It all starts in September 2015, when John Laurens agrees to get help. But it's not only his story. It isn't only about mental health, either.
Time Out of Mind
is a Modern AU Hamilton fanfic series by raven_aorla. The first story, Sharps Hour follows John Laurens' stay at the Vernon Psychiatric Crisis Center, which, with the help of Lafayette, he checks into after his unsuccessful suicide attempt. It introduces much of the core cast and begins building and exploring the relationships between them, while also moving through John's own journey and progress there.
Subsequent fics both continue John's story and further explore other both separate and intersecting stories and corners of the world and characters.
Full of references to both the original's lyrics and historical characters, averts a large amount of mental illness associated tropes in its depiction and treatment of its varied cast. Beginning with largely the cast of the show, proceeds to bring in multiple characters similarly inspired by further historical figures of the relevant eras.
Time Out of Mind contains examples of:
- Affectionate Nickname: John Laurens and Martha Manning call each other Earthling and Martian, respectively.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Many, many. At one point feature in an in-universe (non-alcoholic) drinking game (including one character being distressed at not having one).
- Election Day Episode: Not an episode, but the presidential election mentioned multiple times up until then does finally take place in a chapter of Tomorrow and Tomorrow.
- Everybody Lives: Compared to their historical counterparts. In addition to John himself surviving, Lewis survives his suicide attempt, James Laurens survived his childhood accident, and Ada survived uterine cancer.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Averted with Martha Manning/Martian.
- Hollywood Psych: Averted. Both inpatient and outpatient treatments match standard contemporary American practices.
- "L" Is for "Dyslexia": Averted. Meriwether Lewis confuses left and right and is terrible at spelling, but can competently read double-spaced sans serif fonts and tweets frequently. He employs an assistant to reduce stress and save time.
- The Mentally Disturbed: Averted, to the point where trivializing or demonizing mental illness is used to underscore the badness of the villains in Notes or Minutes and Three Days Already.
- One-Steve Limit: Taking characters from the relevant era of history results in a lot of people with the same first names. Dealt with in-story by extensive use of nicknames for many of the characters, and occasionally lampshaded.
- Out-of-Genre Experience: Notes or Minutes is partially a Courtroom Episode. Three Days Already is a kidnapping plot.
- Polyamory: Alexander and Pierre (and their respective relationship sets), among others. A point of personal progress for Alexander.
- Single-Issue Psychology: Averted. The ending of John's character arc in Sharps Hour is treated as the hopeful beginning to a much longer treatment regime. The same goes for Samuel Seabury and John Jay.
