#in fact I've been so developing Neo through art and in my head in the meantime xD

[tricoloredillusion]

“It’s been awhile. Monster.” (Nice to see you on my dash! ^^)

When the vampire heard the familiar voice, she couldn't help but turn around and frown softly- her expression not too severe, but perhaps a bit judgmental.

She didn't like being reminded about what she was, but at the same time, seeing someone that wasn't her parents was a relief.

Instead of giving any kind of direct answer or sassy remark, though, Trivia simply waved a little.

[lesbianneopolitan]

Yeah I absolutely love your Neo. Before I found out about you I was a big Neo fan but after meeting you and seeing your headcanons and learning more about Neo through you, Neo became my favorite RWBY character!

And then when I saw your version of Neo especially after the events of the Ever After, she became my number 1 favorite Neo ever! I cannot see any other Neo without thinking of yours. Don’t get me wrong, anyone can still make Neo aus and all that, but to me your Neo is the definitive Neo, I love her so much! And her design is just perfect! It captures Neo perfectly, even with her new features!

And the fact that she has to struggle with this new side of her and the consequences of the Curious Cat is just AAAHHH My poor girl!

But not only that, you gave her a partner, the Reassuring Rabbit, CC reborn, a new little guy being her emotional pet! It’s just so AAHHH!!! ABSOLUTE CINEMA!!!

Even when the show eventually brings back Neo, I will not be able to stop thinking of yours! That’s how perfect she is!

Not only that, you also made me appreciate Spicecream more and made me fall in love with Strawberry Shortcake!

I owe you so much in opening my eyes to the religion that is Neopolitan! God bless you woman!

I can’t wait to finally get the chance to reading the RWBY novels, because the first one I’m gonna read is Roman Holiday! I need to know Neo’s full story for myself and not just through bits and pieces that are told to me!

I also hope to get to see more of your Neo, especially with RR since I don’t think we see much of them together. I need my adorable feral ice cream kitty and her even more adorable bunny rabbit companion getting into shenanigans! Especially wholesome moments between them, like RR being there for Neo and calming her in one of her episodes. Or their first meeting and how Neo eventually accepted RR and opened up to them. AAHHH THERE SO MANY COOL THINGS I WANT TO SEE YOU DO WITH THEM!!! Each art, headcanon or story you post of them gives me life!

But for real thank you so much for being such a wonderful and talented person! Keep slaying Queen!

THIS ASK??? HELLO??

Like I knew I inspired people to like the character and all, I inspired others to also go ahead with their own versions of Neo and I love to see it, because I'm a sucker for multiverse shenanigans but ALSO??

wtf, you really do love my version and all the small details, like the RR put into the lore, and just, THANK YOU SO MUCH???

I'm vibrating on my seat, I'm very bad to express myself but I'm all giddy and happy- I know when it comes to the art there's just so much I would've loved to do, like there are so many ideas inside my head, the story between Neo and the Reassuring Rabbit are all inside there as well, mainly because it was the Blacksmith's idea to give the RR to Neo, to sort through the bad experience and trauma she had with the CC, and to have support so she wouldn't be completely alone in the Ever After (it was also an attempt to make Neo a better person), so their initial relationship wasn't exactly good because Neo was still resentful- she almost eats the RR a few times because of some of her new instincts too

and ALSO??? please YES, READ ROMAN HOLIDAY!! in all honesty it's the only novel I managed to read whole because my brain focuses too well in reading stuff related to my hyperfixation

but HHHHH, she's so special to me...I'm at that point in which (if she returns) seeing her in canon will feel weird, because it's obviously not gonna follow all the headcanons I've been developing, but I would be happy enough to just see a bit more of Neo lol

[keshetchai]

Question, do you have any thoughts on demonolatry? It is a path I am seriously considering and slowly researching. I'm still working my way through the book The Devil and the Jews, but what I've read so far plus what I've been coming across in my demonolatry research (Hebrew is a source language for many texts) plus still being very ignorant of Jewish traditions over all has me cautious. I feel comfortable in demonolatry but don't want to trespass/appropriate something I have no right to.

Oh goodness, I have….different takes on my gut reaction/answers. I’ll divide them into mini-answers!

Answer #1: [The most generalist answer about cultural appropriation]

If the source language for a variety of texts in something is in a language you don’t understand, and isn’t a heritage language for you, then chances are high it would be appropriative for you to adopt this kind of practice. This might not always be a hard and fast rule, but like…it’s a pretty sure bet in this case that a bunch of Gentiles who made a practice using misinterpreted and perverted Hebrew texts for their own needs and then continued on for several decades or centuries is just going to get you an end result of cultural appropriation/cultural perversion.

Answer #2: [The issue of Jewish appropriation & western Orientalism]

I honestly don’t know much about demonolatry, but from what I can tell it’s another spin on western occultism which was and is, at its core, appropriative of Judaism as an “exotic” flavor to be added as Gentiles saw fit. The whole “seal of Solomon” thing being appropriation by occultists is part and parcel with this kind of stuff, and it’s really really weirdly orientalist. The use of a holy language in Judaism (Hebrew) for this stuff is just….really trying to make it more “magic” seeming.

I mean some of these occult texts are what, 1500-1600’s? When you realize Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, and the inquisition continued to try and make sure that converso Jews didn’t revert to their heritage faith – I mean it’s just more of the same obsession with perceived connection between non-Christian (read: Jewish and Muslim) ties to demons and devil worship/working.

But then there’s later stuff, from what I can tell it’s like a chunk of stuff 1500-1600 and then again after the 1700’s a period 1800 - Today (at least the bulk of this stuff is before or after the Enlightenment period in Western Europe) and…. Surprise surprise, a bunch of white guys being obsessed with the magical secret demon rituals of the “exotic orient” is undeniably connected to gross European colonial/imperialist attitudes. Another generalization: stuff written by dead white guys about the “orient” or “near eastern” practices in the occult arts are full of shit.

Thing is – fear of cultural appropriation aside – is any of this NOT fully enmeshed in orientalist imperialist western attitudes? And is any of it going to hold up to any kind of academic-historical-archaeological scrutiny?

Answer #3: [The issue of “All religions have stuff we can’t prove, but some religions have more complete mishmash based on conflated facts and made up stuff that ignores academic study on the originating culture(s) than others.” AKA the Academics of Appropriation]

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh. If the PDF I found on my google search of the term is a real source on the demonolatry issue, then it just lumps a gazillion different devils/Angels/spirits/goddesses/gods/whatever that are all occurring over the span of what is in reality probably 2-3,000 years. They have nothing to do with each other in many cases! Like a “devil” that has an Arabic name naturally occurs much later in time than a really early babylonian type language spirit because of the timeline of when those languages began and developed. I’m also probably the wrong person to ask - the very mention of “Lucifer’ makes my eyes want to roll out of my head because anyone who ascribes that to a demonic-figure misunderstood that it was a criticism of a Babylonian King, and had zero to do with any kind of supernatural figure.

I don’t particularly know much about Mesopotamian/Fertile Crescent/Near Eastern/Levantine paganism but I do know an archaeological/art history scholar who does study the prehistoric/ancient near east and I just deeply truly feel like the emphasis on near eastern paganism is mostly about 19th century Orientalism. I’m going to guess that a majority of the stuff discussed by demonolatry is riddled with factual errors, misunderstandings, and conflations that come out of ignorance of the region, time periods, and religious practices that took place.

I try to be respectful of the fact that different people find solace in different kinds of religions, but I won’t lie - I found myself deeply dissatisfied with the whiteness, appropriation, and bad scholarship I found across pretty much all modern pagan variants some time ago. Like it’s not just not cohesive/disorganized, it also just…doesn’t have any grounding in the actual historical reality of these beings/spirits in the faith origins any of them come from? I find most people in paganism/neo paganism are really interested in only very specific texts. Like they’ll read someone’s (European) grimoire from the 1600’s but won’t pour over Sumerian archaeological digs and academic papers on Hittite worship - because the point is not really these ancient/prehistoric paganisms but the *idea* of them - the orientalist *concept* of the ancient near east. like why does everyone talk about the meaning of the color of the candle you use for an ancient (whoever) entity when candles….hadn’t even been invented yet? I’m pretty sure that spirit doesn’t care because wax/dipped (dyed & COLORED) candles weren’t a Thing Then. You know? the rituals mentioning pillar candles for something that was worshipped in like 3000 BCE just isn’t based in any actual practice of the time because they didn’t have that then. It’s a tiny detail, but you could expand that to almost anything you wanted.

Maybe that’s harsh of me? But like personally I deeply dislike this kind of stuff because I find it just as intellectually dishonest as many organized faiths can be, except these people tend to publicly emphasize their ancient spirituality/faith predates “xyz”. But if you can avoid Hebrew entirely, avoid Jewish-Hebraic entities AND Islamic AND Zoroastrian entities and are just focusing on like….worship of things from ancient religions which just don’t exist anymore? I mean, I guess? Like just don’t….use anything that at all uses or borrows from Hebrew/Judaism/Tanach (or the Christian Bible). That might help avoid Jewish appropriation but won’t get rid of the orientalist lens issue.

Anyways….

Last Answer: [The: “I have a Mom of Color” aka “the comedic kinda” answer]

NOPE NOPE NO NAH NU UH sure appropriation is bad but do you know what is ALSO BAD????? Inviting spirits into your life that have their own motives and powers and minds!!!!! NOPE.

Why would any spirit deign to work with your ass for free? THEY WOULDN’T! What makes u think they’re gonna let you set the price for their services? THEY WON’T! You also can’t work with someone else’s spirits, you have to work with your own!

Idk man I was forbidden from playing at seances as a child, my momma literally told me to never summon anything because you don’t know how powerful it is and whether or not it wants to hurt you I compulsively throw spilled salt over my shoulder to blind any devils behind me, I have a hand of hamsa amulet by my door, I grow sage at my windowsill, I have literally been trained my whole lil Mexican life to avoid the devil even though my mom explicitly does not believe in hell or an actual literal devil.

Honest we don’t believe in the devil but JUST IN CASE…..

So uh tl;dr:

1.) yes. It’s got appropriative elements 2.) and Orientalism/racism 3.) also I don’t even know if any of the sources I found actually are true of the origins of these entities in any historical or academic sense which is a large part of why I think it’s rooted in Orientalism/fetishizing of the near east 4.). I’m like ethically (ethnically?) obligated to tell you demons are Bad News and My Momma Says I Have to Go if Someone Uses so much as a Oujia Board, Right Now, Immediately, She is Calling Me for Dinner Probably. (I mean I can’t stop you and have met satanists/lucifer worshippers and wasn’t scared of them personally, and I don’t even believe in “The Devil,” but also I ain’t white.)

Thanks for asking though! Sorry if I seem….idk unfair? I think these criticisms I’ve made can be applied to a LOT of things, which is why I apply them also to any modern paganism strain.