deadlock!! yuri!!!!

this ask inspired me to go on a three hour walk with my friend and all we did was talk about yuri. i haven't thought enough about them... i'll throw some bullshit out there just for you though.....

no matter what paige's saviour complex says, paradox is NOT a fixable woman. she is a very selfish and arrogant person, and it's for the love of the game. it's kind of hard to fit paige into her situation because she doesn't need anyone else for her goals, there's no reason for her to hang around if they've got nothing to steal. a surprisingly well adjusted individual who has decided to be a bad person!!

it's a little difficult to guess exactly what paige thinks of her, but in her one (1) substantial paradox kill line, she seems to understand that paradox is doing it because she WANTS to. paige tends to assume there's a redeemable element based off of any weaknesses she can read from them (reading mina's insecurities and saying she was raised wrong, for example), so i wouldn't be surprised if she wonders if there's a reason for paradox's actions, but she is certainly aware that paradox is not a good person and doesn't feel bad about it.

i love to put paige in a ship with someone who she absolutely cannot fix, i want to see her delusions CRUSHED. how is she going to react when the person she loves won't stop being a genuinely bad person.. this and paradox isn't tied down in any way, she's a paradox agent and past that, she goes wherever she likes. what's she going to think when she gets attached to some nerdy girl in new york?

i'm not explaining it very well, usually my ships are more about their interactions BEFORE they fall in love, but i also really like how both of their lifestyles are so contradicted by liking each other.

for a more specific situation, my best idea for how they would start to interact would be paige asking for paradox's help to find bryce after the ritual. to get paradox to accept at all, she would have to frame it as a challenge with a reward, like (i'm making things up now. fuck canon) a rare book that bryce took with him or another item of interest. maybe she would play it up by pretending like she didn't mean for paradox to know the book is important, to hold her interest more..

paige would be conflicted to ask paradox for help, considering she thinks of herself as the morally correct protagonist and paradox is distinctly NOT concerned with morals. i think she would see it as an adventure, the daring but desperate hero teams up with the cunning thief to find her brother. i'm picturing her reassuring herself that she can keep paradox under control while they find bryce, which she absolutely cannot. my delusional queen...

also the mind games. the vision. paige and paradox are trusting each other for now, but paige has to decide, is she going to let paradox actually take the book from her brother? what if she hurts him to get it? and paradox has no guarantee that this "little brother" actually has something to steal, or that paige won't try to turn her in for a reward or something. there's almost zero trace of this guy, does he exist? what if it's a trap? i have ideas about this but i can't share because it would literally be the ending to the thing i'm writing.... just in general the push and pull of the two of them figuring out exactly how much trust to award to each other. betrayals 💥💥

okay. she likes to fit them into character archetypes from books. required scene where paradox finds her reading a book with a hot thief character. quite frankly obligatory in every paige ship ever. i am not biased at all. what batbook wip ?

OHH I WAS SO CONFUSED 😭😭 i got a friend to look at it and neither of us could figure it out for the life of us lmaoo. i am going to take this chance to talk more about my bisexual paige agenda sorry

i think people are missing out on some really good pairings when they only ship her with guys, given the saviour complex can apply so well to most of the cast. she thinks of people as storylines, and you can take how she wants to help miserable characters like victor and run with it, because she's (as delusional as she can be) very good at reading people and giving them the benefit of the doubt.

when people cite the lines with victor or shiv or mirage, they only talk about how she finds them attractive, not why she finds them COMPELLING!! victor/paige is the most reasonable ship out of those because the conversations mention why paige would stick with him enough for it to become romantic, whereas for mirage and shiv it's surface level at best.

once you start looking at it as which character archetypes would paige want to comnect with instead of just finding hot, there are SO MANY GOOD OPTIONS....

my personal favourites are batbook (woah. really??) and paradox/paige (i dont have a ship name chosen yet but i have some good ideas)! paige instantly sees through mina's whole act and comments on her self esteem issues, she seems to pity her as "misguided" which i definitely think you can build on?? especially because paige would try to hold on to mina's humanity while mina is trying to abandon it. girl with a saviour complex who tries to help anyone she can to the best of her ability and girl who has committed to killing people to stay alive for the rest of her life.... the possibilities....... and paradox because i want to. she's a charismatic and VERY capable thief with an accent. tell me that's not straight out of a book. more like bisexual out of a book if we're being real