I wish people were aware that there is a plethora of vampire fiction before Dracula existed. In fact most of it was in French, several in German. The ones in English like Carmilla were exceptions. French and German were languages Stoker could read well, so they would be worth analyzing on their own right, but also as potential influences of Dracula.
You have La Famille du Vourdalak with deceptive monstrous non-Byronic vampires, you have La Vampire Ou La Vierge De Hongrie (The Virgin Vampire) the first vampire who travels to a foreign country to pray on locals while on a personal mission, La Baronne Trépassée (The Vampire And The Devil's Son) with a seductive vampire noblewoman menacing a male captive her husband caught, La Dame Pâle (The Pale Lady, from One Thousand And One Ghosts) with a Carpathian vampire in a medieval castle who abducts a maiden to make her his bride while Lenore is referenced during it, just like in Dracula... Just to name a few of the dozens of them.
The problem is that several of those are available in English by purchasing them, unlike Clarimonde. Anyways, everyone start reading more 19th century vampire literature now!!!!!!
📝👀
"The Family of the Vourdalak" is already one of my favorites, but I've never perused the others! Thank you for passing these on :3
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Been working on the visuals for the chapters! I'm currently writing chapter 18, but I want almost every chapter to have a visual attached.
I already have like 7 of the visuals finished, but I wanted to showcase a few of them. And I just finished that visual of the Goddess of Fear last night and I just. Kinda had to show her off lol
I also want to clarify this novel is ABSOLUTELY 17+, horror fantasy, for gore and violence. I figure the more visceral chapters will be linked elsewhere to read, since I don't want anyone younger to stumble on those ones.
Since the novel is a blend of medieval fantasy, and desert terrain, I looked back at the artwork of plague doctors specifically from the 1300s. The main character being a 'vulture' aka, this worlds version of a plague doctor, I wanted to try and emulate the styles of the time period if I could. Or perhaps, if I couldn't emulate the period entirely, I wanted to play with ideas based from it.
This image was the primary inspiration for the visuals of the story for sure.
I suspect I have about 5 or so chapters to go- maybe even downward to like 3-4, depending on how the characters choose to behave in these next few scenes.
Being the last part of the book, and especially with whats happening, this is gonna be a rough one to finish, but I think it's worth it.
After that I figured I'd post it all publicly online, a chapter or two every week, and hopefully do a print run? You know how much I love doing those.
I realized too that the entire novel has been worked on within only 4 and a half months. Not gonna lie. Its SO nice getting through a story this quickly, I just.
Fucking love writing novels so much. This will be the first, but wont be the last.
Momento Dracula; Or, His Ass Is Not Lasting An Entire Annum
The year is don't worry about it. Dracula has just successfully crowned himself the new King of England, a move which can surely only go well for him. He sends out a call to the vampires of Europe, inviting them to join his new government. Again, I see no possible way this could go wrong.
(In case it wasn't clear, this is a sort of riff on Anno Dracula)
This is only the first chapter; more will be posted either via reblog or on ao3, depending on if I ever work up the spoons to properly tag this on ao3.
Wordcount: 3.7k
Content warnings: Referenced major character death, mind control, referenced/implied past and future violence/anthropophagy (but if you're clicking read more on this Dracula Bad Ending fic you were probably prepared for all of that)
They came from every corner of Europe. From crumbling castles on windswept mountaintops, from ancient estates long fallen into ruin, from mountain and forest and moor they came, nightmares given form, shadows given substance. Some greeted each other with respectful nods, but most slipped into the defiled House of Lords without a word, claiming whatever shadowy corner they could find. With the room redecorated to Dracula’s tastes, there were ample shadows to go around.
Arthur Holmwood stood stiffly at his new master’s side, waving forced greetings at each guest as they filed in one by one. His mind railed against the bars of its prison to no avail, and he knew it was fruitless; if Jonathan and Mina could not defy Dracula’s will, how could he?
Go and introduce yourself to the guests, my pet, purred a low voice in his brain. He felt Dracula’s hold on his limbs go slack. Be my eyes and ears. See what you can learn.
Arthur’s legs began to carry him across the room. It was a relief to be out of Dracula’s presence, but he dreaded the company of the other fiends who had been summoned here, all as yet unknown to him. He passed the long dining tables that had been set up in the center of the room, each bearing the unconscious forms of men, six in all. Dracula, taking no chances, had had them chained to the tables. Arthur did not look at the men. He knew he would recognize at least a couple of the faces there, and did not want to think about the fate which awaited them.
Dark stains painted the carpet, the furniture, and even the walls of the chamber, signs of the recent slaughter that had taken place. Dracula’s conquest of the English government had been bloody and vicious; when the House of Lords had refused to bow to him, he had made a brutal example of them. Now, half a dozen of their survivors made up tonight’s menu.
A raven-haired girl leaned over one of the velvet ropes sectioning off the banquet table, gazing hungrily at the stupefied men. She looked to be Lucy’s age at the oldest—Arthur’s heart ached at the very thought—with rosy cheeks and bright eyes, a far cry from the pale, ashen countenances worn by most of the guests. An older woman rose from her seat, taking the girl by the arm and pulling her back. She was dressed like a widow in deep mourning, her face obscured by a dark veil.
“Not yet, child,” she scolded the girl, who sighed and collapsed melodramatically onto the nearest seat.
Arthur found his legs carrying him towards the pair. “Welcome,” he said to them, “it’s an honor to have you with us tonight.”
The older woman looked up at him, and he made out the eerie glint of her eyes beneath the veil.
“It is an honor to be here,” she said slowly. Her gaze seemed to be boring right into his flesh. “Give your master my regards. This is...a momentous occasion for us all.”
The girl was scrutinizing him now, with something like sadness in her eyes, but she said nothing. Arthur, finding their twin stares unnerving, hastily excused himself and continued his circuit of the room. His legs locked up in front of a man who had monopolized one of the long benches, sprawling across it in a leisurely fashion and shooting contemptuous glares at anyone who ventured too close. He trained one on Arthur now, and it made the stares of the two women seem friendly and welcoming by comparison.
“Run along, pup,” he sneered. “I have no words for you or your master.”
Arthur regained control of his limbs several seconds later than he would have liked, and hurried away from the man. He nearly collided with a couple who were proceeding, arm and arm, between the rows of seats, pointing and laughing at the other guests as they went.
“Watch where you’re going!” snarled the lady of the pair. The two of them looked as if they had not changed their clothes in nearly a century; what must have been fine dress at the start of the century was now faded and worn threadbare. Their hair was wind-swept, and the woman’s hung free and loose around her shoulders, elf-locked and wild.
The man smirked to his companion and muttered something that sounded like, “Edgar.” She burst into a wild peal of laughter.
Arthur stammered out a hasty apology and introduction. The man sneered at him, but held out one dark-skinned hand for him to shake.
“Heathcliff,” he said. “And my lady, Catherine Earnshaw.”
“Linton,” she corrected him.
“Nonsense,” said Heathcliff. Catherine rolled her eyes at him.
“Have it your way, then,” she huffed.
“You’ll be fighting for your title soon, eh, Lord Godalming?” said Heathcliff. “Better keep well out of our way. Cathy and I are moving up in the world tonight.”
And with another laugh, the pair moved on.
Now Arthur’s treacherous legs brought him face to face with a tall man garbed in the uniform of a Russian officer. His eyes, yellow and slitted like a cat’s, peered at Arthur with a look more predatory than any he had yet seen.
“Jó estét, Drakula gróf. Köszönthetne engem személyesen is, tudja, ahelyett, hogy a bábját küldené.”
“S-sorry, sir, I’m afraid I don’t speak...whatever that is,” Arthur stammered.
“Don’t worry,” the man replied, “I was not talking to you.”
He blinked, and Arthur bit back a gasp of surprise as his slit pupils seemed to double. He raised a glass of wine to his lips (Arthur could have sworn his hands were empty) and downed it in a single draught.
“Are you still here?” said the man. “Run along, I’m sure you have plenty more guests to spy on.”
Arthur wondered, bitterly, what the point was of Dracula sending him around the room like this when every vampire seemed to instantly see what he was up to.
Suddenly, a hand gripped the back of his neck and tugged, and the world seemed to freeze. Guests froze in their tracks, and the soft noises of the gathering fell away entirely as the dull orange glow of the few candles that lit the room turned to an icy silver that picked out the edges of every shape. Arthur realized, abruptly, that he was staring at the back of his own head. The person holding him spun him around.
He looked, as far as Arthur could tell, like some sort of African prince. His turban and fine clothes, dyed in rich and colorful hues, stood out all the more in the strange and shadowy space Arthur now found himself in.
“Look at you, all strung up like a fly in a spider’s web.”
And Arthur saw that, indeed, fine silvery lines wound about his limbs. He turned, and saw that they stretched back to the frozen figure of Dracula…
...and that some sort of nearly-human shape hovered in the air over Dracula’s head, reaching spindly limbs down to grasp at him. It was frozen like all the rest, but as Arthur watched, it slowly turned its head to look at him.
“Don’t look at that thing,” said the black man quickly. “Don’t call its attention. Better it play its games with your master than with any of us.”
“What is it?” Arthur whispered.
The man grinned at him. “A guest,” he said. “When you send out a call like Dracula did, you had better be prepared for all manner of things to answer it. There’s far stranger than vampires that lurk in the dark corners of the earth.”
“Who are you?” Arthur asked.
“Call me Segun,” said the man. From the folds of his silk jacket he withdrew a curved dagger and cut the threads that circled Arthur’s limbs. He then took out a little doll made of straw and carefully tied the end of each thread around the limbs of the doll.
“That ought to buy you a little breathing room, at least for tonight,” said Segun. “He can still see through your eyes, though, so don’t stray too far or he’ll catch on.”
“Can’t he see you doing this, then?” Arthur asked.
“No.” Segun grinned and pointed at the still form of Arthur’s own body, facing away from them. “Your eyes are over there.”
“Well...thank you, I suppose,” said Arthur, though his heart sank at the limits of his newfound freedom.
“Don’t look so glum,” said Segun. “Your master isn’t likely to live much longer. If none of us does in for him tonight, the nations of the world will do it tomorrow. Old Dracula’s days are numbered.”
And with one last smile, he gave Arthur a little shove, and he fell back into his own body. Color, movement, and noise returned to the room. Arthur whirled around, but Segun was gone. In his place was a veiled Arab woman, sizing Arthur up with a look that made him think of carving-knives. He hurried away, glancing as he did so back to where Dracula stood. The space above him was entirely empty.
The chamber afforded few places to hide. Arthur settled for loitering against one wall, in a space that was neither too occupied nor too bloodstained. His eyes darted frequently to the figure of Dracula, fearful that Segun’s meddling would be noticed.
“Now here is a face I do not recognize,” said a voice by Arthur’s elbow. He jumped, whirling around, and looked up into the face of the tallest man he’d ever seen. The man, who looked like he was halfway to becoming an Egyptian mummy, looked Arthur up and down with interest.
“You have the eyes of our host,” the man continued, “but you are certainly no Transylvanian. And you have the lost look of the newly turned. You must be a fellow Englishman.”
“A fellow Englishman!” Arthur echoed with a start. Well, Heathcliff and Catherine had had Northern accents, but this fellow sounded like a well-off Londoner. Did such creatures already lurk in the heart of London?
“Don’t look so surprised,” said the tall man. “We’ve been here for centuries. I myself was born and died under the reign of the third Edward, and old Lord Ruthven was already ancient even then.” He indicated the lounging man who had dismissed Arthur earlier.
Arthur’s mind reeled. The man who stood before him was over five hundred years old. Lord Ruthven was older still—perhaps old enough to remember when the Romans had been here.
“Ah, but do pardon me, I forget my manners,” said the tall man. He held out a hand for Arthur to shake. “Sir Francis Varney, at your service.”
“Arthur Holmwood, at yours,” said Arthur nervously. A moment later he remembered to add, “Viscount Godalming.” The title tasted like ash in his mouth.
Sir Francis Varney chuckled. “You might be the only legitimate English Lord in this room. Well, I suppose one of Ruthven’s titles might be legitimate, though I doubt he’s ever shown up for any matters of government before.”
Arthur nodded his head, a trifle resentfully, at the dinner tables. Varney gave them no more than a glance, his lip curling in distaste.
“Nothing to be done for them, I’m afraid. This is why I so dislike associating with my kin. I only came here tonight to gauge how far I must run to escape the impending catastrophe. From the state of this room, I suspect the Moon might not be far enough.”
“Catastrophe?” said Arthur, puzzled. “Is this not a positive development for...for vampires?”
“A positive development? Are you out of your mind? We have survived for thousands of years by keeping to the shadows, and now this madman wants to drag us all into the light of day, for the scrutiny of the whole world! Already other nations are preparing for war. There are rumors that the Vatican is declaring a new crusade. Our kind will be massacred, and it will be the weakest and most harmless among us who suffer the most.”
“How harmless can a vampire be?” asked Arthur. His mind turned to Lucy with a pang of guilt. Would Sir Francis have considered her “harmless”?
“I suppose it is a matter of perspective,” said Varney. “But do not think our kind are well represented by the fiends gathered here tonight. Most of us merely want to live—and a few of us simply cannot figure out how to die. Why, the last time I was in Germany, I met a pair who were scarcely more than boys. The one had died in a fishing accident, and came back that he might not be parted from his friend. In the coming storm, they will be some of the first to fall.”
“I had never thought of it like that before,” said Arthur. “Dracula spoke of his conquest as a great stride for vampirekind. He said he was going to turn England into a haven for vampires.” He shuddered at the thought.
“A haven!” Varney gave a bitter laugh. “He has never come face to face with an English mob before, I am sure of it. And even if he can subjugate the people within our borders, he will never hold off the world outside. If that old warlord lives through the end of tonight, he will bring us all to ruin.”
“Do you think it very likely that he will die tonight?”
Varney gestured around the room.
“This room is full of people who want him dead, many of them ancient and powerful beyond mortal imagining. We are a proud race; no vampire who has made a name for him or herself over the centuries would bow their head before another. I have pointed out Lord Ruthven to you already; he is old as the Devil and twice as wicked, and he will not abide having his way of life interrupted. That woman sitting there is the Countess Karnstein; the preternatural powers of her line are nearly as legendary as their bloodthirst. And the gentleman in the Russian officer’s uniform can only be Prince Liatoukine. He is as old as the tsardom, and some say he is Ivan the Terrible himself. As for the stories about him…” He broke off with a shudder.
“Giving introductions, Francis? I think there is someone you are forgetting.”
A woman had appeared on the other side of Varney, looking as if she had stepped off the pages of a Parisian fashion magazine. She was tall, elegant, and fair-haired, and an expression of mischief played about her handsome features.
“Clarimonde,” said Varney. “Are you also plotting to kill Dracula?”
Clarimonde gave a little musical laugh. “Are you?”
“Only naming all the vipers he has let into his den, ere they begin to bite.”
Clarimonde’s lip curled, her expression turning sour. “I hope they devour him and leave no trace. I cannot imagine what he is thinking, to reveal our kind to the world in such a fashion. Already there is unrest in the streets of Paris; I have had to shutter the Concini Palace for my own safety. The times will be long and lean for those of us who manage to weather the storm.”
“To say nothing of England,” muttered Arthur.
Clarimonde’s demeanor brightened in an instant, as if she had just spotted an adorable puppy in a shop window. “And who is this, then?” she said.
“Clarimonde, the Lord Godalming,” said Varney. “And this is the Lady Clarimonde, the most prestigious courtesan in all of Paris.”
Clarimonde curtseyed to him, while Arthur tried to conceal his surprise. She laughed at his flustered state.
“I like this one, Francis. When we make our flight from Europe, we ought to take him with us.”
“Flight from Europe!” cried Arthur. “Is the situation so hopeless, then?”
“Dracula has revealed us to the world. That action cannot be undone, even if he is killed,” said Clarimonde, her voice once more growing solemn.
“At the very least, it would be prudent to lie low for a century or two,” said Varney. “Somewhere remote. Australia, maybe, or Japan.”
“You and I would stick out like sore thumbs in Japan and you know it, Francis,” said Clarimonde. “America is our best bet. If we can make it there undetected, we can vanish into its frontier and never be seen again.”
Arthur’s head spun. His world had been turned so far on its head tonight that he was sure it had made multiple revolutions. Once, his world had been a simple battle of good and evil: him and his friends versus Dracula. But evil had triumphed, and now was showing sides of itself that were far more complicated than Arthur had ever imagined. Once more he felt a horrible pang of guilt over Lucy’s death. What if, rather than putting down a monster, he really had murdered his own beloved? What if there had been a chance for her after all? He would have fed her from his own veins if it came to it.
And what for him? If the predictions of the vampires he’d met tonight came true—if Dracula died, and he found himself masterless once more—was there any hope for him? Maybe there was. He could run away, find Jack, and they could go traveling together, just like old times.
Almost just like old times. Tears sprung to his eyes as he thought of Quincey, now dead at Dracula’s hands, along with Professor van Helsing. Their little band had been shattered under the monster’s fist, and would now never be whole again.
Snatches of conversation drifted into his ears. Clarimonde and Varney were still talking, though they had moved on from the topic of escape.
“I see a certain Hungarian is absent,” said Clarimonde. Varney chuckled in response.
“As if Lorand would dare to show his face around the real Dracula. I suspect he fled at the first inkling of the news.”
“Excuse us.”
A woman had approached them, tall and stately, with silver hair and a foreign costume that Arthur thought might be Turkish. With her was, to Arthur’s great surprise, a living man. He had one hand fixed on the hilt of a sword sheathed at his belt, and his eyes darted vigilantly about the room. The woman spoke something in a foreign language, and the man relayed her words in thickly accented English:
“It is unwise to speak so freely here.”
The woman turned her attention fully to Arthur. Her eyes glowed like candle-flames. She spoke once again, and though her words were in the same strange language as before, this time Arthur could understand every word.
“What I speak shall not reach your master’s ears.”
Dread rose in Arthur’s gut and crept into his throat. Had Dracula been listening through him this whole time? Had he heard all that Varney and Clarimonde had said? He glanced at the pair of them, who were now staring at him with alarm.
“You don’t plan to tell him anything, do you?” said Varney nervously.
“He has no choice,” said the silver-haired woman. “The Hungarian can see through his eyes, and hear through his ears.”
Varney let out a string of colorful swears. “Damn these Carpathian vampires and their devilry!” he muttered.
The silver-haired woman smiled at him. “We can be rather cunning, it is true.”
Varney looked up, horrified. “My sincerest apologies, ma’am,” he said. “I should have realized you were—”
She waved him off with a gesture. “No offense taken. May I know your names, sirs and madam?”
Varney hastily introduced the three of them. The woman beamed at them.
“I am Princess Smerande Brankovan,” she said. “I shall instruct my son to spare you, when the time comes.”
And with that, she was gone, moving away to speak with the Arab woman.
“Brankovan!” Varney muttered. “I had no idea there were any left.”
Clarimonde tugged at his arm, shooting a wary glance in Arthur’s direction. Before they could depart, though, a pair of men approached them. Their attire was fine, but ill-fitting, and Arthur thought he saw a drop of blood on one of their collars.
“Excuse us,” said one of the men in a thick German accent. “Are you Francis Varney?”
“Yes?” said Varney warily. He looked as if he were getting ready to run.
The two men’s faces broke into matching grins. “I told you, Sigismund!” said the other man. “Herr Varney, it’s an honor.”
“Is it?” said Varney faintly.
“One of the oldest vampires around, I’d say it is!” said Sigismund. “They say you’re the second oldest vampire in all of England. Is that true?”
Varney was staring over their heads, his expression frozen in shock. “Third-oldest,” he murmured. Arthur followed his gaze, and saw another woman entering the room.
She looked like a marble statue that had wandered out of some medieval cathedral. Her skin was so pale it was almost blue, paler even than the white of her dress, which was cut in the style of the High Middle Ages. Her flaxen hair glittered with jewels. She moved almost as if floating, her face fixed in an expression of dreamy melancholy. Arthur found himself reminded of the Lady of Shalott.
“Who is that?” said Sigismund.
“That, if I am not mistaken, is the lady Geraldine,” said Varney in a hushed tone. “She has been presumed dead for centuries. Why she would choose to reveal herself now, I cannot fathom...”
Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur saw Lord Ruthven sit bolt upright, his jaw hanging open. Several others seemed to recognize Geraldine as well, and a chorus of whispers went up around the room. She paid them all no heed, crossing the room with all the implacable coldness of a glacier and taking a seat on one of the benches near the center. Her pale figure seemed nearly luminous in the dim light.
Dracula rose and spread his arms wide to greet the assembly.
“Brothers and sisters, welcome!” he said. “It is an honor to receive you all here. Tonight is a momentous occasion; tonight, we shall become the architects of a new era of shadows! But first…”
With a sweeping gesture, he indicated the tables on which the six unconscious Lords lay.
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The cast of Bloodspell' was always intended to be diverse, and racism through the ages was something I wanted to set up for consideration. That's the thing about a vampire story: it lets you take the long view on things, by having a character experience a social phenomenon from whenever you want up to whenever it's set.
Dominique Bien-Aimé, top right, Haitian affranchi until she went on the run, has moved through a strange middle ground - a slave, then a freeman's wife, then part of the new aristocracy post-revolution, and then a refugee.
Sylvester, bottom left, has been a low-grade part of the colonising machine, and a disenfranchised pirate, but always Spanish, always European - until he embedded himself in America, and minority status accumulated around him without his understanding. He's always been down and out, but now he's differently down and out.
Laetitia, middle, viewpoint character, is Algerian, and an early draft in which their story was set in the UK still holds up for describing her feelings about that. In that draft, she's complaining about a customer at her all-night petrol station job who called her "Paki" - as she put it, these haters can't even get the right continent. Laetitia's the youngest character, the postmodern postcolonial girl, and part of her journey into vampirism involves where she's from and what happened there, particularly when she meets Clarimonde (bottom right) - nineteenth-century French-North-African colonist.
(Dorian, top left, is white as the inside of an icebox. Their thing is intersectionality: being queer, in an interracial reletionship, and monogamous, dating someone who's very poly.)
I wasn't quite sure how to get all of this into the flavour text of an experimental RPG booklet, but - maybe one day.
' The indie vampire "roleplaying experience" I made a few years back, based on Epidiah Ravachol's Wolfspell and illustrated by @sluggybunny. You can still buy it, and one day I will put out the Extended Edition. One day.
Before you go: today is a fundraiser. Sickle Cell Awareness. We all need healthy blood.
Carmilla (1872) is basically what you'd get by combining Christabel (1816) and La Morte Amoureuse (1836)
I mean the Christabel part is obvious and I've talked about it before (altho surprisingly many people still don't seem to know about it, but it's mainly because not that many people know about Christabel, I think, and it's not counted as vampire fiction because it technically never mentions vampires) but what I realised is that La Morte Amoureuse (AKA Clarimonde) basically has the same plot structure as Carmilla, except for two major differences:
1: The object of seduction is a freshly ordained Catholic priest (and a man, obviously)
2: The vampire is depicted as a sympathetic but tragic character rather than as the villain, and the narrator actually genuinely regrets losing her
Like yeah, of course it says a lot that when it's a straight romance, the seductive female vampire is allowed to be sympathetic, but at the same time... look, I know this sounds unhinged, but La Morte Amoureuse is a little bit queer, right? Like I'm not saying it's necessarily literally intended that way (although maybe in some sense it is since this is Gautier after all), but the narrative mirrors a common queer narrative
Like this is how a lot of the tragic gay love stories go, more or less
The innocent young character who is seduced by someone who's a social outcast because of their sexuality, he loves her but his community condemns her and persecutes her and he ends up giving into their pressure and abandoning her, only to regret it for the rest of his life, haunted by her memory forever.
That's also what happens to Laura btw, although Laura is more ambiguous and has even less agency in the vampire hunt than Romuald does.
Christabel (the character) is a good counter example to both because her whole thing is that she isn't seduced, she remains a "pure" victim to her female attacker, and she seems to be the only one who realises that Geraldine is evil (if I remember correctly it's been a while since I read it; the last time I reread it was when I talked about it here in this blog actually) because everybody else is hypnotised or whatever
Romuald would be fully on board with Clarimonde, if not for the fact that the other priests (particularly Father Sérapion obviously) are telling him that she's a demon and he's betraying his vows
Laura is.... somewhere in the middle? She's very obviously drawn to Carmilla, but she's also not entirely conscious of the fact, and her feelings towards Carmilla are very mixed
idk, I just think it's very interesting. And it feels like a revelation because I think La Morte Amoureuse IS the story that I kinda wish Carmilla was (except for the unfortunate fact that the main character is a man lol)
hilda furacão x clarimonde (la morte amoureuse) parallelism
After stirring society by leaving her groom at the alter and going directly to a prostitution house, a young model becomes the city's most famous harlot, known as "Hilda the Hurricane", in the 50's Brazil. She could do fine if it wasn't for Malthus, a young novice said to be a saint, for whom she falls in love. However, the boy is kept under the strict, severe doctrine of Father Nelson, a conservative priest intolerant even to every minor sin. – Hilda Furacão (1998)
Romuald, a devout young man who is being ordained when he sees a woman, Clarimonde, and falls immediately in love with her. Later, he finds out that she is a notorious courtesan and a vampire. He's conflicted between his devotion to his lover and the advices of the Abbé who raised him to get rid of her. – Clarimonde or La Morte Amoureuse (1836), by Théophile Gautier