note: cleo is not a self-insert. we just share a name because, to be quite honest, cleo is just a great name.
name: cleo cogzingears
gender + pronouns: female, she/her
age: 12
other: nonverbal autistic, has ptsd, victim of blatant author bias
cleo is not someone you'd initially expect to take any kind of antagonistic role. friendly to most and unable to speak (although still able to communicate in many other ways), cleo comes off as polite and shy to most that don't know her well. cleo, however, is a complete genius, and with great knowledge can also come great ambition. cleo just used her ambition in the wrong ways at first.
cleo's motivations for her more belligerent actions came not from a place of selfish desire, but rather from a misplaced aspiration to help others. traumatized severely by a camping accicent in her younger years that killed her family, cleo took on the literal belief that nature was red in tooth and claw, and vowed to eliminate anything mother nature had to offer. this was not just because it intimidated her personally, but much rather because she believed it posed a threat to other people, people she cared about, and she could not let that happen.
when ayami and sasha brought her back to her senses, though, cleo quickly realized how wrong she was in trying to destroy nature itself, and felt deep, debilitating remorse for her actions. ayami and sasha were both willing to give her another chance, seeing as she was young and misguided, and simply needed to heal from her trauma and break away from the harmful mindset she'd been in for numerous years of her life.
cleo now works as a mechanic for the michigan division of WTF, building various machines to aid agents in their missions. she's still working on becoming a better person and recovering from her trauma, and she continues to make mistakes on her journey of healing. what matters though is that she's trying her best :] she's my favorite (so much so that we share a name!)
