i don't talk about it very much

or at all

and i usually don't elaborate when people ask me about it

but if you were around here in june 2020

you know how the fediverse has directly and unquestionably saved my life

in the most ludicrously grandiose way possible

it allowed me to escape my abusive parents and start a new life for myself in seattle

it was called... #vantascape

and maybe i should talk about it

everyone says it's such a legendary part of fediverse history

and, i guess it is

but it was also the scariest moment of my entire life

this is the story of how fedi allowed me to escape my abusive parents

in december 2019 i started HRT

in march 2020 the covid lockdowns began

i was forced to move back in with my abusive parents

they were increasingly horrible for months, which i posted about lots

until finally, they just went into my backpack while i was in the shower and stole my HRT

i decided enough was enough, and made a post saying "hey i need a place to go"

i got a response that said "i don't have anywhere you can go, but i'm a pilot and i can fly you somewhere"

a longtime mutual had been offering me a spot on their couch in seattle, but i wanted to stay in cali to stay on my health insurance until i was informed washington's is infinitely better

at first i was planning on taking multiple busses and trains and shit, because i figured the pilot would only wanna fly me within cali, but on a whim i figured i may as well ask and was met with an affirmative response

but they were only rated for clear skies, so if we wanted to go we'd have to either do it THAT NIGHT or in like a week

naturally, i chose the sooner option and in the span of six hours went from realizing i needed to escape my abusive parents to having a solid way out

i packed my shit silently, just a single backpack. i had a friend working mission control/moral support in discord veecee guiding me through everything, and managed to slink out of the house in the middle of night with them none the wiser

oh and this was in the middle of the george floyd stuff and there was a curfew in effect for my whole town! i had no idea at the time, but if i cop had seen me i would've been busted. and so the nearest uber driver was 45 minutes away in another county

so i sat and waited for what felt like a lifetime until finally he came, took me to the airfield, i waited many more hours in voice chat... then, pilot arrival! bathrooms! and... liftoff!

i had escaped

but this was only the beginning...

i'm editing down quite a bit of waffling on my end but this is pretty much the gist of it i think

i hope people enjoy this little interesting tidbit of vanta lore and fedi history

it really is digging into lots of trauma and baring my soul to recollect these things in any amount of detail

so next time you ask yourself why i'm so passionate about mutual aid on here

remember it saved my life

there's a bit more epilogue to the story

that i probably won't feel like typing up until i come back from this rave later tonight

but yeah it was mainly my parents stalking me after the fact

i was just numb through the whole thing, and for a long time any amount of trying to remember and retell it would make all the fear i should've felt in the moment as it was happening start seeping through

so i never talked about it