WARNING: This interview contains major SPOILERS for the finale of Steven Universe Future.

Steven Universe Future is over. Its final hour was a beautiful, highly emotional send-off to the groundbreaking Steven Universe series. Creator Rebecca Sugar graciously gave CBR her time to discuss the ending, answer some unanswered questions (while preserving some of the show's mysteries), and what advice Garnet would give to help us cope in the age of the coronavirus.

CBR: Steven Universe has had a few potential "finales" already. "Change Your Mind" was an ending to the main story, The Movie could have worked as an ending. Now there's this ending, which is the most tearjerking of the bunch and feels particularly "final." How have you approached this repeated process of "ending" Steven Universe?

Rebecca Sugar: Every time I’ve had a chance to spend more time in this world and with these characters I’ve gone for it, so this is a bit of a circumstantial thing. The writing was on the wall for the original series, I was told with a fair amount of certainty that we weren’t going to get picked up for more. So I pushed for additional episodes, which eventually became the Era 3 arc and “Change Your Mind.” That was the end of the story we’d conceptualized in 2012,2013, but in 2015 we started coming up with the movie story.

I’d always wanted to do a full movie musical, and we all decided that the only place it could fit would be after the events we’d planned for the original run of the show, so as we worked toward the ending, I was pitching the movie as hard as I could. When the movie was ultimately picked up, the network wanted more show to go with it, which was a big surprise. I was overjoyed, because there were elements of the original story we hadn’t gotten to touch on because we didn’t have room.

But now we would have to approach these ideas from a new angle, because Future would take place after the movie. That was exciting -- we had a lot of new crew members for Future in addition to those of us who had been with SU since the very beginning, so we had fresh eyes on the characters in addition to some of our very oldest ideas that still hadn’t found a home. Steven’s pink form dated all the way back to drawings from 2013, which prompted to a lot of heated arguments in the pitch room back then that eventually shaped the entire series. So to fold that directly into the fray was exciting.

The original series was also very personal, I came out to my family and friends as bisexual and later as non-binary while working on the show, and it was something I was writing about in real time. I’d also touched on, but not completely unpacked, my struggles with mental health during the show, which had some roots even earlier, to an assault I had experienced in my early 20s that I could barely talk about.

Around the time we were working on Future I was reading “The Deepest Well,” by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, which is about healing the effects of childhood trauma. I was struck deeply by how impactful an experience like the one I’d had would have been if I were even younger at the time. I had felt a version of those ripple effects, even as an adult. I was hoping when I started the show that telling a coming-of-age story would give me room to grow up along with the characters, and I realized that my experience with my mental health and unpacking what had happened to me was a huge part of my process of growing while working on the show, so it would only be right to let that be the final, big piece of Steven’s growth, too. Now that we’ve worked on this story together, I feel like this project would have been incomplete without Future, and I’m grateful to have gotten this extra time, and to have worked with the crew that came together to make Future possible.

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CBR: Steven Universe Future has a very different feel that the original five season arc. Future recontextualizes a lot about the first five seasons, both things that were heavily argued about (Steven's seeming forgiveness of White Diamond, which "Homeworld Bound" shows was a lot more complicated) and things most people weren't even thinking (I'm still amazed how all those wacky season 1 adventures came up in discussing Steven's PTSD in "Growing Pains" a few weeks ago). How much of Future's darker recontextualization was planned out from the beginning of the series versus how much was discovered through developing this season?

RS: I could absolutely never understand where this idea of Steven being a “forgiving” character was coming from, because internally we all understood Steven’s self-sacrificing nature as his biggest flaw, one that related directly to his identity issues. This is all over the show: in “The Test,” even though he’s disappointed in the Gems and feels disrespected by them, he lies to them to make them feel better -- a huge turning point for his character, one of the first times he decides that their comfort matters more than his own feelings. Even though Steven will not allow Connie to sacrifice herself for him in “Sworn to the Sword,” he does exactly what he tells her not to: puts himself in harm's way countless times and ultimately turns himself in to Aquamarine and Topaz. Connie even calls him out on this in “Dewey Wins.”

The toll his adventures take on him mentally is a huge theme. His self-depreciation is evident throughout the show, even in first season episodes like “Cheeseburger Backpack.” He internalizes everything as his fault. In “What’s Your Problem,” Steven is shown to be aggressively repressing his feelings. In “Reunited,” Steven sings that he essentially needs the wedding as a distraction, because he can’t stand thinking about who he is or the situation he’s in. In “Chille Tid,” he explicitly states that he has issues to work out, but then shifts the conversation immediately to Lapis, who he feels needs help more.

At no point does he forgive White Diamond, or any of the Diamonds. He thinks how he feels about what’s going on matters less than the greater good, because throughout the show, he’s not sure if he even really exists. Ultimately, in “Change Your Mind,” you see the moment he realizes he is himself and he loves himself. Steven’s existence proves White wrong and crumbles her entire reality, and with it her authority. And knowing that he is himself, and he does exist, is what he needs in order to respect himself enough to leave those self-destructive patterns behind.

In an animated series with a kid protagonist, it’s easy to take for granted that a child hero is being tasked with saving the world, being antagonized by adults and having multiple near-death experiences. As we wrote the original series we always approached this as if it was real for Steven, and really taking a toll on him. We explored this in episodes like “Mindful Education.” Future was a chance to further clarify that, by having an older version of Steven reflect on those experiences and their toll. I also wanted Future to be a chance to show that his relationship with himself requires maintenance, and that his old habits die hard. Once the story for Future clicked, it felt like a very natural progression.

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CBR: Steven's arc as a person who tries to help everyone but needs to learn to accept help himself reminded me a lot of Tohru Honda from the classic manga/anime series Fruits Basket. Were you influenced at all by Furuba?

RS: I actually haven’t seen Fruits Basket! But it’s very possible that Furuba could have been an inspiration for another member of the crew, and the show is a group effort, so that might be in there.

CBR: If you were to revisit this world/these characters at some point in the future, how do you think you'd want to do it? (Please say Broadway musical, please say Broadway musical, please say Broadway musical...)

RS: If you could do me a favor, anyone who reads this, and say loudly and often how much you would like a Steven Universe Broadway musical to happen, I would really appreciate it, because this is something I would really, really like to do.

Also I’d like to take this opportunity to send all of my love to the Broadway community right now, as they are weathering the storm due to COVID-19, and encourage everyone who can to donate to the Broadway Cares emergency assistance fund.

CBR: So now for some unanswered mysteries: is Pearl going to get together with Volleyball, Bismuth or form a giant human/gem polycule?

RS: What matters most to me is that Pearl is not defined by the relationship she’s in.

CBR: Why doesn't Onion grow?

RS: The show is meant to feel sublime, so we have to have some mysteries left.

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CBR: Was Peridot explicitly written as an autistic representation or was it just a happy coincidence that so many autistic people related to her?

RS: I don’t consider Peridot, or any of the Gems on the show for that matter, to be neurotypical -- that is to say, most Gems don’t think, perceive or behave in ways considered to be "normal" by the general population, so I think it makes perfect sense that Peridot would be relatable to neurodiverse and autistic members of our audience.

As a non-binary, bisexual person, I often felt growing up like an alien surrounded by "real" people, never trusting myself to say the right thing or behave "correctly." I wanted the Gems to be a reflection of that feeling, and hoped they would each be relatable not only to people with my exact experience but to a variety of experiences of being made to feel "other." I wanted to create a show where those were the characters the audience would be rooting for -- rooting for them to be free to express themselves in their truest way, and rooting for them to learn and grow at whatever pace they need. I am thrilled that autistic individuals relate to Peridot and hope that they’ve enjoyed the show.

CBR: Tell us something you haven't told anyone before about any of the Gems.

RS: Wow, that’s a bold request! Have you noticed that they’re all solar-powered robots?

Steven Universe Future Garnet

CBR: So the series ends with Steven going out on his own to explore the world. It would be an emotional ending under any circumstances, but in a way it feels extra emotional at this moment, when so many plans are on pause indefinitely and in many countries travel is an impossibility. Do you have any words of comfort for those viewers who wish they could do what Steven's doing but physically can't? What would Garnet tell us?

RS: While writing this show, I have always grappled with "escapism," which I had a lot of contempt for initially. I wanted the show to look escapist, but then ask the audience to face real problems directly, and I didn’t want to promise a panacea, just our messy reality. I wanted to flip escapism on its head, and have these incredible fantasy aliens fall in love with the kind of mundanity that we take for granted, and find their escape in our easily accessible joys. So this ending… the idea that Steven could just decide to get out and do a little exploring, and make plans to meet up with his friends… I never, ever expected that to feel like a surreal, escapist, fantasy ending. And I never expected the idea of distance to be something forced on all of us, or to feel so far from my family in Maryland and so disturbed that I can’t be with them as we all go through this.

I will say though, that I hoped the ending would inspire the audience to do whatever it is they might specifically need to heal. Travel is something that has really helped me, and my brother, the real Steven, too, and also something Steven’s voice actor Zach Callison was looking forward to as he finished his part on the show. But it doesn’t have to be travel. Whatever it might be, that you need when you recognize stress boiling up, or that you want to dream about and plan for, whatever’s doable right now, I hope people will please take that care, whatever care they can. We’re resourceful, we can improvise, we care about each other… I was going to travel but instead I’m using the phone more, video chatting with people, checking in, calling and texting my parents constantly, watching videos about how to stay safe, donating. And I’ve found a ton of peace in guitar, so I am practicing guitar non-stop. Whatever you need to do to take care, whatever you can do, please do it.

While I was working on the show, I spent a lot of time thinking about human minutia and why we are the way we are. Humans came into existence during a tumultuous time when it was very difficult to survive, and we have our specific ingenuity and our resourcefulness and our ability to improvise because of that… and here we are in a situation like this, forging new habits almost instantly, finding ways to keep ourselves and each other safe, and innovating new ways to connect. These are all incredible powers.

I’m always talking about growth and change with this show, but another ancient human power is the ability to adapt. Part of adapting to this, I think, is unlearning the idea that living fearlessly means living without caution, as if nothing is going wrong. What if living fearlessly could look more like taking all the precautions to keep yourself, your family, your neighbor and everyone in the world safe? What if living fearlessly could mean never worrying that the people you love might not know it? What if we could carry that with us into the future and live more fearlessly than ever before? I would say this is what Garnet would tell us, but Garnet doesn’t ask questions.

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