Someone requested a doodle of “some of the Dominion’s anti-human propaganda” but tbh this is too real outside of star trek. this is probably plastered over the entire Citadel in Mass Effect
America has a weird relationship with cults where they’re terrified of small cults (or organizations they think are cults) but completely normalized massive cults that hurt many more people (eg: LDS Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Amish, Scientology, most Megachurches)
To anybody asking if the Amish are a cult, the answer is yes, very much so.
They’re a high control group that isolate you from society. The cult decides how you dress, how you behave, who you marry and how. They control what you know, blocking all information from the outside world. They control how you feel and what you’re allowed to think with threats of both social and supernatural harm. They’re a cult.
The best method to determine if a group is a cult, in my opinion, is Steven Hassan’s (cult expert and former cult member himself) BITE model.
BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.
The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.
I think this model is the best one for several reasons:
It’s more nuanced than “cult” or “not cult” and doesn’t make false equivalences between groups
It’s versatile, applying to groups big and small, and cults of all kinds, religious, political, financial, etc.
It focuses on what’s important, which is what the cult does to its members, and those members’ experiences, and not on irrelevant details like how uncommon their doctrines are or whether they have a charismatic leader
#you might notice that there are a lot of similarities between cult techniques and those of abusive partners#and that is an important thing to be aware of
Even big scary ghosts need affection and emotional support.
[Image ID: A digital drawing of Danny Fenton in a hoodie looking murderous while gently cradling the face of a monstrous Phantom with one hand. Phantom's body is black and shadow-like with glowing neon green ribs, palms, eyes, mouth, ghostly tail and fire for hair. Phantom has four hands, three of which he is using to hold onto Danny, and the fourth hovers reverently over the human hand cradling his face. /. End ID]
i dunno how to phrase this without sounding like a jerk but sometimes the conversation surrounding marginalised cultures in europe does take on this weird tone of "well, they're white, so it's not really erasure or genocide or imperialism" because to some people it's only Imperialism when it's The British Empire doing it to Those Stupid Brown (slur) (slur) (slur)
like, there's genuinely no way not to sound kind of like an arsehole about this, but: when i'm talking about marginalised languages which have been driven to the point of extinction in europe, i don't particularly want people to come along saying "oh, and let's also pay attention to these non-european languages which are even more likely to be forgotten!" because that is, for once, not true. in some european countries linguistic imperialism is, if anything, being talked about less than other continents. maybe it's just because i've mostly studied the histories of french and english, but how many people out there even know that scots is a language in its own right and not a dialect? we absolutely need more space to talk about indigenous languages across the world which have been wiped out, erased, or suppressed by colonialism; we absolutely need to work on centring and revitalising them. but, you know, the same is true worldwide. the state of linguistic diversity in europe is fucking dire.
Shepard wakes up post-revival changed in an additional way. ME1 Shepard was a Soldier or Engineer, but part of Cerberus bringing him back involved accidentally making ME2 Shepard a Vanguard or Sentinel respectively. Either someone on the team couldn't resist an experiment or it was genuine accident.
Ennxndjdhdn omg omg omg omg omg
Shepard wakes up in a body that already doesn’t feel like hers, stuck in an uncanny valley that she cannot escape from because the thing with the face that isn’t quite right in a way that she can place is her own reflection, and is immediately thrown into a fight without a chance to get her bearings. For a while everything is… well not fine but the kind of chaos she was born for. Running from cover to cover shooting mechs in their weak spots like it is second nature. It is second nature. Though her hands don’t feel the same, can’t be the same, her mind still remembers the countless mechs she assembled and disassembled over the years. It would be impossible to forget. Her entire life she has been taking things apart to see how they worked and putting them back together better than they had been, so of course she knows every weak spot.
Only when she tries to summon a drone to cover her and Jacob she throws a mech into a wall instead.
Her breath catches.
Something in the back of her head that wasn’t there before (an amp her brain supplies) thrums.
She’s not herself.
This isn’t her body.
She’s not a fucking engineer anymore but a sentinel.
(She refuses to believe it’s anything else. She may have biotics now but they will have to pull her omnitool out of her cold dead hands a second time before she lets them make her a vanguard.
She is surrounded by Cerberus being attacked by rogue security mechs and the fucking witch doctor scientists that brought her back changed something in her that can never be undone.
And she doesn’t even get a chance to freak out about this because there are more fucking mechs coming.
Honestly it’s a wonder she doesn’t strangle Miranda on the spot for this.
Rereading 'The line is covered in Jellyfish' by @yunuen while waiting for the next chapter as one does, and I always think about how the first scene could have gone for Viktor.
I imagine him with thoughts not fully connecting, and a sort of detached, sad acceptance of the fact that he is alone... it is what he deserves after all, isn't it?
Well, you try telling that to Jayce, see how it goes.
Finally finished my second proper run of the trilogy!
Hilarious timing on my part, look at these pretty generators i took screenshots of while ignoring the deliberate tense atmosphere of Omega's Mines mission.
(Or: the snippet from this post given its own, because it's fun and also coz it might become its own little au.)
"Henry," Danny hisses, digging his nails into the collar of the boy's jacket and shaking him harshly. "Henry!"
No response. Danny's one saving grace is that he can still hear him breathing, but that does very little to stave the fear coating the walls of his lungs like a film of frost. And maybe he's just hallucinating the breathing, or- or mistaking his own for Henry's.
It's not like he can look to his chest for signs of movement either; it's past sundown in Gotham, and the closest streetlight is busted. The only source of light is from the other streetlight, and that's too far away to be of any use to him, and the-- the uh--
The faintly glowing purple-y stuff pulsating through the veins at the corner of his eyes. They fade out around his temple, but reappear like spurts of uncovered wires down his throat and cheek. The glow blinks slowly, in-and-out like some kind of neon sign. Or one of those emergency red lights above a door.
It's, uh, kind of horrifying. And Danny's seen horrifying before, so that's really fucking-- something.
He presses his fingers into the side of Henry's throat, and chokes on an indiscernible sound when he feels a rapid, fluttering, pulse. The relief is a very temporary balm, and it's gone faster than a gasp.
"What the fuck did you take!?" He hisses, ignoring the panicked crack in his voice as he withdraws his fingers from Henry's throat and starts patting him down. Jesus, even the veins in his wrist were glowing.
Did it spread through his whole body?
Danny can't say that he and Henry are friends, but they're not enemies. Danny sees Henry most often at the Hideaway -- an old, abandoned factory building southwest of the Alley, near Burnley, that was repurposed into a sort of hangout-market area for the kids of Crime Alley. It's supposed to be a neutral ground, so even if you are part of some gang, affiliations and animosities get left at the door.
(And even if they were enemies, Danny isn't gonna leave him here to die from whatever shit he's on.)
He sticks his hands into Henry's pockets and tries rummaging around. His hands run into a wad of tissues -- eugh, fucking gross! -- a handful of change that, on impulse, he considers stealing, a pocket knife, and then a half-empty vape.
Danny considers for all of three seconds that maybe the weird reaction and glowy veins are from the vape, and then he tosses the idea out and starts patting Henry's jean pockets. He doesn't feel any lumps to indicate he's got anything there, and so he moves on to the ground.
Broken glass, broken glass, dirt, dirt, dirt, a cigarette butt-- Danny grits his teeth together and swallows the bubble of rising panic. His scalp itches with the cold sweat that's broken out across his hairline, and the ectoplasm under his skin buzzes and boils in response to his emotions.
"You have a fuckin' sister, you know." He whispers furiously, looking around at the ground even though he can't see anything. She's closer in Danny's age and he knows her a little better as a result; about a few months younger -- eleven to Danny's twelve -- and a deceptively sweet-looking girl. She has a mouth like a sailor, claims to cut her own hair, and looks like she does. She kicks. "Are you gonna make me tell Cathy that her fucking brother died?"
He keeps patting the ground and- a glint of something catches his eye. Danny's head snaps to the side, and he zeroes in on this-- this thing hiding by the leg of a nearby dumpster. He sees specks of something purple, it's in the same neon shade as whatever's in Henry's veins right now.
Danny lunges towards it and closes his fingers around a small bottle. How the hell it didn't manage to break is beyond him, but he pulls it out and scrambles back towards Henry's side.
Holding it up to a non-existent light, Danny squints as the corner of his mouth curls. It's one of those small glass bottles; the kind Danny used to see in the lab that held different chemicals and reagents in it. One of those, like, five milliliter ones.
There's still a little bit of liquid in it. Just the residual stuff from whatever didn't get consumed. And it's-- it's fucking purple. The same violent, violet-magenta shade as the stuff currently glowing out of Henry.
Danny turns the bottle, and instantly stiffens. Inside, the liquid shifts colors, fazing from violet into bright, sickly green, and then quickly back to violet. He turns it again, and it does the same thing. The colors shift like one of those fancy, holographic cards Tucker used to collect.
Horror floods Danny's chest and he nearly chokes on the acid reflux of the feeling.
Oh no. Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no.
Please don't tell him that's what he thinks it is.
Immediately he lowers the bottle and sticks his nose to the edge of the bottle, he sniffs-- and then recoils. The distinct chemical burning smell sears through his nostrils, stinging the bridge of his nose and springing tears to his eyes, and then quickly warps into a-- a kaleidoscope of smearing emotions and memories and feelings that Danny can't put a name to, but doesn't want.
It also confirms his worst suspicions. The sudden introduction to outside ectoplasm -- as brief and faint as it may have been -- jumpstarting the ecto in Danny like an electrical shock.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Danny turns and slams his eyes shut, coughing into his elbow as he tries to wrangle his agitated core back into submission. This stuff has ectoplasm in it.
This stuff has ectoplasm in it.
Why does it have ectoplasm in it?!
Where did Henry even find this!
Why is it here! In Gotham?!
When his eyes no longer sting and the core in Danny's chest is no longer sending a numbing buzz through his shoulders and spine, Danny looks back to the bottle and tries searching for a label. And, and there is. Its just he can barely read it.
The label is small enough that he could cover it with his thumb, and the writing on it even smaller. Even squinting, Danny's eyes can't make out the letters, and the glow of the liquid is faint enough that even if he tries moving it behind the label, it doesn't show through.
Shit. He doesn't want to leave Henry's side. What if someone sees him? Or shows up?
...Reluctantly, Danny leans in closer to Henry and uses the faint glowing of his veins to light up the bottle. He still can't make out the smaller lettering, but there's bigger words he can read now.
"P...puhh--" he narrows his eyes and tilts the bottle, "puh-prih--"
The bottle says 'PR/ZM'.
...What kind of name is that. Danny purses his lips and tries not to scowl, rereading the name twice. That's like straight out of a sci-fi game. "Prih-zuhm. Prizum. Prism. Prism?" Prism. He's sticking with the pronunciation. He grips the bottle tighter out of spite.
"What the hell is Prism?" He snaps back to Henry, who's still unconscious, and fucking still breathing. The pulsing hasn't gotten worse, but it hasn't gotten better, and Danny isn't sure if that's a good thing or not.
But now that he's got the bottle, what does he do now? Henry's still dosed by it, and he's still unconscious. Danny doesn't know any clinics he could take him to. All of the nice ones are on the other side of the city, and they're gonna take one look at him and Henry and boot them both out, or worse; call the cops.
What if GCPD realizes Danny's a missing person? They're gonna alert Vlad of his whereabouts and Danny's gonna be dragged back to that stupid castle, and the mere thought of it makes his chest tighten up with panic.
And what about Henry? The police aren't gonna help him, they're just gonna jail him for illegal drug use and he'll probably die from this Prism stuff before he even makes it out of police custody. It'll be a lose-lose for everyone.
Shit.
Should Danny just stay here and wait until the effects pass, or until it kills him? A nauseating pit forms in his stomach at the thought, and a drowning sense of helplessness floods through him as his hands lower into his lap.
He can't do anything.
Again.
Danny's head thunks against the back of the wall, and his eyes sting with tears. "Fuck."
Someone's going to die again because of him. His mouth purses into a wobbly line, and the grief that passes through knocks the wind out of him. He's really going to have to tell Cathy that Henry died. The least he can do is make sure that Henry's not alone for it.
Releasing the bottle, it falls to the ground with an uneventful thunk, and he hears the tinkling as it rolls away again. Danny draws his knees up to his chest, and wraps his arms around them, pressing his nose into his jeans. There's just enough space that he can peek out over and watch Henry.
More tears flood his eyes, and he sits, and watches, and waits. Impending doom pounding in his lungs.
----
A few minutes later, Henry's condition not getting any better or worse, and Danny hears a faint, heavy fluttering.
...What.
He lifts his head and turns it slowly, brows furrowing. What is that? He sits up a little straighter, and his arm slowly lowers to the ground, unhooking from its wrapping around his knee.
His hackles raise, and--
The sound is getting slowly louder, quiet as it is. What is that? Danny's shoulders begin to scrunch up, and his ecto responds to his apprehension by beginning to shift and buzz. It feels kind of funky, lightweight and hollow like the aftermath of lifting something heavy.
That's new? Or maybe the effects of sniffing the PR/ZM stuff.
Danny's turns, and he shifts into a semi-kneel, pressing against the wall. The fluttering sound is getting closer, that's what's happening. That sounds like wings. Something is flying.
Something is flying over his head. Danny looks up widely -- he doesn't see anything, of course he doesn't, but there's still something flying. And panic zings his nerves to life and kicks his ecto into gear. It tingles through his fingertips and spreads throughout his shoulder blades. Down his spine and to his knees and shins. It sends a twinge through his veins like they've just fallen asleep and--
That sound is coming towards him.
In a panic, Danny goes invisible. Just in time too as, moments later, a large figure casts over his head and drops down into the alleyway.
Danny flings himself to his feet and plasters himself against the wall, blind shock and fear bursting along his chest in a starburst of colors. His eyes blow wide, and his jaw drops to the ground.
Shit.
Terror lurches into his throat.
Hs eyes follow the figure as it straightens up... and up... and up.... until it's standing at its full height and Danny, lightheadedly, thinks that it might be as tall as Technus. He can barely see the outline of it, the thing bleeding into the pitch black surrounding it, but he does barely make out the two pointed horns jutting out of its head, and the uncanny tapetum lucidum of its eyes.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.
Wait a minute.
That's the Bat.
That's the Bat.
That's the fucking BAT.
Danny's heard of this thing.
His eyes immediately snap wildly to the sky. He's also heard that the Bat has a little shadow called Robin that follows it around -- what a horribly innocuous name, Danny understands wholeheartedly the reason. It's like how the Lunch Lady goes by Lunch Lady. It's very disarming.
There-- he sees it. A pair of equally reflective white eyes peering over the ledge of the roof, equally hard to see.
Oh crap.
Danny's throat closes up, opens, then closes again, as if he's about to gag on horror. He thinks he might. He can feel his stomach churning like he will.
What's this thing doing here.
(It didn't set off his ghost sense.)
The Bat's eyes aren't looking at him; they've zeroed in and narrowed on to the ground beside him. Which-- which is almost a relief, except Danny looks down to follow his gaze and realizes with a jolt that Henry's still with him.
And he forgot to turn Henry invisible too.
And the Bat is looking at Henry-- and then it's getting closer. Danny's eyes grow bigger, and he's so very lucky he's holding his breath, because he nearly says something right then and there. But that's bad, because he should say something and turn the attention onto him and not Henry, who's unconscious and vulnerable, and probably dying--
But Danny is invisible, and Henry is not, and so the Bat's attention is on him instead. And it crouches slowly down to the ground, sitting on its haunches and inspecting Henry closely.
Danny, his mind hisses, do something.
Danny... can't move. It's a very shocking feeling, especially considering he's never had trouble acting before back in Amity.
The Bat narrows its eyes, close enough that its shoulder is nearly brushing against Danny's knee. It's fucking-- huge. Broad and probably as big as Dad was, and the thought hits him with a profound, starving sort of grief. It leaves his fingers twinging with the urge to claw something to shreds.
(And also, its a bat. A giant bat. And its wings look like the silly bat-cape Sam used to wear when they went to the pool. Sam loved bats, and she loved animals, and she'd probably be so stoked to learn that there's a giant bat creature roaming around Gotham. And Danny feels ill.)
Its head tilts slowly up and down, looking over Henry, and Danny should really do something. Step in and kick at it, swing something to get it to back off and leave Henry alone--
But just as he gets the momentum to act to reach its threshold, something in his chest flips a switch and hopelessness dumps on his head like a bucket of water. He blinks, and breathes in sharply. The sound stays miraculously silent.
What the fuck can he do?
His feet stay rooted to the ground, and his limbs remain locked up.
He can't save anyone.
The Bat reaches out a clawed hand and brushes its fingers carefully across Henry's forehead. Sweat slicks across its talons from Henry's hairline, and it drops its fingers to his pulse.
Why is it looking for a pulse? Danny thinks, licking his lips and feeling nauseous. He doesn't even know what the Bat does. Maybe it eats people, is it going to eat Henry? Is that why its looking for a pulse? It's a scavenger of some kind?
He needs to move. Do something. It's going to eat Henry-- maybe?
Again, hopelessness rears its head and yanks a leash around his neck.
The Bat reaches out and plucks Henry into its arms. Danny's mouth goes dry, and his stomach drops. No, no, no, no. Henry barely responds to the jostling-- of course he wouldn't he's unconscious --and there's this fiddling as the Bat straightens up, only to bend its legs again and--
Take off to the sky.
Danny just-- watches.
No.
No!
And then he takes off to the mouth of the alley, still invisible, stumbling, and starts trying to follow after the Bat and its little bird-thing. The bottle of PR/ZM is left behind as he skids around the corner.
This is dumb. This is dumb. This is dumb! This is so dumb, and he's not going to be able to do anything-- he's just going to make it worse. And Danny still follows after the Bat.
It's hard to keep track of the thing in the sky -- it practically blends into the skyline -- but years of dodgeball, and Dash, and living in a house with food that occasionally came to life means that Danny's not too bad at tracking things.
(And six months of ghost fighting probably honed some of that. Ghosts are fast, and the glowing actually makes them harder to track. The colors are disorientating. So Danny had to get good at it.)
So he chases the Bat and its Robin down four blocks, and realizes with dawning despair that he's losing ground. There's too many corners for him to turn, and the buildings are too tall and varied in height, and he's just not fast enough.
He thinks about going ghost-- but that thought is followed up with overwhelming disgust and internal rejection so strong he recoils at the feeling. So that's off the table.
The helpless feeling grows.
Danny ducks into an alleyway for a shortcut, and--
The helpless feeling cuts itself short.
--he finds a motorcycle.
Oh. Oh. Oh. Idea.
Danny dives for the bike without thinking, deactivating his invisibility and clambering over the side to sit on the seat. His feet can't touch the ground but he's just tall enough that they can touch the foot pegs if he stands, and that's good enough for him.
He doesn't have enough time to identify what kind of motorcycle it is, but it's colored ruby red and black, and its been souped to hell and back. Which is fantastic, because that means it should be fast enough to follow the Bat.
And also its bad because whoever has this kind of bike has the money and resources to soup it up. And anyone who has money in this city has their hands dirty. So like, this bike belongs to the mob or something.
So if he gets caught trying to steal it, he'll end up in the Gotham harbor.
Shit. How does he start it-- where's the ignition? Danny's hands shake as he pats over the metal blindly, sticking fingers into the grooves of everything he can find in order to find where the key is. (Except he doesn't have a key, and that's a problem for when he finds the ignition.)
This is just like when he used to steal Johnny 13's bike. Except, hah, no it's not, because Johnny's bike had some semblance of sentience to it and hotwiring it was relatively easy when that included lathering it in compliments. Johnny also rarely ever turned it off since it didn't need gas and he's a showboating jackass.
There were a few times he had to hotwire it though, so he does know how.
But this bike is locked up tighter than Fort Knox, and the plating blocks him any sort of access to the engine or wiring. Damnit!
This was a bad idea, and the Bat is getting further away with Henry. Danny needs to move now!
"Stupid thing!" He hisses, rattling the handlebars and going back to patting around. He can feel his heart trying to jump out of his chest, and it's like something is rattling everything in his body. His bones have never felt more hollow, and there's white static pluming in the corner of his eyes.
He finds no ignition, and decides, screw it. Plan B. His erratic ectoplasm cracks under his fingers and sends sparkling green shocks between his digits. A tingly, numbing feeling spreads through his hands and up to his elbows.
Danny shoves his hands into the front of the bike, and sends a shock of his ecto-signature -- for lack of better words -- through the thing. Something clicks in the back of his subconscious as he links up with the engine, creating the equivalent of a mental wire between him and the bike to funnel energy into.
The engine roars to life. Relief slams into Danny so hard that laughter bubbles up and out of him like a stream, bleeding out some of his panic like an infection out of a wound. His mind clears just enough to coo appreciatively.
"Good bike; pretty bike," He praises thoughtlessly, acting on autopilot from when Johnny's bike would start for him. He pets down the side without thinking, and then wraps his hands around the handlebars. Okay, where's the--?
He looks down to the ground, and finds the gear shift. It takes a little bit of force to get it down-- Danny has to sorta stomp in order to move it, and that doesn't seem like a very smart feature to have, but maybe the bike is personalized? The engine rumbles. Danny feels the change in the link as well.
Cool, cool, cool. Kickstand?
A door slams open behind him.
"HEY!"
Danny gasps sharply, jolting forward out of shock. His heart jumps into his ears, and without thinking he whips around. Shit.
Light pours out into the alleyway. Standing in the doorway, one hand plastered against the door and the other gripping the frame like he just burst through it, is a man big as a fucking fridge. There are guns strapped to his thighs, and a red symbol on his chest that looks like a fat boomerang. He's wearing a red helmet.
Oh fuck.
Danny locks eyes with the fucking Red Hood.
The Red Hood steps out from the doorway and subsequently drops his hands to his sides, his shoulders squaring back. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?!"
His voice is loud, rumbling, and automated. And also very notably threatening. He's approaching rapidly.
Danny's first thought is: he's going to shoot me.
His second is: I need to run.
The thing that comes out of his gawking mouth is: "Stealing your bike."
Red Hood pauses for a moment, and the admission is enough to startle Danny back into gear. Danny turns, shifts to the side until he's basically hanging off the seat, knocks the kickstand up, and hops up.
Just like Johnny's bike, he thinks, trying to delude himself as he pours more of his ectoplasm reserves into the mental link. The engine howls, he grips the handles, and tenses up a the bike jolts forward into the street.
He hears Red Hood yelling at him, but its a rush of wind as he flies off and away.
It is absolutely terrifying. Danny's not use to the turning, and the motorcycle-- Red Hood's fucking motorcyle --is obviously meant for Red Hood's size and weight. Not Danny's.
Danny's pretty sure he weighs like, a hundred pounds soaking wet, as ashamed he is to say it. Less now since he isn't eating as often. And the Red Hood probably weighs three hundred.
Danny quickly taps into his telekinesis to keep the bike stable.
The street flies by around him, and Danny's eyes water as he tries to find the Bat again. It's harder to see it going this fast-- but he's going to find it. And he's gong to find Henry, and he's going to do-- something. He's not quite sure yet.
Oh- but the Bat will probably see him following it, he's visible. Weaving around a set of cars, he ducks into an alleyway, taps his powers, and sees his hands and the bike disappear before it even makes it out the other side.
Danny turns a sharp corner and nearly hits a homeless man sleeping on the side of the street-- he turns himself and the motorcycle intangible before it can, and phases through a parked car back into the street.
Driving a motorcycle while alive is an entirely different experience to driving one while dead; it's twice as terrifying and twice as liberating, and he can understand now why Johnny died doing this. He feels as invincible as he does vulnerable.
If this wasn't a life-or-death situation, he'd be having fun!
Danny finds the Bat again, and he follows it, and follows it, and follows it to another part of Crime Alley. It drops onto a brick building tucked into a corner near the train tracks, and Danny doesn't see it fly off again.
He veers the bike into an alleyway at the end of the block and just barely remembers to put it in park before he's flying off and disappearing down the street. His invisibility drops automatically.
The building has this little sign on it, grimy and faintly glowing, Danny can hear the lights buzzing. There's a set of scales on it and it says, "Leslie Thompkins' Medical Clinic."
...Medical Clinic?
Shaking with adrenaline and breathing quickly, Danny opens the door, and creeps inside.
As more and more people are being forced to switch to Windows 11, Microsoft's most AI-malware-ridden OS yet, I've been putting together articles and links for how to undo the damage and save your battery, your RAM, your disk space, your privacy, and your sanity from this bullshit.
FIRST:
The easiest way to get rid of the majority of the bullshit that Windows is forcing on us, as of October 2025, is this one-stop-one-click debloat solution from a modern day hero:
A simple, lightweight PowerShell script to remove pre-installed apps, disable telemetry, as well as perform various other changes to customi
It's very easy, even if you're not tech savvy or get scared of pop up windows saying "ARE YOU SURE?" Yes, you are sure, I promise. This program takes maybe two minutes and will save you SO MUCH pain, time, and money (and exploitation).
Now that you've done that, here's the cleanup, to catch the little shit that the debloat might have missed (most of this will already be done by debloat, but hey, it's good to double check).
Microsoft wants to put AI everywhere on your PC, but you can take back control.
Even just reading about some of these features makes me angry. Fucking Copilot and "Discover" AI scrapers are in Notepad. NOTEPAD. And then there's this uncanny valley garbage:
No uncanny valley video calls for me, thanks! (Also, what else is it doing while it scans your face and listens to your calls? What else, microsoft? Because there was a lot of memory being assigned to this program for a simple "smooths your skin" add on).
Tired of Microsoft pushing ads throughout Windows 11? Here are the settings you can tweak to turn them off and reclaim some privacy.
The truly insane number of places they have stuck ads on your own home computer is sickening. Become Unmarketable.
Bonus:
Some background programs you probably don't need that are taking up space and how to remove them (Microsoft forums, 2024)
Your Samsung Galaxy Phone comes with 22 apps you don't need (Android Police, 2025)
How to disable the AI in firefox (still the only browser that lets you do this permanently) (Windows Report, 2025)