#alan warren

[terminusantequem]

Allan Warren (Australian, 1919-1991), Seated Woman, 1974. Oil on board, 107.5 x 77.5 cm

[raspberrypeekaboo]

I was influenced by the blog of @knowltonsrangers and read the webcomic The Dreamer in a frenzy over the span of 24 hours, and while I have a LOT of opinions about it, one thing I have to say is that Alan’s letter to Beatrice in issue #13 was GORGEOUS. I literally haven’t stopped thinking of it for the past several days. I have extreme empathy for Beatrice falling in love with Alan now, because I too would have folded like a lawn chair. The last page of that issue will haunt me until I DIE

[knowltonsrangers]

I finally found some variants of The Dreamer comic! I just recently completed Cover A’s run, and I was never able to find any of the Cover B’s.! Just missing 1B,3B,&4B now :)

[cuntycassandra]

What’s your blog header?

My blog header is from a comic called “The Dreamer”

It’s about a girl (Her name is also Bea! Although hers is short for Beatrice, while my full name is just heckin weird) who, by night, finds herself in the amrev period, in contact with Hamilton, Hale and Alan Warren. She thinks it’s just a dream, but it turns out she’s actually transporting through worlds when she sleeps and it really messes with her head. It’s kinda cool, but I actually only read it for geeky Hamilton who thinks he’s smooth BUT ISNT. And Nathan content :) (unfortunately no John tho 😞)

[centeris2]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Takes part in the same sort of universe as The Dreams of a Farmer. Originally started as a prompt for a cross over of The Notebook and The Dreamer.

Beatrice confronts Alan about all the letters she sent him, demanding to know why he never wrote to her.

Read it here:

“So, I wrote you a bunch of letters one summer?” Alan wasn’t entirely sure what Beatrice’s question was, or even what had started that train of thought in her for her to ask.

“You wrote me many letters.” Given she wasn’t terribly specific he decided to go with a safe response until he understood what she was after.

“I mean the summer I wrote about Milly Weaver. I only had a chance to read the one letter, but it seemed like I had written to you often.” Alan found it endearing that Beatrice was trying to remain collected and nonchalant, although the fingering of her jean pockets indicated she was not asking this out of idle curiosity.

“Yes, you did.” She glared up at him with a pout. The odd style of adding colored powder and liquid to the face in the future made her look a bit strange to him, but no less beautiful. And she was downright adorable when she was grumpy at him over trivial things. She had no yet reached her terrifying level of anger.

“And you kept one of them?”

“I kept all of them that I could.” He knew a few had gotten lost along the way just from traveling and moving trunks and bags, but he was sure he knew where the majority of the letters were.

“Why didn’t you write me back? I understand if you were busy but it seemed like you were ignoring me for months.” He was surprised by how hurt she looked, even though she had no memories of the event. But her dejected look and her downward gaze away from him made him bow his head in shamed embarrassment.

“I… I was.”

“Why?” She didn’t look at him, but merely mumbled the question.

“It was for your own good!” That was what he had told himself, but he said it out loud much more forcefully than he meant to. She jumped a bit and looked at him, her frustration coming back.

“If you didn’t want me writing letters why didn’t you just tell me to stop writing to you?”

“I didn’t have the heart to.” She did not appreciate his red face and look away from her.

“But you had the heart to break mine?” That demand made him look back and he remembered just how frustrating the love of his life could be.

“I don’t mean it like that!”

“Then how did you mean it?”

“I’m a farmer, Bea, I don’t belong in high society or the royal circle of Boston. That’s the world your family is in, and I’m not from it.” She stared at him for a moment, her mouth slightly open in shock but her eyebrows knit together as no doubt angry thoughts rushed through her head

‘Wait, you stopped writing to me because you didn’t feel good enough to be with me? Where did you get an idiotic idea like that! It was clear in the one letter that I preferred being with you on your farm with your family than I did spending a summer at high society parties!”

“Your parents were quite clear that I was not cut of the same cloth. Them being Tories and me being a patriot didn’t help either.” He muttered sourly, although that was no longer an issue. When Alan had promised to rescue Bea from General Howe he had also swore to her father that he was going to marry her. Not surprisingly, her father had no objections. Bea, meanwhile, was pinching the bridge of her nose while she took a deep breath and processed what to say next.

“So, what? Break my heart by ignoring me? Keep me waiting and hoping for a letter from you every day? That was your plan?”

“Yes. No. I… I didn’t know what to do,” he muttered sheepishly, first meeting her gaze and then looking away as he lost conviction in his words.

“Did you think I would go away?”

“I hoped you would move past me and get on with your life.”

“You pretty clearly were my life! If you wanted me to forget about you, why didn’t you tell me to stop writing and that you didn’t love me!”

“Because I couldn’t do that!” The mere suggestion of lying to her, especially to break her heart and his own, was still painful.

“Oh, right, you ‘didn’t have the heart’ to do it! Thought it’d be more merciful to drown me in silence?”

“I didn’t have the heart to do that to myself! Or you! I wasn’t strong enough! I couldn’t lie to you when I wanted nothing more than to be with you!” With that finally out in the open he thought her anger with him would dissipate. Instead it took an entirely unexpected direction.

“This is the exact type of thing that gets so frustrating in movies!”

“Movies?”

“Right, of course John hasn’t shown you any movies or anything. Point is you’re an idiot!” She jabbed him with a finger for emphasis.

“I was doing it for you!” At this point it was his only defense that he had.

“You were being selfish! You saw how much I loved you and missed you, but instead of facing the problem and your fears of inadequacy you ignored it like a coward and hoped it would go away!” He wasn’t sure if he was more insulted about being called a coward or the implication that he might be inadequate.

“I am no coward!” The coward insult hurt more.

“What else would you call it? A tactical retreat away from the love of your life in the hopes she’ll stop chasing you because you didn’t just tell her what you were feeling and afraid of?” She raised an eyebrow, staring him down as he opened his mouth, thought, closed his mouth again, and then pouted.

“Well when you put it like that…”

“Okay I don’t care if it breaks the past somehow, we are watching The Notebook and if you still don’t get why you are an idiot-“ Alan sighed and cut her off, still not understanding what she was really talking about when it came to The Notebook.

“I’m a fool. I know that now, Bea. I learned that when I found out you had been taken by Howe, when you told us about the powder. But I am also terrified of you getting hurt, so naturally you decided to run headlong into danger.” He grumbled the last part, damning her own stubbornness and lack of self-preservation in his thoughts.

“Only because it would help you, Mr. Warren. You were in the fray, and I wanted to stay at your side.” At this she became soft once more, leaning into him again from their seat on the porch as if to add emphasis by literally being at his side.

“You’re a fool, putting yourself in danger.”

“Then we’re both fools.” She teased, not looking up at him as she grinned.

“So, what’s The Notebook? A moving picture about a book?” He tried to change the subject as he once more placed his arm around her, happy to once more be cuddling.

“Oh my god I’m going to make you cry. But promise me, if we’re ever separated like that again and I have to write letters to keep in touch, don’t be a jerk and write me back! I don’t want to hear that you’re alive from women talking about your dance skills!” He nodded to promise but couldn’t resist the chance to tease Bea just a bit more.

“For someone with no memory of her, you are very hung up on Milly Weaver.”

“Who is she!?” Bea shouted, pounding on Alan with balled up fists in a mock tantrum as he laughed but refused to answer.

[katieswinforddiaries]

To my dearest and beautiful, beloved Beatrice. You begged me often for letters the summer we were apart and now that a more enduring separation is upon us I find myself wanting to leave you with a few lines that will see you through what will inevitably be, my vanity aside, a painful time of loss and grief for you. Reread these lines over and over again until you've come to memorize them and they've comforted you sufficiently. And I hope that you cry big, sloppy tears for me, but then, after the initial sting wears off and you start to forget things, like the smile I reserved for my aunt's apple pie or the laugh you teased me for that only Ebenezer could elicit or the way I smelled after I'd just had a pipe or the look in my eye that let you know that the only thing I'd thought of for days was you. When these things fade and I become something you know that you've lost but can't remember exactly what it was that you lost when that day comes I hope that this letter will remind you that there was a man named Alan Warren who loved you desperately when you were a child. And don't feel guilty if you can't remember my voice the lines of my face or even what it was that we talked about or why you loved me. Know that we had a past, and it was difficult, but it was beautiful and with no regrets, live out your days full of love and happiness in the arms of someone else. I should hate it if both of us would die today. Turmoil entered my life the moment that you did. Suddenly I was torn between the greatest delight I had ever known and the gnawing reality that one day, you would realize you would want more than I could give you. And yet... that day never came. And the more time went on, the more your attachment to me deepened until my simple life seemed not only endearing to you but actually preferential to the cold comforts you knew at home. By the time I realized that possibly, maybe, you might actually be mine dark days were upon us. History in the making kept us apart. Alas, I see the hand of providence in this. A flickering flame is more easily extinguished than the raging fire a passionate marriage would have been. Make me in your memory into whatever form of fallen hero brings you the most comfort for that idol, too, will fade after it has served its purpose. Beatrice Whaley, I love the way your eyebrows raise and your nose curls up when you think you know something no one else does. I love the color your skin turns when I've exasperated you with relentless teasing that you took to be true. I love the way your hair is always messy even when pulled up and it falls in curls on the back of your neck. I love the way you blunder through the missteps that your usually candid nature puts you in. I love the way you shout at me when you're jealous which only makes me love you more and in turn makes you angrier. I love that your relentless questions and opposing opinions tempered my patriotism and zeal. And I love the way that when you sleep your lips part you smile sweetly and your eyelids flutter as you dream. Beatrice Whaley when you asked me on your seventeenth birthday if I loved you I said nothing because I assumed surely you must know that I am Forever & Always, Eternally Yours, Major A. Warren.

The beautifully heartbreaking letter from Alan Warren to Beatrice Whaley in @lorainnes webcomic The Dreamer. I was rereading my print copies of the comic today getting myself psyched up for going to the Nathan Hale Schoolhouse in New London tomorrow and I felt the need to share this part. I remember reading this the first time through and thinking this is the kind of writer I aspire to be one day. I want to write something this beautiful and heartbreaking one day. And as a romance writer to tell a story so true and well written that people would cry and feel as much for my characters as I did for Bea and Alan when I read this. I really highly advise any fellow history nerds to read this comic because Lora really does such an amazing job with it. There are nearly 1500 of you loves who follow me here and I know at least some of you will enjoy this story.

[centeris2]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Major Alan Warren, turned spy due to his own insistence on keeping Beatrice Whaley safe, finds himself in New York. But that's not where he wakes up.

(Written as a long overdue gift for a friend and thus terrible title and it may also receive additional chapters without notice)

You can read the first chapter here:

The last thing Major Alan Warren was aware of before drifting off to sleep was fading sensations: the taste of flip still lingering on his tongue, the humidity of the city air, a pounding headache that was no doubt the result of stress and not the amount of booze he had consumed before collapsing in his bed.

The first thing he was aware of when he came out of his sleep was a foreign noise: a harsh chirping unlike any bird he knew. It startled him so thoroughly that he jerked from his sleep, frantically searching for first the noise and second something familiar. The scratchy wool sheets had turned soft like silk a high society woman would wear, and the room was unfamiliar to him. There were strange noises and things and clothes strewn about that made no sense to him. This wasn’t New York, where was he?

Footsteps and a familiar voice made him stumble about the room, realizing he was horribly naked except for some very small trousers. Where were his clothes? Who was here? It sounded like his cousin, but what would Jack be doing here?

“Cuz!” The voice was undeniably his cousin John, and Alan flung the door open before John could even knock.

“Up bri-HEY!” John protested to being snatched and pulled into the room, door slammed shut behind.

“John, what are you doing here? Where are we?” Alan whispered, frantic and staring at his brother, gripping him for good measure just to make sure John was really there.

“Al, what the hell?” John raised an eye brow and clearly did not understand the importance given the monotone and unamused voice.

“I was in New York, with Beatrice, why are you here? Where are we? You should be with the army!”

John continued to stare at Alan in total bewilderment before mumbling, “we did not drink nearly enough last night for this.”

“What is going on?” Alan begged before John took hold of Alan’s hands and pulled them off his shoulders.

“Alan, what do you remember about last night?” John pinched the bridge of his nose and Alan felt his stomach churn in fear.

“Miss Whaley and I reached New York yesterday to stay with her uncle, Hercules Mulligan. He is currently being held by the British, but his family provided us with dinner and rooms,” Alan explained, disheartened by John’s continued confusion.

“Who is Miss Whaley?”

“Jack, stop joking!”

“No, you stop joking! Last night you and I had a good night of drinking together before we passed out. There were no girls with us! Don’t you remember?” John’s critical and annoyed expression remained for several moments before he blinked, face going blank as he thought before stating: “You don’t remember.”

“No,” it was a breath from Alan. He could feel himself go pale as he poorly restrained his panic.

“What’s your name?” John asked in a voice Alan recognized as the voice he would use addressing his patients.

“Alan Warren. And you are John Warren, my cousin.”

“At least you remember our names. How old are you?”

“27.”

“And when were you born?”

“In the year of our Lord, 1749.”

There was a period of stunned silence before John muttered, “what the fuck.”

[notadeathinthefamily]

Gloria Swanson by photographer Allan Warren in her New York apartment, 1972.