn't, I just..." She hiccuped. "Abed... The professor... He's dead..."

"I know." His mind flashed back to the professor slumped over at the bar, a mannequin head replacing the one he lost. "He was killed by the shadows. Just like they will kill you if you don't get away from here."

"What is this place?" Siobhan asked.

Trilby looked to the stump. "This cave is the center of the reality shift. This stump is what's causing it all."

"How?"

"It is the vessel for the soul of the Tall Man."

They all looked to see who spoke. It was a familiar man wearing a grey anorak, looking at them with a strange expression. "The acolyte of Chzo."

"Lenkmann." Trilby said blankly. "Nice to see a friendly face."

"Amazing, isn't it? Of all the things Sir Roderick could have used to murder his son, he chose that idol . Placing the soul of John Defoe into the wood alongside Cabadath's. Infusing the poor boy with Chzo's magick, allowing him to come back infinitely more powerful than before."

Trilby narrowed his eyes. "Certainly pretty lucky."

"Lucky? Chzo had to wait two thousand years for that opportunity. The opportunity to blend magick and science in a single entity. The opportunity to create the Bridge."

"What are you talking about?"

Lenkmann strolled over to the other side of the cave, a small smile floating up on his face. "The Bridge between the realms. Over which Chzo will cross into our universe and purify mankind. Our order has waited two hundred years for the prophecy to be fulfilled."

Trilby was beginning to understand now. His weird behavior when he met Lenkmann at the hotel, the notes... "You're not with the Ministry of Occultism. Who are you?"

"Two hundred years ago, the prophet Jack Frehorn founded the Order of Blessed Agonies. Since then, we have grown and watched and waited. It was only in recent years that the events foretold in the Book of Chzo began to occur. It mentioned John Defoe. And it mentioned you."

"Me?!" Trilby asked in shock.

Siobhan was only looking at the unfolding events with growing confusion.

Lenkmann stepped forward. "You were the one prophesied to guide the Bridgekeeper to his destiny. But you didn't finish the job! All three aspects of John Defoe had to be destroyed in order to create the Bridge. Body, Mind and Soul. You only destroyed his body. His soul and mind remained."

The house... Jim and Simone...

"Had I known about this... I wouldn't even have done that."

"That will truly disappoint my superiors. They were quite adamant that I should try to persuade you to join our cause and fulfill your foretold duty..."

"Is that why you were helping me?"

"They thought if I guided you through your visions and showed you the appropriate passages from our holy books, you'd understand that the prophecy is real."

Trilby gave him a bewildered look. "You honestly believed I'd join some insane cult just because you handed me some leaflets?!"

Lenkmann put his hand on the older man's shoulder. "Personally? No."

He felt an explosion of ice cold agony. Looking down, he could see Lenkmann had plunged a knife into his gut. He heard the pitter-patter of his blood on the rocky floor. The pain, the surprise, and his exhaustion went together to create immediate unconsciousness. He could only hear Siobhan's screams as he blacked out.

He awoke to find himself splayed upon the stump, blood still slowly leaking from his wound. In his injured state, he couldn't move. His limbs refused to respond. He was as weak as a newborn. "L-Lenk... mann?"

"Oh good, you're awake. I was afraid you'd miss this." He had just finished tying up Siobhan who was struggling against her binds.

"What... are you doing?"

Lenkmann stood over him. "After your staggering ineptitude in Defoe Manor, the Order needed to nudge things along. We need a connection to Chzo to help administrate his coming. And today might be the only opportunity we have all year to summon the Tall Man."

"You're going to... bring that... THING... into our world?"

"With a standard ritual of Blessed Agonies and an offering. After he takes your life, he will be grateful to us. And then, he will guide us to our destiny."

"So why did you... stab me?! What if I'm already dead... by the time he gets here?"

"You won't be. Men like you, Trilby, die on their own terms. They won't let their lives slip away from one measly knife wound." He put a finger to his lips. "Hush now. Cabadath is coming."

Trilby's attempts to move only made things worse. He felt a stab of pain and something snapped behind his eyes, filling his vision with spots. This nutcase is going to sacrifice him to bring a tall demon from Hell over to the mortal world. All because they wanted a connection to Chzo.

"S-Siobhan... Are you there?" He tried to call out, ignoring the taste of metal on his tongue.

"She's here, but she can't answer you." Lenkmann simply answered.

"She has nothing to do with this, Lenkmann! Let her go!"

"On the contrary, it is important that all three of us be here. It is part of the ritual."

"What does this ritual entail? What are you going to do to me?"

"To you, I have done all I need. To bring Cabadath to us, we must tempt him with three Blessed Agonies. The Blessed Agonies of the Mind, the Body and Soul. I am well conditioned to act as the Mind. Your wound makes you the Body. The girl will have to suffice as the Soul."

Trilby could feel a sense of anger come over him. Siobhan doesn't deserve to be in this hellish position, to be sacrificed to some freak of nature. He wanted to move, but his limbs were still and unresponsive. He was losing blood steadily.

He could hear Lenkmann start to chant. "I call thee, Cabadath, to the wood that is your soul. I call thee from the north."

From the corner of his vision, he spotted the familiar idol of John Defoe by his feet, staring at him as if to mock him. I see. He had it all along...

"I call thee from the east."

The pain was replaced with an ice cold numbness that was spreading fast. The room was swimming before Trilby's eyes.

"I call thee from the south."

It was getting harder and harder for him to breathe. Air rattled him and out of his lungs like a buzzsaw.

"I call thee from the west."

Something flashed and he saw the Tall Man for a moment, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

"Reality flits from realm to realm, tormented, confused. End this madness that we might bring thee to us."

His vision was clouding up around the edges. It seemed like his stubborn will was the only thing keeping him alive.

"End it, Cabadath!"

His eyelids were fluttering.

"I present thee with three Blessed Agonies. Body, Mind and Soul."

it hurts

"I present thee with the Guide, failed in his duties, for thee to judge."

it hurts

"Come."

it hurts

"Come."

it hurts

He allowed himself to fall into darkness, slowly detaching himself from his body.

----

Siobhan could only watch as a tall, humanoid figure with no face wearing a long, black coat appeared in the room. Lenkmann was looking at it, appearing to have been satisfied. Stepping closer to the fallen body of her comrade, it examined him. Turning its head to Lenkmann, it spoke in an indecipherable language. He froze.

"What? He's dead? No, that's not possible!"

It continued to stare at him, its face unreadable.

"Master?"

It raised its claws.

"Master, please no! NO! NOAAAAAAGGH!!"

It plunged its claws into his chest, blood spilling out.In a flash, they disappeared.

Siobhan sat in shock. What the hell just happened? She saw Trilby lying on the stump and her mind snapped back to reality. She wriggled herself out of the shoddy rope Lenkmann tied her with and crawled over to him. "Trilby...?" She shook him.

He was unresponsive. His eyes were closed like he had fallen into a deep sleep. His stomach had a deep wound that was leaking blood at an alarming rate. Feeling herself start to shake, she pressed her fingers to his neck. She couldn't feel the beating of his pulse.

"Oh... Oh god... Oh no no no no..." Taking off his tie, she tied it around his waist, hoping that it was enough to staunch the flow. Then, she put her hands on his chest and started pumping. I think this is how you do it. God, Abed, if you were there, you would calm me down.

His body shook like a rag doll underneath her. She didn't understand. One minute, he was awake and talking and the next, he's dying. She felt useless. She wanted to help him, but he only responded by kicking her in the face. She was angry at him for doing that, but if he starts breathing again, she'll forgive him.

As she continued, she started to lose hope. How much blood did he lose? How long was he not breathing for? Will he ever wake up? "Trilby... Please... Please wake up..."

As if he could hear her, Trilby took a shaky breath.

"Trilby?!" She tapped his cheek, trying to get a response out of him. His eyelids fluttered, he coughed... and his eyes opened.

"Trilby! Say something!"

"W-What...?"

"You're alive! Oh god, I didn't even know if I was doing it properly... But I did it! You're alive!"

Trilby weakly looked around. "W-Where's Lenkmann...?"

Her face turned pale. "That... tall man took him. he did something... horrible to him. And then, he took him away."

"Where's... Where's my waistcoat?" Trilby tried to sit up, but Siobhan held him back.

"Shh, don't talk. I'm gonna get you an ambulance. Let's get you back upstairs."

"Wait..." He pointed a shaky finger to the idol. "See that wooden idol?"

"Yes?"

"Bring it with us. Wrap it tightly in clothes and bring it with us. Don't let it touch your bare skin."

"O-Okay."

#chzo mythos #trilby #siobhan o'malley #whumpcember2023 #whumpcember2023 day 27 #Finally a Chzo Mythos post!!!#It's been 84 years!!!#trilby's notes

10 notes · View notes

compressednerve · 4 months

Text

Art of Theft Trilby vs The Consuming Shadow Trilby ...... I feel so fucking insane.

#im literally taking poison damage right now #IT'S BEEN FIFTEEN GOD DAMN YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#trilby #chzo mythos #the consuming shadow #art of theft #pawn of prophecy c:<#he goes from such a small fry little guy to The Most Stressed Out Dude Who Has To Fix Everythingggggguuuuhhhhhh

17 notes · View notes

atundratoadstool · 2 years

Note

Do you know of any other similar gothic stories from the same time period as Dracula?

If you want a much wilder and much more racist ride than Dracula, it was published the same year as Richard Marsh's The Beetle, a gothic novel which also features a very sad initial narrator, a hyper-competent heroine, and a marauding foreign menace. It should be noted, however, that the very rough equivalent of Jack Seward is just a blatant supervillain who nobody notices is a supervillain. Instead of "She doesn't love me so I did some questionable psychiatry :'(", he's "She doesn't love me so I'll turn my thoughts to my unstoppable death gas >:("

You should also definitely check out Carmilla (1872) if you haven't, as it's an earlier vampire story that obviously had some influence on Dracula. While I cannot, in good faith, recommend Trilby without warning that it is overtly and unapologetically antisemitic to the point of being difficult to read (I would not read it again were I not doing scholarship that touches on it), it definitely has a mesmeric villain who may have influenced Dracula and it might be of interest to people interested in tracing mesmeric fiction or looking to literary precursors of The Phantom of the Opera.

Beyond that, I greatly enjoy almost all the hit fiction of the late Victorian gothic revival (Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Grey, The Great God Pan), but I'm not sure there's anything off the top of my head that strikes me as being particularly Draculaesque in particular beyond what's listed above. If you're interested in tipping into the 20th century, Stoker would later go on to write a mummy novel (The Jewel of Seven Stars) that uses a lot of the same tropes and character types as Dracula (the hero, like many of the heroes of his novels, is a hot young lawyer). Jewel isn't nearly as good as Dracula though in my opinion.

#Bram Stoker #Dracula #Dracula Daily #J. S. LeFanu #Carmilla #Richard Marsh #The Beetle #George Du Maurier #Trilby #The Jewel of Seven Stars #Dracula Daily asks

211 notes · View notes