Blanket warning: There will be mentions of pedophilia almost everywhere in this doc, so please be advised. Cussing in screenshots has been crossed out.

Screenshots are provided as much as possible to not misrepresent what was said by staff or Ebony or other users.

September 14, 2022
On the evening of September 14, a discussion began in rp-chat of the WCC Discord server about apprentices and mentors being in relationships. Ebony discussed how she wanted to have her apprentice have a crush on their mentor and followed up the discussion by saying “age is just a number.” When staff asked her not to joke about that, she replied that there is an age gap between her and her fiancé.

Spoiler:

Ebony moved the discussion into the 18+ channel. She spoke about how she met her fiance (Sleepy) when she was 17 and he was 13, and then they began dating when he was 16 and she was 20. She joked about how others could call her a pedophile. Another user asked if the topic could be changed and Ebony got offended. She pinged lostfanboy (Kittycatloverfun) a few times when he did not respond, and she and Pikachu discussed the situation. Maple stepped in a little later to ask that the subject be dropped until the morning because no staff members were online. Ebony continued and Maple warned that continuing the discussion after staff has requested it not be discussed further until the morning would result in a temporary mute. Ebony continued and was given a 24 hour mute as a result.

Spoiler:

September 15, 2022
On the morning of September 15, staff awoke to several responses in the Anonymous Comments and Concerns regarding the Ebony situation:

Spoiler:

We had received complaints about Ebony’s behavior from users in the past. Ebony had shown repeated verbally aggressive responses to situations in the discord in the past, even when staff asked her to calm down or change the subject. Ebony repeatedly ignored rules regarding bad language in public areas of the server. Given Ebony’s repeated history of getting angry when asked to stop, ignoring staff, purposely breaking rules, and now making uncomfortable jokes and outright refusing to change subject after a fellow user and staff asked her to, staff decided to ban her. (Note: screenshots provided can date as far back as July.)

Spoiler:

(Context: Ebony posted a gif with s*** in the caption and was removed by staff. Immediately followed up by trying to get details to justify why cussing should be open in the discord.)

We contacted Ebony that evening and informed her of the ban. Given past infractions that were consistently ignored when staff asked her to stop, we decided that a discussion or warning was not warranted. Ebony had ignored staff asking them to stop breaking rules several times in the past. Given the jump in severity (going from cussing in public servers consistently to ignoring an user’s wishes and backlashing against them even after staff asked them to stop for the evening) we decided on a ban.

Spoiler:

(For clarity: Ebony was muted for 24 hours due to continuing to talk about the issue when Maple requested that it be put to rest. Ebony was not banned for 24 hours, nor was it because of the situation itself. It was because a staff member directly asked her to stop speaking of something until more moderators could be present for monitoring, and she directly refused.)

Aftermath
After Ebony was informed of the ban, we had a few users asking why she was no longer in the discord. We explained that she was banned and a discussion ensued. The discussion lasted from 8:30pm PST until 10:30pm PST. Given the length of the discussion, we feel it would be too many screenshots to provide, and taking only parts of screenshots would feel biased. Essentially, some users argued that we banned Ebony for talking about her relationship with Sleepy. Some users brought up Stags, stating it was hypocrisy for Ebony to be banned while Stags was not. (This is addressed in our FAQ below.)

Around 9:30 that same night, two new users joined the discord: Hawk1775 and foxmaster. Hawk was an account that had been made 4 years ago whereas foxmaster was made only a couple days beforehand. They joined within 10 minutes of one another. Hawk took the 10 year role while foxmaster took the 1 year role.

We cannot verify who these accounts were. But they talked to one another in the chats for a bit, appearing to be friends while also claiming they didn’t know one another. Hawk claimed that foxmaster was Mistpelt, the founder of the site. Foxmaster went along with this.

Then foxmaster posted a gif, of a grown man exposing his butt, over and over in public chats. We have users as young as 13 years old in this discord. This is a felony.

Foxmaster was banned and Hawk left soon afterwards. Again, we don’t know who these users were, but given the timing that they entered the discord and caused all of this, staff suspects that they may have been involved with the group who was upset over Ebony’s ban. If this is the case, not only is this childish, but it is horrifying. We do hope that this was just an awful coincidence.

Due to the raid, we have upped security for the discord for the time being. We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause for other users.

On September 18, some users from before brought up the situation again, asking why there had not been any announcement from staff about the situation. Maple explained that we were busy, but working on it. One user insisted that if Maple was busy, their DMs should have been passed along to another user. They also insisted that other members of staff were contacted. Downfive, Reaper King, and xaandiir never got any DMs from any concerned parties about the situation (until Down was contacted on 9/21); Maple got 16. There is more information in FAQ #1, but Maple was involved in an auto accident over the weekend that limited their phone access, leaving them unable to reply to DMs or pass along DMs to other staff members.

Staff reiterated that we were working on a response for the situation (the document that you are reading right now). When the original situation was brought up again, other users asked that the discussion be put to rest until staff could get a response up.

This discussion lasted from 9am PST to 11:30am PST, and so, like the situation before, there was too much discussion to provide screenshots and we want to avoid bias by only including certain screenshots.

Everything discussed (minus foxmaster’s posts) have been left up in the discord. If you are 18+ and are in the discord, you may look through the 18+ channel for the discussions outlined above.

FAQ
1. Why did it take so long for an explanation?
The short answer: A lot was happening and we wanted to collect our thoughts.

The long answer:
- Maple was involved and lost a loved one in a car crash, resulting in spotty phone access throughout parts of the weekend.
- Other members of staff were not reached out to by upset parties.
- The WCC discord was raided and we were busy dealing with it and its consequences. (See “Aftermath”)
- Many members of staff work on the weekend as well as during the week.
- We were not going to make a split-second announcement when tensions were still high. We wanted to lay everything out as clearly as possible as we have in this document. We could not do that by responding immediately.
- We did make small explanations of the situation throughout the weekend.

Spoiler:

2. You called Ebony a pedophile! Of course she was upset!
We did not intend to. Staff never once said that Ebony was a pedophile, a groomer, an abuser, etc. -- though we now understand how this could have been inferred. The reason for our ban came because she consistently made users uncomfortable, was verbally aggressive towards other users, and repeatedly broke rules. The next bullet point addresses the message that was tied to her ban in regards to these concerns.

3. You put Ebony’s ban message saying that she was a pedophile!
This is partially true. When banning Ebony, we put “condoning/encouraging pedophilic behavior”. When we banned Ebony officially, tensions were still high and we were incorrect for putting this down as our reason. We apologize for putting that as the banned message. While we do not condone pedophile jokes, that was not the reason for the ban, and putting as such was wrong and messed up of us. We hope that this document has outlined our reasoning for the ban more clearly. Further private apologies will be sent to Ebony and Sleepy.

4. Staff is just whining. There was no harassment!
There was, unfortunately, harassment towards staff and users regarding the situation. We were yelled at, cussed out, and overall harassed for our decision by multiple users. These are just a few screenshots of what could be the harshest of it. Another example would be the earlier conversation shown with Kittycatloverfun.

Spoiler:

5. Ebony was targeted because she’s a bi POC woman who isn’t neurotypical!
We do not think that our identities should be relevant to this discussion, but unfortunately, it has played a factor. Staff has been accused of targeting Ebony due to her being a marginalized woman, and staff has also been accused of all being white cishet neurotypical people. We are not comfortable sharing all aspects of our identities, but if it is at all relevant: we are all part of diverse groups, including sharing the groups that Ebony is a part of.

The accusation that we targeted Ebony because she is marginalized is ridiculous and frankly insulting to staff. We shouldn’t have to talk about our identities as justification for why we removed someone who continued to make other users uncomfortable. Using your identity as an excuse for why you were targeted without understanding the people you’re accusing is childish and insulting. Our identities do not affect how we love the site and we do not target users for “punishment” due to their identities.

6. BUT WHY ISN’T STAGS BANNED TOO?
The original issue with Stags occurred under a different staff management team. Stags left the site for a while without being banned by the staff management team that was present during the initial issue. Stags returned with a slightly different staff management team than what we have now, when Maple and Downfive were both moderators and now-former staff members still present on the team.

The issue was discussed by the staff team at that time and Stags was given her punishment accordingly. Time had passed. Things were discussed between staff. It was determined that if Stags truly had changed as she claimed, then she would receive a temporary ban on top of the time she already spent away from the site, and then she would be monitored. If Stags did anything out of line, that would be grounds for her to be banned now. Previous moderator teams, including the team that was present during Stags’ initial problems, decided not to permanently ban her. Unless she showed horrific behavior in the present, we decided not to punish her when two previous staff teams had already made their decision.

Since Stags’ return from her temporary ban, the only complaint about her behavior that we have received has been a notice that she spoke with one of our younger users in a DM. We were not told of anything concerning which took place. There have been some other instances where we have had users reach out to us to express discomfort with Stags regarding a particular situation, to which we took action against accordingly. However Stags has not displayed any behavior since returning that warranted punishment or banning.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding Stags, you can contact a staff member privately. Anything about Stags should be treated as unrelated to Ebony’s situation.

If I were smart, I'd be letting this go already. It's just a cat site. It's not the end of the world if I can't roleplay anymore. But someone pointed out that it isn't just a silly kitty roleplay site to me.

I was never given the chance to explain myself or my situation. I was upset after a very stressful night, working in a hospital, one of my patients had a heart attack and things went south from the very beginning. I was rude. I was impatient. I'll admit that, and I'm sorry for losing my temper, but I cannot be sorry for demanding the apology I feel I'm owed. I was judged unfairly by people who didn't know me. Before my 24 ban was even over, with no discussion or appeal on behalf of the staff, or chance to explain myself, I was permanently banned both on discord and forumotion - with no announcement or real explanation. I was talked down to. Called a pedophile. What a disgusting accusation to so carelessly throw at someone, and so absolutely disrespectful to people who have experienced SA.

So, if staff would be so kind as to give me the chance to speak my truth, here it is:

WCC was a safe haven for me as I grew up in an extremely toxic environment. My dad was verbally and physically abusive. My mother was a schizophrenic alcoholic who was also dealing with addiction to prescription pain killers. We were in constant poverty, living a diet of whatever we could buy at the dollar tree. The friends I made at this place and in this time are irreplaceable to me. They truly saved my life, getting me through the absolute lowest points of my depression. Someone especially above the rest, who got me through the thick and thin and my absolute worst days, is the same man who is also my fiancée.

We met when he was 13 and I was 17, and started having a serious romantic relationship when he was 16 and I was 20. Now, I'm not here to argue Romeo and Juliet laws. That's not the point. The point is that I in no way groomed him. We were friends on a cat forum.

The day we met, I was visiting other family with my uncle and grandparents. We decided to meet in person. I met his parents and younger siblings for the first time then. We spent a few hours browsing shops and holding hands before returning back to our normal lives. What I have hardly ever mentioned in this story is in that same night, I was sexually assaulted by my own grandfather. Me, an underage 17 year old girl.

Really, that shouldn't matter... but to think that there are people out there that called me friend at one point, or at least people I thought I was cordial with, would assume that I was capable of such horrible acts is just... absolutely horrifying to me in a way I never thought possible. I truly came to this site with the best of intentions. I put a lot of effort into my cat, Stormsong, and was having fun roleplaying warriors again. I pushed a lot of my friends to rejoin, because seeing a boost in activity and hanging with your friends is fun. And really, some stupid, really stupid part of me thought that I could rekindle some old friendships. I hardly remember what happened in the great war of 2019 or whatever, but I believed that maybe some hatchets could be buried. For the sake of kitty roleplay. God, I was so wrong.

I would still love an apology at this point, but at the same time - I realized what I needed the most was closure. It's really hard to be permabanned off a childhood sanctuary of yours with such an unfair label. I love my life. I love Sleepy. I love his family, who were kind enough to get to know me and allowed me to live with them for three or four years.

I understand it's hard to move on and live with pain, but that doesn't mean it's okay to inflict that pain on others. I make stupid jokes that make myself look bad because it's easier to beat someone to the typical punchline of calling me a cradle-robber when they inevitably judge me before they even know me or my relationship. I'm not ashamed of my fiancée, but I am scared of cruel people. I've been crying. I've been having nightmares and panic attacks. So if you wanted to punish me and see me suffer, congratulations. You've done a fantastic job, truly.

I don't expect to be unbanned or apologized to at this point (though my fiancée still very much does), but I feel like it was never fair that I was able to truly stand up for myself or get a word in with staff. There are some serious problems in this site with the way that it's run, but since I'm no longer a member, that's not really my problem.

So, I'll just say that I'm sorry things had to end this way. Thanks for the few months of fun I've had lately, and I wish you all the best.
Even those who treated me less than dirt. But also to you, if I'm a pedophilic groomer, I'm doing a terrible job because I should have gotten a newer model years ago.

Peace,
Ebs