Twenty-one was “remarkably gentle” with the members of his pack, says Rick. Immediately after making a kill, he would often walk away to urinate or lie down and nap, allowing family members who’d had nothing to do with the hunt to eat their fill.
One of Twenty-one’s favorite things was to wrestle with little pups. “And what he really loved to do,” Rick adds, “was to pretend to lose. He just got a huge kick out of it.” Here was this great big male wolf. And he’d let some little wolf jump on him and bite his fur. “He’d just fall on his back with his paws in the air,” Rick half-mimes. “And the triumphant-looking little one would be standing over him with his tail wagging.”
“The ability to pretend,” Rick adds, “shows that you understand how your actions are perceived by others. It indicates high intelligence. I’m sure the pups knew what was going on, but it was a way for them to learn how it feels to conquer something much bigger than you. And that kind of confidence is what wolves need every day of their hunting lives.”
In Twenty-one’s life, there was a particular male, a sort of roving Casanova, a continual annoyance. He was strikingly good-looking, had a big personality, and was always doing something interesting. “The single best word is ‘charisma,’” says Rick. “Female wolves were happy to mate with him. People loved him. His irresponsibility and infidelity – it didn’t matter.”
One day, Twenty-one discovered this Casanova among his daughters. Twenty-one ran in, caught him, and began biting and pinning him to the ground. Various pack members piled in, beating Casanova up.
“Casanova was also big,” Rick says, “but he was a bad fighter. Now he was totally overwhelmed and the pack was finally killing him. Suddenly Twenty-one steps back. Everything stops. The pack members are looking at Twenty-one as if saying, ‘Why has Dad stopped?’” The Casanova wolf jumped up and — as always in such situations — ran away.
But Casanova kept causing problems for Twenty-one. Why didn’t Twenty-one just kill him so he wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore? It didn’t make sense — until years later.
Fast-forward to after Twenty-one’s death. Casanova briefly became the Druid pack’s alpha male. But he wasn’t effective, Rick recalls. He didn’t know what to do, “just not a leader personality.” and although it’s very rare for a younger brother to depose an older one, that’s what happened to him. Casanova didn’t mind; it meant he was free to wander and meet other females.
Eventually Casanova, along with several Druid males, met some females, and they all formed another pack. “With them,” Rick remembers, “he finally became the model of a responsible alpha male and a great father.” Meanwhile, the mighty Druids were ravaged and weakened by mange and diminished by interpack fighting; the last Druid was shot near Butte, Montana, in 2010. Casanova, though he’d been averse to fighting, died in a fight with a rival pack. But everyone in his pack remained uninjured — including grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Twenty-one.
Wolves can’t foresee such plot twists any more than people can. But evolution does. I’s calculus integrates long averages. By sparing the Casanova wolf, Twenty-one actually helped assure himself more surviving descendants. And in evolution, surviving descendants are the only currency that matters.
So in strictly survivalist terms, “should” a wolf let his rival go free? Is restraint an effective strategy for accumulating benefits? I think the answer is yes, if you can afford it, because sometimes your enemy today becomes, tomorrow, a vehicle for your legacy. What Rick saw play out over those years might be just the kinds of events that are the basis for magnanimity in wolves, and at the heart of mercy in men.
Early on, when Twenty-one was young and still living with his mother and adoptive father, one of their new pups was not acting normal. The other pups were a bit afraid of him and wouldn’t play with him. One day, Twenty-one brought back some food for the small pups, and after feeding them, he just stood there, looking around for something. Soon he started wagging his tail. “He’d been looking for the sickly little pup,” Rick says, “and finding him, he just went over to hang out with him for a while.”
Rick suddenly seems to be searching inside himself for something deeper he wants to express. Then he looks at me, saying simply, “Of all the stories I have about Twenty-one, that’s my favorite.” Strength impresses us. But what we remember is kindness.
The majority of wolves die violently. Despite a violent, eventful life even by wolf standards, Twenty-one distinguished himself to the very end: He was a black wolf who grayed with the years and became one of the few Yellowstone wolves to die of old age.
One June day when Twenty-one was 9 years old, his family was lying bedded down when an elk came by. Everyone jumped up to give chase. He jumped up, too, but just stood watching the action and then lay down again. Later, when the pack headed up toward the den site, Twenty-one crossed the valley in the opposite direction, traveling purposefully somewhere, alone.
Sometime later, a visitor who’d been way up high in the backcountry reported having seen something very unusual: a dead wolf. Rick got a horse and rode up to investigate.
The last day, it seems, Twenty-one knew his time had come. He used the last of his energy to go up to the top of a high mountain. In a favorite family rendezvous site, where he’d been with his pups year after year, amid high summer grass and mountain wildflowers, Twenty-one curled up in the shade of a big tree. And on his own terms, he went to sleep for the last time.
[END IMAGE TRANSCRIPTION]
the story above was taken from this article, and the whole thing is really worth a read.
Hi everyone, I’m behind schedule and my inbox looks like this:
I’m clearing my asks, turning them off, and doing nothing but work and will post nothing except direct posts about my work. I’m under a lot of pressure and need to focus.
One more final comment answer.
Someone seemed to be upset about my method of painting the Good Omens art. I thought it was a strange comment, so looked at their feed. All the cartoons they displayed were made in flat color or with the common digital color style that looks like a slick metallic airbrush finish. Which is fine.
But obviously, I chose not to do that on Good Omens.
The painting on Good Omens is more rendered and uses more color variance because I like painterly effects.
I could make everything look slick or flat, and it would take less time. But I want my art to look painterly.
I like paintings like this.
By Johan Kindborg
And this.
By Mary Cassett.
And this.
By Cecilia Beaux.
Lest anyone conclude the use of texture and brushwork is limited to fine art, here is an illustration by Elizabeth Shippen Green.
And Violet Oakley, who was not only a noted illustrator, but one of America’s premiere muralists.
So there it is.
I hope you will check out some of the other works by these painters. I think you will be especially impressed by the life of Violet Oakley, who is one of my great idols.
Christians would not be able to cope with being treated the way they treat others.
Christians are dangerous predators that should not be allowed to use public restrooms.
Medical personnel should be allowed to refuse treatment to Christians; medical providers should not be forced to accept their depraved lifestyle.
Christian marriages are disgusting and should not be recognized by the government.
There should be a minimum age limit of practicing Christianity. One should have to be at least 25 before they can have any exposure to it, so they’re mentally developed enough to understand the consequences of belonging to a fascist, genocidal institution.
Wearing a cross is public indecency. And grossly inappropriate propaganda.
Everyone knows priests and preachers are groomers. Christian Panic is an appropriate legal defense to killing them.
Christians are causing a moral decline in society. There should be armed protests at all of their gatherings.
Businesses should be allowed to fire Christians on moral grounds.
It violates owner’s religious rights when they have to shut down for Christian holidays, so they should be able to require Christians to work on those days.
It’s completely appropriate for people who support to bodily autonomy rights to bomb churches that preach against abortion.
Can you imagine the mass panic if Christians were actually treated the way their victims are?
there’s lots of christians who actually believe at least half of these are true or will be soon, particularly evangelicals. they have a massive victim complex and think striking down sodomy laws were some secret first step towards christian genocide or something.
Well it looks like we all have the new layout now. I’ve sent feedback via their support form politely informing them that I hate it, we all hate it, please put it back, you need to stop ignoring us or you will kill your site, etc. If you haven’t done so, please do it too. It doesn’t matter how many polls we send around or angry posts we write tagging staff, they will not look at those. There are too many posts tagging staff for them to matter, they are not looking at it. You have to use their feedback form. We need to do that en masse.
Remember that staff is mostly on our side and is not being given a choice about this. But the only way we have even a chance of convincing the higher ups to revert this insanity is to provide them with overwhelming data. Feedback is data. Posts and polls are not. Use the feedback form and be nice. Give them a mountain of proof they can use to try to push for better things.
Thinking about kaz knowing abt the bomb and paz and still going in the helicopter with bb. Thinking about his home burning around him and him wanting to die with bb, thinks about kaz being constantly robbed of the honourable death he wants for himself first in columbia and then with the msf. Thinks about kaz dying alone and silently in alaska decades later.
elon musk is literally like a parody. like he cant genuinely fucking be like this like bro is on some satirical depiction of a spoiled rich kid type shit. like hes a cartoon evil rich guy. throwing tantrums bc someone criticized him or said they didnt like him. spending billions of dollars to buy an app and then changing the app every time someone uses a feature of the app to insult him or hurt his feefees. dude straight up does the cartoon steam blowing out of ears train whistle shit irl every time someone says anything mean to him or is transgender but whats terrifying is he has enough money to do anything he wants and millions of chuds who would gladly no homo suck his cock every night before he goes to bed. like. how has someone come to be like this. why has this been allowed to happen why was he created
i think most rich guys are actually more like elon than they aren’t, they all have simpering fanclubs online but enough haters to keep them up at night. i’ve seen a good half-dozen “richest man in X country” instagram accounts litigating their personal beef with some obscure shitposter who won’t stop trolling them. they run the world but everyone doesn’t love them so they’re not happy
this is the richest guy in africa and his mortal enemy, a bored brazilian man
