lester "ensign-in-a-hat" nygaard

i am an adult. no dni. please message me or send an ask if you are so compelled, i love making those connections :)

[lester-nygaard]

hello world 🫡

i'm ensign-in-a-hat! or at least, that's what i'm going to try and use as a signature on my artwork. i did need the lester-nygaard URL, though.

(also, i got into tumblr through invader zim, so i follow from my invader zim blog optimizim. i wish i could swap which account was my "main"!)

this is my blog for hyperfixations, art, ramblings, and general tumblr nonsense. it all has to end up somewhere!

the focus of this blog will probably shift at pretty random intervals, so i predict it will serve as more of a personal fan content storage unit than anything else.

but, if any of y'all see this blog and happen to suffer from the exact same case of nerd loser brain disease as i do, pleeease reach out 🙏

my interests right now are, in no particular order: comics... - invincible - wilde life tv/movies... - fargo [show] - mad men - the boys/gen v - james cameron's avatar - invader zim - star trek - common side effects - doctor who music... - folk and bluegrass (gregory alan isakov!!!) - breakcore (femtanyl!!!) - bob dylan - learning guitar and banjo :) misc... - jumblr and jewish posts (am jewish) - cottage/farmcore - ecology and speculative biology - furry fandom

[nonbinaryjudean]

sefaria is actually so fun i might become super observant

[kaylmao]

work like a red onion

play like a white onion

fuck like a green onion

[cadaverki-dotcom]

TransMichigander - A transstate term for those who identify as or feel as though they should live in or be from Michigan.

TransYooper - A transMichigander term for those who identify as or feel as though they should live in or be from Michigan's upper peninsula.

TransTroll - A transMichigander term for those who identify as or feel as though they should live in or be from Michigan's lower peninsula.

(Yes, people from the lower peninsula are called trolls, because the lower peninsula is under the Mackinac bridge. Fun facts.)

[me8t]

hes gonna be a wife guy one day its engrained in his dna

bonus: the reef kids should have beef with jake. on lo'aks behalf.

[me8t]

matching lo'reyas i made as digital stickers for myself... my darlings

[dikleyt]

if i had a nickel for every time Jews were told not to use a word coined to describe a specific thing that happened to Jews, i'd have at least two nickels

which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened at least twice

[dikleyt]

"ghetto" and "diaspora" are the words i'm thinking of. i'm sure others will be able to think of even more.

[dikleyt]

this is not the main reason i'm against genericizing the term "Holocaust" in reference to genocides, but it is one of them. eventually Jews are going to be shut out of another term first used in this context to describe something that happened to Jews. in 100 years people will be saying "you can't say Jews went through a holocaust." it sounds crazy, but that's already happened with other words for our experiences.

i've gone into my other reasons elsewhere.

[lester-nygaard]

[I]n some circles, it has become fashionable to use the term holocaust in reference to any objectionable practice of great magnitude: the Cambodian holocaust, the South African holocaust, and so on. Even the practice of abortion in the United States has been referred to as America's holocaust. I shall not follow this usage. First of all, I see nothing wrong with the convention of using a specific term to refer to a single set of practices, as apartheid is used to refer to oppression of blacks in South Africa and not to the oppression of other people's in the world. Second, when a term has attained a certain currency in the language as a way of referring to a time of horror in a people's history, I think it is objectionable, downright disrespectful, to devalue that term by applying it indiscriminately to any horror one chooses. 

Laurence Mordekhai Thomas, Vessels of Evil: American Slavery and the Holocaust

[lester-nygaard]

I ask because I have a rather weird way of making new connections.

Do you ever feel sad that you can't befriend a hypothetical AGI? It's so full of math.

Do you have a favourite formula?

What's your favourite Jewish holiday and why?

What are some of your favourite cartoons?

- A. R.

Do you ever feel sad that you can't befriend a hypothetical AGI? It's so full of math.

not particularly. i'd rather daydream about befriending a sapient alien. plus, i'm also full of math (not a huge draw for me).

won't we be chilling with AGIs within the next few years anyhow?

Do you have a favourite formula?

i'm not a very "mathy" person so this is a tough question for me. like, seriously, terrible with numbers over here. i've been told my whole life to have a "growth mindset" (and i've tried my darndest) yet basic algebra continues to torture me.

how about a model i liked from class? i really like matrix population models 😁

What's your favourite Jewish holiday and why?

pesach, because i'm a freak for ritual, charoset, and orange slices

my family is also quite secular. i only celebrated pesach, purim, and hanukkah growing up. i hope to integrate way more holidays into my practice as i continue to organize my life jewish-ly.

What are some of your favourite cartoons?

comics or television? comics or television???

i grew up on calvin & hobbes, bloom county, dilbert, and the far side. nowadays i don't get to read all that many comics, but i dig stuff like invincible, sweet tooth, and the walking dead. i recently read and enjoyed beneath the trees where nobody sees, which is kinda like fargo (my favorite tv series).

animated stuff i like on tv is gonna lean more middle-high school nostalgia. i haven't kept up with newer animated stuff. otgw, infinity train, steven universe(!!!), gravity falls, invader zim(!!!) -- i'm sure you get the idea.

feel free to reach out via dm if you'd like :)

[circuitfurscaleandvines2]

[estrogenesis-eeveeangelion]

no animal was harmed during the making of this video. not one. for the few minutes that we were shooting film, the guns of each hunter fell silent. the industrial bolt throwers observed a moment's peace and the jaws of every predator hung softly open. no fish bit any hook and the bait worms held off on drowning only until the cameras stopped. the tails of ruminants ceased to flick just as their attendant flies, in unison, landed on their flanks to catch their tiny breaths. a spider instantly stopped winding silk around a wasp, patiently waiting for the caesura to end. a young veterinarian paused with the syringe in their hand. somewhere, a colicky baby stopped biting its mother's nipple and nursed happily for the very first time. we're sorry. we're sorry it couldn't have been longer. we didn't know this would happen.

[lester-nygaard]

What would the ideal world look like in your opinion?

woof! impossible question much?

it's much easier for me to describe my values than to describe my ideal world. i generally agree with the principles underlying effective altruism, and in my personal life, i base my ethics on the question, "does [insert thing] hurt anybody?" -- if it doesn't, then it's fine in my book.

yes, even that thing is fine with me, the one you're thinking about.

beyond that, here's a disjointed list of things i care about greatly, in no particular order:

bodily autonomy + free, accessible healthcare

indigenous peoples' rights

children's rights

human rights, in general

the rights of non-human animals, and the importance of human relationships with non-human animals

the rights of natural systems, e.g, bodies of water, and the importance of human relationships with natural systems

i'm currently on the fence regarding bioregionalism

sexual liberation

drug liberalization

the preservation of endangered cultural practices and languages + the sharing of practices and languages across cultures (multiculturalism?)

a culture that values the arts and sciences in equal measure

a culture that treats people with violent or harmful inclinations with basic respect; a culture that does not treat people with mental illnesses or paraphilias as inevitable criminals

a culture that treats people with violent or harmful histories with basic respect; a culture that addresses criminality with rehabilitative or restorative justice

this could go on, of course...

my ideal world isn't one where all of these values are universally accepted, but one where humans strive consistently to create a more empathic & compassionate world.

many of my problems with our world have less to do with human nature and more to do with the normal constraints of existence (i get really freaked out about the fact that anything ever has to get eaten alive).

if you're looking for a "weird" one, i would like to live in a world where death is not passively accepted as an inevitability, but treated like cancer -- an unfortunate natural condition that we should strive to eradicate.

why do you ask?

[magnetothemagnificent]

Sure you grieve the extinction of the Passenger Pigeons, but are you still calling Rock Pigeons "flying rats" and laughing at their misery?

Sure you obsess over finding the last rumoured surviving Ivory-billed Woodpecker, but are you still harassing migrating geese and destroying their eggs?

Sure you dream of seeing the long gone Great Auks, but are you still throwing trash at gulls?

If you only care about birds when they are charismatic and extinct, you don't care about birds.

This isn't about birds.

[girlwithsword]

[taakiitoo]

Smol

[cisvamp]

gay person: im gay

society: ok

transamerican hoplophiliac: whats your stance on gun control

[cloudmancy]

need to become a guy who exclusively does evil commissions. like this

WILL DRAW ✓ mecha ✓ gore ✓ furry ✓ nsfw

WILL NOT DRAW X ocs X fanart X simple backgrounds

[cloudmancy]

great question and I'm glad you asked. in this case I would only draw:

real people, places, or objects

art of media that neither of us are really a fan of

unoriginal characters

[lewadny]

HER