There would be no Steven Universe without Rebecca Sugar. Her incredible creative talent and vision gave rise to the beloved characters, worlds, and stories, and with the help of some other wildly gifted animators and storytellers, she was able to share Steven Universe with the masses. And in this special episode, some of the artists who helped develop and shape Steven Universe share their experiences working alongside Rebecca, the lessons they learned, and what they hope to carry forward in their own respective shows. Former Steven Universe writers Ben Levin and Matt Burnett, former Executive Producer Ian Jones-Quartey, and Rebecca's very first storyboard partner, Adam Muto, chronicle Rebecca's animation journey and pay tribute to her well-deserved success.

• Adam Muto was Rebecca Sugar’s first storyboarding partner on Adventure Time after she moved into boarding from her revisionist position.
• Adam felt that Rebecca’s drawings were more dynamic, fluid, and emotionally evocative than his; he felt kind of “basic” next to her.
• Rebecca related to Marceline emotionally in the episode “It Came from the Nightosphere,” and Adam was able to support that even though he did not feel he related much to how the character was feeling.
• Rebecca later started boarding on Adventure Time with Cole Sanchez (when Adam moved into a supervisory role), and Adam thought Cole was one of the funniest boarders they had--matching well with Rebecca’s different strengths of being funny but emotional and soulful.
• Adam jokes that he felt betrayed when Rebecca was leaving for her own show, but realistically, yes, everyone expects their boarders who distinguish themselves through their work on a show to be offered a chance to pitch their own show.
• Adam didn’t get to be involved in Rebecca’s Steven Universe pilot besides seeing early doodles of the characters, but when he saw the pilot, he thought it looked a lot like her comics, and was “very Rebecca.”
• It is Adam’s perception that Rebecca always had strong convictions about what her show should be thematically, and that some of her work on Adventure Time tried to go there in ways it couldn’t really achieve. He thinks it was a matter of Cartoon Network catching up with HER, and he thinks they probably tried to talk her out of things that they talked them out of doing on Adventure Time as well.
• When Adam would approach Rebecca for song contributions after she left the show, he describes devoting considerable time to getting past being ashamed of putting more work on her plate. But her songs always shaped episodes in such an important way that he thinks it was vital to include her work where he did.
• Adam will contribute boards to a future episode of Steven Universe. He felt a little lost since he doesn’t really know the characters well, and everything’s so established, but his work is not part of a lore-heavy episode.

• Ian got his start in the animation industry by spending a lot of time as a youngster making his own comics, making his own work, and eventually cold-calling animation studios to try to get in and take tests.
• An internship on Venture Bros. eventually turned into his position as animation director on the show.
• Rebecca Sugar got her position as revisionist on Adventure Time and notified Ian that they were still looking for others to fill slots. He took a test and eventually after some back-and-forth got the green light to move to LA and work on the show.
• Rebecca and Ian met in college (when she was a freshman and he was a senior and teaching assistant), but they didn’t start building on their connection until after Ian saw her work online and they reconnected at a housewarming party years later.
• OK KO and Steven Universe were being developed for pilot pitches at the same time. Sometimes in the same room.
• Ian helped Rebecca’s pilot by writing some jokes and helping with the action scene at the end. Rebecca helped Ian’s pilot by encouraging a positive relationship between KO and his mom and emphasizing how KO should rely on his friends.
• Ian and Rebecca had a sort of pact that if one of them got a show, the other would work on it, and they’d cultivate their creativity and navigate the showrunning together.
• Steven Universe was greenlit first and Ian was very dedicated to it, but the network kept developing his pilot too, eventually resulting in a game and a show. He worked on SU for as long as he could before having to move over to OK KO.
• Ian’s strengths are in broad concepts and setting working down to character, while Rebecca does the opposite, working with characters and relationships first and then building out to larger contexts. They often have the same taste but approach it from different directions.
• Rose Quartz’s history as Pink Diamond is based on Ian’s personal understanding of immigrants reinventing themselves in a new country. They had her background worked out within the first month of doing the show.
• Ian thinks he’s learned from Rebecca about the importance of having a very clear idea of what feeling an episode should be about, and also that he thinks it’s important to give artists on your show the opportunity to do their own thing.
• Ian and Rebecca were both kind of sad that Rebecca couldn’t contribute to OK KO in the same amount and capacity that Ian got to contribute to Steven, but her doing the end theme of his show is a reminder that her influence is still there. The end theme also reminds viewers that it’s a fun show for pure entertainment, and not to take it too seriously.

• Ben Levin connected with Rebecca Sugar when he saw her amazing comic “Don’t Cry for Me, I’m Already Dead” online. He sent her an e-mail and she replied saying she was also familiar with one of his short films. Somehow years later, Ben and Matt ended up on the shortlist of people to approach for writing on Steven Universe.
• Matt Burnett remembers seeing the Steven Universe pilot on a laptop in a café and being super excited at the idea of working on the show.
• Matt and Ben really loved that Rebecca’s characters were so well written that they could discuss how they would act in detail; they weren’t so much deciding as realizing based on established character traits.
• Working on Steven Universe prepared Matt and Ben for their own show, Craig of the Creek, in that they learned what moves an audience, what delights the viewers in terms of representation and references, how to guide the action through characters’ emotional motivation, and how to structure an 11-minute episode.
• Ben and Matt were able to leave for their own show after they’d completed “everything that had been ordered up to that point,” which includes the episodes of the “Diamond Days” arc. They more or less got to see the culmination of everything they’d planned back in the beginning.
• Now working as showrunners, Ben and Matt are applying lessons they learned on Steven, including how valuable it is to let everyone bring in childhood experiences, give the spotlight to people writing about their special interests, and encourage collaboration and input at every stage.