elias, the drawer 🗄️

"John Laurens"

A quick mockup of how I'd imagine John Laurens in a biopic, because I saw a few clips of James McAvoy in Atonement (2007), and I thought his face would be perfect for John Laurens! I felt so strongly about it, I was compelled to make this. I used this screenshot from the movie.

I should draw more images of Robespierre n Brount really 🥺

(@lamssummer2026 - 18 June: religion)

Greetings, Lams Nation! July will start soon and we can finally deliver to you all the details for the month. Unfortunately we’re all busy and due to circumstances we have not yet been able to update the interactive calendar. So as to still be able to give you a week’s notice, so to say, for the July prompts, we have written out the following full explanation (We will update our pinned post with a link to this one and update it again with the interactive calendar as soon as possible.):

General plan for July:

Unlike June, July does not have a prompt for every day because it is largely intended to give you time to catch up on any June prompts you might have wanted to do previously. Even so, there are five days for the month’s theme as well as three special days.

July’s theme is “letters”. This means that prompt-wise the month is dedicated to the letters between Hamilton and Laurens, both to celebrate the way that their relationship could live on and reach us and to perhaps let more people know about their letters that hadn’t yet found them. Recently, the Historical Lams Discord Server Council ranked all the letters and decided on the top 5 lams letters of all time. But there are also multiple missing letters between the two, that might have been lost or destroyed, and sometimes what we don’t have can be just as interesting as what we do have.

So now for every Wednesday in July, starting with July 1st, you will be given one of the top 5 letters to create something for. Each of these will be paired with a missing letter that we picked out and will give context for in the respective days’ detailed explanation. This means you can create something about how either letter was written or received or you can write the missing letter itself.

The special days are July 4th (250th anniversary), July 11th (duel day) and July 12th (Hamilton’s death day). More to them in the detailed explanation as well.

July 1st:

Letter: Hamilton to Laurens April 1779 [read here] This is the famous “Cold in my professions, warm in my friendships” letter, a (if not the) lams staple. Missing letter: It seems Laurens never responded to the letter or if he did, the response never reached Hamilton. But perhaps he wrote one and just never send it…

You may create a fan work relating to how the April letter was written or received/read or about Laurens writing his response or you may write Laurens’ response itself.

July 4th:

This is the 250th anniversary of American Independence.

Create a work relating to the revolution itself, the military family or the celebration of Independence Day while still featuring Lams.

July 8th:

Letter: Hamilton to Laurens September 11th 1779 [read here] This is another better known lams letter. It contains the phrase “like a jealous lover”. Missing letter(s): In the letter Hamilton mentions having written to Laurens “five or six letters” since the man’s departure while Laurens only responded once. Of those five or six letters we only have two. This means three or four are missing in which Hamilton might have been growing more impatient to hear from Laurens.

You may create something about the writing or receiving of the September letter or any of these missing ones or pick one of the missing letters and write it yourself.

July 11th:

This is the day the infamous Hamilton-Burr duel took place.

Create something about the duel and find a way to relate it to Lams.

July 12th:

This is the day Hamilton died, 222 years ago.

Create a fan work about Hamilton’s death/Hamilton dying and relate it to Lams.

July 15th:

Letter: Hamilton to Laurens June 30th 1780 [read here] This is the letter in which Hamilton tells Laurens that he is engaged. Another classic. Missing letter(s): On January 8th 1780 Hamilton writes a letter to Laurens that he ends by saying he has “no other wish than as soon as possible to make a brilliant exit” and feels he is “not fit for this terrestreal Country”. Sometime between that and February 24th Laurens writes to Hamilton and again on February 24th. Potentially either letter contained the response to Hamilton announcing he wants to die. Not too long after Hamilton gets engaged.

You may create a work about either of these three letters being written or received or write either of Laurens’s letters.

July 22nd:

Letter: Hamilton to Laurens September 16th 1780 [read here] This letter is known for containing the phrase “a strange cure by the way, as if after matrimony I was to be less devoted than I am now” and an invitation to witness “the final consummation” and a (perhaps joking, perhaps not) recommendation not to try to escape his confinement to Pennsylvania by way of suicide. Missing letter: On September 8th Laurens writes a letter to Hamilton. That one is missing but the response to it is the September 16th letter. Even though he has written a letter to Laurens just four days prior and according to himself has very little time, Hamilton writes this response apparently immediately upon receiving Laurens’ letter.

You may create anything about the writing or receiving of either letter or write the missing September 8th letter yourself.

July 29th:

Letter: Laurens to Hamilton July 1782 [read here and here] This is presumably the last letter (or pieces of the last two letters) Laurens ever wrote to Hamilton. There is one larger part of a letter and a small fragment that contains a last paragraph and sign off. This might have been the result of censorship by John Church Hamilton. We have decided to count these as one letter for the purpose of lams summer and the ranking. Missing letter(s): In his letter Laurens mentions having received two letters from Hamilton, one from March 2nd and one before that (but implicitly after their separation after the Battle of Yorktown) from Albany. This undated letter Laurens calls “as masterly a piece of cynicism as ever was penned”. Depending on when this one was written, either of these letters might have contained Hamilton informing Laurens about the birth of his son.

Create something about the writing or receiving of either of these letters or write either missing letter yourself.

So these are the prompts for July! We hope you’ll have fun creating or perhaps learning more about our gay revolutionaries’ letters <3

animals

I love symbolism, so I was excited for today’s ‘animals’ prompt for the @lamssummer2026 event! I made petit lion Hamilton last year, and so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to make a stallion Laurens to match :)