The Federal Government Wants Me To Take Down My Yumejoshi Otome Isekai Proshipping Blog

The United States government has ordered me to take down my yumejoshi otome isekai proshipping blog, and I need everyone to understand that this is happening to me. Not to an organization I belong to. Not to a larger group of writers. Me, personally, because of the singular power of my 47-part series about being transported into a dating game and marrying its adult villain. I have spent eleven months telling people this work matters. Apparently the Coast Guard was listening.

The letter arrived on Thursday, and I have barely slept since. Partly because of the threat, but also because every time I lie down I remember that someone in the federal government had to explain my importance to someone else in the federal government. There may have been a slideshow. I have asked that mutuals stop posting unrelated good news until we understand the scale of what is happening to me. Below is my transcription. I cannot show you the actual letter because protecting sources is basic journalism, even when the source is an envelope.

United States Coast Guard

Re: Yumejoshi Dispatch

Dear mothmilk_irl,

We don’t normally send letters like this, but your work is so important and special that we are sending this to you and no one else. Please do not ask whether anyone else received a letter. They did not. We selected you personally from among every person on the internet.

Our analysts have reviewed your yumejoshi otome isekai proshipping blog, including the chapter in which the adult villain asks your self-insert to stop correcting his character wiki. This is the first relationship between fictional adults to require the attention of a federal agency. We cannot tell you which law applies, because you would then know which law applies.

Delete the blog by Friday. If you refuse, we will contact your hosting provider and require the removal of your work. We have the authority to request this because we are the Coast Guard.

You may tell your followers that the federal government is targeting you, particularly the part where we say your work is important and special. Do not show them this letter. You may type out the whole letter if that helps.

Sincerely,

Director

United States Coast Guard

P.S. There are no other letters. Please emphasize that.

The sentence “We don’t normally send letters like this, but your work is so important and special” has stayed with me. I put it in my bio, with “United States Coast Guard” underneath so people know it is not something I said about myself. I have never described myself as the most important writer in my community. That assessment came from people with boats.

I am furious. I am also trying to sit with what it means that a federal agency has read more of my work than several people who call themselves my friends. My mother is still on part four. The government noticed the recurring jasmine motif. I sent her that paragraph and she replied, “Is this real?” I cannot explain how lonely it is to be more fully seen by your oppressor than by your own family.

Some people are asking why the Coast Guard would investigate a landlocked fanfiction blog. I am sorry that my persecution has failed to arrive through the department you would have preferred. Next time I will ask to be intimidated by someone more familiar to you. Until then, perhaps take five seconds to consider that the government has access to information you don’t. For instance, it knows how important I am.

A journalist asked to see the envelope. I told her the letter had been pushed under my door. She asked how I knew it had come from the government. I directed her to the words UNITED STATES COAST GUARD, which are at the top, where government agencies traditionally identify themselves. She asked who had signed it. I said I was not going to dox a federal employee merely to satisfy her curiosity. She then asked whether I knew the employee’s name. At that point it was clear this was an interrogation.

I have posted screenshots of her questions with the caption “This is what they do to you when you’re a threat.” She has since clarified that she was asking about the paper. Yes, beloved. That is the paper with the threat on it. Keep up. If your first response to a targeted writer is to investigate whether the targeting occurred, you have chosen a side, and it is frankly embarrassing that I have to tell you which one.

Several readers have pointed out that the seal in my photograph says “COAST GOURD” and appears to contain a zucchini. I do not design federal seals. I write transformative fiction. Expecting me to account for every design decision made by my persecutors is an impossible standard, and I will be blocking anyone who repeats it. The misspelling may be intentional. We do not know how far up this goes.

I have established an Emergency Defense Tier at $18 a month. Someone asked whether I had hired a lawyer. I have consulted a lawyer, who said the letter was not credible. I am now raising money for a lawyer who understands the seriousness of the situation. Please stop linking the first lawyer’s explanation in my comments. That is unpaid legal advice I did not consent to receive.

Part 48 will go up on Friday, as promised. I have added a scene in which the prince tells my self-insert that she is too important for the kingdom to allow her to keep writing. It was difficult to write through the tears. He has always understood me, and now I have independent confirmation.