if there’s a reason
(mirror), written by savrenim and posted on their tumblr, is part of their it feels more like a memory Fan Verse. It takes place during the same time as the events in Burr: An American Musical, which covers chapters 28–35 of it feels more like a memory. It follows those events with one key difference: what if James Madison was the Seer, not Aaron Burr, and Aaron just pretended to be the Seer to protect him?
Because the fic can barely be discussed without spoiling Burr: An American Musical and chapters 28–35 of it feels more like a memory, every page about the fic leaves spoilers up to chapter 35 of it feels more like a memory unspoilered, so it's recommended you read up to those chapters before browsing this fic's trope pages.
In reality, this fic is just a synopsis published on March 15, 2017. In-Universe, it’s about 35,000 words, the first chapter of it is published on December 18th, 2015, and the last chapter is published by the end of February 2016.
if there’s a reason contains examples of:
- all lowercase letters: The title is all lowercase.
- Alternate Universe Fic: In-Universe, it‘s of the What If type with elements of the Role Swap AU and Character Facet What Ifs. What if James Madison was the Seer, not Aaron Burr, and Aaron just pretended to be the Seer to protect James? Out of Universe, it’s still an Alternate Universe Fic, since it canonically exists in the world of the Alternate Universe Hamilton fanfic it feels more like a memory, even if it came into existence way after the events of ifmlam ended.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Why Aaron befriends James Madison in this fic: he’s really nice and the only one not bullying him for being 13 at Princeton.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: James Madison was secretly the Seer. Counts out-of-universe since he definitely wasn’t that in real life, counts In-Universe since the history books all say Aaron Burr was the Seer, not James Madison.
- Best Friend: Aaron Burr and James Madison are best friends.
- Completed Fic: The synopsis is complete as of its first posting in March 15, 2017; and In-Universe the fic was completed by the end of February 2016.
- Different World, Different Movies: This is the third timeline of it feels more like a memory's equivalent to the real-life Hamilton fanfic written by savrenim titled it feels more like a memory: a Burr: An American Musical fanfic written by savrenim titled if there’s a reason. The fic's events are different because what happened in the third timeline, and thus what the musical's events are, are different from what happened in real life.
- Fainting Seer: James Madison is sick all the time because of the awful visions he sees as part of being the Seer.
- Historical Domain Character: Aaron Burr, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Major Scott, and Dolley Madison.
- Historical Domain Superperson: James Madison, Seer.
- Historical Hero Upgrade: Invoked by James in the fic. He thinks Aaron will go down in history as a villain for holding his (actually nonexistent) Seer gifts to himself, so he purposely forges Aaron’s visions and releases them to the public to give Aaron a better legacy, which one can presume he gets since the fic is pseudocanonical to In-Universe history where Aaron is remembered as “the traitor Seer who I guess was a good guy” instead of as a pure villain. In the fic, there’s an extra aspect to this hero upgrade in that Aaron’s remembered as a Seer at all, since in the fic he wasn’t actually the Seer.
- The Mentor: Thomas Jefferson takes James as a protégé.
- Pseudo-Canonical Fic: It follows the events of actual In-Universe history with the exception that James Madison is the Seer, and it has an explanation for why history and the musical about it, Burr: An American Musical all show Aaron as the one with visions: the events of history and the musical were actually just a coverup for the fic’s events where James is the Seer.
- Real Event, Fictional Cause: Definitely not out-of-universe, but In-Universe the real events of Aaron’s third timeline borne of Aaron being the Seer and trying to hide it now have a fictional cause of James being the Seer and Aaron not being a Seer but pretending to be to help James hide his Seer status.
- The real-in-the-ifmlam-universe treason trial Aaron went through for being the Seer in wartime still occurs for the same reasons, except this time he’s actually not the Seer. He commits suicide with poison not to prevent America from losing trust in the government by preventing a conclusion to the trial where extensive corruption in the government would be exposed whether he’s found guilty or not guilty; but to stop more evidence from coming up that might expose James as the Seer by distracting everyone with his accused-as-Seer self’s dramatic death and ending the trial there.
- James’ real-in-the-ifmlam-universe actions of publishing documents of Aaron’s visions happened because Aaron left him those documents. In the fic, they’re still released, but they aren’t actually Aaron’s documents, they’re James’ forgeries of his own visions that he passes off as Aaron’s, partly out of guilt he kept all his visions to himself and mostly because he wants to give Aaron a good legacy after Aaron ruined it in order to save James from being revealed as the Seer.
- Secret-Keeper: Aaron Burr keeps James Madison’s secret that James is the Seer, and even kills himself to keep the secret. James Madison keeps the secret that Aaron wasn’t really the Seer and was only pretending to be to protect him. Dolley Madison may know James is the real Seer and if so she kept that secret; but either way she definitely keeps the secret that James forges documents and claims they’re Aaron’s in order to give Aaron a better legacy than the one he got.
- Seers: James Madison. Aaron pretends to be one.
- Show Within a Show: Fanfic Within a Fanfic. This fanfic exists within the universe of the fanfiction it feels more like a memory.
- Taking the Heat: Aaron pretends he’s the Seer trying to hide his own Seer status, in order to stop people from suspecting James of doing just that: being the Seer and trying to hide it.
- Undying Loyalty: Aaron to James, freely choosing to do nonstop research on Seers to try to help him, to pretend that he’s 1) the Seer and 2) attempting to hide that he’s the Seer, to stay under Thomas Jefferson’s thumb, and to commit suicide and go down in history as a villain, all in order to free James Madison of the pressure of being the Seer.
- Wish-Fulfillment: The fact that this fic was completed in about a month and only 35,000 words In-Universe is wish fulfillment for savrenim, whose real-life fic it feels more like a memory was started in 2015 and is incomplete, 200,000+ words, and which they feel suffers Magnum Opus Dissonance.
