Thank you so much, comrades! I am feeling pretty comfortable with linux mint, and now would like some suggestions for some absolutely necessary FOSS or free license software for the OS. So far I have the standard, Firefox, ThunderBird, LibreOffice, yada yada. Thank you again to everyone on the linux comm! 
I personally recommend LibreWolf over Firefox. It is a fork of Firefox, but it includes some additional settings for better privacy.
Flameshot is a pretty useful screenshot tool that functions similar to the Snip tool on Windows.
If you’re going to be installing apps via Flatpak, I recently learned of an app called Warehouse that allows you to view all the Flatpak apps you installed, the user data associated with each app, and their file location.
If you want another option for LibreOffice, you can try OnlyOffice, but I personally prefer LibreOffice.
If you’re looking for a text editor that’s like Notepad++, I recommend checking out NotepadQQ.
Finally, if you want a notebook app similar to Microsoft OneNote, I’d like to recommend Joplin.
For Flatpak apps, along with Warehouse, Flatseal allows you to view and edit permissions for each app, which is not only useful but sometimes mandatory when an app has misconfigured permissions
Oh yes, Flatseal is also a good tool to have! Thanks for adding that!