Name: Monkey Crab
Debut: Splatoon 2
Today we are talking about a Splatoon character beloved by all. More popular than the Squid Sisters! More respected than Off the Hook! It’s Monkey Crab! The world-famous Monkey Crab!
Now if you didn’t notice from us using a plushie as the header image, Monkey Crab is not real. Sorry. And I don’t just mean in the sense that most Splatoon characters aren’t real! He’s not real in the world of Splatoon! He’s what we call a cartoon guy, in the business. An in-universe fictional character!
Monkey Crab first shows up in the stage MakoMart, which is a supermarket, and the devs had to make a bunch of fake food packaging for it! There is a lot of fun stuff like Off the Hook flavored cereal, but our star here got three different types of cereal all for himself! I think this stuff is super cool, since the world of Splatoon is already so cartoony, what would their cartoons look like? Monkey Crab gives a glimpse into that world, and what a world it is!
So Monkey Crab is a cereal mascot! Case closed! He is like a Toucan Sam or a Tony the Tiger, or a Buzz the Honey Nut Cheerios! But a fake cereal guy is not bound by the rules of our world, because...
A few months later, Monkey Crab returned to us... in the Amusement Park stage, Wahoo World! Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t see a lot of cereal mascots in amusement parks, in our world. I mean, maybe sometimes they collaborate? But this means either A. Monkey Crab was a cereal mascot who achieved incredible widespread success, or B. Monkey Crab was not originally a cereal mascot, he just happened to have a cereal tie-in. I choose to believe A, because it’s funnier!
Look, here he is in Inkopolis Square, eating Cereal! It’s SO his thing! So if mammals don’t exist in Splatoon, what kind of Milk do they eat with their cereal? Monkey Crab says Don’t Worry About It! :)
Keep in mind we didn’t even have a name for this guy until a Japanese exclusive magazine, where he was revealed to be called Sarukani! Sarukani means monkey crab. It definitely is a crab, and his face sort of is monkey-ish! (Though, monkeys are extinct, right?) Thanks to the power of Japanese Google, I managed to find a picture, with his official art and everything! So I did my best to translate it, even though other people probably have before:
He greets you with an 100% smile, the most popular cereal mascot at MakoMart! His smile is so wonderful, he's been showing up lately on commercials on the giant monitor in Inkopolis Square. (He's so popular that he's even being used on skateboard designs!)
So yeah! That pretty much confirms he’s a cereal character first and formost! And his smile! It’s the secret to his success, and you have to admit it’s a pretty great smile. What about the skateboards? Uh... we’ll get to that!
Now there’s actually a Japanese folktale about a monkey and a crab, which I am reading about on Wikipedia just now. It’s about a monkey who murders a crab with persimmons. And so much more! But none of that is important right now. The point is it’s usually known as Sarukani Gassen, or Monkey-Crab Battle, which might be where the name Monkey Crab comes from? Maybe? I dunno? It’s the sort of thing I’d expect from Splatoon, but I’m not sure how it relates to cereal!
Of course, I’m only really writing this post because of Splatoon 3, which introduced customizable lockers, and lots of Random Junk to customize those lockers with! And it just so happens a lot of that junk features Monkey Crab! I have a dedicated Monkey Crab shelf in my locker, and you should too!
There’s the monkey-crab cushion from the top of this post, but how about a monkey-crab mug! Would you drink hot beverages from this? Would you drink cold beverages from this? Look at that face. He is so happy to be providing a container for liquids.
And the aforementioned monkey-crab skateboard! Of course cereal mascots are no strangers to skateboarding in real life. Do you think Monkey Crab has a radical commerical encouraging Inklings to eat a balanced breakfast and do Extreme Sports? Because I hope so!
All three cereal boxes are available to purchase too! It’s interesting how they get progressively more expensive. Is coconut cereal rarer? Is someone scalping cereal? That they sell in the supermarket?
Are you in need of a laugh? Monkey Crab is sure to make you giggle and chuckle and chortle with his comedy comic! I’m laughing out loud just looking at this cover! I’m crying with laughter! I just love Monkey Crab so much!
But of course, this has all been a lead-up to the peak of Monkey Crab’s career, my personal favorite item in his collection...
Monkey Crab in Silly Land!
Isn’t it wonderful? Just the title alone inspires such joyous whimsy! A whole Silly Land, for you to explore with your best friend Monkey Crab! Not only is it great they gave this cereal mascot an entire Switch game, but this officially makes Monkey Crab an in-universe scrimblo! Congratulations, Monkey Crab! If anyone deserves it, it’s you!
That’s all for today fellow Monkey Crab enthusiasts, but keep an eye out for our next cool post, where we write about Mister Shrug and Missus Shrug, and their spicy secrets! We’ll finally get to the bottom of... hm? Hm. I’m being told that I’m not allowed to write a post on Mister and Missus Shrug. Sorry everyone.
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Thinking about how Kabumisu interactions post-canon is loud hush-talk among the Elven Nobles in the west and figureheads in the Golden Kingdom. Like the Elven Ambassador??? Speaking with one of the King's most trusted advisors??? Is this a coup plot? A conspirancy? Prelude to invasion?
Meanwhile, Kabru and Mithrun is engaged in the slowest but also sweetest courtship. This is Kabru's first serious-serious relationship (like the leading to an engagement-type of relationship) and he doesnt want to fuck it up; Mithrun meanwhile likes Kabru and wants to be with him but is figuring out the things he wants in this relationship.
(Like I just find both sides panicking -- Elves trying to spy on Mithrun's and his House's affairs at the Golden Kingdom; people of Melini trying to figure out if the elves through Mithrun is somewhat plotting to take over their Kingdom. Meanwhile, Laois cannot be bothered by it; by this time he knows Kabru and by some extension Mithrun, the many times he got scolded by intruding to their dates aosjdodjskjs either way, the King downplays it, the Elven Queen is more amused than wary. Either way, Mithrun eventually quits and moves to the Golden Kingdom permanently -- honestly to just hunt monsters and cook noodles -- Kabru continues his work as political advisor and wards off the court's political enemies. Somewhere along the line, Kabru and Mithrun get married. And Laios uses that as an excuse to have a national monster meat feast lol)
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True Blue
It wasn’t unheard of for Amanda to receive a message from her son Spock, though he was most often stationed far away in a different quadrant of the galaxy. He did his best to stay in touch in spite of his often unpredictable schedule, and she appreciated his efforts a great deal. Sometimes, however, she selfishly wished he would do a poorer job. It was one thing to be aware of how dangerous his Starfleet career could be and quite another to hear a detailed account of his most recent brush with death. That Spock always recounted these adventures as drily and matter-of-factly as possible was, if anything, worse for Amanda’s nerves than learning the gory details.
This call was out of the ordinary in part because it had nothing to do with any of Spock’s most recent missions. He inquired about her experiences as a human woman on Vulcan and even, to her great surprise, about her courtship with his father. The two of them usually danced around the subject of Sarek, with whom Spock had barely been on speaking terms since he left Vulcan to attend Starfleet Academy years ago. Though he posed them with his usual impersonal, academic curiosity, the questions themselves raised Amanda’s suspicions.
She knew, of course, about the fractured engagement between Spock and T’Pring. Arranging a marriage for her son at such a tender age had always made her uncomfortable, but as in so many things in her marriage, she hadn’t protested Sarek’s insistence on following his tradition. As the human wife of a very stubborn Vulcan man, she had to pick her battles. She and Sarek had been away on a diplomatic mission and therefore unable to return home for what should have been Spock’s wedding, which was probably for the best. Her husband had been furious at what he perceived to be an insult to his house and his son. Only time and distance had cooled his head.
At the time, she’d been hurt for Spock, too—who could ask for a better husband than her son? But her romantic heart had whispered that now he was free.
She hadn’t thought much about the matter since then. When she did hear from Spock about his work, he mentioned his close colleagues only in passing, so that she knew the captain’s name, but no one else’s. He had certainly never talked about any women. Yet now...now, she wondered. Why these questions, and why now?
“Spock,” she asked, wishing she could reach across the unfathomable distance that separated them and touch his dear face, “is there a reason you’re asking me all this?”
Though she had no telepathic abilities and though he’d carefully trained in all those Vulcan mental disciplines, Amanda knew him better than almost anyone in the galaxy. She’d given birth to this boy, raised him, and knew his tells. As she watched him glance away from the screen and watched the corner of his mouth twitch, she had to keep herself from laughing out loud.
He looked back at the screen and, after a moment’s silence, he said, “You will certainly be the first to know if there is, Mother.”
When the call ended, Amanda was on cloud nine. Her head was full of thoughts of weddings and grandchildren and a thousand questions about the woman who had brought that softness into Spock’s face. Amanda loved her already, whoever she was, whatever she looked like, whichever position she held aboard the Enterprise.
* * *
Spock felt better after talking to his mother. He was more sure of himself and of his plans and more confident about asking Christine to bind herself to a him despite his alien ways. After all, if his mother could live with Sarek on Vulcan with few qualms, surely it was logical to think that Christine could find contentment with him on a starship or even a colony somewhere. Though their future after this mission was still hazy, he doubted that either of them would leave Starfleet, and he had no intention of returning to Vulcan permanently with or without a human wife.
He now had to consider a proposal and balancing Christine’s human expectations with his own more reserved nature. They had discussed the ways in which Vulcan marriage went beyond the human notion of matrimony only briefly. His mother had reassured him that she found her own mental bond with Sarek, while it had taken some “getting used to,” wonderful. He only hoped that Christine, medical professional that she was, would not be intimidated by the idea.
But this morning there were other matters at hand. The Enterprise had picked up a message from a nearby Class M planet that had, it seemed, very recently developed the technology necessary to contact potential life beyond their planet. Their society was reminiscent of that on Earth several centuries earlier, and the captain assembled a small landing party that included Spock, Uhura, and one of the ship’s anthropologists to beam down.
“Their energy clearly comes from a non-renewable and toxic source such as coal, captain,” Spock remarked with distaste as soon as they materialized on the surface. The acrid smell of smog that hung in the air made his tricorder readings completely unnecessary to back up that particular observation.
@multirptrash
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