If it wasn\u2019t queer enough that the Crystal Gems (and all other Gems) are magical genderless aliens who all present as women and who fall in love with other Gems (except in one instance throughout all of Gem history), they also do not age. In the episode \u201cSo Many Birthdays,\u201d we learn that the Gems are literally thousands of years old, and while they cannot age (and learn later in the series that they can regenerate if only their physical being is hurt), they can get injured and die if their gems are sufficiently damaged. This relates to Halberstam\u2019s article, in that Gem culture \u201copen[s] up new life narratives and alternate relations to time and space\u201d (2).<\/p>\n Steven complicates this already alternative narrative, as he is half human and half Gem. In a more recent episode titled \u201cSteven\u2019s Birthday,\u201d it is revealed that Steven is actually 14 years old, which is slightly older than his best friend Connie (a 12 year old human) and most viewers would have guessed. His birthday photo album reveals that he has not actually aged in several years, explaining why he looks young. Being the first known half human\/half Gem, no one is sure how or if Steven will age any more, or the parameters of his ability to die. According to Halberstam, \u201cQueer subcultures produce alternative temporalities by allowing their participants to believe that their futures can be imagined according to logics that lie outside of those paradigmatic markers of life experience \u2014 namely, birth, marriage, reproduction, and death\u201d (2). Steven\u2019s nonnormative aging process muddies a number of these experiences. If he can even reproduce to begin with, does he become able to when he is physically pubescent, or when he reaches a certain age regardless of his body? Could he reach \u201cmarrying age\u201d and still look like a pre-teen? Can he die????? Who knows!<\/p>\n Another fact that further convolutes Steven\u2019s temporality is that, under certain, uncontrolled circumstances, his physical age can fluctuate based on his mentality, as he turns into a withering old man in \u201cSo Many Birthdays\u201d and reverts back into an infant in \u201cSteven\u2019s Birthday,\u201d implying that time is not fixed and that age is an illusion. But that is something to explore at another time since I\u2019m nearly 50\u00a0words over the limit. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While Cartoon Network\u2019s Steven Universe \u00a0has gotten an avalanche of positive attention for being one of the only children\u2019s shows with queer characters, atypical family structures, and phenomenal representation in terms of race, body type, gender expression, and mental illness, I have yet to see anyone discuss how the show utilizes time to \u201cqueer\u201d its … Continue reading … even if your age isn’t real and your body’s an illusion… <\/i><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2277,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123782],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2277"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/files\/2016\/02\/zgamo.gif\")