Jus Ad Bellum

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Fanfiction
Title: Jus Ad Bellum
Author(s): Jenn (seperis)
Date(s): August–September 2001[1]
Length: 156,799 words / 10 Chapters
Genre: Drama, Alternate Universe
Fandom: X-Men Movieverse
External Links: Jus Ad Bellum at AO3
Jus Ad Bellum at WRFA
Alternate and deleted endings at seperis's LiveJournal

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Jus Ad Bellum is an X-Men story by seperis.

Author's summary: "One Rogue. Two timelines. Three personalities. Every possibility. Rogue discovers who she is, could have been, and everything she can become."

Fanart for Jus Ad Bellum

Reactions and Reviews

Every once in a while, there's a magnificent, shocking vision that gets translated into a story. Jenn did that here. This is an unusual twist on the subgenre of "post-mutant-registration" stories that exist in movieverse. Mutant registration went forward in only one timeline, with shocking results reminiscent of the Holocaust. The X-Men who survived are changed. Into this comes Rogue (the protag) from a "kinder, gentler" reality in which mutant registration was avoided. In this nearly-finished novel, Jenn explores how she would adjust to people she knows and loves who are -- and are not -- the people she knows and loves.[2]

You know, if you were only going to read one story in this fandom (although heaven knows why you'd be here if you wanted to do that) this would be an excellent choice. Jus Ad Bellum is a wonderful novel on so many levels. It's a great exploration of Rogue's character and the relationships she forms with very different group of X-Men. It's an exciting adventure with action and romance and suspense. Most of all though, it's a long, hard look at the ideologies involved in the conflict between mutants and humans, and at how far people on both sides are willing to go when pushed. By the end, I understood where every character was coming from, and that's its most impressive achievement.[3]

This was probably my first introduction to a truly world-building fic. Incredibly well-plotted and heartbreaking, it does an amazing job of playing on themes of roads-not-traveled.[4]

Incredibly dark even for an X-Men alternate timeline and by the end it makes absolute sense for Rogue to martyr herself old-school. It came up in the old "Good fanfics you hate because they DESTROY YOUR SOUL" thread and no matter how many times I read it I can't stop myself from crying at the end[5]

References

  1. ^ X-Men Movieverse Index at Indulgence, archived by the Wayback Machine 29 December 2006. Story dated: "August 28, 2001, September 4, 2001, September 17, 2001".
  2. ^ "Novel-Length Recs". Archived from the original on 2011-07-25., 21 May 2002.
  3. ^ andraste at Mutatis Mutandis, Fanfic: Jus Ad Bellum by seperis, posted 17 May 2011. (Accessed 20 May 2017.)
  4. ^ drgrlfriend on Tumblr. Ten Fics, posted 27 August 2014. (Accessed 20 May 2017.)
  5. ^ "Anon comment on FFN October 26, 2014".