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I might have mentioned this before, but developments I am genuinely glad of in fandom over the last couple of decades:

Way less bashing of canon female love interests in order to hook up two male characters - some of that is the advent of the OT3 as a solution to love triangles, but it’s just as common to have the canon couple break up amicably and realistically, or simply tweak things so that they were never a couple, but still like and respect one another as friends

The rise of the reader insert fic, which I’m convinced has taken the pressure off to create an OC for people who really just want to write self-insert fantasy, thereby letting them do what they actually want and (hopefully) helping to lessen the stigma around OCs for those who really want to create OCs

Linked to that, a decrease in the amount that the accusation “Mary Sue!” gets flung around, and intelligent criticism of how gendered the whole “Mary Sue” concept has ended up

Less pressure to “explain” how a character could end up with a character of the same gender in fic, when they’ve always been paired with other-gender characters in canon

A decline in the popularity of extensively mocking/dragging individual fics for bad or inexpert writing (such as through writing MSTs in response where the canon characters read and reacted to the fic), which, looking back, was a pretty shitty thing to do to writers just starting out

Much less likelihood of getting virulently homophobic comments on any given slashfic (”My poor [favourite character] isn’t GAY, how dare you!”)

And, of course, the shining glory that is AO3, an all-inclusive single archive that’s actually run and controlled by fans, meaning no hours spent paging through webrings to find one author who has four fics of that pairing you love and then reading them over and over for months, and no chance of waking up tomorrow to find all your fic purged because some internet company got a pissy letter

I mean, don’t get me wrong, fandom today is no picnic; it’s not like homophobia or sexism have gone away entirely (and to an extent they’ve gone underground, which complicates things), and of course we have the new puritanical backlash, which can sometimes be even more complex to challenge.  But fandom back in the day was far from perfect, as well, and some of the ways things have changed are a real breath of fresh air.

RUSSIAN FORCES TOO MUCH FOR FILIPINOS…in Tug-of-War

“VLADIVOSTOK – The Russian Navy proved too strong for the Philippine Navy (PN), but although the Filipinos lost the friendly games, they certainly won new friends.

The first engagement yesterday was a tug-of-war between members of the Marine contingent of the Navy’s Task Force 87 (NTF-87) against a Russian Navy team held at the compound of the Russian Pacific Fleet in the Far East here. While the Russians took two of the supposed three-match contest against their Filipino foes, the winning trophy was given to the Filipino Marines with matching shirts for each player, courtesy of their Russian counterparts.

Navy and Marine footballers also proved no match for the Russian Navy footballers, but the Pinoys likewise took home the trophy for scoring a lone goal – against the opponent’s 10.

The same fate befell the PN’s volleyball team that lost all three sets to the well-prepared Russian Navy spikers. The games were held on a football field, a half hour drive to the city’s outskirts. NTF-87 commander Capt. Florante Gagua waseen cheering the teams. He said winning or losing is not as important as developing the bond and friendship between the two forces.

Russian sailors and Marines were in the Philippines last year and early this year where friendship games were also held.

“It’s OK. We might have lost in all the games, what is important is we have won ourselves new friends,” NTF-87 spokesman Lt. Edward Pablico said. Yesterday’s friendly games were part of the series of engagements that include shipboard tours of a contingent of Russian sailors on the Philippine Navy’s Strategic Sealift Vessel BRP Tarlac.

A reciprocal shipboard tour was also done by a contingent of Filipino sailors and Marines on Russia’s warship nearby.

In the late afternoon, the NTF-87 officials led by Gagua and Tarlac skipper Capt. Estelito Lagadia Jr. played host to their Russian counterparts in a dinner held at the helicopter hangar of the ship.” SOURCE: https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/10/03/1856827/russian-forces-too-much-filipinos-tug-war