[Character Study meme] 🙏🏻 Beliefs (Religion/people/ideals)
ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕊𝕥𝕦𝕕𝕪
🙏🏻 Beliefs (Religion/people/ideals)
Let's take these things one by one-
Religion
Neo herself isn't religious, despite religion existing in Remnant or growing up around the most popular belief, she has always thought that The Brothers and Gods in general were as much of a fairy tale as her favorite fantasy books. She may show interest in learning and hearing about legends and stories, but that's it.
However, if the same question was asked to a Neo in the current events of the show, her belief would've started to falter a little. Having been exposed to Salem may or may have not made the mute start to think that perhaps certain fairy tales weren't only fiction as she thought.
People
Her mind is poisoned with cynicism. She lives for herself, to follow her desires, and finding it difficult to believe or trust in anyone else but herself.
She grew up with parents that had her for a freak, and that at the end of the day just wanted to shape Neo as they wanted to use her. The same parents that raised her were bad people themselves- a father that got too deep into debt for getting involved with a mafia to improve his business (out of pure greed), and her mother having big expectations of a future in which she wanted to become the lead crime boss of Vale alongside her daughter.
They were only the first liars in Neo's life, because she would then find herself abused in the Academy she was sent to- bullied by the girls there because they were simply assholes, even if at the same time they fed Neo’s ‘real self’.
One person or another have wanted Neo for her powers alone, because her talents mixed with her Semblance were perfect for criminal syndicates to have her, so she has only been able to grow attached to one person (Roman Torchwick) in a genuine way.
To say that she has dependency problems would be cutting it short, though. The people she may get attached to will receive her attention in a rather toxic way, because she refuses to be completely alone again.
So due to the environment she grew up with and her experiences, she thinks everyone will always want something from you in return if helping, so she hates asking for help of others because she thinks she will be in ‘debt’ with them. On the other hand, she loves to help people at times to do the contrary- to have people in debt for her for manipulation.
Now, even if she’s hyperaware or too wary of people, trust is possible, but she’s still rather egotistical, egocentric and, at the end of the day she’s human, so there are feelings that are difficult to completely ignore.
Ideals
Someone could almost place Neo as an anarchist, but the truth is that while she hates authority figures of all kind, she may not care about others as much as she cares about herself.
Like mentioned previously, she’s pretty egotistical, so as long as she’s fine, she doesn’t care much for others if they’re not useful to the job/useful to her/or mean something big in her life.
The fall of society would in part mean that she would lose her ‘toys’. She loves starting chaos and doing crime for the thrill of it. Messing with authoritarian figures is always fun to her, so it would be a pity to lose that.
Despite being a bad person, she totally leans to be a libertarian, though. After the treatment that she herself received, she supports people expressing themselves as they want. Be it visual presentation, sexuality, and so on and so forth.
She may stab you, but she will respect your identity to the end.