Work Text:
He’s back to his schedule of reading DER entries.
And he now realizes just how mischaracterized they all are.
Almost every entry feels wrong after getting to know all the characters personally. Like—no, Chief Lizard isn’t human, he just doesn’t correct it because he’s a blunt alien that doesn’t elaborate unless asked!
The worst part? He can’t even do anything about it.
Why? Here’s how it would go.
AgentGrapes (@agentgrapes)
Lee Jaheon isn’t human, he’s an alien. I know I have no evidence but—
Soleum would get blocked before he even got the chance to explain his nonexistent proof. He could try to write an entry—but it’d never get approved, Chief Lizard was a well-loved gag character.
It would mess with the canon too much—
Wait, canon?
…
Hold on. Entries can only be rejected if they contradict canon.
He doesn’t need to prove to the readers of DER. If he knows the canon story, then technically.. It couldn’t mess with canon.
It was that simple.
For proving Chief Lizard isn’t human, Soleum could just write an entry from Chief Lizard’s POV. There were many entries written from the perspectives of agents or employees.
Soleum knows how Chief Lizard doesn’t get contaminated, and how the coalition shares information—he basically has everything to write an entry proving Chief Lizard isn’t a human! It can’t get rejected if it’s true, can it?
He just needs to pick the disaster to send Chief Lizard into.
It would be much easier to prove he was a lizard if the lizard could see it himself—and he knew exactly which one would do that.
> Entry #26 [The day I died]
Lee Jaheon opens his eyes.
There are rusted walls around him. There is a scent of oil and little visibility.
Lee Jaheon is holding a flashlight according to the manual provided and turns it on.
There is a door which Lee Jaheon opens.
Lee Jaheon’s body is on the floor. There is blood seeping out of Lee Jaheon’s snout, pooling beneath him.
By ‘our’ decision, Lee Jaheon breaks the right wall of the factory down in an attempt to escape.
The factory trembles and shouts irrelevant words as Lee Jaheon escapes.
Result: The factory collapsed, Lee Jaheon was kicked out of the ghost story.
That was the entry. Short, yes—but Lee Jaheon’s entries were always short. There wasn’t much to write about somebody literally bulldosing their way through ghost stories.
That’s how Lee Jaheon’s fandom liked it. Kim Soleum was about to force-feed them evidence of lore—he knew exactly what the horrible reaction to this entry would be—and he would be ready to defend it. Anonymously, of course.
Those hardcore fans would probably find his address the moment he leaked even a little bit of information about himself. Especially after the train wreck he was about to add to the wiki.
He submitted it and waited.
This would work, right?
After a few anxiety-inducing minutes passed, it was approved.
For the first time, an entry with a good characterization of Chief Lizard would arise (in his opinion). There were a few… small changes that were made to all Lee Jaheon entries. Like all the entries explicitly stating Lee Jaheon was human being made to revise.. (eg. Any researcher entries that included his information)
Or the wiki-wide announcement explaining that this would be part of the canon Lee Jaheon lore.
But that wasn’t Soleum’s problem to deal with, he thought as his phone dinged with notifications.
Comments (124)
Ireum-nim (10 seconds ago)
What the hell?
Ireum-nim (12 seconds ago)
How did this get approved?? A snout? What is this literal Lizard interpretation? Mods, get this entry taken down TT
L +1
Ireum-nim (1 minute ago)
Author-nim, would you be so kind as to give us your name, IP address and SSN? We promise we won’t do anything with it :)
Ireum-nim (1 minute ago)
It physically hurts to read this entry. Everything we’ve known about Lizard is fake..?
Ireum-nim (1 minute ago)
Are we all ignoring the fact that we just got Lizard’s canon name? Lee Jaheon? All other entries that added his name were rejected but this one.
L Wait omg you’re right???
L His name is so hot 🤤
L +1
L If all other entries with a name got taken down, does that mean this was an accidental approval…? (coping)
Ireum-nim (2 minutes ago)
Can we all work together to find a problem with this entry to get it taken down???
L There were 8 lines in this entire entry, it’d be hard to find anything wrong.
L +1, the mods also clarified that Lee Jaheon is not a human, in accordance to this entry
Looky Mart isn’t real (@choisjadku)
Entries can be revised??? Where are the Agent Choi obsessed people when you need them?? Write new entries so that he doesn’t die I beg.
AgentKSE (@agentgrapes)
I’m on it..
Looky Mart isn’t real (@choisjadku)
We are all praying for your success.
If he could change Chief Lizard’s lore, and if by a slim chance, he could change other parts too, there would only be one, very infamous entry.
Agent Choi’s death.
It has always been a theory of his, that Agent Choi went up to the 4th floor because of Jaekwan’s death. If he has to make Jaekwan go into another disaster to make all of them survive, he’ll do it. Obviously.
As a part of Ireum-nim, it’s his job to change their future, right?
The agent who had gone to the Horizon Mountain Lodge was unnamed. He just has to name Jaekwan in another entry and make sure he survives that one.
…
…
Sua’s wifey (@mygodmyuniverse)
My entry got taken down for “1 problem was found with the availability of a character used in this entry, please revise this in 1 week or it will enter the wiki’s archive” So, I checked whether Baek Saheon was in another entry when I posted this one, and he wasn’t—but he was the only character I used.
This is what the wiki’s customer support said.
Me: Hello! My entry #12 on [And then there was one] was taken down for availability. May I ask which character wasn’t available?
Support: Please give me a few minutes while I contact the mod who took your entry down.
Support: After checking with the mod team, they have informed me that the ‘unnamed agent’ in your entry was in [Goblin Workshop] (#21) at the time of your entry.
Me: Didn’t that entry come out after mine? Why was mine taken down?
Support: The mod team unanimously voted that this entry would be better for the storyline.
Me: If I change the unnamed agent’s lines to make it a different unnamed agent, will it count as a revision?
Support: Yes.
The unnamed agent??? The entries don’t even clash? ‘Unnamed agent’ could be any one of the hundreds of the bureau’s agents. The other entry literally named their agent..? What could the mod team possibly be doing?
DokkeabiLanterns (@dokkeabilanterns)
I fear the mod team has been tweaking out after Lizard’s alien reveal
Looky Mart isn’t real (@choisjadku)
With so many revisions, Choi’s death revision is bound to come right?
Sua’s wifey (@mygodmyuniverse)
It’s been months, how are you still coping.
...
...
Somewhere else in the world, an employee was having a much worse day than the readers.
The customer service team has been overwhelmed with calls all day, and it has only been getting worse. He’s one of the many customer service reps being tortured today. First, the Lizard’s name was revealed—and the fact he wasn’t human. Then, a ridiculous number of fics were taken down for unknown reasons.
What was customer support supposed to tell them? ‘We don’t know either’?
And lastly, this email they just got.
From: [email protected]
Dear customer support team,
We extend our apologies for the recent changes without proper notice. This week, we will be implementing a revision on entry #421 in [Looky Mart] which features a named character, Agent Choi. This entry will be revised or removed, and new entries for Agent Choi will be continued.
We apologise for the inconvenience caused.
From,
DER mod team
…They're changing Agent Choi’s death? Is the mod team on substances?
…
He would quit if he didn’t need the money.
Looky Mart isn't real (@choisjadku)
GUYS??? WHY DID AGENT CHOI'S DEATH ACTUALLY GET A RETCON? WHAT.
Not_a_Lizard (@Not_a_lizard)
Even the person that’s been praying for this is shocked. What even led up to this retcon?
Uriel (@demonlikejudgeoffire)
It got marked as out of character?
Not_a_lizard (@not_a_lizard)
Whatever the reason is, I’m so fucking happy I’m going to post all my Choi entry WIPS now before this gets revoked.
This would be dubbed the most infamous (and only) retcon the wiki had ever faced.