May I ask for Phasma/Rey for the ship meme?
can’t remember what ship meme: have some head canons!
There is a part of Rey that is sharp-teeth and wolf-eyed and, in general, really fucking scary. There’s a part of her that clutches hard and hurtful at her lungs, saying you will live my brave daughter you will – and it does not mean that she has done awful things to live (she would not, will never, sell BB-8 for food, she won’t, she is good in that raw elemental way of ancient deities; like chunks of shining ore from the earth; but good is not nice, as the legends remind us, and remember how she stalked towards Ren’s blood-drenched body in the snow?) – anyway. She’s done morally questionable things to survive out there in the redness of the desert, all that thirsty air ripping moisture from her throat and leaving blood in its wake – she has, for example, lived through famine after famine and knows that whatever someone may have been in life, in death they are meat. Anyway.
What I’m saying is this: Rey is a fighter and unconquerable and Phasma oh dear God Phasma takes one look at her with blood on her face (it’s Kylo Ren’s, of course it is) and falls head-over-heels, one giddy swoop.
Phasma is a thing of duty and durasteel but she is also a thing of profound and terrible love. She loves her troopers, and so she will make them do what they do not want to do for their own sake (she’s a mother captain after all). And, when the Order asks her to choose between duty and her Stormtroopers, well: she chooses.
Rey understands this: the aching and terrible and limitless love. It eats you up (she’s a Skywalker; that sort of love is her legacy.)
Anyway – point being that here are two girls (women?) who are more similar than some people (Finn, Leia, Hux) want to admit and they do not run into each others arms. They slink around each other like wary cats, occasionally bumping up against each other and finding out where the shared edges are (if you harm them I will kill you – if Kylo Ren touches Finn I’ll tear out his heart – you do what you must to live but there are limits –)
And gradually the circles close, and the two train together. Rey’s not exactly good with holding back – she’s never needed to, out in the desert; there’s no mercy for a girl alone and so you don’t hold back, you go for the head and eyes and keep hitting until they are in no state to come after you –). Phasma grew up in Stormtrooper barracks. When she was little, those who where perceived as going easy on their squad mates were shot (she was one of the first troopers, trained by Brendol Hux the elder, back when the First Order was young, before all those pretty euphemisms came along – decommissioned, reconditioned, all different ways to say blaster bolt to the skull.)
….the fight goes on for an hour and they have to be yanked off each other. Phasma’s hair sways in Rey’s fist; Rey has a broken nose; Phasma has two black eyes and a cracked rib
She laughs with red all down her throat and says well that was fun and Phasma smiles, all teeth, and says next time I won’t go so easy and it is partly flirtation but mostly a promise
They train together once a week. No one can bear to watch.
And, after a month, Phasma finds out that Rey likes flowers. Next time she puts the Jedi in the MedBay she shows up with a bundle of stringy dandelions. Rey’s eyes go wide. Why – she says, and Phasma shrugs her heavy shoulders. Rey says, they’re already dead a little mournfully, and Phasma vanishes for an hour, returns with a giant bag of compost over her shoulder and a bag bulging with seeds and bulbs. She dumps the lot on the end of Rey’s bed.
Next time that Rey puts Phasma in the MedBay she brings her a fistful of pebbles, each perfectly round. They look nice, she says. Phasma has never had anyone give her a gift before; she thinks Rey is letting her admire them. When she realises that they are for her, that she can keep them she gets all tense and terse and can’t speak. Rey pats her hand.
The next training session, they don’t actually manage to fight. They talk. About long hungry childhoods and the best way to break a man’s arm. Rey is a feral desert thing, and Phasma is a soldier unlearning her brainwashing, and their courtship is a long complicated affair but it can really be summarised as this: two bruised women sitting in a circle of sand, exchanging stories and seeds.
