Still from Lesbian Space Princess (2025). Courtesy of Salzgeber. In a distorted, fish-eye like setting from a low angle the protagonist, Princess Saira, turned to the camera, stands in the center of the frame in a deep cave, surrounded by glowing blue crystals and lilac rock layers and stalactites. Her skin is dark brown; she has long black hair with short bangs held by a small golden crownshaped hairclip on the side and wears a lavender oversized sweater reading “SEXY BITCH” in bold letters, paired with a short pink skirt and large pink platform boots. In her right hand she holds a large crystal in a light-blue to pink gradient. Desperately she looks at her left foot, that’s caught in a gooey pink slime that reaches its tentacles up towards her and takes over right foreground of the image. A purple tint is on the entire frame, affecting line-art and shadows, as well.

The animation film Lesbian Space Princess (2025, Hobbs & Varghese) is a radical counter-utopian experiment in animated worldbuilding. It utilizes animation’s capacity to re:imagine and re:configure without an indexical link[1] to construct a homonormative society while avoiding the trap of…