right, finally got Phanpy the way I like it, kind of like back on Mastosoc... I'll probably still find another as a daily driver, something native for Mac and iOS, but for now this works.
GTS doesn't have an interface and actual Mastodon app doesn't like the Bear-Den instance for some reason, which has been going on for a while. That's obviously not Bear-Den's fault of course because it used to work totally fine but if I had to guess what's happened, it's probably Mastodon trying to kill off competition or something by making other none-Mastosoc instances (basically anything that doesn't run the Mastodon software or a fork of it) not work with the Mastodon app...
Then again, it's built for Mastodon so I can't really complain... and it's also just a theory, not what is actually happening.
My god, this long space on this instance is soooo freeing... how did I live with only 500 characters... fuuck... I still extend huge gratitude to @arthfach for letting me on here. This is so much better.