#vlad and louisa

[thechanelmuse]

My Book Review

Morgan Jerkins was trending during the release of Kendrick Lamar's Drake hit diss record, "Not Like Us," after culture vulture DJ Vlad attempted to get her fired from her teaching position at Princeton University for telling him to mind his mf business. Black folks digitally hemmed him up for his spiteful retaliation, and he began backpedaling only after he discovered Morgan is the niece of legendary producer Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins.

Seeing her name trend quickly made me recall her memoir, Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots. It was one of my favorite reads of 2022. I headed to this site to reblog my review. Lo and behold I never posted one on here 🙃. So here we are.

From the moment I read the title, I knew this book would feel familiar, taking me back to the my early days of deep curiosity, personal discovery, and documented confirmation while uncovering the long paper trail of my ancestry and land. (For info on lineage tracing, refer to my post here.) 

Morgan Jerkins' familial journey through Georgia, Lowcountry South Carolina, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and California made me think of my own as a granddaughter of grandparents who headed to New York during the Great Migration by way of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina extending to Louisa County, Virginia and Boley, Oklahoma. Morgan's memoir, which is divided into four sections, is engrossing, detailed, and reels you into a seat next to her on her journey.

Here's the book's blurb:

Between 1916 and 1970, six million Black Americans left their rural homes in the South for jobs in cities in the North, West, and Midwest in a movement known as The Great Migration. But while this event transformed the complexion of America and provided black people with new economic opportunities, it also disconnected them from their roots, their land, and their sense of identity, argues Morgan Jerkins. In this fascinating and deeply personal exploration, she recreates her ancestors’ journeys across America, following the migratory routes they took. Following in their footsteps, Jerkins seeks to understand not only her own past, but the lineage of an entire group of people who have been displaced, disenfranchised, and disrespected throughout our history. Through interviews, photos, and hundreds of pages of transcription, Jerkins braids the loose threads of her family’s oral histories, which she was able to trace back 300 years, with the insights and recollections of Black people she met along the way—the tissue of Black myths, customs, and blood that connect the bones of American history.

Genealogy is a never-ending process of search and discovery for Black Americans that's met with hidden documents and some areas paper genocide, due to destroyed documents, misclassification, and several stages of racial/ethnic reclassification for our ethnic group implemented by the US government since the 1790 census. I'm pretty sure even after concluding this book Morgan continued her search, working back through her long lines. It's layered like an onion. I've been working on mine for almost two decades reaching the 1600s for a few. It gives you a sense of awakening that's an everyday feeling. It'll never dissipate, especially being able to pull black the veil and unearth the identity of ancestors whose names haven't been said for hundreds of years.

[vampiresuns]

The Life We Deserve | Vlad Radošević x Louisa De Silva

Prompt 34.- Kisses that start on their fingers and run up their arm, eventually ending on their lips, requested by @into-the-daniverse​ my beloved. We love Nana’s parents in this house. This is set in Dani’s D’Oria Vineyard.

Kissing prompts - Open

The sun set over the vines in the D’Oria vineyard as Louisa and Vlad walked back to the main Estate. The breeze wasn’t strong enough to blow their hair into their faces, but it was cool enough for them to use it as an excuse to walk closer together. Not that they needed it, but it was nice to have it still. They had offered themselves to drop Valeriy off to the Estate in Venterre, as Jamil’s family had invited him over again. 

When they arrived, the D’Orias offered them to stay a couple of days as well. An offer was tempting to pass as they both could afford it. Valeriy was only a little mortified, as any little brother would be, but as much as Vlad enjoyed tormenting him sometimes, he was much more preoccupied with Louisa. 

“You make it hard to walk if you’re towering over me and sticking to my back,” she said with a giggle. Despite her claim, she didn’t do anything to usher Vlad away or tried to move away herself. Instead she put her arms over Vlad’s own as he threw them across her. 

“I’m protecting you from the wind, my love, what else.”

As much as she appreciated her partner’s warmth against her back, she called bullshit with her musical, pearly laugh. Vlad found himself laughing with her, only he crouched and laughed against her hair. In this double-limbed amalgamation, they would take twice as long to walk to the Estate.

Neither of them seemed to care. They bickered instead, like they did, with no real animosity, love carrying over in their voices as the wind danced between them, rustling the vines as they took a shortcut. In the loneliness of the vineyard as all the workers had gone away, their work song having ended, the openness of the land seemed private. Like always, like ever, Vlad and Louisa found themself lost in each other. 

Still walking behind her, Vlad took her arm, kissing her fingertips first. He delivered a kiss to each five of them, then did the same where her fingers met her palm. He kissed her there too, and repeated the same kisses, in the same order, on the back of her hand. Vlad kissed the inside of her wrist, then the outside, and continued mirroring each of his kisses. 

“Your skin looks like melted fire root at this hour.”

“And your beard tickles.”

Vlad kissed the crook of her elbow. “You’re killing romance, Louisa.”

“I know the lengths you go for Romance, I don’t think this qualifies.”

Vlad frowned. Dropping her arm to take her hand in his, he spun her around so they could face each other. Louisa was smirking at him with her eyes squinted in a cat-and-cream attitude. He sighed, now aware he had fallen for it, yet it was hard not to fall for it; ever since he met her, Vlad has been wrapped around Louisa’s little finger. He would remain the same way until the day they both died and rotted together for the rest of eternity, like a marriage, in life and in death.

They levelled each other a look until Vlad dropped to his knees, not caring if his pants would get dirty. He kissed Louisa’s sternum like that, his hands on her waist, then took both of her hands and began kissing them like had been doing a few moments ago. First her fingers, then her hands, then her wrists, all the way up each arm. He kissed each shoulder and each side of her neck, until he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer and kissing her lips.

Louisa felt herself both melt and ignite with each kiss. So by the time Vlad was on her lips, she kissed him back as if her life depended on it. Maybe at one moment her life had depended on it, this being a reminder. Two wandering souls meeting at last, like lovers which came to die in each other’s arms. She kissed him fiercely, her nails scratching against his scalp as her fingers threaded over his silky, gloss-glistening black hair. 

Vlad spoke against her lips: “I love you, Louisa De Silva, love and saviour of my life—” 

Against his lips, refusing to let go of them, Louisa replied: “And I love you, and I love you, and I love you, and I love you.”

They would be late for dinner, but the D’Oria would forgive two people in love.

[vampiresuns]

The post said one but I am greedy so 🍓 for Vlad and Louisa?

[ Give me a: 🍓 and one of my OCs, and i’ll tell you some random facts about said OC ]

Anything for you, Dani

My running joke is Louisa's thing are molotovs. Vlad thought she was also an alchemist at first because of this. He right out forgot normal chemistry is a thing. Yes, he works in science, what about it?

Louisa's parents almost didn't go to their wedding because Louisa gave them an ultimatum. They eventually accepted her terms.

Louisa's wedding dress was red and made of velvet.

They got married after the Balkovian Civil War was finished, when Anatole was around 4 or 5. Valeriy cried, but he denies it.

Both of them are tied to The Burning Lady, as both of their personal histories are about inevitable change.

Vlad speaks common and Vesuvian with an accent. He spoke Alzor/Nopali (same language different topoletic) before meeting her, but the way he spoke it changed after meeting Louisa.

Both of them break two different cycles of bad/toxic/abusive parenthood. Vlad doesn't let Matilda's venom and Krešmir's neglect go further than him, and Louisa doesn't let Aurelina's and Joaquín's upbringing to live on.

They're Anatole's biggest reference when it comes to romantic relationships.

They both would maim people for each other and their son.

[vampiresuns]

picrew credit

It’s Nana’s parents!!! [Insert Screaming Cat meme] Louisa is on the right, and Vlad on the left. Here’s a short bio and some fun facts under the cut:

🫀 Louisa De Silva 🫀

Name: Louisa Aureliana De Silva Lascal.

Meaning of the name: ‘Louisa’ means famous battle, ‘Aureliana’ means golden, gilded. She is named after her paternal grandmother (Louisa) and her mother (Aureliana).

Nicknames: Lulu, Lu, Lucha, Luchita (Lucha is the spanish diminutive for ‘Luisa’, it is, also a pun on ‘fight’, which in spanish is also “lucha”).

Family: Joaquín De Silva (father), Aureliana Lascal (Mother), Paris De Silva (younger sister, owns the Moonstone and Jasmine, the magic shop), Alma De Silva (younger sister), Aelius Anatole (son).

Place of birth: City of Altazor, Altazor, Antiqulla region (the westernmost end of the Bulan range)

Favourite Food: Pollo arvejado, with a side of rice and fries.

Favourite Drink: Chicha, with a lot of ice.

Favourite Flower: Dandelions

Birthday: Feb 22nd

Age: Mid to late fifties

Height: 5′7

Zodiac: Aquarius sun, Sagittarius moon, Pisces rising.

Patron Arcana: The Lovers, and Knight of Wands

Upright: partnerships, duality, union, Reversed: loss of balance, one-sidedness, disharmony  

Upright: action, adventure, fearlessness, Reversed: anger, impulsiveness, recklessness     

Gender & Orientation: Cis woman, bisexual.

Languages spoken: Alzor, Venterrean, Vesuvian Common Tongue, Balkovian, some Zadithi.

Magic: N/A, though Vlad has taught her a significant amount of alchemy, she is no magician.

Familiar: N/A

Occupation: Doctor

🥀 Vlad Radošević 🥀

Name: Vladislav Elyseo Radošević-Cassano

Meaning of the name: ‘Vlad’ means rule, and ‘slav’ means glory. ‘Elyseo’ comes from Elysium and means blissful. His middle name is after Elysian Juriša-Radošević, his grandmother.

Nicknames: Vlad, Eli (used exclusively by Valerian), Moj Mali (used exclusively by Mircea, means ‘my little one’)

Family: Matilda Cassano (biological mother, deceased), Krešmir Radošević (biological father, deceased), Mircea Radoševic (uncle and adoptive father), Florentino Cassano (uncle and adoptive father), Valeriy ‘Valerius’ Radoševic-Cassano (younger brother), Aelius Anatole (son).

Place of birth: Vesuvia — he considers himself Balkovian, however.

Favourite Food: Seafood peka.

Favourite Drink: The Blood Of His Enemies Coffee and Grapefruit soda, not together.

Favourite Flower: Heather, Tansy.

Birthday: October 25th

Age: Late fifties to 60.

Height: 6′5

Zodiac: Scorpio sun, Aries moon, Virgo rising.

Patron Arcana: The Lovers and King of Cups

Upright: partnerships, duality, union, Reversed: loss of balance, one-sidedness, disharmony  

Upright: compassion, control, balance, Reversed: coldness, moodiness, bad advice

Gender & Orientation: Cis man, bisexual.

Languages spoken: Balkovian, Vesuvian Common Tongue, Venterrean, Zadithi, Alzor, Nevivic, Hesperian. His Prakran is abysmal, but he can read it.

Magic: Alchemy.

Familiar: Cyrila ‘Kiki’ and Cecilia ‘Keke’, two Somali cats. You tell them apart because Kiki looks like she’s never produced a single thought in her life, and Keke because she looks like she thinks you’re a humongous idiot.

Occupation: Alchemist, researcher. 

Fun facts 🫀🥀

Vlad’s rapier (all the R-C have one) is called ‘Beheaded Voivode’. He can set the blade aflame through Alchemy.

Louisa was exiled from Altazor at the age of 20, then lived in Venterre and Zadith, were she finished her medical studies. She moved to Balkovia for what was supposed to be a 6 months programme and scientific coven, but then she met Vlad and she ended up staying. She was exiled for opposing the dictatorial regime existing in the country.

While Louisa knows alchemy —which she learnt to become a better doctor— she doesn’t consider herself a magic user. She, however, can lend her life force to Vlad if the need arises. This creates a unity of energy between them which Vlad can channel into more powerful alchemy. This is because they’re beneficiaries of The Lovers.

Thematically both of them are about breaking bad parenting cycles. Vlad’s parents were notoriously irresponsible, neglectful and despondent parents, with Matilda being even cruel and purposefully hurtful. Louisa’s were extremely unaccommodating, strict to the point of traumatising and extremely hypocritical. Neither of them wished to have children until they realised they could do it together.

Vlad and Louisa did not marry until the war in Balkovia ended. It began months before Anatole was born, and it ended when he was around the ages of three/four.

Vlad calls Anatole ‘Lilu’ and ‘Lily’, it comes from little.

Vlad’s monocle is functional. It’s made of alchemy altered glass and it’s the design of a group of fellow alchemists and Vlad himself. He has very little vision on his left eye due to almost blowing up a room trying to stabilise fireroot. He was successful, making him the first person to ever stabilise the compound through a stable, long-lasting method. In the future, Anatole uses his father’s alchemic breakthrough to provide public lighting to the streets of Vesuvia. This method is currently used in Balkovia for public buildings, since it requires very little money to run.

Both of them are quick tempered, but understanding with people they love. It’s if they don’t like you the problem.

Originally, Vlad thought Louisa was an alchemist because she was describing the process of lightening up a Molotov.

Louisa knows how to use firearms. She learnt in Altazor, when she began getting involved in the fight and protest against the dictatorship in it. She still has good aim, but is out of practice and prefers it that way. She prefers to focus in ways to help those affected.

Her best medicine is ER medicine and field medicine. She is trained to be a war doctor and was a volunteer when time permitted in the Balkovian war.

While Louisa’s relationship with her parents eased with time, it is not good. She prefers to keep them at a distance.

Originally, Aureliana and Joaquín opposed Louisa marrying Vlad. They even tried to make her go back to Altazor or at least Venterre when the war began, but Louisa told them she would rather take out her own femur and eat it. She, clearly, harboured a lot of resentment for them, as they were key to her exile. 

Louisa’s favourite Radošević outside of her husband was Elysian. It was the first time she had a positive role model whose politics were the same as hers, and didn’t punish her for it.

Vlad’s biggest personality trait is ‘I Love My Wife, I Love My Son’.

Louisa was one of the few doctors to treat poor people in Vesuvia who caught the Plague.

Vlad can only draw objects (for invention designs) and buildings.

Both of them read a lot. It’s not weird to find them having reading dates.

Vlad has a series of Alchemic symbols tattooed around his wrist. He uses them as magic on-the-go.

When raising Anatole, they privileged communication, autonomy, self-expression and support more than anything else. Even through his argumentative teenager phase.

Speaking of their son, Anatole takes after Louisa in terms of politics, moral compass, and determination to see things done and to do what is right.

Vlad’s politics can be summarised in “If you’re told not to tamper with the shelf, and you do, and it falls on your head, then that was your own damn fault”.

Whenever Vlad began brooding because he was “sure” Louisa didn’t like him, his cats bit him.

Louisa housed and protected her sister Paris when she ran away from Altazor looking for her, upon discovering the real reason why her sister was sent away. Paris showed up out of the blue at her doorstep. Their other sister, Alma, helped her orchestrate the escape.

Louisa gets ready in 30 minutes, tops. Vlad in 2 hours.

While Valerius acts like he can’t stand her, he actually loves and respects Louisa a ridiculous amount.

Vlad is more emotional than Louisa but has more trouble showing it. He’s gotten better with time.

Vlad sails. Louisa always makes fun of him for being insanely competitive, but joke’s on her because she’s just as bad. As a true Aquarius sun and a Sag moon, she hates being told what to do. Whenever she gets like that, Vlad just looks at her with heart eyes.

Vlad is closest to Violeta Radošević, Milenko’s mother, out of his generation of cousins. 

Except for formal occasions, Louisa doesn’t wear shirts or dresses that go past her ankles. Prefers them to the calf, as she needs to be able to move freely (she moves a lot).

It’s very likely Louisa is the one with undiagnosed ADHD out of the two of them, hence where Nana gets it from. She’s never checked. 

Louisa loves dancing (so does Vlad but he hates admitting it), and she taught Anatole most of what she knew. As she grew up, she was constantly in dancing lessons, inspired by her own mother’s love of ballroom dancing. It’s one of the few things she’s fully grateful about.

This is more of a language fun fact than anything else, but Alzor and Nopali are extremely similar languages, and are almost virtually interchangeable.

They both stand by ‘one child is enough’ but end up adopting all of Anatole’s friends on accident, sometimes, even his partners a little, depending on the verse we are in.

Finally, out of the Arcana canon characters, Vlad would get along the best with Nadia, Salim and Aisha. Louisa would get along the best with Nadia, Julian and Portia.

[vampiresuns]

i know he’s my character, but now that i’ve posted about vlad and louisa, i love how you can tell nana’s such a great combination of his mother, his father and his uncle

[vampiresuns]

Day 2: Parents

Tackling @arcana-echoes��s day 2 prompt: Parents, and today we’re going master post first, and fics second. We only get Anatole today as well because I’m out of brain juice. Fics + Amparo and Milenko coming eventually.

As per usual, you can do a quick check on the who is who in the Radošević-Cassano family tree, here.

Anatole | Vlad Radošević & Louisa De Silva

Louisa is the eldest of three sisters, she ended up in the same corner of the world as Vesuvia because she was sent away to study medicine. Yes, sent away. She entered university at 17, and by 19 — the age she was sent away — her vocal opinions against the dictatorial government of her home country had become loud enough for potential harm to come upon her. She, however, wasn’t sent away solely for safety: she was also sent away because her loud political opinions weren’t seen as suitable.

She never looked back, and swore off never to live in her home country again as long as vestiges of the dictatorship existed. Still, she never lost contact, and eventually, one of her sisters, Paris, moved into Vesuvia for her own reasons.

Louisa studied in Prakra, Zadith and Venterre, eventually going to Balkovia for academic reasons with a group of doctors, where she met Vlad.

Vladislav ‘Vlad’ Radošević grew up to become an alchemist, who works in what is very close to biochemical engineering. They met because Louisa’s group got paired with the research collective Vlad founded, and during one conversation Vlad made an off hand comment which sounded rude to Louisa, and she chewed him up.

He blinked, apologised, and adjusted his behaviour. He apologised again later, got coffee, then drinks, and then Louisa decided she was going to sleep with Vlad Radošević. She didn’t have to, she knew, but she was gonna.

They were making plans for Vlad to follow Louisa, when the war in Balkovia began. Louisa, who was already pregnant, insisted in staying because it was clearly important for Vlad to help, and because she said she didn’t leave one unjust situation in her homeland, only to watch injustice happen before her and not to anything. Vlad would follow her anywhere and everywhere.

Vlad was the most stressed of the too about parenthood. His parents, Krešmir Radošvić and Matilda Cassano — the daughter of the Vesuvian Consul at the time, Iovanus Cassano — where deeply neglectful and irresponsible, which resulted in Vlad and his brother Valeriy (Valerius) to spend more time with Mircea and Florentino, their uncles. Mircea was Krešmir’s brother, and Florentino was Matilda’s cousin. The family lived in Balkovia, and not in Vesuvia, because of a fallout between Matilda and Iovanus, about who would succeed him as the Consul, where Iovanus did not wish to pass it on to Matilda, and would’ve prefered Cassiopeia, Amparo’s mother, to succeed him. This was because Matilda did not have the interest nor the capacity, nor the will to make the effort to become the Consul, but felt entitled to it.

Product of their own irresponsibility Vlad’s parents died when he was 14 and Valerius 5, and moved permanently with Mircea and Florentino.

His fear was not, however, because he didn’t have positive parental roles. He did: if you ask the brothers who their parents are, they will not hesitate to say their fathers are Mircea and Florentino. They’re Dad and Dad, and Valerius doesn’t really remember his Krešmir and Matilda all that much — however, Vlad does remember, and his fears came from repeating their pattern.

Louisa understood, because while she loves her parents, she has a complicated relationship with them, feeling like she was always slightly constrained one way or the other, and for a very long time she resented them about the way she was sent away to study. No one likes being forcefully expatriated. They decided to raise a child who would not be stifled by any of the things which stifled them. If you ask Anatole, they did a good job.

Louisa is freer than the laws men make, gentle, wise, sometimes impulsive, headstrong, determined and compassionate. She rarely got angry, was more of the kind of “I’m not angry, I’m disappointed” though she never made Anatole feel like he was a disappointing son, on the contrary. Her and Nana used to dance together in the kitchen all the time.

Vlad is more reserved, taciturn, loyal, observant, a huge nerd, analytical and has a quick temper. He likes to do things well, so he applies himself almost obsessively to tasks and often approached fatherhood like that. Vlad often says if he knows what love is, is because Anatole and Louisa exist, as they are the two most important people in his life. The third is his brother Valerius, of whom he is very protective of, and who, in return, says Vlad as a father reminds him very much of how he was when they were growing up.

Anatole was a very argumentative teenager and while not as taciturn as his father, which caused some tension with his parents but never to a breaking point — their relationship has always been exceedingly good, Anatole writing often to them when he left, and them visiting often. Anatole was a case of your local teenager feeling bigger than his body, and smaller than everyone else, living in a weird in between of changes, most of which he needed his parents there, but he couldn’t have them there, because he was travelling, which is partly why he sometimes ended up vomiting his feelings out in arguments.

Most notably once, when he was seven, Anatole convinced his father to keep giving him dessert and he ended up vomiting. Louisa wasn’t happy, but she does say it describes her son and her husband perfectly: when Anatole wants something, he will find a way to get it, and usually he won’t even have to trick you into it, he’ll just be his charming, sun-like self, and good luck to you.

As for her husband... he calls Anatole his ‘Lily’ or ‘Lilu’, which he got from “little”. That’s all you need to know about him, his science goth looks, RBF and rapier mean nothing compared to that.