Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Asexual Awareness Week!

AAW started this past Sunday. I'm not sure if I'll do much more for it besides mentioning it in this post. I've already changed my profile frame and cover photo on fb, mentioned it on Instagram, and I normally share ace stuff on fb (not much to change there). Last year, I created ace-related art. It was the flag in the background, heart over that with the aro flag, and the agender symbol on top. I drew it in pencil, inked it with a pen, and colored it all in with both colored pencils and markers. People seemed to like it. I haven't touched that ace media list I was compiling in several months. Maybe I'll look into that again. If I don't want to add to it, maybe I'll just share what I have with everyone. 

I feel a little odd that most ace advocacy stuff (at least that's shared and through memes) is focused on the nasty comments we get. Sure, that needs to be highlighted, but we face a lot more issues. I think we try to tone it down for others, because for so long people have brought up the Oppression Olympics. We're told that we don't face oppression/discrimination, or if we do it's nothing like 'real' members of the LGBTQ+ community. That's really twisted. The funny thing is every letter experiences something different, and yet we all experience similar issues, too. Even the L experiences different issues than the G. Some people from our own community want to kick us out...Mainly because of ignorance. Many have the idea that it just means celibate straight people, or a stepping stone for their romantic orientation. If you're aro ace, they don't know where to put you. 

All asexuality means is you aren't sexually attracted to anyone. The spectrum has varying degrees of sexual attraction. Some are conditional, some people rarely feel it, and others may have sexual attraction until certain conditions are met. This doesn't say anything about how people view sex. That can range, like with any group of people. People can be repulsed by it, love it, favorable, positive, indifferent, etc. Some aces can have lots of sex, while others avoid it like the plague. I'm sex-repulsed, sex-positive, and very curious about it. A weird combo. Sex-positive is when people are for sex ed, talking about it (not necessarily in graphic detail), joking about it, people having as much or as little as they want with consensual partners, etc. My stomach churns when it's directed towards me, yet I'm curious. 

Erasure is a big thing. Many LGBTQ+ groups either leave us out completely, or they have that A for ally. Ally doesn't belong in it. If you're an ally, you're helping that community on the sidelines. It's much needed, and they have an important role to play. However, they are not in the actual community. There's an analogy that has them as soccer moms. Those soccer moms do a lot for the team, but they are not actually playing the game. When the A is used for them, it takes away the chance for players who hardly get called out onto the field from 'playing'. The A is for aros and aces. Some people say it should also be for agender people. As an agender person, I disagree. We're already under the trans umbrella. We're also covered by the non-binary and genderqueer umbrellas, which are under the trans one. We're covered enough. Aromantics are not the same as asexuals, and they've been trying to separate from the ace community for a long time. I'm both, but those are 2 different parts of me. 

Another huge issue is 'corrective' rape. This affects aces of any gender. When some people hear that someone's ace, they view it as a challenge. They think that they can 'fix' them that way. This isn't talked about much, but it needs to be out there. 

There's also a serious issue that ace men specifically deal with. Men are taught that being hypersexual is manly, and if you're not, you're masculinity is questioned. It's not talked about much, because some people are scared to talk about it. When I read an article about it they mentioned that ace men challenge people's assumption of what makes a man. It's kind of sad if that's what people reduce men to. Ace women get flak too, but some think that women aren't supposed to be sexual in the first place. 

Another one is conversion therapy. Pretty much all of the letters in the LGBTQ+ community experience this. Not everyone in those groups goes through it, but many do. Some allos (short for allosexual[s] or people who aren't ace) seem to think it needs to be 'fixed' this way. Especially if an ace has absolutely no interest in sex. It's pretty horrid. Asexuality was regarded as a mental disorder up until very recently. A couple of years ago, I remember hearing people were running test trials on a pill that could 'cure' aces. That company didn't last long, thank goodness. It shows that it's still an issue, though.

Another one was about a study that came out a few years ago. People are the least likely to offer housing to aces. Gay people were turned down housing more so than straight people, but not as much as aces. Like most letters, youth get kicked out of homes because of being ace. It's just too much of an unknown and they're full of ignorance about it. It's more rare, but some aces are killed because of it, too. The reason it might seem rare is it's not reported often that way. So, we don't really know. That's another problem with it, we're so under-reported about this stuff. (Same with many other parts of the LGBTQ+ community.)

We don't have much representation in media. Some people say stories with aces and/or aro aces would be boring. However, not too long ago the creator of One Piece, Eiichiro Oda, said that Luffy is aro ace. He didn't use those words specifically (probably because he didn't know there were labels for it), but he said that Luffy's not sexually/romantically attracted to anyone. One Piece is the most popular manga/anime. In fact, it won a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author. It's the best-selling manga series in history. (Based on copies sold worldwide.) Luffy is the main character. That says something right there. He's anything but boring. This kind of came through during the Amazon Lily arc. Luffy had fallen into Boa Hancock's bath house while she was bathing. She was obviously butt naked. He didn't flinch. Acted like it was normal. Everyone (no matter the gender) seemed attracted to Boa, but he was the only one who didn't have that reaction. When they imprisoned him, naked, and stared at him, he just seemed really irritated. He didn't care much. Most of the Amazonian women had never seen a man before. The creator said the only things Luffy is attracted to are adventure and food. 

He also said that there will never be actual romance in the series. He's really unique about it. So many series have romance as an element, it's crazy! That promotes amatonormativity, which is an issue aros face. Amatonormativity is the idea that everyone needs romance, has romantic attraction, and promotes monogamous relationships. Some people sum it up as a One True Love Complex. It's like what aces face with how people say sex is a need, right up there with food/water, and that everyone is attracted to someone sexually. I think that's called compulsory sexuality. Both are extremely harmful and pushed on us like crazy. Same with heteronormativity. This stuff actually hurts allo/straight people, too. This is another positive and more creative aspect to One Piece. I'm tired of romance being shoved into stories all the time. (Some of it is good and is part of the story, but not much.) It's like filler to me.

Another good thing about this series is that it's rather mature. Some people infantilize aces (another issue) and think what makes a story mature is romance and sex. Glad he didn't do that. Instead it touches on topics of slavery, genocide, grief, assault, arranged marriage, poverty, corruption, racism, abuse, gender inequality, and more. Heavy stuff. Yet, there's a lot of humor. The only thing that might be an issue for people is the way he draws some of the women. However, it's not all women, and he said he was pressured to make some of them like that at one point. I don't think they look bad, though. His style is very unique, and there are a lot of different types of body shapes for both men and women in that world. Even their heights vary wildly. 

There's also Jughead from Archie's Comics who's aro ace. Although, the live-action show, Riverdale, turned him allo. (Straight at that.) Even the actor that portrays him was pushing for him to stay aro ace. Todd from Bojack Horseman is also ace. He actually came out and said it. There was apparently several episodes where he explained it, learned more about himself, and met other ace people. I think he's alloromantic (not aro, or experiences romantic attraction), which is good to have a variety out there. I don't watch the show, but people said that it was one of the best portrayals they've seen in any show. It's rare that the character said it themselves, too. 

It looks like this is my 1000th post on here. Wow! That's a lot! Seems like a milestone.

I joined 2 trans-related forums: Susan's Place and TransPulse. TransPulse is set up similar to AVEN. I didn't get much of a response for my intro thread on Susan's Place, and felt a little down about it. I had quite a few responses to the one I started on TransPulse. I decided to post in more threads to get more of a feel of Susan's Place. Maybe people on there just don't look at the intros. I know a lot of other forums where regular members didn't really care about that section. Found a thread about what 'flavor' of non-binary person we are. Basically, asking what enby gender we are (if we know), how we feel about masculine and feminine, introduce ourselves, when we knew we were 'different', if we have dysphoria, etc. Lots of stuff. Had rather long posts in there. People actually responded to what I wrote pretty quickly. Someone said they felt exactly like me about all this stuff. That was interesting. Other people welcomed me, and said that I came to the right place. In the TransPulse intro thread, some were recommending resources for me, which was nice. I didn't post in other threads on there. 

I decided to make time for the stuff I didn't feel I had time for before, during the weekend. So, learning more science and history stuff on Saturdays. (In addition to more Jewish stuff.) Music and art stuff on Sundays. Reading (an actual book) and forums on both days. As well as, movies on Saturdays and games on Sundays. I split them up mainly because of Shabbat. I'm technically not supposed to 'create' things, thus art and games would be on Sundays. I feel like forums don't really count for this...I don't know. But, learning is a big thing in Judaism, so science and history would be great for it. I managed to touch on everything this past weekend, so it's doable. Might not be as much when I do things like shopping those days. That's ok.

For science, I'm following the list of disciplines I found on wikipedia, and only skipping ones that don't interest me. Those mainly being things like the study of mites. That would just make my skin crawl. There are also some that don't seem to have much to them. I'm starting with acoustics or the science of sound. It's a branch of physics. I have very superficial knowledge of it to begin with. Many musicians learn a little about it, but it's the very basic stuff. So, this one will be very interesting. It's useful for many different things, too. Music, physics, electronics, speech, ultrasound, marine science, aeronautics, etc. I found the Acoustical Society of America's site. They have free articles on there. Their journal, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America or JASA, has an fb page. They post news as well as free copies of the journal. Found a couple of channels on Youtube based on it. Lots of info sources available out there. It doesn't seem like a very popular area of study, though. Seems sad that way. I think I'll focus on it for about a month, then move on to the next thing. That'll be aerobiology or the study of airborne organisms. 

For history, I'm using another alphabetical list. Starting with art history. I took art history in college. It's a very interesting subject, and there's a lot to it. I remember the textbook for it was one of the biggest and most expensive. It's really vast. I found an app on art history. They cover a piece of art every day. They go over the elements of it, the artist, style, time period, and more. They go into a lot of detail, which is cool. I also found a couple of fb pages on it. There's lots of stuff on other sites online, too. There's probably a lot that we didn't cover in that class. Actually, I remember we only used about half that textbook. I'll spend a month on this, too. Next one for this is chronology. Although, I'm not sure if there's much to it. If not, I'll move on to cultural history. Some of these topics in the history list share things from the science one, which is fine. 

I went back to reading Stone Kiss by Faye Kellerman. It had been a couple of years since I stopped reading it. I only finished the first chapter before. Got through a lot of it this weekend. It's a detective series with a Jewish side to it. A really good series. Maybe I can finally finish what I have of it soon.

For music, I tried to look for clarinet-based apps and fb pages. There weren't very many, and none of them were good enough to like or download. I did find some music history-based pages on fb. I plan to go over some music history in the future. I've taken a couple of classes on different periods in college, and it would be interesting to go over that stuff again or learn new stuff about it. Maybe I'll go chronologically through those historical periods. I also want to hear more music from around the world, and download some of it. Maybe look into music theory, too. Or, even look into music specifically from countries that I'm learning the main language of. (Many countries have multiple languages.) Like, Italian music for now. I can go in many directions with this.

For art, I might do things like fill out memes that are made to help improve drawing/character development. I went through my 'collection' on deviantART, and found quite a few blank ones that I downloaded to fill out in the future. There are things that focus on reactions/expressions, drawing the oldest (or first) and newest character, some on the artist themselves (like how would you draw yourself in your style), outfits for characters, drawing in different styles, etc. All good for practice and getting more 'in touch' with my characters. I might go through all of my inbox on there, too. It's really backlogged, because I don't go on there nearly as much as I used to. I have several 'stacks' of deviations (art pieces) in there from artists I follow and groups. Each stack from the groups has around 200 deviations. That's a lot to go through. There a lot of journals and some on faves/llamas. I'm surprised I'm still getting so many faves and llamas. Llamas can be given by other members, and the more you get, the more the llama on your profile changes. I think mine's still an albino llama. At some point, it has sunglasses, a hat, outfits, and more. I might post to my journal on there. It's been a while. I can look at more art on there, fb, Instagram, and other places. Another thing that might be good is drawing buildings and scenery from Alliance, as well. All this will help me improve, and I can be more active on dA which is full of other far better artists to learn from.

I started watching Tensei Shitara Slime Datte Ken, or That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime. I wasn't sure about this one at first. It's from this current season, and I'm not far behind. It's better than I expected. It's about a 37 year old human, Satoru, who was stabbed to death by a robber. He was reincarnated as a slime named Rimuru, in basically a video-game like fantasy world. I have a feeling he is in a video game somehow. Slimes in video games (particularly rpg's) are often very weak. They're usually the first thing gamers have to attack. Even Fate has them as 'gels' that only inhabit the first couple of levels of the dungeon. However, it seems the opposite with him. He's a very powerful being. He can absorb almost anything. He gains knowledge of whatever he 'eats', can mimic those skills/spells, can make and store an unlimited amount of health potions from eating herbs, and more. He had to 'eat' a bat in order to talk, and eat something in order to see. They really are detailed about it. The animation is top-notch, and changed a few times. There was even a 3D scene. In the opening, it seems he can transform into a humanoid. Does that mean he eats someone? There's a lot of comedy, too.

Started Zombieland Saga. It's also one from this current season, and I'm not far behind. When I first read the description of it, it didn't interest me. Then, Crunchyroll shared a clip on fb of it, and I was intrigued. I thought it was a typical pop idol-type anime. Pop idols in general are not really my thing. It's far from that, though. 7 girls are brought back to life as zombies by a 'mysterious' producer. The lead was killed 10 years ago by a truck just as she walked out the door, starting her walk to high school. She seemed so happy and was going to audition to be in an idol group. This all happened in the first couple of minutes, so it's not like I'm spoiling that. She was the first to 'awaken' as a zombie. The other girls were mindlessly stumbling about and terrified her. They're all different ages and from different time periods. The producer wants to boost tourism for Saga prefecture by creating a zombie idol band. So far, there's only one girl that hasn't woken up yet, and she keeps biting everyone. The producer is a pro at applying makeup that makes them appear 'normal'. Also, it seems like each episode has a music theme. The first one they performed a heavy metal concert. Again, the lead or Number 1 was the only one 'aware'. It was hilarious. The 2nd episode was on hip hop. The rapping was actually pretty good, and they added a little of traditional Japanese music to the background as well as some modern music flare. It's a hilarious series so far. 

Started watching Radiant, too. It's also from this current season. It's an adaptation of a French comic. Apparently, one of the first anime adaptations of a series from France. From what I read, they cut a lot of the distinctly French-type humor for the first few episodes. They also made Seth, the main character, less reckless. Alma, his teacher and guardian, changed a bit, too. Kind of sounds like they watered it down a bit for the beginning. It's a mage/sorcerer based series. People who get near or touch a demonic-like being, called Nemesis, either die or become sorcerers. The sorcerers are looked down upon until regular humans ask for their assistance against the Nemesis. Sorcerers are the only ones who can kill them. Seth is an orphan with horns. I'm assuming that when people come into contact with a Nemesis (and live), they gain something like horns, bat wings, or really big hair. There's a lot of unknowns with this one. It's interesting, but seemed a lot like other series like D.Gray-man, Black Clover, and Fairy Tail. Doesn't seem very 'French' at all yet.

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Global Cat Day!

This holiday was yesterday. I love my cats. Rosie is especially attached to me. Cats are a lot more affectionate and loving than many people think. They just may express it differently than dogs. They all have different personalities, too. (Same thing with dogs.) Every time Rosie sees me, she seems so happy and excited. She also treats me like both a parent and kitten. I don't know how that's possible...She encourages me to eat more. Particularly if I haven't eaten much or have forgotten during the day. Today's National Pasta Day. I love pasta. Pretty much any kind.

I got a jewelry cleaning kit this past weekend. It comes with 2 2-sided polishing cloths (one for silver and the other for gold), a small brush, and a tray that you dunk into a tub of cleaning solution. It seems like quite an operation. Depending on the size of jewelry, you put 1 or 2 pieces in the tray. Then, dunk them for 30 seconds, rinse with lukewarm water while brushing them, and finally use one of the cloths. One side helps clean it further (helps with the tough grime), and the other side is to polish it off. I've never cleaned my jewelry before. I started wearing earrings when I was 14. (Clip-ons before that, of which I obviously don't have anymore.) So, it's been a while. Some are really awful looking. I think they were even causing infections near the holes. A few months ago, I stopped wearing them on a regular basis because they were hurting too much. I ended up with weird lumps around the openings. Anyways, I cleaned all my studs first, and they look so much shinier and feel cleaner. I did some of my bigger earrings yesterday, which took a bit more effort. They turned out much better, too. There was only one pair that I couldn't scrub off the green stuff completely. I thought the pair was fake gold, so it seems odd to me that they'd turn green. I know it oxidizes over time, and may have affected it if it were 'real'. Also, even if it were, it seemed excessively green. I hardly wore them. At least, they look better now. I have a lot more earrings to clean. It'll take a while. It's good to do, though. 

I got frustrated so much with Duolingo's Russian course that I dropped it. Even without the glitches, it wasn't structured very well. I started learning Italian Monday. I can tell already that it's set up like their German course, which was great. I'm liking it so far. There have been speaking exercises right away, unlike the Russian course. (That never had them.) I've been spot on with those. It's fun to say. It also seems rather easy right now. I know I just started, but I'm breezing through with only a couple of minor mistakes. A lot of it makes sense. I'm noticing that some Italian words that people say here in the US are mispronounced. That's been interesting. Also, interesting that a cookie is a biscotto, and cookies are biscotti. This goes for any type of cookie. Candy is caramella, which lit. is caramel. So, all candies are referred to that way. Makes sense, but might get a little confusing when specifically talking about caramel. Today, I finished the Plurals, Animals, and part of the Food 2 units. Quite a bit. After the Food 2 one, it'll be Possession. That'll be the end of the 1st section or trek. 

I made a list of possible future languages to study. It's longer than I expected. Here it is so far: Indonesian, Hindi, Korean, Spanish (I know snippets of it already), Romanian, Gaelic (not sure if it'll be Irish or Scottish), Dutch, Norwegian, Vietnamese. Each one will be about 3 months each, like I have been doing. I'll also be learning more about the cultures around them, as well. 

After going through a forum poll on AVEN, I realized I have a lot of interests. That popped up in my mind when I went to an international market downtown, too. (To me, they had so many fascinating different types of food.) I'm curious about pretty much everything, not just the languages and cultures. All different types of sciences, stories, writing, media (includes anime, manga/comics, movies, shows, etc.), food from around the world (includes snacks, cheeses, breads, etc.), math, reading, music (almost every aspect from playing it to listening, history...), history, drawing/photography, my religion, and so much more. It can be overwhelming and sometimes intimidating. I sometimes forget about them. That doesn't mean my interest in them has waned, but that there are just so many of them. I sometimes feel like I don't have the time.

I thought it'd be interesting to focus on science, history, more Judaism, reading, drawing/art (like memes to practice with), music, and more stuff during the weekends. For science, I found a list of disciplines I can go through alphabetically. (Since I wasn't sure where to start.) There are a lot. I thought depending on what it is, I'll focus a month or two on them. I'll skip some of the ones that I have no interest in. Like, the first one on the list is acarology or the study of mites. That would make my skin crawl...I might start with aceology or the study of remedies or therapeutics. Or, acoustics. There are a lot of really interesting sounding ones on the list that I don't have much knowledge of. That would be fun to expand that knowledge. I plan to look into pages on fb related to those fields, possibly find books on it, read articles, maybe see if there are apps devoted to it, and more. I might go through anthropology stuff when I get to it. That's what I was majoring in in college, but I could reacquaint myself with it or see what's new. I could do something similar with history. I want to get through my really old reading list too, and eventually add to it. For music, I could look up music-based fb pages for things like music history, clarinet, musicians, etc. I could discover and download new songs, too. 

With Judaism, I could look into Jewish philosophy (I loved it when I took a course on it) and study more of the Talmud, Mishnah, etc. I could look for more Jewish pages and apps, too. All that in addition to getting back into regular Shabbat stuff again, like going over the weekly parsha (Torah portion) and my own services. My own, since my immune system has weakened quite a bit. Even though I'm currently taking an anti-inflammatory med, lialda, it's heavy duty and still messes with my immune system. Not as much as azathioprine, at least. Anyways, I'd easily catch something if I went to one of the 2 synagogues in the area for it. Also, doesn't help that I have other 'issues' with both. I can still have the 'experience' with live-streaming services. Sometimes, I just go through on my own with an old prayer book. 

Sometime in the near future, I might upload audio vids (with text) to Youtube of playing the clarinet. Audio, because I feel weird with seeing myself on video. Although, my new computer has a webcam...It might be easier, and I might ease myself into it. Either way, hearing myself when I play them back might help me improve. It'd be nice to get some constructive criticism from people. However, I know there are a lot of trolls on there. So, we'll see with that. I don't think I've gone back to playing long enough or on a regular basis to do this yet. 

Also, I've decided to join a few trans specific forums. (Haven't registered with them yet, just found them.) I've never been a member of one. I've joined many other types of forums in the past. This might help me. If anything, I might befriend other trans people, and commiserate with people who 'get it'. AVEN has a gender section, but it's not that big. It's usually full of people questioning what they are, which is a great starter for people. It's just...not in depth or anything. The ones I'm going to join are: Susan's Place, TransPulse, Non-Binary & Genderqueer Support Forum. I think I've heard Susan's Place briefly mentioned in the local trans group. It seems to be one of the oldest. I didn't know there was a specific enby forum. That's pretty nifty. We have some specific issues that we deal with that binary trans people don't. We experience a lot of the same stuff in general, though. It's like another layer/element for us. All 3 forums are huge! The generalized trans forums both actually have a surprisingly large enby section. I found these 3 through a google search. There might be other great ones out there, especially because these were pretty much the first ones that came up. I didn't know there was such a large community online. Gives more choices. If I don't like them, for whatever reason, I can easily find others.

It feels like I've been overwhelmingly sick every few days. I'll get incredibly nauseous and have come close to passing out. Also, my guts are acting up more than usual. I'm not sure if it's just that I'm flaring worse on those days or I really am sick. There are lots of memes shared in the 2 IBD fb groups I'm in about this sort of thing. Speaking of which, I'm getting really tired of seeing extremely graphic images through them. There are a few people who take pics of themselves high, too. That's weird. I know that some people smoke marijuana or use cbd oil to help with it, but I don't need those sort of posts. A lot of them seem very religious. Particularly, Christian. They tend to be much older than me. Yet, most people are diagnosed in their late teens to early 30s. It's odd. Although, I'd say a good chunk of the members are actually parents of IBD patients who don't have it themselves. That's added a bit of drama between them and actual patients of the group. Some people think it should only be for patients, others feel grateful that there are parents/family out there that support us and it makes them feel better, others are grateful but think there should be a separate group just for them. I agree with the latter. Many join to gain knowledge, but maybe there could be a few patients that join that family group to help them instead. They have quite a few anti-vaxxers. That's dangerous for a chronic illness community. Especially, for patients with autoimmune diseases. One of them seemed anti-LGBTQ+. I feel like dropping them both, and looking for others. Maybe there are some for LGBTQ+ IBD patients? Or, Jewish groups with it? Or, even ones for people younger than 50? There's got to be some out there like that.

I finished watching Hinterland on Netflix. Tried to go back to Let's Eat. I had only watched the 1st episode before. This second one was less about food, which is what it's supposed to focus on. It was honestly boring. The hyper-female-centric aspect got to me. (It wasn't just because I'm afab and not a woman.) It had stereotypes, and wasn't like women in real life. Sure, the main character was a tough woman with an attitude, but there was something about her, too. She was better than the others. 

So, I dropped that, and went back to The Method last night. I watched a couple of episodes a long time ago. It's a Russian detective show. There's quite a lot of dark humor, which I like. The main detective goes to extremes to teach people, and seems to go an easy/sly way of catching criminals. It can be intense to watch. Things move quickly. In the episode I watched last night, he caught the criminal by talking through the criminal's reasoning, saying it was valid, serving him cake, casually talking to the girls he kidnapped, and essentially cozying up to him. He went willingly. The detective's partner/assistant, who's learning from him, had the mindset that she had to have a weapon to arrest him. She was ready to hit him with a large rock. She's actually tough and has been the only one to 'survive' longer than a day with him. All his previous partners couldn't stand his 'methods' or accidentally died. In a few of the situations so far, she actually seems stronger and smarter than him, which might be why he pleaded with her to stick with him. I think this is the 1st suspect that didn't end up dying in a brutal way. I remember the one from the 2nd episode well. The detective was trying to talk him into turning himself in. Then, he grabbed his partner and was about to slash her throat. The detective was quick on his toes, and as soon as the knife started to move, he stabbed him in the neck with a pen. It was at such a spot, he couldn't speak as the blood gushed out. Just gargled a lot. This is, of course, on a mostly empty bus. At the next bus stop the detective just tossed the guy out onto the bench as he bled to death. He did it to save his partner, but I don't think he should have gone to such lengths. Parts of the episodes are set in the future with his partner talking to other detectives about whether he's fit to work. They think he's mentally unstable. And, there was some sort of incident that we (the viewers) haven't seen yet. That's what made them start investigating him. Meanwhile, as they're talking, she keeps drinking alcohol from a flask. It looks like the same flask that he uses currently. He drinks a lot, by the way. Currently, this has flabbergasted his partner. She doesn't really drink right now. Something changes her, too. 

I decided to start a birthday fundraiser on fb. (My birthday's on November 7th.) It's the first time I've ran one on there. It was a bit difficult to narrow down. After a while, I decided on the Trevor Project. They're an organization focused on suicide prevention among LGBTQ+ youth. They have a crisis intervention lifeline (they're most known for), school workshops, educational materials/programs, online resources, advocacy, and help the parents. They recently recognized and trained their staff to help with what aces face. Not sure about aros. They might lump them together, which isn't really cool...Even if I'm both. This gained them even more 'points' with me. They want to help everyone in the community. A very worthy cause. So far, none of my friends have donated. Fb itself donates $5 to it no matter what. At least there will be that. There are 3 weeks left, so maybe that will change. After posting about it a 2nd time, a couple of people reacted. Maybe that means they'll donate later? I guess I'll see.