No Mutants Allowed

I found that many open source/free alternatives in software are often great on paper, but lack so much in usability.

I am so far really pleased with OpenOffice, then again, I use it for just sheer prose and little else. I like the "budged excel" that comes with it (especially when comparing actual price tags, hoooly shit... )

Another simple open source/free is Sketchup. I doubt any "true 3D modeller" will use it for much, but I've designed a bullpup rifle, I've designed a small city - and lately, I'm using it to map stars and planets for my writing - and keep consistent distances between all elements - constantly updating - it's great!

So you brought out the Gimp?

Gimp's asleep

Every Photoshop alternative I am reccomended just feels like dog shit, even Clip Studio Paint has much more inferior UX, no idea if Adboe has a patent on theirs but it just works too well.

Sometimes I'll just use MS Paint for simple stuff - but they managed to ruin even that, and somehow make it *considerably* clunkier than the simple and lovable piece of shit it used to be.

It even malfunctions regularily, in particular with selections, copy-pasting, and undoing errors - it just oopsie-glitches