
We are told what the story looks like by society and culture and how it ends. When it doesn’t go that way, with an opposite-sex romantic partner and/or a cisgender identity, we begin to write our own stories.
Steven Universe is a cartoon created by queer, non-binary showrunner Rebecca Sugar. Its first feature-length movie premiered last Labor Day on Cartoon Network. Steven Universe is the first on the network by a woman-identifying creator. Its characters are Crystal Gems — aliens who can project their own bodies and are the product of a dissolved empire ruled by diamonds. The regular cast of characters returns for the movie: Steven, Pearl, Amethyst, and Garnet with Bismuth, Lapis, Peridot, and a new heart-shaped gem-villain Spinell.
Spoilers follow, but if you enjoy sci-fi cartoons with queer subtext and musical numbers, please watch and come back.
The Diamonds, of which Steven is one (a half-pink-diamond/half-human hybrid born from his mother Rose Quartz’s (a disguised pink diamond) love affair between her and his human dad, Greg Universe, have disbanded their intergalactic empire, after bearing witness to Steven’s ability to love others unlike himself and grow the other diamonds are learning to do the same. The opening number attests to this but a later chorus also shows an unhealthy attachment to Steven:
Come live with us in the palace/
Just let us adore you
Steven, who has been on homeworld with his diamond family for who knows how long, says he wants to get back to Earth with his friends. So, he does…a song about happily ever after follows as each major character reviews their arc, from crystal gems fighting against an empire with Rose Quartz to realizing their own hopes and dreams on earth after peace is found.
The song is cut short by the Gem-villain Spinell, with her upside-down heart cut stone. She comes riding in on an injector that can destroy the earth. She uses a weapon to reset Pearl, Garnet, and Amethyst. Steven, being half-human is fine, but his gem powers are harmed after the fight. In an act of defense, Steven resets Spinell too.
The rest of the movie is spent finding themselves. Gems restore to their factory settings — Spinell is now a playmate, not a villain. The other gems who raised Steven don’t even remember who he is, and his powers are severely affected. They need all the information they can get to figure out how to stop the injector from putting poison in the earth.
It’s not easy…Steven wants his happily ever after, but he loses sight of how that looks for those harmed by his mother that Spinnell’s expanding narrative reveals; she was a playmate that was left alone in a garden built for her and pink diamond. Instead of being honest with her intention to leave and have her own small kingdom, Earth, she told Spinell to stay as still as possible until she came back to play, but she never returned. She was oblivious until Steven’s intergalactic message at the beginning of the movie when he announced his intention to return back to earth.
I can make a promise
I can make a plan
I can make a difference
I can take a stand
I can make an effort
If I only understand
That I, I can make a change
He has to learn to leave space for new growth even as the old may have passed, tough feelings linger and affect the present still. He can’t run away from it. He has to reconcile it in some way that doesn’t negate the stories of those harmed. He has to honor Spinell’s hurt even though he didn’t cause it himself or, at least, he doesn’t remember.
It’s a thread he has had to pull throughout the series, but this reflection back on himself still proves hard. He must find again where his power lies, which is not in the flashy gem powers of homeworld, but in his humanity and ability to change. He has to learn how even those who caused harm can change too.
It’s a reminder that even our greatest gifts can be forgotten and our desire for a story with bows and ribbon rarely conforms to reality…but it is more true, and maybe that’s worth discovering again and again. To forget is almost guaranteed but growth is a choice. A choice that each gem in this story had to make.
For queer viewers, there is often this kind of reframing. We are told what the story looks like by society and culture and how it ends. When it doesn’t go that way, with an opposite-sex romantic partner and/or a cisgender identity, we begin to write our own stories. Often, the end is better than the first, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t casualties along the way. While Pink Diamond didn’t value Spinell in her earlier life, we know she valued Steven, humans, and the planet Earth. Steven, just like Pink Diamond would have, had to learn to value both Spinell and his home. The trick was in holding both things as valuable even with the possibility of harm.

Interstellar Flight Magazine publishes essays on what’s new in the world of speculative genres. In the words of Ursula K. Le Guin, we need “writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope.” We use affiliate links and Patreon to pay our writers a fair wage. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

