The Queue: I am a puddle of escaping fluids

It is hot in Edmonton, gang, and it’s only gonna get hotter all week. I am sweating so much I feel exhausted while I’m sleeping.

Anna and I traded Queues this week because Wednesday is my eye injection day. So I’m going to be going out, getting jabbed in both eyes and then coming home to a 40 degree Celsius hotbox, where I will be simultaneously sweating, bleeding and wincing for the better part of a day. So thank you to Anna for letting me at least not worry about the Queue.

I suspect I will be talking a lot about Hyenas today. Possibly also giant enemy crabs.

It really depends on how granular you’re being. Hyenas are more closely related to the other Viverroidea especially the Herpestoidea, the superfamily that includes mongoose, the Malagasy carnivorans like the Fossa, and of course Hyenas. But all Viverroidea are members of the Feliformia, including Hyenas, and thus are more closely related to cats than to canids or ursines.

So it’s not really a terrible idea to say, if we were dealing with people who could shapeshift into cats, they’d be more closely related to people who could shapeshift into Hyenas than people who shapeshifted into wolves, who would be more closely related to the bear shapeshifters, as both bears and wolves are part of the Caniformia, along with mustelids like badgers and wolverines and weasels and ferrets, foxes, coyotes, even raccoons and yes, seals and sea lions are part of the caniforms.

So if White Wolf had ever had the courage to have Selkies, they’d have been closely related to the Garou just as the Ajaba were to the Bastet.

But did you know that was only the third Hyena?

DC Comics had published two previous Hyenas, both enemies of Firestorm, The Nuclear Man. Their origins were pure 80’s, let me tell you.

Get rid of marginal gear that you’ll soon be getting replacements for anyway.

Clean out your bags, vendor what you don’t need, put mats you won’t use on the AH.

Reroll Warrior.

I mean, like what? It’s not like those bots are likely to turn on War Mode, so you’re basically just limited to reporting, ultimately. I know it can feel Sisyphean — you report, another one almost seems to spawn into the game world while you’re still reporting the last one. But believe me, Blizzard spends a lot of time trying to fight bots, and your reports can help them target the most egregious offenders.

But if they do turn on War Mode? Kill them.

Okay, that’s the Queue for today. Hyenas are a fascinating family, members of the Feliformia who evolved convergently to a more canid style body plan, and taking up a similar lifestyle to unrelated animals like Epicyon and Hyaenadon. 

Someday I’ll do a whole Queue about convergent evolution and how it does weird things like make a lot of different crustaceans turn into crabs. No, seriously, this keeps happening, it’s called Carcinisation. Just random crustaceans, minding their own business, and then bang! They evolve into a crab body even though they’re not crabs.