puss_nd_boots | (no subject)

So it seems the latest Gazewank is Bottlegate, in which a foreign far literally assaulted a Japanese one - we're talking biting here - in order to get Ruki's thrown water bottle. The act is, no doubt, absolutely appalling. It's a damn bottle, people. It has Ruki's DNA on it, true - but bloody hell, BITING another person over it?

In true Gazewank fashion, though, the fandom's initial, justified shock and horror over this terrible incident turned into finger-pointing and infighting - accusations of specific people assaulting other fans at other lives (including one specific big-name fan who does a LOT for the fandom), people saying other people were supporting the biter, worries that GazettE would be so appalled by this that there would never be another world tour, etc. And pretty soon it became so out-of-control it was overshadowing the positive stuff about the tour on Tumblr. (I don't even want to know what Twitter was like).

All I will say about the incident itself is this - it was definitely an isolated case. I saw nothing like that when I attended the GazettE World Tour live in Munich - there was some pushing and shoving, but nothing truly out of line. I also so no out-of-line incidents when I went to the three SCREW shows in Japan last year - I got kicked in the head a couple of times when people were crowd-surfing in Osaka, but that's, well, the hazards of crowd-surfing, not anything malicious. Otherwise, everyone behaved.

I swear, the Gaze fandom needs to have a "Days Without a Major Wank" counter on top of one of the larger fandom Tumblrs (like namelessliberty) like the Fullmetal Alchemist fandom used to have on its major LJ community.

Otherwise, I'm working on my latest Camera Eye fic, which is MiA-centric. (It really does sadden me how under-loved that boy is by the Mejibray fandom. He's their primary songwriter and arranger - the architect of the band's sound, really.) And I got invited to visit a Canadian friend for their Thanksgiving in a few weeks. A much smaller-scale trip than the last couple of years (Munich for GazettE and Oktoberfest in 2013 - my God, it's been two years since I saw Gaze - and Japan last year), but it'll be good to get away for a few days.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Someone I know apparently knows who 'the biter' is and told me she claims the Japanese fan was choking her. Still don't think biting is the way to handle this or if this is even true, but what a mess either way! Admittedly I was worried at first, but I'm sure most fans and Gazette themselves understand that foreign fans aren't all like this, since so many of us go to their gigs without any problems (I'm pretty sure they'd know if this were a regular thing). All I can truly see as a consequence is, if PSC find out who it was, that this fan will be kicked out of Heresy - assuming she wasn't there as a non-Heresy member accompanying a friend in the FC - and perhaps banned from future lives.

Why people felt the need to bring up so much other crap is beyond me.

Have fun in Canada, by the way!

Good Lord - if the incident involved both choking AND biting, that makes it all the worse. O_O And I don't think this has really soured GazettE's view of foreign fans - they've been to South America and twice to Europe, so I think that pretty much forms the basis of their impression of fans outside Japan. I just wonder if PSC will really be able to positively identify the person beyond a shadow of a doubt, since the main info they have to go on is Tanuki and other fangirl scuttlebutt.