paige and VAL are such almost-perfect narrative foils despite having never interacted it's uncanny. both were raised by an abusive parent, but paige refuses to let this define her, while VAL externalises and perpetuates the same cycle she grew up in. paige recoils from admitting vulnerability; represses and tries to wield her hurt and rage with restraint, like a precisely-honed point, while VAL allows her wounds to bleed out openly into the world, and lashes out indiscriminately. paige benefitted from the violence of the system until she decided that she couldn't profit from something that meant harming others to maintain it and began working to oppose and dismantle it. VAL tried to use that same system to achieve her goals and was taken advantage of by it instead, and upholds it. paige created her god to protect other people, even at a cost to herself. VAL sacrificed herself to her god to protect herself, and clings to it regardless of the cost to others. paige's god is a destructive force that she's trying to use strategically, to achieve constructive outcomes. VAL's god is a god of infinite possibility, and she uses it as a mere weapon. the choices made along the way matter as much as the destination to paige, but for VAL, the ends justify the means. paige's god seethes beneath her skin, held at bay by her desire to keep her people safe, but sustained by their belief in her ability to do so. VAL's god is tearing her apart from the inside as it claws its way out of her, only to find that there is nothing to sustain itself with beyond; no warmth, no life - only cold, dead air. paige is surrounded by people who love her. VAL has nobody and nothing but fear. they're fellow travellers on diverging paths. what is and what could have been. the light and its shadow, the self and the reflection, united by a single, terrible truth: none of it can save them.
