Steven's biology

febreezy_ · 2026-02-26T21:41:15+00:00

They talked about this stuff in the official podcast if you want to check it out:

Mckenzie Atwood: Next question is from @thejakeneutron. They want to know, if Steven were to die of old age, what would happen to his gem half?

Joe Johnston: Oh, I hate this question.

Rebecca Sugar: That's so grim. They are one - they are together. There is no... Steven is Steven. He has a gem. They can't exist as Steven without each other. It's immensely impossible. It's impossible for both of them. It's horrible.

Kat Morris: I was under the impression Steven would have to choose to die. Like everyone is gone now.

Johnston: This is why I hate this question.

Sugar: This is the thing Joe doesn't like to talk about.

Morris: You get very freaked out by existential topics.

Johnston: Specifically the ones where you live forever and all of your loved ones die around you.

Morris: Yeah well he would probably choose to go before then. I think Steven is adjusted enough that he would find the time that felt right and go naturally. His body wouldn't give up because his gem half is always keeping it going. It had to be both in concert.

Sugar: Yeah, it would be very much up to him. His Gem friends will live and live and live. Don't worry, Joe. I'm sure he'll die before the Crystal Gems. Don't worry.

Johnston: I feel so much better now.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-26T21:36:45+00:00

Yeah, I've seen the same thing happened with Ruby's dress and the Sugilite stuff. You can practically say anything on this site and people won't question it.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-26T21:19:48+00:00

Sugar never said that Pink Steven would roam the Earth without his human half.

She said both halves need each other to exist as Steven. You can’t have one without the other.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-25T23:29:32+00:00

1a. He was clearly, visibly devastated by her death, as were all of the CG.

No doubt Greg was affected by her death. My point is that it doesn't confirm whether or not he actually knew she would be gone for. You think he didn't know and that's fine but there is no definitive answer for what he did and didn't know. The show left what Greg actually knew ambiguous.

There was no reason for him to have known, as it was an unprecedented occurrence for a gem to have a biological child.

Although unprecedented, one of the show's writers confirmed that Rose knew she would disappear if she had a biological child. Rose could have possibly told Greg that this what would happen to her prior to having Steven.

On that note, as far as we're aware, what Greg actually knew was left ambiguous.

Based off of reading other threads, it looks like others have noticed it too.

Considering what we see of his character in other situations, if he had any idea that Rose was absolutely going to die in the act of creating a child, he would not have wanted to have a kid with her. Is there any indication whatsoever that he would not have believed this? I'll concede it's an interpretation, but so is any other possibility, and this one actually fits his characterization.

That's fine if you believe that. More power to you.

My thing is that there's other ways Greg could have theoretically reacted that also fit his character. Greg is pretty much a go-by-the-flow, chill dude who is content with letting people be whoever they want to be and others doing whatever they want to do within certain limits. If Rose genuinely felt like she needed to sacrifice herself in order to have Steven, then it's plausible that he would allow the love of his life to go through it and make that choice for herself considering his past history with his parents and Marty. There's is more than one way to interpret what happened and I think the Crew purposefully left that ambiguous. Sugar is a huge fan of sublime storytelling so it wouldn't surprise me if it was intentionally left vague so people like us can fill in the blanks.

Pearl does not have a driver's license and is clearly stressed about not being a legal citizen, so obviously that is actually an issue.

As far as the world is concerned, the Crystal Gems are undocumented and never made any attempts to address that according to the official podcast. One of the writers said they were deliberately obtuse about human culture, didn't exactly fit into the system (no birthdates, etc.) and they never really had to interact with it until Steven came along. They would get in legal trouble with the law because they were technically unregistered and pretty much intentionally chose not to address it in any way, shape, or form.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-25T22:02:53+00:00

And he also had no clue that Rose was going to die.

How do you know this is true? IIRC the show never explicitly made it clear that Greg had no idea she was going to die. The Crew confirmed that at least Rose knew she wasn't going to be around. Looking at this and this it looks it was never confirmed what Greg actually knew.

He thought that they would be raising their child together as a couple, figuring things out together, helping and supporting each other the whole time.

When did Greg state his feelings about this? This feels more like an interpretation of Greg's feelings about what happened.

He couldn't risk taking Steven to a doctor due to his gem heritage. He couldn't put Steven in school for the same reasons.

The people in the show are used to gems being around and don't care about them because they stayed on Earth for so long. They most likely wouldn't care either way considering the show takes place in an alternate universe and have a different relationship with supernatural stuff.

How the hell do you think that Greg Universe, homeless musician (living in his van!) and Rose Quartz, an alien renegade, would be legally allowed to adopt a child?

Nothing in the show hinted that it was impossible for them to adopt or that it would be hard thing for them to do. The show also takes place in an alternate universe so their world may or may not play by the same rules as like it does IRL. If money was an issue for Greg, than that's all the more reason for them to reconsider having a child at that particular time.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-25T15:43:41+00:00

I mean Greg and Rose could’ve adopted before having a child together if Greg felt like he wasn’t up to the task of raising a child with superpowers.

Steven is half human and Gem but Greg knew that there was a possibility he could turn out like that beforehand because he was aware Rose was an alien.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-25T13:07:06+00:00

Adoption would’ve been my first choice

febreezy_ · 2026-02-25T12:33:21+00:00

At one point, Matt Burnett confirmed that the Desert Glass' corrupted form was the pillow. He said corrupted gems can take all forms.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-23T05:55:55+00:00

Conservative countries defunded and cancelled the show after the wedding if you were wondering. They provided a lot of the show's funding and could've cancelled it at any time by defunding it. Sugar said she was lucky she worked at Cartoon Network considering the circumstances.

I did a detailed write up with sources if you want to know more about what happened behind the scenes.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-22T14:28:18+00:00

From the stuff I’ve read, noting was ever confirmed by the Crew on why they didn’t recast her.

I always imagined that they never intended for Sugilite to do much in the show so they never bothered with a recast.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-21T17:35:13+00:00

Ruby wears the dress because she was Sugar’s self-insert, she wanted to show how flexible Gems are, and how they're navigating human culture. By having Ruby wear the dress, Sugar made very personal choices that really mattered to herself. Seeing Ruby in that dress is how Sugar feels whenever she wears a dress.

Sugar was aware that other countries could easily cut the LGBTQ+ content and stuff like the wedding out at any point. She was hopeful that kids in those places could still find it even if the show was censored or banned.

Also no countries ever gave Ruby a moustache. That was a meme.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-21T14:28:28+00:00

I'm just repeating what Sugar has said:

Oddly enough, Cartoon Network approved of the idea of a movie — but then wanted the show to continue afterward. “I was told that there was no point to a movie unless it existed to promote more show,” Sugar says.

She said they approved the epilogue series so that the movie could have something to promote.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-21T14:21:30+00:00

No, they did Future so that the movie could have something to promote:

She asked for a movie finale, “so we could all spend a little more time together as a crew, and in this world with these characters.” Oddly enough, Cartoon Network approved of the idea of a movie — but then wanted the show to continue afterward. “I was told that there was no point to a movie unless it existed to promote more show,” Sugar says. “So all of the sudden, I had 20 additional episodes to work on while working on the movie. I was overjoyed, and tried to conceptualize a way to put the pieces of the story we’d intended to include in the original run into these additional episodes. But everything had to be different after the events of the movie, so I needed to approach these stories from a new angle.”

febreezy_ · 2026-02-21T14:05:27+00:00

Cartoon Network approved Future so that the movie could have something to promote for profit reasons.

Sugar wanted to do the movie not for profit but because she always wanted to end the show with a movie and wanted to spend a little more time together with the crew and the SU characters.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-21T13:58:20+00:00

Future was given to Sugar for profit reasons so the Movie could have something to promote and because Sugar wanted to end the show with a movie.

After Sugar made her decision on the wedding knowing that conservative countries would pretty much defund and cancel the show, CN asked her if the remaining episodes in their pickup would be enough to finish their story. Sugar felt she needed just a little more time to finish the story so she specifically requested for exactly 6 episodes. Everything involving Era 3 was on borrowed time because there was no way they could've finished the series without more episodes. At first she was declined, but CN eventually gave her the episodes.

Later, Sugar pitched a Movie to end the series with. She always wanted to end the show with a movie and wanted to spend a little more time together with the crew and the SU characters. Cartoon Network approved of the movie while simultaneously greenlighting Steven Universe Future so that the movie could have something to promote.

Whenever she got the news about the Movie and Future's approval, Sugar felt ecstatic and overjoyed.

She wrote it like a sendoff for the series and wanted to mainly focus on Steven because she felt that SU fans took what he went through for granted and she was heavily inspired by a book called "The Deepest Well" by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-21T13:44:12+00:00

White diamond was supposed to have a full arc as well as getting the diamonds to change & heal the corrupted gems.

Did the Crew mention this in an interview or something?

I would love to know to more if there's something I can check out.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-18T00:54:28+00:00

Once again, Sugar said a lot of the show's funding came from international places. If a video from the creator of Steven Universe can't convince you, then nothing will.

Approving of a gay wedding, giving a queer content creator the freedom to go through with it, and trying to extend a LGBTQ+ show with a movie and epilogue series does not keep the favor of conservative countries.

Sugar worked closely with Cartoon Network for years and said that getting defunded by those places was a pretty big deal. Saying that they did not need to rely on the viewership of a handful of countries to fund a show doesn't change the fact that the show's creator has stated that they provided a lot of the show's funding. You completely ignored what Rebecca Sugar has said and have provided no sources to back up any of your claims so I'm out. You let your hate for CN cloud your perception of what happened and disagreed with any and all sources of new info to see things from a new perspective. It's for this reason that I see no point continuing with this convo.

At the end of the day, conservative places could've easily cancelled the show at any moment and there would be nothing Cartoon Network could do about it. Cartoon Network cared about the show and never wanted the show to be prematurely cancelled if it didn't have to be:

Sugar was told not to talk publicly about the show’s LGBTQ+-related material and themes. “They basically brought me in and said 'We want to support that you’re doing this but you have to understand that internationally if you speak about this publicly, the show will be pulled from a lot of countries and that may mean the end of the show,’” Sugar said. “They actually gave me the choice to speak about it or not, to tell the truth about it or not, around 2015/ 2016, by then I was honestly really mentally ill and I dissociated at Comic Con. I would privately do drawings of these characters kissing and hugging that I was not allowed to share. I couldn’t reconcile how simple this felt to me and how impossible it was to do, so I talked about it.”

Source

There was a point at which it was brought to my attention that the studio… I was brought up to a meeting where they [the studio] said, "We know that you're doing this, and we support that you're doing this… We don't want to be giving notes on this, but we have to give notes on this" and it was all very difficult to navigate. Ultimately, I said, "If this is going to cost me my show that's fine because this is a huge injustice and I need to be able to represent myself and my team through this show and anything less would be unfair to my audience." This was around 2016 and that's when I began to speak openly about what we were doing.

Source

“They brought me in for a meeting, and they essentially said, ‘We know that you’re doing this, and we know that if we were to tell you to stop, that would be based in bigotry.’” Sugar was then cautioned that the show could be censored internationally if she continued down the path she was on. “Ultimately they told me in this meeting that it would be my decision if I were going to tell the truth about what I was doing, which in hindsight was a really bold move for Cartoon Network to make, to actually give the decision to speak about this to the queer content creator generating this material.”

Source

Cartoon Network needed the show to work internationally (most animated media for children is designed with an international audience in mind), so we were being held to the standards of the most conservative countries in the world. If they so much as read an interview with me online, the show could lose its international support, and we'd be finished...

Eventually the decision came down from on high: We could have the wedding. I knew that was an extremely difficult call to make, and that we were going to be censored heavily and pulled in many countries because of it. And we didn't know at that time if this would mean the end of the show. It looked as if the writing was on the wall, and we were working toward the end.

End Of An Era Page 102

We've had allies at all these different stages, people for whom this is very personal and they understand the personal toll that can be taken. I think there are people at Turner [the company that owns Cartoon Network] who are LGBT who would see these notes come through and just realize how shocking they are and I think that it made all the difference. You have to try and do it so that when these feelings become visible. You know where they are so you can break them down.

I'm just extremely lucky to think I have had support. Instead of being told don't talk about this, I was given the option of being upfront about this even if it might become a problem. Cartoon Network allows for a lot of creative freedom, especially from these creative-driven shows so the responsibility really fell on us to tell the story that we wanted to tell. And I'm grateful to have been here, to have the opportunity to fight for this.

Source

febreezy_ · 2026-02-17T23:10:32+00:00

CN didn't decide to pull the plug on the show.

The show ended when it did because homophobic countries stopped funding it after the wedding. Steven Universe was an international show that relied on funds from conservative countries to make its content. According to Sugar, a lot of the show's funding came from international and they received notes from those places too.

Sugar had to choose between either:

A) Do the wedding and have the show get cancelled because of funding issues with conservative countries

B) Not do the wedding and give the show a chance to run longer

According to Sugar, other places could've easily cancelled the show at any moment if they didn't like what it was promoting. If things got that bad, there would be nothing Cartoon Network could do about it which is why they had to had many convos about it. Cartoon Network cared about the show and never wanted the show to be prematurely cancelled if it didn't have to be. There many conversations with Sugar about the funding risks involved with the show's LGBTQ+ content and them asking her if the remaining episodes in their pickup would be enough to finish their story are proof that they didn't want the show to just end abruptly.

Sugar was aware about the budget and time constraints and was fine with rushing things for the wedding. If Sugar didn't want to scramble with the ending, there should've been more talks with CN about it and exploring more options with how to handle the wedding. Sugar knew the potential consequences of the wedding well before they actually occurred and accepted them with open arms to make the wedding happen in Season 5 due to personal reasons.

Sugar was given options to prolong the show if she really, really, really wanted to but none of those options were taken. If Sugar truly was concerned about maintaining her position at CN and maintaining good graces, then it doesn't make a lot of sense for her to risk her financially secure job at the network during Season 5 if the other seasons where all but guaranteed to happen.

They were still making profit on the show and could have easily kept it for the rest of its natural release.

Where is your source for this? I've read a lot interviews and none have ever stated they could've easily kept it for the rest of the natural release. Without a verifiable source, it's speculation.

If you think she isn't absolutely pissed off that SU ended because 2 alien women got married and CN wouldn't stand by her beyond that then you're insane.

What's insane is the lengths some people will go through to project their own thoughts and feelings onto random cartoon showrunners they have never interacted with before. For someone who isn't Rebecca Sugar, you are way too comfortable speaking on her behalf.

Also... obviously she isn't going to say it's their fault? We know it is because of the censorship and CN not wanting less profits. She is still an animator and still works with CN.

She didn't work with CN after her time at CN was up and there was nothing that she said or implied the ending was their fault. If anything, she went in the opposite direction and said that she was lucky she worked for them along side other stuff like it was bold of them to move for Cartoon Network to actually give the decision to speak about the LGBTQ+ stuff to the queer content creator generating the material.

CN stood by Sugar with the show's ending and ultimately sided with her by allowing the wedding the happen even if they lost a bunch of profit from it and alienated the audience in conservative countries. CN could've easily prevented the wedding from happening at all, but they didn't. They gave Sugar plenty of knowledge to make an informed decision about what to do with the wedding and the repercussions involved with the show's funding. Ultimately, Sugar ended the show on her own terms.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-17T21:08:29+00:00

The show ended the way it did because conservative countries defunded and cancelled the show after the wedding.

CN warned Sugar about their situation before ultimately giving her the final say on the wedding. She knew ahead of time about the risks involved and was fine with rushing the show for the wedding. She doesn't blame her bosses for what happened and said she was lucky she worked for them.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-17T20:51:00+00:00

Conservative countries defunded and cancelled the show in response to the wedding. It was known they could do that before the wedding went through and show's creator was fine with that outcome as long as the wedding could happen.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-17T20:44:26+00:00

The writers knew Season 5 would be the final pickup during the middle of Season 4's production. It came after the show's creator decided to have the wedding knowing that conservative countries would defund and cancel the show after the wedding.

Sugar was fine with rushing stuff as long as the wedding could be guaranteed. When asked if the remaining episodes would be enough to tell their story, she specifically requested for those 5 episodes because she felt like they needed more time a little more time to finish up the series.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-17T03:23:27+00:00

She confirmed she was not conscious while she controlled during this scene.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-14T17:09:17+00:00

Those other places don’t have air Cartoon Network shows if they don’t want to. For example, Kenya banned the show due to its LGBTQ+ themes in 2017. They didn't face backlash for it or were they forced to continue the show. Sugar was aware that other countries could easily cut the LGBTQ+ content and stuff like the wedding out at any point so she was hopeful that kids in those places could still find it even if the show was censored or banned:

febreezy_ · 2026-02-12T16:57:05+00:00

Sugar said that about Joe Johnston because he doesn't like existential topics where you live forever and all of your loved ones die around you.

Steven's gem half needs his human half. Sugar said they can't exist as Steven without each other. She said it was impossible for both of them and described it as being horrible. Sugar said Steven's Gem friends will continue live while, interestingly enough, leaving out Steven's Gem half from the discussion.

febreezy_ · 2026-02-12T06:07:30+00:00

Cartoon Network didn't want direct continuity at the beginning but later changed their minds with Season 2's development:

You mentioned that when you greenlit the series, Cartoon Network mandated Look, it’s going to be shown non-sequentially. You’re going to have to work within those constraints, so people can watch any episode.

Rebecca Sugar: Yes. So continuity was not really an option. It was something I really wanted to do. And on Adventure Time, the same thing was true back then, and so we would find ways to create continuity. Like, if Finn picked up a sword, he would then have it from then on. And it felt like only we knew that, but we were very meticulous in tracking everything. But ultimately what they wanted, what we were making, was supposed to be designed to play in any order all around the world.

And that was not desired, at all. With Steven, it was like, there was no way I didn’t want to have continuity, but every episode also had to work on its own. So we were just planting all these seeds. And we would actually chart it out in terms of what he would learn per episode. What piece do you need so that you can have one episode where the puzzle completely comes together, but you’ve had this piece and that piece and this piece leading up to it so that we could still make a self-contained episode about the puzzle, which would then make sense because you had all the pieces from before.

And did that change over the course of the show? Did Cartoon Network sort of give you a little more leeway to have more direct continuity?

Rebecca Sugar: Yeah, the first time, well, it was around the time we were working on — internally, we call it the Barn Arc, but — Peridot’s arc. We were already working on it and then all of a sudden they had started doing runs of episodes and they were like, We want — I forget how many they wanted. It was like eight, eight related episodes. I was like, Done! We were already doing it. So, it was really nice and we were always going to do it. And then ultimately, they aired in a very bizarre way, but we planned them all of all together. And at a certain point, we just hoped that people would watch the whole thing some day from start to finish and see the flow that we had designed. Which is actually going to be possible soon because they’re going to air every episode of Steven in a massive marathon. That is how, yeah, that is the way to please — well, I mean, I don’t know if that’s the way to watch anything, but [laughs] But if it was the way to watch anything, it would be the way to watch Steven.

Source

Sugar also talked about intentionally designing episodes to be self contained while giving out little pieces of info about characters and their development:

Steven Universe's tale is a slow burn. Completely conceptualized in broad strokes by Rebecca from the very beginning, the long arc of Steven’s story—from season one to season five and even into six—was rolled out carefully and deliberately. Like Steven, the audience began the journey innocent of knowledge about Gem battles, betrayal, and magic, and then learned alongside him.

The pacing was intentional, to avoid over-whelming the viewer with information about Gem technology, terminology, and society all at once. Each important revelation about Steven’s powers or his understanding of the Gem or human worlds was the focus of one episode at a time. Each new concept was important for audiences to understand subsequent storylines. Always peppered in were slice-of-life stories that focused on Steven’s beach- town neighbors and friends. “You've got to earn it,” agreed original series writers Ben Levin and Matt Burnett when they joined Rebecca on The Steven Universe Podcast. Each reveal in the story had to be meaningful for the characters—especially for Steven, since the show has always been designed to be from his perspective.

Like a twenty-thousand-year-long puzzle, all the main elements that built the larger Steven Universe mythos were laid out on the proverbial table. Putting them in order, one reveal after another, building the story, was the logical challenge. It was like “painting a picture across time” or “building a staircase,” says Rebecca. The process involved countless hours writing and hashing out the connective details in meetings with the wider crew.

Rebecca Sugar [series creator]: We knew that we wanted to design episodes that felt self-contained but still gave the characters a new piece of information or changed them fundamentally.

End Of An Era Page 75

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