Hi! I believe you’ve said before that you watch a good amount of Cleo, so I was wondering if you had any thoughts on how to write them? I’m always looking for other people’s takes on this kind of thing, so I’m curious
Presumably this ask comes from me talking about how I write Pearl and how I write Gem, which I've linked!
Like the other two posts, this is just my interpretation of C!Cleo, and people are free to do what they want. Also I'm sorry this took so long!
First: A general tip for writing anyone with multiple pronoun sets which they have no preference between (I believe Cleo has no preference? Sometimes the order of someone's pronouns can indicate a preference but they use both she and they pretty equally), and this is coming from someone who uses two pronoun sets; Try to use both if you can. For a reader, it usually flows better if you don't switch mid sentences, but if you've used one for a few sentences, try switching to the other. Both are correct, you're not in trouble for using one more than the other, but I can say as a multi-pronoun user, when I don't get one set of pronouns used it feels a little weird.
Onto actual Cleo specific tips:
Sarcasm. Sarcasm is crucial. If you cannot write sarcasm you will struggle with Cleo. I would say the words she says are like... 60% sarcasm by volume. Cleo is a very intelligent and sincere person, you just have to learn to read their blunt honesty through the sarcasm sometimes, as weird as that sounds. She doesn't mince words to spare feelings. Cleo also often competes for world's best snarker, she loves to trade insults out of love, a lot of the time with Scott, Etho, and Bdubs (and sometimes Pearl) in the Life Series and people like Joe, Ren, False, Cub, and Doc on Hermitcraft. But really with anyone they will jokingly rib them. However, she's also very good at identifying when someone isn't hitting back and might need her to soften! It's very subtle, but you can actually see them pulling punches in the joking insults department when someone is having a bad day or already being self-deprecating. It's something that really demonstrates that while blunt and snarky, Cleo is kind at their core. She almost never ever punches down.
Cleo is not as cool or scary as they seem from other people's POVs. Even they seem a little confused in their own POV where this is coming from, though they're happy to play into it. More intimidating = people might leave you alone. But Cleo in the Life Series openly admits to being frightened or confused a lot of the time, and also openly admits to not being very good at the Series. They have one PVP kill. What Cleo does have in spades is fire and spite. You can prank them, you can insult them, you can do what you want, but prepared to be hit back ten times harder in whatever way Cleo can find to do so. To just use a recent example, Cleo rode from the damn world border by HORSE just to spite the Poe Poe, and made it clear that if they were killed, they would just do it again until it stuck.
Much like Garnet from Steven Universe, Cleo is made of Love. Love for her creations, because putting in all those tiny details and figuring out what to use for everything is such a careful and tedious process and they do it with so much pride and love for their craft. And of course love for all their friends. The reason betrayal hurts her so deeply and why she holds grudges against traitors is because when you love someone that deeply its so much easier for them to hurt you. And it also means that Cleo feels betrayal and rage so acutely and intensely (actually they feel very intensely in general!! Cleo is a ball of emotions!!). She will wait until her allies are asleep before silently studying their faces to check on how they're doing (and tucking them in a little tigher but shut up she would definitely never do that. Definitely. She's got an image to protect). I can't remember who it was, maybe Hypno(?), who said that Cleo is one of the kindest people he's ever met despite the spiky exterior, and probably one of the most likely to help other Hermits.
Lastly, This Is Fine is a wonderful Cleo crisis motto. When things are melting down, Cleo gets this extremely obviously forced sense of calm and will just chant that actually this is fine. It's all fine. We're all good actually and we don't need to freak out its fine.