Ergophobia: Without Regards (Scp-8980) review

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This summary contains spoilers for SCP-8980: Ergophobia: Without Regards.
I encourage you to read the SCP before you read my review Please check the content warning on the SCP page before continuing and before reading.

This SCP is an entry in Anthology 2024: Face Your Fears. Ergophobia, also known as ergasiophobia or ponophobia, is the extreme and debilitating fear of work, fainting or losing employment, or several facets of the workplace.
The story follows Lilian Marley (the anomaly titled SCP-8980), a former SCP foundation employee. Her anomaly was first discovered in 2005, when during a routine meeting, her computer began projecting adult material despite not containing any material of that nature beforehand. From that point forward, the information on any electronic devices would change in some way to hurt or damage Lilian, such as deleting important work documents, sending files to the wrong addresses or sending the wrong files to the right addresses, the device spontaneously turning off in the middle of important procedures, etc.
She was at first temporarily contained in 2005 in order to study and neutralize her anomaly under her former boss, Head Researcher Christopher Byrnes. This containment ended up lasting 10 years, until Byrnes retired in 2015. It was later found that she was no longer anomalous, and the Ethics Committee reviewed and annotated her file. It came to light that she suffered emotional negligence, physical negligence, psychological abuse, and emotional abuse under Researcher Byrnes, causing her physical, mental, and emotional state to significantly deteriorate. Lilian developed “extreme apathy, severe technophobia, and a lack of social awareness” as according to Dr. McPharrell in addendum 10: Neutralization. Despite the abuse being confirmed, they could not do anything “due to the Ethical Post-Amnesticization Punishment Ruling [...he] cannot be punished for actions taken prior to major amnesticization, as he would not be able to remember committing them”
 

This review contains further spoilers.

What can I even say?? It’s a great SCP. The first one I read, and by far, my favorite. Deals with elements of abuse, isolation, gaslighting, saneism, and neglect in ways I can’t even put to words. The dehumanization of Lilian, though typical in SCP stories as all anomalies are usually just addressed with the code of their SCP and with impersonal neuter pronouns (it, its), adds to the weight of the story. At the beginning of it, Lilian insists that Byrnes is professional with her, with hints to his treatment of her prior to containment. However, once she is contained for nearly a year, the constant dehumanization in both the testing she endured and the language used for her gets to her and she lashes out at Byrnes, attacking him and saying (paraphrased) “my name is Lilian Marley, fucking call me that!”.
The fact that it's found that Lilian was no longer anomalous really gets me. When Lilian is tested on by any researchers other than Byrnes, her anomaly is either far less intense or doesn’t do anything. In my opinion, this implies that she was never anomalous in the first place. I’m of the belief that Byrnes was the anomaly, and spent 10 years using his anomaly against Lilian in order to break her down, just because he could. It's chilling! The only reprieve that the reader gets is that she's undergoing rehabilitation. We don’t see Byrnes get what he deserves, we don’t see Lilian interact with anybody that doesn’t want to exploit her until the very end, we don’t get to see Lilian happy ever again. We just have to sit with the knowledge that she was wrongfully contained and abused by her former boss for 10 years, and she had nobody to help her. Not even her own therapist. When she was screaming for the Amnesthesiologist not to let Byrnes erase parts of her memories, she did nothing. Nobody stopped the abuse. Despite it being a fictional universe with these fantastical elements, it's still painfully realistic. Someone you should be able to trust, who should be taking proper care of you, taking advantage of your vulnerable situation- or even causing it- in order to exploit and abuse you, and not having anybody there to help you or save you is, unfortunately, a very real phenomenon that rings very close to home.
I really enjoyed how Lilian was never portrayed as the perfect victim. She gets angry, she’s difficult, she isn't innocent. She doesn’t fit the cookie-cutter mold. She’s realistic, and that's what I love about her.

Rating ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

One star deducted because the twist, despite how much I glazed it, was predictable all things considered. The file wasn’t accessible and caused lots of eye strain and a headache. Also it made me sad

Recommendation

I fully recommend others to read it. This story utilizes the medium of an SCP case file very well and to its full potential, and is a very effective portrayal of abuse.