#I’ve been flopping between cat universe and ‘human’ universe for ages so. we’ll see what happens ig

[wcbweblog]

The urge to switch this project back to humans. It Haunts Me.

[love-takes-work]

Best Buds Together Fun Outline & Review

Best Buds Together Fun is a lovely little activity book...with a few Easter Eggs for fans!

This activity book is for child fans of Steven Universe (and, well, maybe for some of us who aren't so much children). Most of the quizzes and activities are lighthearted little amusements for kids, and there are paper cutouts to play with, but as usual with Steven Universe materials, there are also a few tidbits of information that might be enlightening to overanalytical fans like yours truly.

As in most of the other books, the outfits for the Gems flip flop between older and newer outfits, which just by itself makes you wonder "when" in the continuity this book fits, and then on top of that there are many references to Homeworld Gems as "villains" even though at the time of the book's release, two of the former villains are on friendly terms with the Crystal Gems.

If Peridot is still a villain for purposes of this book, it probably can be placed somewhere between episodes 67 and 68. (I say 68 because it also has a reference to Connie still wearing her glasses even though she doesn't need them, and she stops doing that after 68.) The cover features Steven and Connie high-fiving in the foreground, with a background of Pearl and Garnet in their beach outfits from "Beach Party" (with Amethyst as their beach ball).

Here's an overview of what you can find in the book. At the end I list glitches or especially interesting bits for SU nerds.

☆ Crystal Gems ☆

Steven and the Gems welcome you, encourage you to be a Crystal Gem even though you don't have Gem powers, and provide you with a detailed table of contents festooned with Crying Breakfast Friends stickers, stars, and Cookie Cats. You're then invited to fill out personal info and pick a Gem to become part of the team (potentially based on your birthstone; mine's Garnet!), and then there are some cutouts of the Crystal Gems with stands so you can put them on your desk.

They also have some catch phrases in talk bubbles that you can put beside them. Pearl's is "Some of us are trying to protect humanity" (from "Laser Light Cannon"); Steven's is "I am pretty great!" (from "So Many Birthdays"); Amethyst's is "Chill it, dude" (from "Cat Fingers"), and Garnet's is "Don't hold back!" (from "Lars and the Cool Kids"). And then you can draw yourself (with a star on your clothes, they instruct) so you can be part of the team. Cute!

Then there's a Fusion activity. You get to write about who you'd like to fuse with and do a quiz to make sure you know your Crystal Gem Fusions, featuring Alexandrite, Stevonnie, Garnet, Opal, Sugilite, and Sardonyx. Nice to see Sardonyx here! She was left out of the Guide to the Crystal Gems, presumably because it was unknown whether her reveal episode would have been released by the time the book was (it had been). And finally, there's a quiz about each Crystal Gem. Four questions each test your knowledge of Garnet, Pearl, Amethyst, and Steven.

☆ Beach City ☆

Next up, Beach City. First, there's a map for when you come to Beach City! Beach City businesses are featured next, with a maze to solve to help Steven get fry bits from Beach Citywalk Fries and an empty plate on which to draw your own pizza from Fish Stew Pizza. Then there's a Ronaldo page encouraging you to discuss what weird stuff happens in YOUR hometown.

And for the Big Donut, you get a job application so you can work with Lars and Sadie. Answer honestly!

Next we're off to Funland Arcade where you can design a video game, and there's a search activity to find certain items in Greg's U Stor unit.

☆ Humans ☆

Human characters are next on the list. We get a picture of some of the human characters with hints, and then there's a Connie quiz and a Greg quiz, and there's a place to write a "killer song" like the one Greg had to win Rose Quartz's heart.

☆ Villains ☆

Next, we have a section for the villains. Cutouts for Peridot, Lapis Lazuli, and Jasper come first, with stands for them and some accessories for Peridot. These guys also get talk bubbles: Peridot's say "They're the ones that keep breaking my machines!" (from "The Return") and "You clods don't know what you're doing!" (from "Jailbreak"); Jasper's says "Why are you so weak?" (from "The Return"), and Lapis Lazuli's says "I'm tired of being everyone's prisoner. Now you're my prisoner, and I'm never letting you go!" (from "Jailbreak").

There's a place for you to record and retaliate against a Homeworld attack message, and then you're supposed to write about your fears and draw a monster. Next we see a mirror like Lapis's where you're supposed to write the story of another mirror-trapped Gem and give it a name, as well as your own intentions toward it. And then there are images of opponents the Gems have fought for you to write in their names.

☆ Objects ☆

The next section seems to be about objects. The next activity has a collection of objects that belong to characters (including less obvious ones, like a pile of junk from Amethyst's room!), and you're supposed to identify who the items belong to.

Then we have a Warp Pad Connections page where you play squares, then a list of what you'd pack for a trip in your Cheeseburger Backpack. Then there's a shot of Amethyst's room (from "So Many Birthdays") where you compare one picture with another to spot the differences.

☆ Adventure ☆

The next section is adventure themed. The next activity is a memory test; you look at a picture and then answer questions on the next page. It's reasonably difficult since some of the questions aren't super straightforward (e.g., what weapons are the Gems using? They aren't!).

Then you get to fill out specifics of your perfect celebration party on becoming a Crystal Gem, and draw a comic about your own first Gem adventure (helped along by stills from the show--Steven with star eyes and Steven packing helpful items from "Cheeseburger Backpack," the Gems collectively attacking and Garnet's reluctant face from "Marble Madness," a crowd scene of humans from "Ocean Gem," and the "congratulations" scene of Garnet, Pearl, and Amethyst from "The Test"). And there's a board game you play with penny markers and coin tosses, with bonuses and setbacks themed from the show.

You also get to do a Mad Libs style fill-in adventure like "Garnet's Universe," a word search of SU-associated words, decode a message, and come up with imaginative social media status updates you think the characters would have.

There's a coloring page for the Crystal Gems, a journal page for your adventure, a place to draw your dream home, and a choice of activities to do with your best buddy. You can cut out a Steven-themed door hanger, and fill out info about your family, and plan a family meal and discussion, and document your family history.

☆ Join the Team ☆

And finally, you get to cut out your honorary Crystal Gem certificate and check your answers in the back. I thought the "answer" to your Big Donut application being an illustration of Lars saying "Hmm, we'll review your answers and get back to you!" was really cute.

☆ Notable bits and questions: ☆

1. In the Garnet quiz, you're asked to pick the component Gems of her Fusion. The choices are all familiar Gems except in two answers "Turquoise" is an option. It made me wonder if there will someday be a character named Turquoise.

2. In the Pearl quiz, you're asked to guess how old Pearl is. The only possible answer that makes sense is "several thousand years." They're not nailing her age down yet, but we know the youngest she could possibly be is around 9,000--she once claimed she was "only a few thousand years old" when she began fighting alongside Rose Quartz, and we see her doing so in an episode that took place 5,750 years ago, so even if that was the earliest she started fighting with Rose, she was a few thousand years old by that point.

3. I like that they put quotation marks around the word "born" when referring to a Gem being made.

4. One of the Steven quiz questions asks for the name of Steven's rock band. One of the multiple-choice answers is "REO Steve Wagon." Another one is "The Rolling Gem Stones." Oh my god. (Do you have to be old to get these?)

5. The Beach City map is cool--I wish there had been a way to include it in a bigger format. I have actually seen the high-res art version of this and it's so much better if you can really read everything. It has references to old docks that were destroyed, which roads go into Beach City (SR 13, I-95, toward 1A), and plenty of locations both familiar and unmentioned in the show. The peninsula Beach City is on in Delmarva is bordered by Rehoboth Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The map features a compass rose--you know, with actual roses on it and Rose Quartz's symbol. Nice touch.

6. One of the images on Ronaldo's page purports to picture a psychic duck. It kinda looks like a Psyduck from Pokémon.

7. The U Stor search is interesting. Most of the items really were pictured in Greg's storage unit at some point. I was particularly interested in the fact that the mysterious totem pole was in there, and it was reproduced as it is in the show. It's a weird item, with one face that looks like it has Rose's shield, one face that looks like it has Jasper's Gemstone, and the top face looking like one of the birds from "Giant Woman." Some of the items actually are difficult to find, which is nice, and though it asks you to find a Mr. Universe record album, the thing that's there is actually a CD.

8. In the section where you fill in the names of the show's humans, the show refers to them as "Boardies." Connie technically isn't a Boardie--she doesn't even live in Beach City.

9. The book refers to fry bits as "Steven's favorite food." I think there have been several different foods that are his favorites, but this is the first time I've seen one specifically called out to be THE favorite. Surprised it's not Cookie Cats.

10. Peridot's villain cutout, featuring her with her limb enhancers, also has a couple robonoids and some mysterious star-shaped objects. They look almost identical to the drill parasites from "Arcade Mania." That's peculiar because those were "children" of the Gem Cave Creature, not a piece of Homeworld technology.

11. In the section where you're supposed to write out the names of opponents the Crystal Gems have fought, two of them are corrupted Gem monsters and their names are kind of arbitrary descriptions, not officially assigned in the show. In the supplemental materials associated with these characters, they're called the Ice Monster (from "Monster Buddies") and Watermelon Tourmaline (from "Beach Party"), but the answer key calls the latter "Giant Puffer Fish." (The characters never call the Ice Monster anything; they just fight it.)

12. In the Spot the Differences activity in Amethyst's room, the answer key is slightly incomplete. The key shows five differences: 1. A cup that's labeled "#1 Gem" vs. "#1 Dad"; 2. Pearl's hair color; 3. Amethyst's knee star color; 4. A moon replica that's there in one shot and is gone in the other; and 5. A dark object that's next to Steven's feet in one shot but not in the other. It's a little petty, but the bottom picture is also cropped just a little differently, so you can see a shred more of the image on the bottom picture's left side and a little less of it on the right.

13. The memory test where you answer questions after looking at a scene has a potentially misleading question. They ask you to name the colors of Pearl's clothes, and the answer key only has blue, pink, and green. The star on her chest is also yellow.

14. The mini board game is cute, but it would be hard to play in the book because it doesn't lie flat and the board area would need to be open flatly enough to put penny markers on. You'd have to pull out the pages.

Activity squares give you a bonus for finding Cookie Cats at the store (but wait, they're discontinued!), set you back if you lose some of your GUYS (featuring two Dave Guys), give you a bonus if you win a singing contest at Beach-A-Palooza (even though the talent show does not appear to actually be a contest in the show), set you back if you're attacked by clones of yourself like in "Steven and the Stevens," give you a bonus if you fuse with the other Gems (whoa! the space features Alexandrite), give you a bonus for using a Warp Pad, set you back if your homemade spaceship falls apart like in "Space Race," and have you win if you're first to get back to the Temple.

15. The "choose an activity and then make plans to do the activity" page is funny since some of them aren't possible. I mean, sure I can choose between volleyball and football, or going to an amusement park vs. going to the movies, or reading a book vs. playing with toys, or riding a bike vs. a unicycle, or going to school vs. going shopping. But I'm afraid I can't make plans to fly like a bird or swim like a fish, fuse with Pearl or Amethyst, or fight a Gem Monster or Homeworld Gem. And I can't choose between Cookie Cats or Lion Lickers, since neither exists in my world and Cookie Cats are discontinued in Steven's world! Waaah!

16. The "family portrait" illustrations in the family section surprised me! The Rose Quartz portrait is well known to fans, but the image of Greg with his arm around Steven and the Gems posing around him is new! So is the image of Steven on Garnet's shoulders with all the Gems waving at you congratulating you for becoming a Crystal Gem. It's cute.

And your congratulatory certificate is signed by the Gems. Pearl has loopy cursive and Amethyst has blocky print as you'd expect, but Garnet's signature is uncharacteristically elegant; it's a little tighter but just as fancy as Pearl's. You'd expect it to be a little bolder, knowing Garnet. So this was cool to see.

[SU Book and Comic Reviews]