[2022] Stuck in Steam launcher

So I'm currently stuck in the Steam launcher. It asked me to "upgrade" instead of "play". Now there's a greyed out button, "working", and a "preparing to update" bar that has been going nowhere for more than ten minutes.

The launcher will not let me close it down. It says "files are currently being updated" yada yada.

There's an unscheduled update queued up in Steam, but when I try to start it, it's unresponsive and doesn't start downloading.

I'm assuming this issue is due to the broken update and subsequent hotfix?

edit: and I hear my computer working like crazy during all this, fans are spinning up harshly.