I am honestly no expert on plant IDs esp house plants with many different varieties but regardless this plant obviously is a horizontal grower. Hope it's doing well!

I am not sure. Maybe you could gradually lower the stakes/support over time so it can adjust?

You have a monkey tail cactus. For awhile they grow vertical and then once they reach a certain stage they droop down and grow downward. If you Google monkey tail cactus you can see a bunch of photos. They look very lovely in a hanging basket.

Thanks!!

Do you recommend starting anywhere in particular? Reading the series straight through? Preparation via the videos you mentioned?

My pixel has a setting that displays a green dot in the notification/status bar whenever an app is utilizing my camera/microphone. And I can disable that for each app that I don't want to access my camera.