I don't totally agree with your exact thoughts, but I can see where you're coming from. Obviously Neeko can feel emotions--she even tries to intervene at one point, but since she has no idea what she's doing, it actually makes things worse--but I think the writers unintentionally made it seem like she didn't care. I think their intention was more to show that the way humans communicate and function is very foreign to Neeko.
I'm reposting a post from a different thread, but I think its relevant here:
Neeko's color story has the same issue that Zoe's had (although possibly worse, considering the creepy, uncaring attitude of Zoe was probably intentional); she's a relatively light-hearted character more than willing to be friendly towards anyone she encounters. Considering her main characterization and themes, the amount of DEATH present in her color story feels weird.
I understand that their intention was to show two things: the first is to show how Neeko communicates, which I think they did an excellent job of. I felt like we were feeling the various characters' sho'ma along with Neeko, and the use of color descriptions for emotions and demeanor was really neat. The first half of the story feels like the fun hi-jinx you'd expect from Neeko.
Second was to show Neeko's fundamental misunderstanding of human society and how they think and communicate. While I'm not denying they achieved that, wasn't there some less bloody way to showcase this? Something that better suits the character? I thought she would surely connect on some level with one of the characters she disguised herself as, but this didn't happen, so most readers are left feeling like Neeko not only didn't understand, but didn't care, or perhaps couldn't care. This feels strange as I think the intention with Neeko was for readers to sympathize with her, and to see that she's curious and doesn't really get most of the things happening in human interactions. The intention was to show she is totally clueless when it comes to reading the mood. I doubt the intention was to show that she is not only clueless, by also unsympathetic.
I did like the story. The idea of throwing a well-meaning, but bumbling shapeshifter into a group of ambitious but wary of one another Noxians is a really neat concept, and a plotline that certainly has something interesting to say about humanity, something that Neeko probably needs to learn. Its just Neeko's reaction that is off-putting. She tries and spectacularly fails to de-escalate the situation, but her final reaction should have been something beyond "wow, humans sure are weird!" Couldn't she at least feel a little bad? Couldn't this strengthen her resolve to learn more about humans so she can avoid this situation in the future?
