I’m getting tired of hearing people, from both ends of the spectrum(people who stan the Diamonds, and people thinking it just suddenly happened), saying that the Diamonds have now officially been redeemed. No, they haven’t…
They’ve taken their first steps to redeeming themselves! What was actually season 3(so-called season 4 and 5) was basically chipping away at Yellow and Blue Diamond, finding the sources of why things were so fucked up, and Steven getting the Diamonds to finally admit they were wrong and that things need to change in Homeworld’s society and what they had been doing to other planets up to that point.
Just like healing or moving past something, changing for the better is a process, and the first step to doing that is admitting there’s a problem, just like when Pink realized the reality of what they had been decimating when colonizing other planets. Yellow, Blue, and White Diamond have actually just begun the process of(hopefully) redeeming themselves.
Only in a show like Steven Universe could “Steven was Steven the whole time” and “Steven’s dead mum was dead the whole time” be considered plot twists.
Lesbians still making posts about how bad it is for bi women to use butch/femme: We know! We heard u! We’re trying to make our own terms and have them used widespread but we need to get the WORD out for them to be commonplace and that’s hard when literally nobody but bis reblog posts talking about bisexuals lol! It’s not like we all follow each other. At this point the only people trying to take ur terms from you are lesphobes or young bi girls who straight up don’t realize they aren’t generic wlw terms because they haven’t learned the history bc literally no one is out here trying to include and teach bisexual kids shit about their gay lineage, everyone’s too busy trying to push it under the rug.
bi equivalent of femme: doe bi equivalent of butch: stag
This is an outline of the Steven Universe Podcast regarding “The Fantasy of Steven Universe”: an issue of the podcast in which the creators and writers discuss a multitude of deep issues, along with some Q&A from both fans and insiders. No volume number or episode number was given for this one. The official description:
It’s the last new podcast episode of the season and we asked the cast and Cartoon Network Executive team to submit questions to Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar and former Executive Producer Ian Jones-Quartey! They tackle everything from design to wormholes to escapism to advice to your younger self and dreaming big. Then former writers Matt Burnett and Ben Levin sit down with Rebecca to discuss lessons learned, achieving goals, and what they hope people take away from the show. And finally, Kat Morris and Joe Johnston return to answer a last batch of Fan Q&A!
This is a long podcast with a long summary, so as usual I will give you a bulleted list of highlights, followed by a detailed summary.
Highlights:
Many of the show’s themes and important elements were there right from the beginning–all the way back to the pilot.
Rebecca Sugar comments that she didn’t really learn how to have fun until 2016.
Figuring out how to pace the show out and reveal each piece of information at the right time so it could support another later revelation was very exciting to the writers. They had the pieces laid out like a puzzle on their table.
Mostly self-contained episodes still gave the audience a piece of information or represented growth for a character. The less “plotty” episodes helped keep the energy up.
The Crewniverse knew that their titles were sometimes trollish, but Ben was honestly surprised that people expected apocalyptic happenings for “Last One Out of Beach City.” It was just a Less Than Jake reference.
Rebecca really enjoyed getting the chance to “damsel” Greg for the Zoo arc; she really wanted to use a lot of princess tropes, even that one.
Viewers should take away from the show messages of compassion, self-love leading to ability to connect with others, ability to understand and listen to others, and opportunities to see themselves as well as to see others.
Rebecca has drawn all of Fluorite’s component Gems, but all she’ll say is “they’re fun.”
Lars and Lion are not immortal, but they will live for a very long time and have slowed-down lifespans. Kat Morris says Lars may have no sense of taste; that if he eats it’s just for sustenance.
Lars has all the same powers as Lion. He can indeed do a sonic blast and make portals and walk on water. They weren’t able to work this into an episode we’ve seen, but Rebecca assures us that Lars will discover his abilities and it will be “really funny.”
The Crew had specific voice actors they wanted for the Diamonds. They got who they wanted cast by writing excited letters. Susan Egan’s was particularly weird because she had to play Tiny Floating Whale first.
Blue Diamond was the most difficult Diamond to design because her hair was hard to decide on. Rebecca’s influences for her were Martha Graham’s “Lamentation” dance and Fruma Sarah’s ghost from Fiddler on the Roof.
Yellow Diamond was mostly directly inspired by Patti LuPone’s performance as Evita.
White Diamond was influenced by many old-timey vibes, including Hedy Lamarr in Ziegfeld Girl
and the artistry of Nell Brinkley. She had heavy eyelashes and fingernails–lots of design elements they did not incorporate into other characters, so she could adhere to old, “stifling” beauty standards.
Rebecca was disappointed that reveals of Pink’s full jester-like outfit got out before we saw it in the show. Her hair was originally higher in early designs, which contributed to her mural having spikier hair.
Greg is based almost entirely on Tom Scharpling; Rebecca was comforted by his voice when she had upheavals in her life. There’s also a little bit of inspiration from various Crewniverse dads in him.
Another Gem could have a hybrid child like Steven only if they had enough power to do it and the complete commitment to the idea that Pink had.
Steven and his “Gem self” are not really separable and can’t exist independently of each other. His Gem half will not remain if his organic half dies. They are one being. He will likely have a very long life because of his Gem powers, but (though the Crew agrees this is grim), he will probably die before the Gems do.
The Jade Fusion won’t be in trouble anymore once the Jades come out of their bubbles; in Era 3, the act they were punished for is no longer disallowed. However, the trauma of being isolated and then punished as soon as they felt it was safe to fuse may require some healing. Rebecca assures us they should be able to have the opportunity to heal and be okay.
Obsidian definitely has future vision powers. In fact, they’re expanded to the point that the noise is difficult to interpret; very powerful, but difficult to get anything useful with them.
Pearl became a more maternal character because of her voice actor, Deedee Magno Hall, being “such a mom.”
Zach Callison as Steven was so genuine and professional to work with, and the vibe in the booth with regard to him was closely mirrored in the show.
Sometimes Deedee’s or Michaela’s ways of interacting with Zach would influence how Pearl or Amethyst would interact with Steven.
People would give lots of space and reverence to Estelle when she was reading her lines, which parallels how the other characters treat Garnet.
Only Steven can take anyone or anything through the pink space connected to Lars’s hair and Lion’s mane, but yes, Steven could take Lars through Lion’s mane, and if he stuck his head out, there’d be infinite Larses sticking out of infinite Lars’s hair until he pulled his head back in.
Designing new characters requires lots of back and forth and hundreds of drawings. Rebecca asks “why,” not “what”–why are you including something in a character’s design? If it doesn’t contribute to who they are, why is it there?
Influences on the show that may have been missed by some fans include G.I. Joe the animated series, Future Boy Conan, and Mr. Bug Goes to Town.
In response to Deedee requesting a fusion between Pearl and any of Rebecca’s childhood favorite cartoons, she suggests maybe either Bart or Detective Conan, then says she’ll have to think about it and get back to Deedee.
Advice Rebecca Sugar might have given her younger self was that it would be okay and she’d get to tell the story she wanted to tell–but also that she should eat, drink water, and exercise.
One profound thing Rebecca learned while working on the show was that she can be out and bisexual regardless of who she’s with, and that it DOES matter.
One profound thing Ian learned while working on the show was that the story you want to tell doesn’t have to be constrained by the medium–and your fantasy story isn’t necessarily someone else’s fantasy. You can tell your story.
blue/red rescue team: everyone is turned against you and tries to kill you because they’re led to believe your death will fix the problems going on in the world
explorers of time/darkness/sky: you are told that your existence is what’s driving the world to ruin and so the best choice for you is to just kill yourself
gates to infinity: the pokemon that just helped you and your partner is killed in front of you out of nowhere before the perpetrator attempts to murder you as well (~also has a lot of depression featured~)
super mystery dungeon: a dark force turns a lot of pokemon into stone that ends up sending them into hell and tries to hurl the entire planet into the sun
“rated E for mild cartoon violence”
also to add to the gates to infinity pile:
some antagonists in gates to infinity are pretty clearly suicidal when you learn their reasons
all other humans that were also supposed to appear as pokemon (just like you) in gates to infinity were pretty much killed to sent them back to the human world.
The NewDugWood Daily Titbit 