Time to read: 7 minutes(s)

Larin and Dukalis are alive, Onegin is friends with Pechorin, and Draco Malfoy marries Hermione Granger. All of this is possible in the pages of fan fiction.

Fanfiction is amateur writing based on popular books, films, TV series, games, and even songs. They can be about real events and feature real people... It seems there are no limits to creativity, but with the onset of war, authors are faced with ever-increasing restrictions. What's going on?

The largest Russian-language fanfiction platform, Fanfiction Book (Fikbook), was founded in 2007 as an alternative to the English-language resource Fanfiction.net. It's difficult to say exactly how many works have been published on this platform over its history. The most popular fandoms include Harry Potter, Naruto, the Marvel universe, the game Romance Club, the show Improvisation, the game Genshin Impact, and comics and films about Major Grom.

It was the latter that was the subject of a scandal that occurred in July 2022. Then, a Twitter user under the nickname Oleg Dear John сообщил The removal of a fan fiction set in the Major Grom universe was prompted by a comment from the author, which read: "If you're from Ukraine, I'm sending you a big hug. If you're from Russia, I beg you to take to the streets."

Ficbook explained the deletion as a violation of the rule regarding "works touching on recent world tragedies and political conflicts." The rule was introduced in 2014. It prohibits authors from mentioning world tragedies in fanfiction if at least six months have not passed since the "situation stabilized."

"The rule is several years old, but after the military conflict in Ukraine began in 2022, many forgot about it. Some posted individual works, others updated existing ones. A new section would appear, for example, calling for donations to the Ukrainian Armed Forces," says one of the admins of the "Overheard on Ficbook" community.

According to him, such works didn't last long; they were inundated with support requests, after which they were deleted, and the authors were banned.

"Someone would simply post something in their profile description saying, 'Support the Ukrainian Armed Forces.' Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. It depended on how many complaints there were. They could even ban you," the source added.

For a long time, Ficbook remained one of the main platforms for publishing slash fiction in Russia. Slash is a genre of fanfiction where relationships are built between men. It's a popular ficbook genre. Other genres include het (male and female), femslash (female-female), and gen (female-female).

On December 5, 2022, President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning LGBT propaganda in Russia. Social media users soon noticed, that the site's team amended the User Agreement in response to this. It now includes clauses prohibiting the publication of materials that include "demonstrations of non-traditional relationships" or "descriptions and depictions of non-traditional relationships."

In addition, the agreement points appeared, which allow the disclosure of user data at the request of the authorities.

Outrage ensued. Users noted that Ficbook was registered outside of Russia, meaning the need for such changes wasn't obvious. "The government came to us when we wanted to be as far away from it as possible," says Elizaveta (she's studying law and runs a dedicated VKontakte group).

Many authors have announced that they are moving their work to other websites, in particular, to the English-language website. portal Archive of Our Own (abbreviated as "AO3").

But let's get back to Ficbook. On December 6, 2022, the Ficbook team published a post assuring users that they wouldn't delete anything or release any data. Everything went back to the way it was. The launch was announced at the end of December 2022. additional version The website Slashbook, where you can read fanfiction in the "slash" and "femslash" categories, is being created. The site's administration explained this division by saying they want to spread the authors' work across different platforms so that if the site is blocked, only one site will be affected.

And so the website appeared. However, it wasn't the same one. In November 2023, the "Fic.Fan" platform was launched for English-language readers and translations of original fanfics from Russian into English. That same month, the Supreme Court recognized LGBT as an extremist organization. Ficbook's administration hasn't posted any new information about Slashbook since 2022. Support also didn't respond to inquiries about its appearance.

"Let's get this straight, okay? I'm 35, I'm married, and I have a daughter. And yes, I write slash. And yes, my husband knows about it," says Katerina.

More than 3 thousand people follow her profile, and her works receive several thousand likes.

"When I started writing, my goal was to show that gays are people too. It sounds strange, but... My friend was badly beaten up when he was leaving a gay club. It happened a long time ago, but I remember how angry it made me. So I poured my anger out on paper. It helped," Katerina says.

She didn't post her first works, but then she decided to do so. Most of her works fall into the "Rusreal" genre, meaning they're set in Russia, but in a more realistic way, as she puts it.

"There were a lot of comments that my characters were real. Yes, they are: there's a lot of observation there. From my friends, from my husband, and even from me. For example, one of the characters makes coffee the same way I do. It's an Easter egg," she says.

Now, with the adoption of LGBT laws, Katya is preparing a backup plan—she wants to post her work elsewhere.

"It's good that my profile is linked to a silly email address—a la 'Scarlet Flower,' and it's good that I wrote under a pseudonym and didn't reveal my real page. But many did everything openly. And what to do now is unclear. Some have started changing the gender of their characters and giving them female names. So, what was slash with Petya and Vasya became het with Petya and Vasilisa. But this is often done hastily, and Vasilisa will sometimes flash a prostate in the text, or something else," notes Katerina.

Maxim was one of those who made no effort to hide his views. Immediately after the LGBT law was passed, his VKontakte public page, where he posted quotes and artwork based on his work and had over 1,5 subscribers, was blocked.

"My writing is all about sex. There's no character development, no plot. I don't know how. I write with mistakes; I always got a C in Russian. I wrote on Ficbook because I had fantasies. And it helped me meet guys," he says.

Maxim says that after the group was blocked, he became afraid that they would come after him. "You never know, they might find some propaganda there. Of course, everyone in the texts is of age, but I don't think that will be a valid argument," he says.

He deleted all his work. His profile is currently inactive.

Many people who write slash think Ficbook has completely screwed them. There are hundreds of comments on VKontakte, but there's no answer on how to live under the new law. People are analyzing things in the comments, like, what's propaganda and what isn't. It's so funny. It's clear this is just another round of tightening the screws. And when the time comes, they'll come for everyone, indiscriminately. But someone will be able to get a ton of stars. There are people like me there (authors who write slash - approx. edit) — millions,” says Katerina.