#kat morris

McKenzie kicks the podcast into gear and starts by asking Rebecca Sugar, Matt Burnett, and Ben Levin about the intentions for the show: what did they think it was going to be, and did it end up being that?

Ben shares an anecdote about how their agent seemed to have thought Steven Universe was based on Rebecca's comic Pug Davis, but then they saw the animatic and it was completely different from what the agent described. Matt felt that the themes and certain important elements of the show were already there from the animatic at the beginning. They were excited to see the show even if they might not end up getting to work on it, and they could tell just from the pilot that there was a lot of mythology to be unearthed. One of Ben's expectations that did not pan out was that he thought there would be more dungeon crawling episodes, but that was not the reality because . . . it turns out episodes like that are really difficult to do.

As for Rebecca, she says she had many goals for the show, and one thing she likes to do with projects is make them about something she hasn't truly figured out yet. The big thing for Steven Universe in Rebecca's mind was the issue of gendered cartoons for children. She felt uncomfortable growing up, because socially she was expected to like what girls like but her favorite things were "for boys," while "girl" cartoons did NOT appeal to her. She felt guilty and weird about it, and so with her cartoon she wanted to attack that at first, use and scramble the language others had used to put her in that position. As she worked on Steven Universe more, she realized that some of the things she wasn't allowed to love as a kid were things she DID love. Learning to understand herself better allowed her to build a better relationship with the symbols and elements of children's cartoons that she could have authentic feelings about. She feels she learned a lot.

Next, McKenzie wants to know which episodes were the most fun to write (or throw ideas around for).

Rebecca quips that she did not learn to have fun until 2016.

Ben says he and Matt had fun though. Their job was to take Rebecca's ideas and figure out how to squeeze her thoughts into 11 minutes. Ben thought it was important to reveal something new about a focus character in each episode. Rebecca thought it was exciting to pace out what to reveal when; she says all the elements were on the table "like a giant puzzle." They had to carefully place when we would understand each thing as the audience before they could do something that built on it. She felt it was "like painting a picture across time." You couldn't do something like "Change Your Mind" at the beginning--you needed all those pieces to get it at all.

Putting yourself in the audience's mind as a writer is important, Ben says. Infodumping doesn't work, and laying the groundwork before you start a story isn't the best way to make a story meaningful. Matt thinks the big story payoffs at the end of season 5 were discussed in the first two weeks of planning, and they all thought it would be so cool to finally get there.

The things that were the most fun were actually the deviations from those stories, though they kept with the themes. The "random idea" episodes that felt more like one-offs were responsible for keeping the energy up, according to Matt. "Steven and the Stevens," for instance, was pretty self-contained (and needed a diagram to keep it together). Rebecca points out that "self-contained" episodes were mostly the goal, but you'd still see a change in the character or get an important piece of information in each one. Steven is LITERALLY not the same character anymore after "Steven and the Stevens."

Weaving the "infodump" stuff into Steven's personal growth was important for the type of story they were writing. They also joke about how certain episode titles were very trollish, like "Last One Out of Beach City" and "Rising Tides, Crashing Skies." (Both of those were definitely NOT "apocalyptic" at all.) They were aware that titles could send a message, but Ben was actually really surprised at the expectations surrounding "Last One Out of Beach City" because for him it was just a Less Than Jake reference. ^___^

They also enjoyed getting to do whole new environments with mini-worldbuilding, like the human zoo. The zoo arc comes up and Rebecca remarks on how much she enjoyed "damseling Greg." She really wanted to do pretty much every princess trope in some way, even that one, and she just loved having the opportunity to have Blue carry Greg away "just like Peach."

McKenzie next asks the group what's something they want people who have watched the whole show so far to come away with at this point.

Ben says he's not sure about others, but he feels the show lets us take home messages of being in touch with your genuine feelings and expressing what they are. Matt agrees with Ben about how the show helps viewers learn to see others' perspectives. They hope people had the opportunity to see themselves represented on the show, and that some people got the opportunity to see representations of people they'd never seen before--and that those people who were newly exposed to folks they'd never thought about before would learn to be more compassionate.

Rebecca wants people to come away with the notion that they must learn to love themselves. That it is close to impossible to connect with others if you haven't learned how to love yourself. Kids deserve to be able to express themselves as long as they aren't destroying themselves or others in the process. She thinks sometimes kids are sent destructive messages about how it isn't okay to be themselves, and that people they trust might be shutting them down, but this show is a message to say it's wrong of them to do that and they deserve the freedom to be who they are and say so. Being allowed to talk about how you feel shouldn't be some kind of fantasy. It should be reality.

The next segment of the podcast involves Kat Morris and Joe Johnston answering fan questions with Rebecca Sugar!

Q: Has there been any thought as to what Fluorite's Gem components are?

A: Joe just immediately says "NO" and Kat teases him, but Rebecca speaks up and says of course she has drawn them all. She gave it to Colin and then says "I don't know where it went." The only thing Rebecca is willing to say about it is "they're fun."

Q: Are Lars and Lion immortal now? Or is their aging process just extremely slowed down?

A: Kat agrees that their aging process is just slow. About as slow as Lars's heartbeat in "Lars' Head." Kat points out that she and Joe have disagreements about what Lars's life is like. She thinks Lars probably lost his sense of taste and only just eats occasionally to sustain his body. Rebecca says "they'll live a really, really long time," and Kat says "longer than they'll want to."

Q: Can Lars do the Lion roar warp thing, or does he have his own power?

A: Kat says he can! They tried to write stories around it but never quite did it. Kat jokes that he can do it if maybe he gets tickled or something. Joe says he can make a warp and he can make a sonic blast with his voice. When they discuss whether he's figured that out yet, Rebecca replies that he WILL figure it out at some point, and when he does, "it'll be REALLY funny. Don't worry about it." They speculate that maybe that's how Lars was getting around doing space pirate stuff (infiltrating the Citrine asteroid and the Cosmic Jubilee), but there's also the fact that he doesn't have a Gem and can't be scanned. They also specify that Lars can indeed walk on water.

Q: Does Lion have the ability to sense Steven somehow? Or did he find Watermelon Steven some other way?

A: Rebecca claims they're in tune, but you can't really pinpoint whether it's magic or whether it's just that animal sense some pets have.

Q: How did you pick the Diamonds' voice actresses?

A: Kat says, "begging?" Rebecca says they knew who they wanted and they agree they wrote passionate letters. Rebecca tells the story of bringing Susan Egan in to do Rose's voice for the first time, but the first time you hear her voice was coming out of the Tiny Floating Whale. Susan did the little "ooo!" noise for it as well as the one line that's spoken in "Rose's Room." She had to explain that Rose was very important later, but for now she just wanted Susan to come voice the whale.

Q: Which Diamond was the most difficult to design? Which was the most fun to design?

A: Rebecca says Blue was the most difficult to design. They took a long time deciding on her hair and what would be "inhuman" about her, and there was a lot of trial and error involved. They actually revealed her cloaked form in "The Answer" before they figured out her hair. Rebecca feels that White might have been the most fun because they had to incorporate so many influences. They're all really influenced by tons of things though: for instance, Blue is influenced by a Martha Graham dance ("Lamentation") and the ghost (Fruma Sarah in a dream) from Fiddler on the Roof.

Yellow is very inspired by Patti LuPone in Evita.

White is inspired by Nell Brinkley and Hedy Lamarr (in Ziegfeld Girl)--the aesthetic of the time, really.

White has many design elements that other characters don't have. The heavy eyelashes, the fingernails, the "perfect thigh gap"--she's supposed to be very different from the others, with "beauty standards" that you haven't seen on other characters, meant to be read as stifling and old. She's even on an actual pedestal with shoes that are actual pedestals.

For Pink, Rebecca describes it as "kind of devastating" that even though we'd gotten the first reveal of Pink when she punched a mirror in Stevonnie's dream and was "contorted with rage," the audience got to see her on a model sheet with her full outfit "looking like a little clown" and people kind of got it instantly. Designs for the Diamonds go back to 2014, though Pink's hair was a little different and "looks like a Truffula tree" according to Rebecca. (Joe says that's why her mural looked spikier, because the early hair designs for Pink were higher.) Rebecca was really excited when they nailed down Pink's hair to look like Steven's hair. Rebecca was excited but Kat was scared.

Q: What inspired you to make Greg?

A: Tom Scharpling! Rebecca used to always listen to Tom's radio show (The Best Show) toward the end of college and she based Greg's character on him. She says Tom is currently doing a thing where he's reviewing every episode of Friends. She felt that during a tumultuous time in her life, moving from New York to LA and being apart from Ian, Tom's voice was a constant and a comfort. On his show, Tom is "more cynical" than Greg, but she describes him as only being mean to meanness, and that even when he's mean it's a "force for good in the world." Being angry is fine as long as you're directing it at other things that are mean, helping to cancel them out. She finds Tom inspiring, and thinks Greg is sort of the result of that cancelled-out meanness. Rebecca also adds that Greg has a lot of her own father in him, and she believes the other Crewniverse folks probably pull in elements of their own dads to write him.

Q: Would another half-Gem/half-human fusion like Steven be possible for another Gem besides Pink Diamond?

A: Pink Diamond couldn't fuse with humans--Steven's unique that way. Pink obviously created Steven (not through fusion), but now Steven is the result of that process and he exists sort of as a bridge. He can fuse with humans because of his humanity, not because of his Gem. He would actually be able to pull other humans into his Fusions with Gems, but he'd have to be there to preserve that connection.

Joe interprets the question a little differently, saying he thinks they're asking whether another hybrid might be possible, and Rebecca says it'd be possible only for a Gem as committed to it as Rose was. She specifies that Rose obviously had the immense power of a Diamond as well as that dedication, so if some other Gem that had a similar level of power and a similar interest in creating an organic child wanted to do it, okay, they could.

Q: If Steven were to die of old age, what would happen to his Gem half?

A: Joe hates this question. Rebecca agrees "that's so grim." She says that Steven is Steven, and he is NOT Steven when he's broken into two pieces. There isn't one without the other. Kat thinks Steven wouldn't die unless he chose to (and might do that if everyone he cared about was gone). Joe apparently hates existential questions and Rebecca sort of comforts him saying the Gems will live and live and live, and that Steven will probably die before them so he won't have to be stranded alive with no friends left.

Q: Is the Jade Fusion from "Together Alone" okay?

A: Yes, she's fine! Rebecca says she got poofed like many other characters have been before, and probably bubbled for what they were doing, but in Era 3 what they were doing is no longer wrong. They will emerge and be allowed to be themselves. Rebecca says, though, that there's also a question of whether they're okay as a person, and that what they went through is really hard to go through. She felt so isolated all that time, and then as soon as they got the courage to emerge in front of other people for the first time they were punished for it, so in that sense she's really kinda not okay. She will have opportunities to heal from her traumas, though, and her future is bright.

Q: Does Obsidian have future vision powers?

A: Rebecca says "Yes" decisively. The others chime in to agree. Rebecca says Obsidian's powers are overwhelming and difficult to handle all at once, though with many components they also have support handling it. The future vision Obsidian experiences is so overwhelming it's almost worthless because it's like noise--it's expanded and cacophonous.

Next, Ian and Rebecca are answering questions submitted by the cast and Crewniverse!

Q (from Zach Callison): What aspects of the characters are inspired by the voice actors?

A: Rebecca says the biggest one is how Pearl became more maternal because of Deedee's influence. She's "such a mom."

The interaction of the cast in the room worked its way into the characters' interaction. She also says Steven's growth from childish to mature for his age came from Zach growing up with him. She describes him as professional, insightful, thoughtful--enough such that adults could take cues from him or aspire to be like him. Ian thinks Zach was really interested in the process and very open to learning from other actors. Steven as an empathetic character was enhanced by Zach's genuine personality. Others who worked with him would be inspired and excited by him, which worked for the authenticity of Steven's vibe too.

Rebecca also noticed that sometimes Michaela or Deedee would cheer Zach up or egg him on, and the way they did those things differently also informed the characters of Amethyst and Pearl when they'd be in similar situations with Steven. They also noticed that if Estelle was there for a recording, everyone would stop and give her space to do her thing, which turned out to be very appropriate for how the others act with Garnet sometimes.

Q (from Matthew Moy): Can Lars go through Lion's mane and vice versa? Would they just fall right back out if they entered?

A: Rebecca points out that she actually answered this recently on the Reddit AMA! First, she wants folks to remember that Steven is the only one who can bring anyone or anything through mane space. Yes, Steven could take Lars into Lion's mane and go over to Lars's tree, but if Lars were to stick his head through the grass there, Lars's head would come out of his own hair. But this would cause infinite Larses to come out of infinite Lars's Heads, until he pulled his head back out.

Q (from Estelle): When you come up with new characters, how much time do you spend revamping the look of each?

A: It's a lot of time. Hundreds of drawings. Ian describes a process of coming up with early characters who didn't have a spot in the story yet, and they'd come up with random looks for them, and then they'd narrow down what specifically that character would need when they learned where they would go. Elements that mean something are retained and elements that do not mean anything will be swapped out. Boarders and designers would all take a crack at the design afterwards. Rebecca says that by the time boarding is happening, they need the character's "shape language" to be nailed down. Rebecca also mentions that many designs just get shelved if they're not really working, like some of the designs for Sardonyx did from before Rebecca realized Sardonyx would be a bombastic nerd, not a stoic and imposing presence. Even after they discovered that, though, the tooth gap was a later addition. Rebecca finds it helpful to ask "why" instead of "what" in design. Why is someone designed the way they are? Everyone will work together to create a design that blends form and function. She usually starts with rough sketches that they'll build off of as a starting point.

Q (from Michaela Dietz): With all the references to other shows (Gurren Lagann, Adventure Time, Revolutionary Girl Utena, etc.), what's a reference fans may have missed?

A: Since they pull from SO many places, it's hard to say, but Ian points out Future Boy Conan (Rebecca identifies a scene where the Quartzes run through Pink Diamond's body as a particular scene that's similar), and Rebecca says the rainbow worm from the Kyanite Colony is inspired by Orbitty (from the 80s Jetsons) and other ugly aliens from the time that were influenced by E.T. Rebecca points out Mr. Bug Goes to Town, an obscure film that nobody really watched because it came out on D-Day. Then Ian mentions the G.I. Joe animated series, how they referenced "It's all a fake-a-roo!" from that. And "Frybo" was a reference to The Thing.

Q (from Deedee Magno Hall): If Pearl could fuse with one of Rebecca's childhood cartoon favorites, who would it be, what would their weapon be, and can we see a drawing?

A: Rebecca says this is REALLY hard because she liked so many cartoons, but she just throws out Bart. Their Fusion would have a skateboard with spikes on the front. Maybe the Fusion would be named Part or Bearl. Or maybe Detective Conan; the Fusion would have all those gadgets. She decided she'd have to keep thinking about it and she'll give Deedee an answer.

Q (from Conrad Montgomery): If you could go back in time to give yourself a bit of advice as you started on "Gem Glow" and the rest of the series, what would it be?

A: Rebecca says she would tell herself to drink more water and exercise, and don't forget to eat. She thinks maybe she would tell herself it was going to be okay, because she didn't know that at the time. She says it may have been helpful at the beginning if she could have known she'd get to finish the story she wanted to tell. She was always anxious that her show would be yanked and she wouldn't get to finish what she'd dreamed up, but she did. She also feels like she was so young at 25 to be doing what she was doing, and maybe she'd like to just turn herself into a 31-year-old.

Ian thinks the show became what it was because of what they were learning along the way, though. If you really could tell people ahead of time what the things they're making are going to turn out like, you don't get to understand the process of something coming back wrong and learning how to deal with that. They feel that created a lot of what was good about the show, the debates and discussions. Rebecca is not sure she would have just said "trust yourself" because sometimes she trusted her team and was grateful for it.

Q (from Rob Sorcher): What is the one most profound thing you learned about yourself as a result of making the series?

A: Rebecca says she didn't understand she could be bisexual and be out. She thought declaring your orientation was about who you were with, not about who YOU were. So even though she was telling stories that spoke to feelings she'd had about partners or potential partners who were NOT Ian, she didn't realize she could claim that and care about that, mostly due to the fact that she'd been repeatedly and strongly told it did not matter. But it does matter. How you feel about yourself and how you experience attraction is a relevant and important thing to be able to embrace. She felt like she was "insane, all the time" because she wasn't supposed to talk about it or was told it wasn't interesting. She was floored when people she had connections with still wanted to be friends with her after she started talking about it, and being open about this aspect of herself has made being alive much easier.

If something matters to you, it matters, period. In terms of cartoons, the incredibly gender-segregated way they were doled out to kids in the 80s and 90s had an effect on Rebecca, and for a long time she didn't know why she so desperately wanted to "scramble" that. She finally found ways to discuss how uncomfortable she was being told that she had to be a woman when she was not. She realized through making her cartoon that though she had plenty of wells to pull from, this particular well was one she hadn't been able to speak about, so she did it through this medium and chose this as one of her stories. It's certainly not the only one she has to tell. She reiterates that she is bisexual and nonbinary, and though the language for that might change in the future, "that's what's going on" with her.

Ian's "profound thing" was that he realized you can share a message without being limited by the expected confines of your medium. For example, he knows that if he claims to be making a science fiction/fantasy cartoon, people will have preconceived notions of what that means, but maybe for some people, a major fantasy is just being told it's okay to be who they are, or living in a world where being who they are is okay. You don't have to worry about whether your reasons for making this art will satisfy someone else's reasons for watching it. Rebecca agrees, and says other people's "escapist" fantasies seemed really one-dimensional to her, never satisfying what SHE would like to escape to, but she realized she'd been holding contempt for escapism in general because of that, which dissolved when she was able to explore hers. There is a place for her, there is a dream she can have, and she no longer resented other people for having theirs. Sometimes a fantasy is about even getting to dream in the first place instead of just being fed these ideas of what you're supposed to want.

Everyone should get to have a dream and say it out loud.