A predator will be attending Milwaukee Ponyville Ciderfest · 3:00am Oct 30th, 2024
Content warning: sexual abuse, self-harm, online harassment, and the propositioning of a minor
The person’s name is Kaitlin Hahn. Aka, SilverMoon, aka RainbowDashie5.0, aka rockcandypower43. [Addendum: aka Rainbowdashloverocks]
[Everything written here has been transferred over from the Tumblr post I made about an hour ago. I realized not everyone has a tumblr account, so even if they get the link they can't read it. I'm not going to bother splitting this all up for a Twitter thread, and I'm not sure where I would post this on Reddit. Here is a link to the original: https://www.tumblr.com/dragonturtle2/765721810375524352/a-predator-will-be-attending-waukegan-ponyville?source=share]
Earlier this year it came out that Kaitlin had prompted a 16-year-old for a sexual encounter. This was published in a compilation document posted online by a man with the username Reverend Shadow. He had compiled stories, screenshots, and links of people acting dangerously in the MLP community (and by extension the Furry and Sonic game community). The document went through several revisions and address changes, and you can read the non-Google doc version on Wordpress. You can just read the sections about Kaitlin, but the entire thing is useful.
https://revshadow.wordpress.com/the-document/8/#chapter-iii-part-i-kaitlin-s-error
The person who first told me about the document was Blackjack (John Bergeman). The events were also acknowledged to me as real by her boyfriend, Gage. Gage has been my friend since college, and were former roommates and co-workers for years after graduation. Kaitlin has also admitted to what she has attempted with a minor in different formats. Kaitlin made a strange YouTube apology video, where she vaguely acknowledged she did something “extremely wrong” with a 16-year-old. As well as harassing an 11-year-old.
Even the apology video was done shadily. It was set to private, and posted on her second more obscure YouTube channel. All so that fewer people would ever see her admitting fault. I only first saw it because someone shared the private link with me. The link that I’m sharing with you is just Reverend Shadow recording of it. (The original video was called “ I am willing to change.” The recording Reverend Shadow posted has a different, much more specific title). Her video came after the evidence about her was made public. A more immediate confession was when she got blocked by then-boyfriend Gage (He’s unfortunately gotten back with her), she began messaging a friend of ours named Jared Miller Christian. She was begging him to convey her messages to Gage, begging Gage to unblock her, and admitting “I sent that thing to that 16-year-old because I was fucking horny.”
This is a well-known pattern of Kaitlin’s. Someone doesn’t want to talk to her, so she spams them with calls and messages. Then if she gets blocked, she begins spamming them on different services like Facebook, Discord, or even over games like Animal Crossing. If none of those get a response, she begins bothering a shared mutual to pass along a bunch of her messages. Kaitlin has been an abusive person for years. Nothing that would qualify getting banned from a convention or calling the police, but once the story dropped about how she wanted to have sex with a minor, everything that happened with her really illustrates how irrational she is. How little regard she has for other people.
Years before this story broke of propositioning a minor (and trying to cheat on her boyfriend Gage again), we kicked her out of the Milwaukee Bronies group because she was a jerk to everyone, and threatened someone on Facebook. There was a dude who was selling a few plushies; Kaitlin offered money for one that WASN’T for sale. When the guy kept politely saying “no,” she threatened to call the police to his address for ‘false advertising.’ Plenty of people in Milwaukee Bronies can tell you that story, including our leaders.
On February 26th of 2024, John Bergeman (aka Blackjack, who has worked with Ciderfest very often) blocked her because she had been pestering him over something. She got so upset, she created a new group chat with him and Jared Christian, where she threatened to kill herself if Blackjack didn’t answer her phone calls. Jared then called me, because he was so freaked out. Someone had to call the nonemergency number, even if we had our doubts she would actually do anything. After this, she had to have a stint in a mental hospital. When she got picked up that night, it turned out neither of her parents knew where she was actually was at the time. Kaitlin‘s parents are divorced, and she is barred by Illinois law from living on her own. In actuality, she had been staying over at the house of a different, cheating on her boyfriend. (She also apparently tried convincing her sister, to join them). This lover had met her because he had been hired by her parents to drive her to work. He was mostly paid through subsidies granted by the state of Illinois. That used to be a job performed by her Gage, until he had to move back to his home state Wisconsin, and their relationship became long distance. These are screenshots from that night.
On June 10th, 2023, Simone Smudde and Matt Rypel were married. They are the leaders of Milwaukee Bronies, and everyone in the group got invited. Kaitlyn obviously wasn’t; Simone has said that before Kaitlyn was booted, she made Simone anxious just by being around her. Kaitlyn always hated being banned from group meetings, and generally hated it when Gage was spending time with anyone and it didn’t involve her. Gage gave me a lift in his car to the ceremony in Wisconsin, and we bunked at his parents’ house for the 22nd and 23rd. Throughout the 22nd, Kaitlyn kept calling him to demand he cancel his attendance, and leave me to figure a way there myself. Then on the 23rd, she threatened Gage and Blackjack to kill herself for attending the wedding without her. That all the Bronies wanted her dead. She also laid out some offensive remarks about the bride and groom. At the couples’ request, I will not be making those personal comments public. But they have been shared with the con staff.
These messages were being before and during the ceremony, and were then shared with me in deep exasperation during the dinner. I have not posted them in any particular order.
A few days later that June, Kaitlyn got hospitalized. She got on someone’s birthday party stream (on FaceTime, I think) and began stabbing herself with thumbtacks. Person C was attending that stream. Person C texted this information with Blackjack, who shared the screenshots of those texts with me. (I’m not using Person C’s name because I have not had the chance to reach out to them and ask their permission.)
As disturbing as this is, it wasn’t an actual attempt on her life. This was Kaitlyn being as alarming as she could be to punish the people she felt had wronged her. She tries to control people using guilt, alarm and anxiety. I first saw behavior in that same vein in 2021, a year into Gage first dating Kaitlyn, after he and I had moved into a new apartment together. For now I will not be going into detail out of respect for Gage's privacy and his own abuse. But it HAS been shared with Ciderfest. I know it's wishful thinking, but I do hope he listens to the advice of all his friends and family and cut her out of his life.
I never met her sister Lexi, but Kaitlin has been making her sister feel unsafe as well. Recently she told Lexi that if she didn’t do what Kaitlin wanted, Kaitlin would lie to Reverend Shadow to put Lexi’s name on the document naming sex predators & enablers. Fortunately, Kaitlin made this threat on a livestream, and he recorded it.
Her sister I feel bad for, because she’s also disabled and doesn’t really have the ability to go anywhere else. One of the people I've talked to while creating this is Lexi’s confidant. Meanwhile, the parents are either unable or unwilling to do anything to restrain Kaitlin. I have spoken once with her father, Merlin Hahn, since I read about the allegations. It was on a phone call with Gage. Besides Merlin acknowledging that the events happened, he claimed that it wasn’t pedophilia. His excuse was that Kaitlin’s mental diagnosis made her like a middle schooler. I told him that besides that not sounding like something defensible, I asked why he accepted years of Kaitlin dating some men her age or older, and did not share a similar cognitive diagnosis. Men who he did not also consider middle schoolers. He did not have an answer.
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Everything I've wrote above was presented to the con staff on October 9th, and I was only told about the current decision to let her attend October 26th. And that was just because I asked. I was told "Royal Guard and leadership are very aware, are vigilant about it and handling. If they do show up and if they do cause ANY problems. Please let me or any Royal Guard know."
I had provided a link to where the story first broke, recorded conversations, as well as my experiences with Kaitlin Hahn over the years. I promised that "If anything I’ve given you seemed falsified, or too vague, please let me know so I can provide details, fix my error. I’m willing to do a video interview, or help set one up with someone else." The only reassurance I got was "Really they are being watched with a magnifying glass." But I don't get the point of a magnifying glass, or security camera, or some other looking device metaphor, when something obviously harmful has been observed, and no action is taken.
Kaitlin did not attend Whinney City 2024. I had mistakenly thought she was prohibited from coming by the convention itself. But actually, the reason she didn't come to Schaumburg is because Gage was too angry with her to provide a ride or a room. A few months later, any misgivings Gage might still have he's chosen to ignore.
Kaitlin is still coming to Ciderfest. Just as she has in years past, and I'm sure plans to in the years to come. The thought process behind allowing her in seems like it treats the convention as some kind of vacuum, that what a person says and does outside of it doesn't matter for the people attending. Or that the people who run the con somehow don't have the right to alter anything. They won’t take real action unless something happens WITHIN the location and timeframe of the convention (or if Kaitlin dropped an extremely specific threat). I asked permission from Ciderfest if I could include the names of the staff members I spoke to about this, and I was not given permission. I can attest though that they were important people, and have a reputation for responsibility. While reaching out to con staff, I was repeatedly told how busy they were. If that affected the outcome of this decision, or stopped them for noticing Kaitlin's behavior in the first place, then I strongly recommend they reserve more of their time and effort for keeping congoers safe as possible. Of the people I've named in these events, most of them I have reached out to for permission to use their names. They never spoke to me about anyone from the con reaching out for their accounts, or confirmation of events.
No, I don't think Kaitlin is going to assault or touch anyone while the at the convention. I just firmly believe a person like this just shouldn't be allowed in our spaces. It feels gross on its own, being in the same room as someone like that. Parents bring their kids to this convention. But I also sincerely feel like this could lead to problems down the road. Letting unbalanced abusers walk around puts a veneer of normalcy on them, that lets them get closer to unsuspecting people. As for people who DO know about Kaitlin's abuses, this sets the precedent that these things won't be opposed, that the abuser won't lose any privileges. So other abusers won't feel apprehensive in acting this way, and victims won't feel like there's a point in speaking up and seeking help.
A person who does all this shouldn't get to be included in our convention community; not be given the same privileges, and not nearly the standard of trust given to the rest of us who've done nothing wrong. Feeling like we can open up to complete strangers, and feel safe, is part of what makes these conventions so wonderful. Regardless if Ciderfest/Whinney City don't take preventative action, I hope this information will prevent anyone from approaching this bully and predator unsuspectingly.
Oh my gosh, that’s so horrible, I hope she gets help and I hope she never comes here.