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RubbleRousers Demo Release - Play With Cat Genetics!

After several months in development, it's finally time for the RubbleRousers genetics demo to be released!

Ever wanted to see what your favorite OC couple's kits would look like? Want to design a new character? Or just want a sneak peek of what the RubbleRousers genetics system has to offer?

Then this demo is for you!

You can find the demo here!

Happen to find a bug with the demo? Please report it here. (Screenshot required)

Feel free to share your creations with the demo! Lineart by @splasharooni, markings by @splasharooni and HeyRei (not on tumblr to my knowledge). All artists compensated for their work.

Want to learn more about the game? Join our discord!

Thanks for playing!

Special thanks to the Sparrow's Garden Discord server for teaching me, like, everything I know about cat genetics.

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Eight years ago the nephew and nieces told me this excitedly, "MIDNIGHT'S IN THE BOX. TAKE A PICTURE. PUT IT ON FACEBOOK. MAKE HIM FAMOUS." While he didn't get famous on FB book I believe with all of your help he can be tumblr famous, even if it's just for a day.

so here is midnight in a box for your enjoyment

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D’you perchance have any thoughts on the morphological (for lack of a better word?) dire wolves that Colossal Biosciences just revealed to the public? 👀

Oh my god Aenocyon, you can't just ask someone why they're white!

"Morphological dire wolf" my ass. Which is coincidentally where Colossal pulled the white coats from…

Give me an example of a modern temperate/grassland predator that's white*, I'll wait. *Excluding white lions, which are an uncommon but resilient morph resulting from leucism.

I based my Aenocyon design off bushdogs and dholes. They are called Masked Wolves in Kindred's setting, because I enjoy a good pseudo hyena niche uvu-b

Extremely extremely long 'thoughts' below the cut lol c':

Preface: in this discussion the term "dire wolf" has too many meanings, as such I will be referring to them as follows:

Thrones' wolves: for the huge, white, fantasy animals from Game Of Thrones GMO wolves: for Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi, Colossal's creations, Canis lupus Aenocyon: for Aenocyon dirus, the true, extinct dire wolf known from fossils across North America

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Part 1: That's not a dire wolf-

The first question everyone has been asking is "So, are dire wolves de extinct now?" The answer is an emphatic "NO!" from anyone with knowledge of genetics, palaeontology, or taxonomy.

Aenocyon dirus were actually not wolves, nor dogs, but a secret third thing.

They are canids, but last shared a common ancestor with grey wolves and their lineage some ~5.7 million years ago.

For context, this paper suggests a similar divergence time between genus Homo (humans, Neanderthals and co) and Pan (chimps and bonobos); animals that look and behave markedly differently from each other.

The genomes of Canis lupus and Aenocyon dirus being 99.5% similar may sound like a lot, but again, humans share 98.8% with chimps, and 99.7% with Neanderthals, and yet are very distinct from both.

Skeletally, behaviourally, in soft tissue, etc, you could tell any of the three apart; the same goes for Aenocyon and Canis members.

Additionally, Colossal made 20 changes in 14 genes.

The grey wolf genome has 2,447,000,000 base pairs. Does that maths seem a bit off to you?

That's not even enough to change a grey wolf into a domestic dog, let alone an ancient outgroup!

This would be akin to modifying a lion to have bigger teeth and saying you resurrected Smilodon fatalis.

Or editing a Asian Elephant genome so they retain their juvenile hair and calling it a Woolly Mammoth.

It's a bold-faced lie.

Beth Shapiro says "they look and act like dire wolves" but that, too,simply isn't true.

Visually, the GMO wolves simply aren't what Aenocyon would have looked like. It's what a Thrones' wolf looks like.

Hmmmmm, funny about that, seeing George R R Martin helped fund the 'dire wolf project'...

As with many fossil animals, we don't know much about Aenocyon's behaviour.

You can't say the GMO wolves (who are also still pups) act like Aenocyon, because that's based off nothing.

What we do know is Aenocyon were likely pack animals (from the sheer number found in La Brea Tarpits), and crunched more bones than modern wolves (from their many broken teeth).

Also, crucially, they had Wild Sex Lives (from the many, huge, broken and healed bacula... youch).

Colossal is also being colossally shady by: doubling down on their bs use of the outdated "morphological species definition", blatantly misleading the public with their use of the words 'cloning', 'dire wolves', and 'de extinction', and refusing to share their methods in a peer reviewed paper before going public with a clickbait headline.

Do not trust them with your Red wolves either. They're using coyote hybrids and considering what they deem 'close enough' for a dire wolf, I wouldn't put any money on the quality of their GMO red wolves either...

Also can I just say, whatever genes they modified to "make the skull larger" clearly didn't impact the lower jaw...

No, I'm not sorry for this image uvu-b (But for real look at that poor pup and his overbite jfc)

Part 2: -and if it was, that wouldn't be good either.

I fundamentally do not support de extinction.

No, not even for the Thylacine, not even for passenger pigeons, nor the dodo. Even my beloved Homotherium should be left in the past.

This might be an unexpected stance because I am, surprising no one, a big fan of extinct animals, megafauna and otherwise.

But the thing is, I'm an even bigger fan of actual, living animals.

The animal ethics of de extinction are dubious at best.

The surrogate dog mothers of the GMO wolves likely won't live good lives.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were destroyed after being used, because their bodies could contain feto microchimerisms and Colossal absolutely doesn't want their special wolf genome getting out.

I doubt the GMO wolves themselves will live a full life before they outgrow their hearts, like Ligers.

This would likely be the case for any modern animal genetically modified into megafauna; a body not adapted to deal with the increased size.

Purely conjecture, but I also wouldn't be surprised if Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi have vision/hearing issues from their white coats.

White coats in wolves are associated with hearing impairments, so the gene used for these animals was from domestic dogs. Meaning Colossal has created a very expensive wolfdog.

Again, what kind of life are these wolfdogs supposed to live? As awful pets for the rich? In a zoo? Released to pollute wild wolf genomes? (assuming they're fertile; I hope not)

Regardless, it's not looking good if they ever planned to have them be 'wild animals'

Even true clones (which the GMO wolves are not) tend to have health issues.

Celia the Pyrenean Ibex (bucardo) was cloned, but the clone died after 9 minutes from a deformed lung.

So in 2003, this made the bucardo the first species to go extinct twice, yippee?

There's also the problem of genetic diversity.

How many intact genomes do you have on hand?

For dire wolves the answer is Zero!

To my knowledge, we don't have the full genome coded from one individual, just Frankenstein-ed from many. Which is fine for sequencing the canine family tree's relatedness, but not for cloning.

The absolute minimum individuals to survive a genetic bottleneck is said to be 50 in larger species. Called the 50/500 rule, it states that 50 is enough to survive, but 500 is required to prevent genetic drift.

To which I say, good luck!

Even with well preserved permafrost species (such as woolly mammoths), you'll have a hard time finding 500 individuals with prefect genomes.

And then, where will you put them?

If you were to, somehow, make a breeding population, where are they going? A national park? A zoo? Is their old habitat still available to them?

In Aenocyon, the answer is simply "they don't have a niche anymore".

Unlike the Thylacine or Dodo, humans did not directly cause the extinction of Aenocyon dirus. And even if they had, it was 10,000 years ago!

Would making room for a de extinct species impact the habitat/niche of another species?

Regular grey wolves fill Aenocyon's role as a canine mesopredator, with Puma as the apex (alongside bears as an apex omnivore).

With the loss of megafauna to prey on, a de extinct predator would just compete with other, also endangered species.

Animals also change the environment they life in.

Mammoths will clear trees like modern elephants. This would recreate the Mammoth Steppe, but those trees making up the taiga and boreal forests are themselves crucial habitat.

Other species have moved in since the mammoths' extinction. Siberian tigers, lynx, muskoxen, brown bears, elk, moose, and so many others; many endangered.

Trees also prevent erosion, which is already happening at unprecedented rates due to agriculture and deforestation.

Crucially: What's to stop an extinct animal going the same way it went out last time?

Ask yourself this:

Would the average American appreciate "flocks of Passenger pigeons big enough to darken the sky and whiten ground with their guano"?

Would people suddenly be okay with lions in Europe eating their livestock, when they are champing the bit to shoot Iberian wolves again?

Would Tasmanians suddenly feel the same about the Thylacine, when farmers in Australia still happily kill dingoes and eagles for lamb predation? [citation, I am an enviro technician and have had farmers tell me they shoot Wedge-tails, knowing I'm a toothless lion to stop them.]

I doubt it

At what cost?

Are we going to find 50 thylacine genomes?

If so (doubtful), how much will cloning and/or modifying a relative into a thylacine cost? Now that x50?

Wouldn't that money be better spent on quoll reintroduction?

What about finding 50 gestational carriers for mammoths?

Are you going to use their closest relative; the already critically endangered Asian Elephant?

Wouldn't that time and effort on those elephant mothers be better used making more elephants?

And the social cost:

If extinction isn't forever, what's to incentivize lawmakers to fund conservation?

Really, it comes down to this:

Why bring back the dire wolf when we could put this money into protecting the Iberian and Red wolves?

Why bring back the thylacine when their cousin is dying of a transmissible cancer?

We've already seen the impacts of "extinction isn't forever anymore", with those in power already trying to cut funding to conservation, because you can "just bring them back".

But as we've seen time and time again: there is no Planet B. There is no De-Extinction, not really.

Maybe what was gone should stay gone, so we can focus on what we still have.

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Hvitur

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MUSIC: "I've Made My Choice, You'll Have to Make Yours"

“I cannot endure this much longer.” said Dostigai darkly. “Neither shall the river.”

Iskra tried to stay his paws, but Geroi went on undeterred. Though he emanated a scent of sorrow that flowed toward his enemies, their shoulders bunched, awaiting their attack upon his hide, his eyes, even the scarred, blind one, were calm, with power in them; Dostigai’s warriors, usually fearless in the face of hardship, slightly retreated, fear wafting from their bodies. But Rassvet stood firm, just behind his leader’s flank, unaffected. Geroi’s hackles bristled along his shoulders; he engulfed himself in those red eyes, creased with a smile of treachery, of supreme wickedness. A smile of evil itself. An evil waiting to ignite.

But Geroi did not flinch, his expression countering just as sternly.

And at last he spoke. “Harken to me, Dostigai Boreievich…” He leaned in, his mouth at his ear, but the words of secrets no one but them caught. However, what he told Dostigai, carrying an air of threat, with its utmost obscenity, was so vile, so horrendous and cruel beyond anything he had ever imagined, which guided his vehemence in every syllable. Therefore, from these pages, I shall omit them. All that the chroniclers knew—and with absolute certainty—was that it had struck not only a nerve, but the essence of Dostigai’s inner core. For there, upon the ice, with its composure about to give way at any moment, that same premonition preceded Dostigai himself.

In a blaze of fury, and with a snarl that ripped through the river and the trees beyond, perhaps carrying into the cosmos’s abyss, Dostigai lunged forward, his teeth narrowly clipping Geroi’s face, but Geroi staggered back, with Iskra bracing to flee.

Defiantly he raised his head, the yellows of his sclera stark against the crimson iris, and shrieked, “Kill him! Kill them! Kill all of them all, you shits!”

---

Finally did another one of these monster sets again after a long while.

Here rebel leader Geroi (Tricolored one-eyed one) guides his group across the frozen Pechora River (only beginning to crack with the gathering thaw), while the evil Commissar Dostigai (Red "brindled" scarred crazy-eyed one) and some of his militaria pursue them.

It doesn't happen for a longtime (A third of the way for BOOK II). Lots of stuff happens before then. Anyway, this only took four days to complete, and I wish I can only write this fast...

Art/Story/Characters © Me [HT Art | 2025]

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I recently read the first few chapters of Ratha’s Creature by Clare Bell and it really reminded me of your comic. Were you partially inspired by it when making this series?

Yess!! I really enjoyed Ratha's Creature when I first read it! I must have only been ~14-15 and it was a really good sort of 'step up' between Warriors and more adult fiction!

There was also this graphic novel adaptation in the works, though I think it may have been cancelled given how long ago updates were given u-u

Which is sad bc look how gorgeous the art was oagh ;A;

As for it being an inspiration of Kindred; I would say it certainly was, even if indirectly! I kinda forgot The Named existed until fairly recently but I re-read the first book just a month or so back c:

It would be a shame if someone was to, say, have a free dropbox of the whole series, wink wink wink check below wink wink...

IMPORTANT NOTE: if you decide to read Ratha's Creature, just know it's very much a xenofiction about animals that act like animals. There's scenes of the cats mating, giving birth, hunting, infanticide, age gaps, descriptions of prey and enemy killing that are much more vivid than Warriors etc. Which in text is treated simply as “thing that happens,” but be warned!

Ok, did you read the disclaimer? Good, now you can have the link uvu

Very Legal Not Sneaky copies of the Named Series by Clare Bell

Ratha’s Creature 

Clan Ground

Ratha and Thistle-Chaser

Ratha’s Challenge

Ratha’s Courage

no one is allowed to get mad at me for sharing bc i don't think there's even anywhere to buy the ebooks legally anymore. Piracy is media preservation etc.

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sometimes you need dialogue tags and don't want to use the same four

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Alone in the middle of a desolate wasteland, BarrenClan is a hardy and irritable group of cats. They have lived there for generations, and eke out survival in this unforgiving land. But one of their new apprentices, the bold and curious Pinepaw, is determined to discover the terrible truths buried under the sand, as well as rise to meet the changes coming to his Clan.

"Pinepaw and the Forgotten World" was a Warriors-inspired illustrated prose comic that ran on this blog from September 2022 - February 2025. As it is currently completed, this blog will contain MAJOR spoilers for the comic. If you are a new reader, please use the "Next" link below to be taken to the cover of this project. You can also read a mirror of the project on ComicFury, linked below. Navigational tags and other information are tagged below on this post as well.

Next >

ComicFury mirror

Yes, you have my permission to use a style and/or format inspired by this comic for your own projects. 

This comic is not based on the text-based game ClanGen/LifeGen. It was based off the Clan Generator challenge, which you can see in this video.

Helpful tags for navigating this blog (click on the search icon):

#issue: a list of all the completed issues. Use this tag to only see issues of the comic. 

#reference: reference sheets for the characters. 

#lore: background information about the world of the comic. 

#extra art: drawings I create outside of the comic itself. 

#fanart: drawings other people have made for the comic.

Allegiances: Family Tree (spoilers)

PATFW Discord: https://discord.gg/y3hAGVbfUK

PATFW Playlist: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0GZWVmucv2DvA4H7uLwquk (Song Guide)

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwTmUrr_9zUlCvQijucEkukNtiRpwktqs

Complete masterpost of issues, underneath Keep Reading link:

Issue 1 - Dry Heat and Cracked Earth

Issue 2 - I’ve Never Heard That Name Before

Issue 3 - Stupid Little Kit Daydreams

Issue 4 - It’s Just Like Falling Asleep 

Issue 5 - Smoke and Ash and Fire and Salt and Blood

Issue 6 - Healers Hear All The Secrets

Issue 7 - Foxholes Bite Back

Issue 8 - Do You Really Think That’s Your Destiny?

Issue 9 - It’s Only a Deer

Issue 10 - What Was That Now, Dear?

Issue 11 - We’re Held Together By Spiderweb

Issue 12 - The Shining Towns

Issue 13 - To Kill Is Right. To Kill Is Good. To Kill Is To Live.

Issue 14 - The Rotten Stench of Blood

Issue 15 - Was It Something I Did?

Issue 16 - I Bet You Can’t Catch Me

Issue 17 - You Are the Darkness Before the Storm

Issue 18 - I Met Him Under a Warm Dawn

Issue 19 - Kindness for the Dying Is Easy to Spare

Issue 20 - KITTENS! KITTENS! KITTENS!

Issue 21 - Lovebug

Issue 22 - A Favor for a Favor

Issue 23 - Your Voice Was So Soft

Issue 24 - Lost In a Haze

Issue 25 - You Don’t Speak to My Daughter That Way

Issue 26 - My Heart Is Too Heavy to Sleep

Issue 27 - Little Paws Take Little Steps

Issue 28 - Viscera, Shiny in the Light of Day

Issue 29 - We’re Not So Different, You and I

Issue 30 - Time Is a Circle

Issue 31 - Blood

Issue 32 - Cassandra

Issue 33 - Hurt Me! Beat Me! Just Please Don’t Leave Me!

Issue 34 - Sunset Days

Issue 35 - The Death of BarrenClan: Part One

Issue 36 - The Death of BarrenClan: Part Two

Issue 37 - The Death of BarrenClan: Part Three

Issue 38 - The Death of BarrenClan: Part Four

Issue 39 - The Death of BarrenClan: Part Five

Issue 40 - Aftermath

Issue 41 - Oracles

Issue 42 - Our Lasting Legacy

Issue 43 - Farewell, and I Love You

Epilogue 1 - The Last Ruby-Red Drop of Flame

Epilogue 2 - Moth-Soft Murmurings

Epilogue 3 - A Dream, A Nightmare

Epilogue 4 - Sunlight Here and Shadows There

Epilogue 5 - Gold Flowers

Epilogue 6 - Binary Star

Epilogue 7 - While You Were Dead

Epilogue 8 - The Ash of Memory

Epilogue 9 - A Rule of Fear

Epilogue 10 - The Vaster World

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Day 5 of @pavpavlova's Febroary prompts: lithe and it's a cheetah! Lithe is also one of my favorite words; it just sounds like what it means y'know?

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Day 3 (Silent) and Day 4 (Spotted) of @pavpavlova's Febroary challenge and it's a leopard this time!

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2nd Day of @pavpavlova's Febroary and what's more enormous than a liger?

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First day of @mammoth-clangen's Febroary done! For the Regal prompt I drew the Thundering Mountains kings from @ihopesocomic!