Looks like those XYZs ended up being irrelevant to my situation (figured as much seeing as looking online didn't give me much information).

I needed to reinstall plasma-x11-session per a recent update since I still use x11.

It's fixed!! Thank you so much!

Side note: also going to subscribe to the Arch newsletter to avoid mishaps like this in the future.

I am indeed using X11. I tried using Wayland ~a few months ago (on one or both of my setups, wish I could remember) and it did not work very nicely for me so I just stuck with X11, which so far has worked perfectly for what I do.

(Sorry for image quality) this is what I've got:

Successfully made it to a different tty with ctrl-alt-F5 and was able to run journalctl -b

I'm not entirely sure what error I'm looking for here in particular so I'm taking a guess that "Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.XYZ' failed: The systemd unit 'dbus-org.freedesktop.XYZ.service' could not be found." is the one I'm looking for (XYZ because there are a few of these such errors with just the XYZ changing between them).

Is this the same error you got?

Depends on the mood I'm in. Lately, I've been drawing in a tiny sketchbook I bought because a little sketchbook isn't very intimidating, and I can just do a few quick practice drawings or commit to a small but detailed piece for an hour.

Another thing I like to do is lay on my back with my headphones on, put on some music, and do literally nothing except stare at the ceiling and listen to all the little details of my favorite songs that I don't hear when I'm doing other stuff. It's my form of meditation since "normal" meditation has never worked for me personally.

Yeah, I can confirm this. I've been using Linux for around two years at this point and having a Linux-using friend made the transition at the start way easier. Now I'm the Linux-using friend for all of my Linux-curious friends and it's great.

By this logic, does this mean my striped cat doesn't realize she has stripes?

I run EndeavourOS on a Lenovo Yoga and it works great for the most part. Only thing really missing for me is programming thr buttons on the stylus, but it's too minor of an inconvenience to deal with IMO. Keyboard, track pad, and touch screen all work as intended.

I know you probably mean one of those serving-sized cereal boxes, but the mental image of you pulling out a family-sized box of cereal from some portal-to-Narnia pocket in your pants is fucking hilarious to me.

I need to try that. Thanks for the tip!

Mine have a setting to disable the light outside of initial startup so thankfully I'm safe here.

LEDs on electronics need either a maximum brightness or an adjustable brightness. I have taken to covering the LEDs on charger bricks with Sharpie/tape (often multiple layers of tape) to dampen the brightness because I cannot function with these damn things at night.

Now if we could just teach this to the general population. The number of times that I've gotten yelled at to "get off the road and use the sidewalk" has me prepared to make a wearable "share the road" sign.

Feel that. I distinctly remember forgetting how to spell "of" and wanting to write "uv".

Yup, Plasma 6 has been pretty great. Had to fix a couple of issues with Nvidia but it's been incredibly smooth.

I swear, I can't tell the difference between AI answers and the shit people make up with inspect element for the memes anymore.

I personally use Matrix. I haven't gotten very far into using it but it does have groups, text, calls, and encrypted messaging so I'd say check it out.

Thanks so much for taking the time to write this out! I'll see about getting some gun oil and a small enough sharpener (the only one I own apparently doesn't accommodate tiny pocket knives), and I may post an update on how it looks. I'm glad to see this little guy can be restored to working condition since a handy knife like this deserves a purpose, but I am a little sad that the scales might not have much longer (relatively speaking).

You're not the only one that thought that. I really need to clarify that I know it's a pocket knife in the title so I don't keep freaking people out as they're casually scrolling.