SCP-7379 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-7379.

co-author post

Ampyrsand 21 Aug 2023 13:49

This is a remix of SCP-3790, the Department of Abnormalities, by djkaktus and Croquembouche. Much credit to the original authors for inspiring this piece, and to my co-author Some Reference!

The idea behind this remix is to explore the DoA, most often characterized as a mysterious external observer, taking a more active role in using the objects they contain. An additional, more obvious subversion would be use of the abnormalities to sustain normality itself.

Thanks for reading!

Last edited on 21 Aug 2023 16:41 by Ampyrsand Show more

co-author post

Repher 21 Aug 2023 13:50

Well, this one sure is odd.

We spent quite a bit of time on this one. Whether it’s good, I have no idea. I’d love if you could let us know either way. We are highly receptive to feedback and willing to change anything you believe we should.

What’s going on here? I suppose that’s for you to figure out.

Last edited on 21 Aug 2023 15:51 by Repher Show more

C-Dives 21 Aug 2023 15:42

Is it intentional that the title has not been added to the Series 8 list?

Repher 21 Aug 2023 15:44

Oop, that’s not intentional. Fixing right now.

+1

Hesiod Delta 21 Aug 2023 20:40

As usual, I have many thoughts:

+ Open spoilers

1. I appreciate how you worked the Scranton PA into the lore of SRAs, though the absence of the city's founding namesake makes the name connection feel a bit contrived.
2. The mention of James Anderson and the anachronistic presence of Lang-Scranton Stabilizers felt like major story components, so I was disappointed to see them only have minor relevance.
3. Reworking SCP-3790's use of placards as signage for an AO-filled Rube-Goldberg machine similar to SCP-4004 is brilliant. It helps make the piece feel more cohesive, rather than just a compilation of miscellaneous mystery items.
4. The presentation of the DOA as a more generalized approach to normalcy conservation does a nice job of tying together the various idiosyncracies of their behaviour, including their name. The involvement of reality anchors evokes memories of SCP-236-FR, which is a neat albeit likely unintended connection.

Nurge 23 Aug 2023 14:12

The header lists this as 7376 despite it being 7379 in the list. Probably an oversight I'd guess.
Otherwise I like it.

Jiwoahn 24 Aug 2023 10:04

The theme is honestly rather off-putting to people like me; black text on a brown background is not very appealing. I recommend changing it to a white background for the contest, if you want to get more readers.

---

For more information, please reread.

Thanks for the tip!

Repher 25 Aug 2023 23:02

I've redesigned the theme to be a little bit more legible. Hopefully this is better. If not, please let me know so I can make changes accordingly.

Last edited on 25 Aug 2023 23:03 by Repher Show more

LORDXVNV 04 Sep 2023 16:06

I like the high level idea behind this, but I think the pacing could be improved.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but the climax/big focal point seems to me like it should be the Rube Goldberg activation. If this is the centerpiece, then the entire start feels slower than it needs to be — the highly technical description telling us what we're later shown and the history of Robert Scranton. It's hard to put an exact finger on it and I'll admit I can't really tease apart personal preference and technical weakness here.

A major divergence from 3790 is that you make us wait quite a long time until we get to the "chamber contents" bit. Under the lens I'm currently applying, that means half the piece is exposition before we hit the rising action which is why I feel it's slow. The dioramas themselves are fine/alright — some of them are evocative, but there's also just a lot of them. If I wanted to make full sense of what was going on in the Rube Goldberg log I'd have to scroll up and back down a whole bunch to get a good idea of what was happening. This would be a case where having floating sideboxes or footnotes might be appropriate; I can't comment on whether that should replace or augment the existing list of items. However, given that the list is already stated to be incomplete I'd consider cutting it down to the 3 most evocative/indicative per section and then putting all the rest in footnotes with descriptions.

The ending is fun. I just think it takes way too long to get to the exciting parts and the exposition is only loosely connected to the payoffs.

Repher 09 Sep 2023 23:06

In all honesty, I completely agree with you. Basically everything you’ve said here is not only entirely valid, but also an incredibly well put reflection of our own reservations when posting the article. I think that a lot of the issues come down to a desire to post the article really early on as to maximize potential eyes, but in retrospect we definitely should have sent the article out for more critique and waited on it a little while to see if we could maybe find out how to fix some of the issues you’ve pointed out here. “If I had more time, I would’ve written a shorter [SCP Article]”

When it comes to your assessment of the ending, you’d be correct in saying it’s a Rube Goldberg machine. The core idea essentially came down to the DOA trying to replicate or reverse-engineer existing anomalies to try and use them together to maintain normality, which is why basically all of the objects are quite reminiscent of certain Skips or general lore concepts. I do quite like the explanation we came up for how it got here but I see how it sort of slows the majority of the article. We definitely got a little bit too into the worldbuilding element of the article, and I agree that that had some… unintended consequences. We sort of wanted to make this a mix of something like keter duty and the DOA but in retrospect those didn’t really bend too well together, at least not in the way we executed it.

I also agree that the amount of chambers is certainly a bit… much. We got quite carried away and kept having interesting new ideas, but found it hard to let go of any when it came time to actually separating them into the sections. When it comes to post-posting feedback, we’ve gotten the complaint of the scrolling back to remember issue several times, which we will try to address if we do a rewrite of this after the contest.

Me and Ampyr are gonna talk a bit about how we can best implement this feedback when we get the chance. Thanks so much for this, it has been incredibly insightful and we will definitely be keeping this in mind going forward.

Maxyfran73 26 Oct 2023 19:15

I'm not a particularly big fan of this one. I think there's a lot of particular issues to this pieces. I think the main ones are obviously, how many items are put, and the Rube Goldberg machine part. Put succinctly, the machine is just kind of boring to read through, especially as they expect the reader to remember all the moving parts from the previous bit, which I feel is unfair, considering they're not like, super memorable. Like, yeah, I can remember some, but not all and it kinda dilutes the experience, to have to either move back and forth or just skip remembering the items in the first place. I think in this sense, the names also fail cuz they're meant to imply something, the name + description combo, but then they're actually used for something so it all sort of loses cohesion.

The ending also falls flat cuz like, we already know what's up. The first half of the article talks about what this is all about, so the ending being 'yeah, that's exactly it' sort of makes the long winded machine feel… Pointless. I can't say I got much about that; the note at the end is cool, but like, I don't think it makes up for how many of the moving parts of the article I felt just didn't… Feel necessary. And one could argue that's the point, but I still had to read through them so yeah…

I also think the main issue here, at least conceptually, is that the concept of the DoA is the necessity to be mysterious about it, cuz the moment you explain the joke, there just isn't a lot to hold on onto. The DoA thrives on the inexplicable; that even to the mysterious agency that explain the unexplainable, they're a whole 'nother behemoth. By making this piece make sense, it just… It loses a lot of the charm that the DoA as a concept brings to the table. I don't think this is necessarily the crux of the issue, but on top of the ones mentioned earlier, it's just really hard to enjoy the piece as is.

I think this has the spirit of being a good DoA piece, but lacks a lot of the foundations necessary to make it tick correctly. -1

Chatttheleaper1 09 Feb 2026 04:33

Conflicted. 3790 is one of my favorite articles on the site, and the influence of it on this is obvious. I struggle to put my finger on it, but the majority of the tableaus here just failed to land as effectively as 3790s log did. The ending was interesting, if as acknowledged a bit overfull with names, but the imagery was evocative, and the moments of recognizing the various lore references were delightful. I just think this is too explanatory for a DoA article, while being too vague for a 'regular' article. +1 carried on my love for Abnormalities.

ETA: want to add, I think the standout image for me was the footnote on the Anderson anchors, that description just slips in like a dagger between the ribs.

Last edited on 17 Feb 2026 12:49 by Chatttheleaper1 Show more