Making The Switch

So I'm looking to make the switch (Cue the white backdrop and the stacatto string music). I'm done with Microsoft's malarkey, from terrible updates that destroy computers to shoehorning shovelware in at every turn. But I'm also Bad At Making Decisions, so I could use some input.

Here's my gist:

• Longtime windows user with some mac experience.
• Amateur, but one step above your average consumer in terms of computing knowledge (I cannot program for the life of me, but I surpass most of the folks I know)
• The most linux experience I have had is SteamOS and CasaOS (steam deck and my raspberry pi respectively)
• I need something that can game well. (Primarily a Steam user, uses Emudeck a lot. Also EGS for reasons covered below. I generally don't play high budget AAA releases with massive graphics requirements - I have BG3 and Expedition 33 and those are the heaviest things I've gotten and also the most recently made items in memory. I mostly play indie titles or emulated games.)
• I need something compatible with an Intel Core i7-14700F and NVidia GEFORCE RTX 5060ti 16b
• I have a need for something that can run a replacement suite of tools akin to MS Office.
• Needs to be able to run obsidian.md
• I do not care about overclocking or heavily tweaking - I want my games to run smoothly and I want my applications to function correctly. I do not mind having to install apps myself, I just want things to work when I do.
• Ease of file management is very important to me - i have several archives I personally maintain

Odds and ends:

• I use a program called Tiled that needs to be run through something called an "AppImage" if I want to run it on linux. A similar case for Hex Kit.
• I'd like to still be able to run Fortnite, but I know that requires some fuckery, Something called "Proton" is needed, last I heard?
• I still used adobe audition cs6, but I have no idea if there's a linux compatible version oops.
• Big promoter of Notepad++. Would prefer to keep it.
• I do mean to learn Godot at some point.
• I run a java bot for my discord server, no clue if that shit works in linux
• I adore Pureref, and I cannot imagine taking a computer without it.
• I have a VPN I use and would like to keep using VPNs.
• My current security is Malwarebytes, but if it's incompatible with whatever distribution I'll switch.
• I also use Flashpoint though I understand that it has limited linux support.

Short list:

My cursory research has narrowed down options to

• Cachy OS
• Bazzite
• Pop_OS
• Mint
• SteamOS
• Aurora/Project Bluefin
• Vanilla OS

but I'm also not set on anything because frankly a lot of the terminology getting tossed around makes me go crosseyed.

So what do people recommend?