The Astonishing Treehouse of the Secret Moon

 he Astonishing Treehouse of the Secret Moon (usually shortened to The Treehouse, Secret Moon Treehouse or just Secretmoon) is a fictional location in Tapestries MUCK. Founded by Lori'anne in mid-1999, it became well-known as a public area, and remains popular as of 2007. An associated website is home to a few of the long-term residents, as well as a mature ageplay-themed oekaki.

The area's theme is that of a slightly magical treehouse, permanently lit by the moon. The treehouse proper contains a large playroom, as well as a well-appointed bathroom and observation deck. Higher branches hold secondary sleeping platforms, along with a watchtower, while the hollowed-out basement of the tree hides an underground ball-pit. Surrounding areas include a grassy glade, a lake and a secluded pool.

In late 2000 the Treehouse became the focus of conflict between then-owner Crassus and maintainer Ben Raccoon. Escalation of the conflict led to a suspension of control, as changes in MUCK rules had rendered the existing shared-character power structure illegal. Ben was given sole ownership of the region by Tapestries wizards a few months later, and remains in charge to this day.


 * Website: http://secretmoon.org/
 * Founded: May 1999
 * Website started: 14 June 2000

Location and description
The Treehouse (t secretmoon) is located deep within the Northern Forest outside of Layleaux Town, south of WhiteFire's mountain. It resides in an open grassy glade filled with mist and moonlight among the trees. It's a peaceful area, and young furs come from all over to play in and around the treehouse.

The Yard
The yard is the entrypoint for this area, holding the teleport pattern and links to other areas. There are usually anywhere from five to fifteen furs around at any one time - as Secret Moon is a popular "cruising" location, there is almost always someone coming or going. This can sometimes be distracting; groups typically move somewhere quieter, like the treehouse proper. One peculiarity of the yard and the surrounding area is that it's always lit by moonlight - something to do with the tree, no doubt.

The Tree and Basement
Originally, the mid and lower portions of the tree were merely hollowed out by natural means. Once the treehouse was discovered by Lori'Anne and its original occupants, things were improved. At ground level, there is a doorway which leads to a ladder carved directly into the wood that travels its entire internal length. Traveling up the ladder leads up to the treehouse built upon the trunk.

Traveling downward, the ladder leads to a hidden basement which originally housed a rather dark area. Since then, it has been converted from its prior function into a ball pit, perfect for those days when you've really got nothing better to do than swim around in a sea of multicoloured plastic spheres. The ball pit is also accessible by way of a slide from the treehouse. It also contains various other instruments of play and leisure, and even a fridge of its own.

The original intention for the basement was to contain and house the more objectionable play. Over time, it was decided to redesign this area, since it conflicted with the ideal that the treehouse was meant to act as a safe haven for children, not bring harm to them.

Treehouse and Bathroom
The treehouse mainroom is the nominal hub of this area, although the yard is typically busier due to the traffic brought by the teleport pattern. Bedecked in multicoloured paint and ribbons, the room is filled with furniture from the '60s, including blowup chairs, pillows and lots and lots of beanbags. On the walls are toys of all kinds, to suit all tastes, including those who like to play rough.

A slide leads to the basement, while a door leads off to the bathroom, which is dominated by an large round tub set into the floor. Various soaps, oils and gels are available, along with a variety of shower-heads, hoses and nozzles. Some people spend a very long time in the bath, especially if they're with friends.

Deck and Playroom
Leaving the treehouse, visitors find a wide deck completely encircling the upper portion of the tree trunk, with plenty of places to sit or stand and admire the view. A fireman's pole offers a quick descent for those wishing to return to the yard. The tree's limbs are easily accessible from the deck - climb up into the branches, and you will find a hidden playroom, where imagination rules.

Sleeping Platforms and Watchtower
You can climb off the deck of the main platform onto two sleeping platforms linked to one another by rope bridge - the second platform can only be accessed via the ground floor of the first. Most of the platforms are given over to the private rooms of Secret Moon regulars. The first platform also holds the public bedroom, while the second has a watchtower, from which it's possible to see over the treetops to WhiteFire's mountain and Layleaux Town in the distance.

The Lake
South of the treehouse lies a lake with a sandy beach with everything a young fur could wish for in the way of water sports, including floats, rafts, noodles, and a dive-in platform in the deeper areas. The beach is also suitable for paddling, or just lazing out - no need to worry about getting sunburnt, as the moon also shines here!

Secluded Pool
To the east of the lake, a wooded path leads off to a secluded pool, where a flat rock provides a perfect jumping-off point into the crystal-clear spring waters. It is also a very quiet and peaceful place for those who wish to be alone, or alone with others.

The pool was added by Crassus while the treehouse was still under the ownership of Lori'Anne. The concept of the pool was to be a symbolic representation of time and the magical effects which the moon played on the area. A little-known fact about the Secluded Pool is that while the rest of the treehouse area stays locked in time stasis (providing a perpetual twilight), the pool, and the oak tree feeding from it, is locked in a sort of temporal displacement which not only allows time to flow forward (which explains the size of the oak), but also to be reversed.

Simply put, the pool can act as a kind of time machine. It can't transport you to and fro, though - it reacts to the inner wishes of the individual who bathes in it. This allows those who simply wish to have a swim to remain unaffected by the magical properties of the pool, while those who wish to either regress or advance in their age can do so.

Since time flows in this portion, the pool area also is the only area of the muck that is bathed in any form of sunlight, albeit limited by the canopy of leaves provided by the oak.

Population
Given the adult theme of Tapestries, Secret Moon is particularly suited to ageplayers, although babyfurs are known to hang out there as well.

Despite the theme, per MUCK rules every part of the Treehouse is a valid location for TinySex. Role-playing of non-consensual activities is frowned on in the Yard - participants in such scenes may be asked to move elsewhere, though if it's particularly well-played few are likely to complain.

Website
The domain secretmoon.org was originally purchased by Crassus in response to a flame-war on alt.fan.furry regarding the nature of the Treehouse and also to secure it for possible future promotion use. Ownership of the domain was voluntarily transferred to Ben Raccoon in summer of 2000.

The website shares the same theme as the MUCK location, although they are not particularly connected content-wise. Instead, the website provides hosting and mail services for some of Secret Moon's regular players.

In January 2003 a PaintBBS/oekaki system was added, which has become a popular place for pictures of underage characters in sexual situations.

Disputed changes of ownership
A couple of months after the Treehouse became a public area, Lori'anne approached Crassus and explained she was no longer interested in Tapestries and transferred ownership of the treehouse to him. Lori'Anne granted him the password to Treespirit, the Treehouse building-quota character. She publicly announced the change of ownership onto the Treehouse bulletin board.

Crassus then met Ben Raccoon and the two became involved in a relationship. Crassus invited Ben to become co-maintainer of the Treehouse and shared the character password. Crassus became involved in several expansion projects of the Treehouse's public areas.

Administrative Conflicts
In January of 2000, conflicts erupted between Crassus and Ben. During a heated exchange, Crassus made a spiteful comment about deleting the Treehouse, but he realized doing so would be extremely unfair to all of the visitors. Instead, he told Ben to maintain control of the area for the time being.

After a couple months, relations settled down between the two, however, conflicts arose once again when Ben began to revert the projects that Crassus had not finished. Crassus disapproved, asking that Ben return the Treespirit character so he could finish his intended projects. Instead, Ben changed the password to disallow Crassus from using it.

Crassus lodged a complaint to WhiteWizard via internal MUCK mail, who was not online at the time of the dispute. Crassus then noticed JadeWizard was online and approached her via page. He asked for Treespirit's password to be reset because of the conflict. Jade saw this as a simple issue to resolve, asking for Treespirit's email address. Crassus informed Jade that since the character had originally belonged to Lori'Anne, the email address did not match his own. He also informed Jade that he had sent WhiteWizard a #mail regarding the issue. Crassus claims that JadeWizard warned that WhiteWizard would get very upset and suggested not to tell him.

Crassus' Toading and Banning
Soon after speaking with JadeWizard, WhiteWizard (Whitefire's wizard character) appeared online. Within minutes, Crassus was toaded. The official administrative reason for toading was "character sharing", but the circumstances of this toading are highly disputed by Crassus. According to the wizards other factors were considered in the toading, including violation of the Muck's Harassment policy.

At the time, Crassus believed it to be acceptable MUCK policy to share characters due to an in-world global help file called "policy" which mentioned it being acceptable to share characters. Whitefire asserts that the document never stated one way or the other. He asserted that the web character registration form clearly had a clause which made new applicants agree not to transfer characters. However, at the time Crassus created his character, the web-based registration form did not yet include such verbiage. Crassus claimed to be unaware of it, and thus never agreed to such a clause, accusing Whitefire of bad housekeeping. The Wizards in turn state that they post announcements of policy changes, and that ignorance is not considered an excuse.

At the time all of this happened, WhiteFire had Crassus on an No-Contact Order due to a previous conflict regarding the state of the SCALF mailing list. WhiteFire cites violations of this NCO which is considered harassment to be one of the factors considered in Crassus' toading.


 * Crassus was put on ignore by Whitefire while attempting to address SCALF issues. WhiteFire describes this attempt as verbal assault.
 * Five minutes after being put on #ignore, Crassus was put on an NCO for stepping into Whitefire's abode to complain about the SCALF issue. Evading page #ignore is specifically mentioned in the Muck's harassment policies.
 * Crassus requested through WhiteWizard that WhiteFire drop his page #ignore of Crassus because it interfered with administrative contact ability. The Wizards note that this is further evasion of the page #ignore and harassment policy.

Prior to the toading decision, Whitefire spoke to BlackWizard for his opinion on the situation. He did so since he felt that being involved in a personal dispute with Crassus himself, he needed an outside opinion on the the course of action. Crassus has claimed that since BlackWizard was not online at the time, that he was not actually involved. WhiteFire responds that the other wizards often discuss matters with him through means other than their Wizard characters.

After hearing about Whitefire's complaints, BlackWizard asked why Crassus had not been toaded before this.

The decision to toad Crassus was made without hearing Crassus' side of the story. Crassus was briefly informed that he was being toaded, with no explanation, and was subsequently removed from the MUCK. The Wizards believe that notice of the various individual offenses should have been sufficient reason. They also admit that they will take action with out seeking the offender's opinion when they believe the offenses are clear cut.

The official statement made by the wizards is as follows: 7) JadeWizard Today -- Crassus: Toaded, Thursday October 4th 2001 From: JadeWizard  19:02:03 10/04/01 PDT Edited by: JadeWizard  19:03:56 10/04/01 PDT Crassus was toaded for breaking a number of policies, including participating in 'sharing' a single character object between  players and repeatedly circumventing no-contact orders (NCOs). This is not acceptable behavior. The character was removed, but the player is allowed to return to Tapestries. Please direct questions and comments to tap-wizzes@fur.com.

Crassus viewed WhiteFire's handling of the situation as unprofessional and unfair. By not even allowing to be heard before judgment, he felt WhiteFire was simply holding a grudge over unrelated events. WhiteFire contends that the events having happened on Tapestries in violation of the Muck's policies, were relevant.

Crassus, not having been made aware that he was allowed to re-register under his original character name, began a public protest and petition of his alleged unfair treatment by creating a website detailing the dispute, publicly displaying the multiple, unedited "chastising" emails he had received from WhiteFire after the toading. Crassus also used his remaining alt to post the URL of his protest website on the Tavern message board to make people aware of the situation.

WhiteFire quickly became aware of the protest website through multiple complaints about Crassus' message board link (which was openly commented as "whiny" by apathetic Tavern regulars). He sent Crassus another email, indefinitely banning him from any of fur.com's services (including the website and newsgroups), threatening him with possible legal action if he failed to adhere to the ban, and chastised Crassus for posting private emails onto a website.

The official statement by the wizards follows: 8) JadeWizard Today -- Crassus: Banned, Thursday October 4th 2001 From: JadeWizard  08:26:00 10/05/01 PDT Edited by: JadeWizard  08:31:52 10/05/01 PDT Shortly after the toading of one of his characters as strict punitive action against a number of flagrant violations of MUCK policy, Crassus began to use his alts to generate a 'petition' with which to address other MUCK users, hoping to generate a democratic out-cry in support of his position. As part of this petition, which generated multiple complaints from other users, he also disclosed private OOC/RL email, which is a violation of privacy as defined by MUCK policy and as defined by most adults using the Internet. The original toading did not keep Crassus from returning to the MUCK under the same or a different name. Instead, he took advantage of  his ability to remain on Tapestries to continue to harass and escalate the issues surrounding the original administrative action. Crassus demonstrated that he would not respect even one of the stiffest warnings the administration can give a user. As such, he is permanently banned from using TapestriesMUCK. Questions and comments may be directed to tap-wizzes@fur.com.

Eventual resolution
The account that held the property of the Treehouse was not removed until ownership of the intellectual property could be resolved. The account was instead locked. Finally, word reached Lori'anne and she contacted the Wizards. After a closed-door discussion between herself, Ben Raccoon, and one of the wizards, possession of the Treehouse was transferred to Ben Raccoon, and both he and Lori'anne were given a strong warning against further character sharing.

Ben Raccoon is still in possession of the Treehouse as of May 16th, 2012.

Crassus created a character on Tapestries in 2010 in violation of his ban. WhiteFire informed the Wizards to leave the account as long as it received no complaints. As of 2012, the ban is officially revoked.

Meta Dispute
The drama over editing this page is worthy of note itself which can be viewed both in the talk and discussion pages.