A few days after the premiere of the Steven Universe Future episode "In Dreams," the last Peridot-focused episode of the series, storyboard artist Maya Petersen revealed that the character is asexual and aromantic. While Peridot expresses interest in shipping romantic relationships between the characters in Camp Pining Hearts, this interest is purely anthropological.
The strongest in-show evidence of Peridot's asexuality is her disinterest in fusion. This, admittedly, can be a bit complicated to parse out because fusion in Steven Universe isn't really a straightforward metaphor. It can represent sexual/romantic relationships in some cases, but in other cases, it's used to represent platonic friendships or familial bonds. In all such situations, though, fusion is used as a way to teach about consent.
The confirmation that Peridot's disinterest in fusion represents a disinterest in sex and romance hopefully puts an end to the extensive shipping drama that's surrounded the character in fandom over the years. For years, the Steven Universe fandom fought with sometimes scary intensity over whether Peridot should end up in a relationship with Amethyst or Lapis.
Many of the early Peridot episodes were storyboarded by Zuke, who wrote the "Amedot" relationship as a "first time crush" and the "Lapidot" relationship as a "growing queer relationship." Some overzealous Amedot shippers bullied Zuke off of Twitter in 2016 over their Lapidot shipping. Zuke left Steven Universe later that year in the midst of production on Season 5 over creative differences, possibly related to their and Rebecca Sugar's differing conceptions of Peridot's orientation.
Peridot joins the relatively short list of canonically asexual television characters than includes Todd Chavez from Bojack Horseman, Varys from Game of Thrones and SpongeBob SquarePants (who's kind of an unusual case since sea sponges are asexual by a very different definition than asexual humans are). Many asexual fans, who'd long speculated that Peridot was one of them, are happy to have positive representation in Steven Universe. Peridot is a fan-favorite character, a former antagonist who found redemption, and brings a unique humorous perspective to life on Earth.
However, there has been some controversy surrounding this announcement, and not just tired old shipping drama. In addition to being frequently theorized as asexual/aromantic, there's another popular headcanon surrounding Peridot that has not yet been officially confirmed as canon: that she is autistic. It's easy to see why this has become a common theory as Peridot has difficulty understanding and following social norms, understands the world logically but struggles with emotional outbursts and gets passionately involved in special interests.
If Peridot is intended to be autistic as well as asexual, she would not be alone. Asexuality is statistically more common among autistic people than among the neurotypical population. However, there is a stereotype in some uneducated parts that all autistic people are asexual. Wrongful stereotypes of both autistics and asexuals/aromantics often overlap, with people assuming that they're all either not "mature" enough to handle sexual/romantic relationships or that their lack of interest in such is representative of a lack of interest in interpersonal relationships in general.
Such stereotypes aren't true for either group, and are common enough that it's understandable why some people have apprehension about yet another character coded as autistic and asexual. Recall the early seasons of The Big Bang Theory, where Sheldon Cooper often played as an offensive stereotype of both groups before he began his relationship with Amy. Peridot, however, is not Sheldon Cooper, and anger at her being confirmed as asexual feels misplaced.
Obviously, there needs to be representation of autistic people who aren't asexual and asexual people who aren't autistic. But the fact is, there are still a lot of people who are both asexual and autistic, and they absolutely deserve positive representation. Steven Universe isn't saying the two different identities are inherently connected. Peridot's a character whose differences and autonomy are treated with respect, and it's great that many people, whether they're asexual, autistic, both or neither, are able to connect with her.
New episodes of Steven Universe Future air Fridays at 7 PM EST on Cartoon Network. The hour-long series finale will air on March 27.