Tag Archives: Steven Universe

Top 7 Queer Moments: Steven Universe

If you could sum up Steven Universe in one line, it would be this:

Giant lesbian space rocks and lots of self-care.

The show is a virtual safe space where gems fall in love, watermelons rule their own island, and Nicki Minaj voices a badass character.

It follows the adventures of Steven, a young boy with supernatural abilities, and the Crystal Gems, female aliens whose lives depends on their gemstones. The current Crystal Gems are Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and Peridot.

Steven Universe fights racism; many characters are of color, and their differences are celebrated without being centralized. It fights misogyny; strong female characters abound. It fights xenophobia; one character admits she doesn’t have a license because she’s technically an illegal immigrant. And it fights classism; the main character’s father lives in a van and finds no value in money

But let’s look at the way Steven Universe handles queerness. All of the crystal gems are female, and they fall in love with each other – it’s natural. They also fall in love with human women. It’s natural. Their stories are handled with care and nuance, and all of the queer characters are fleshed out.

Let’s look at some of the top queer (and genderqueer) moments.

7. Desperate to impress Amethyst, Peridot saves her life – and winds up on top of her. Then she gives her a gift.

6. Pearl and Garnet perform the most erotic dance ever allowed on kid’s television, and then fuse into one person.

5. Steven rocks this aquamarine dress and pageant makeup. And never once does he bring up fragile masculinity.

4. Jasper returns from the bottom of the ocean to beg for Lapis to come back to her, but Lapis recognizes that Jasper was toxic, and ends the abusive relationship.

3. Ruby and Sapphire have been together for more than 3,000 years. And they still can’t stop flirting. This is the ultimate lesbian love.

2. Pearl falls in love with a woman who looks like Steven’s mother, Rose, whom Pearl was also in love with for thousands of years. She does have a type.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg0ZL10R2do

1. This. All of this. (Beware: Major spoilers for Season 1.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ct0Sq57u4c

What are your favorite queer Steven Universe moments?

If You Like Steven Universe, You’ll Love This Webcomic About Queer Muslims

Saboor and Jameel star as the genderfluid, queer protagonists of Puu, a webcomic that is breaking barriers for LGBT Muslims and Indians worldwide.

The comic takes place in Chennai, India, and follows the budding romance between transman Jameel and genderfluid Saboor.

Nineteen-year-old Akshay Varaham designed the webcomic in response to the lack of Muslim LGBT representation in mainstream media. Saboor is a Twelver Shi’a, the largest branch of Shi’a Islam, although he grew up an Inyengar Hindu. Jamil is a Hanafi Sunni, a branch of Islam based in Iraq, and the minor characters are Hindu from various castes.

Varaham says,

I made them [that way] because I haven’t seen much positive representation of Islam and Muslims in a lot of media, namely in Indian and Western media.”

The religious diversity is a welcome break from many American webcomics, where LGBT characters are often agnostic, Jewish or Christian – if there are Muslim characters, those characters are portrayed as Muslim of no particular sect. Puu aims to show how the particularities of religion, caste and nationality shape expressions of queer love.

screen-shot-2016-11-28-at-16-36-42

In an early draft of the comic, Saboor “had a dark and tragic backstory of having been framed as a terrorist,” and died. Jameel was a “whirling dervish who danced to cope with the death of his lover.”

However, Varaham realized that he was playing into the Bury Your Gays trope, which says that “gay characters aren’t allowed to have happy endings,” so he changed the story. Now he is adamant about the fact that the main characters will not die. Not every LGBT story has to end in tragedy.

Dynamic lesbian characters shape the plot as well. Varaham decided to make the characters Noor and Alamu “not conventionally attractive” and “not stereotypical, hypersexualize depictions.”

He drew inspiration from Steven Universe, which centers around multidimensional queer female aliens. Steven Universe has been praised for its depiction of queer women, and Varaham hopes to accomplish the same texture of character.

New Puu chapters are released every Sunday. Read the first chapter here.