Wait random idea: Rank the wof ships by how normal their first meeting was
(None of them were normal but some were less normal than others)
Terrific idea! And thank you so much for just dropping into my askbox, I love when people do that! For full disclosure, I haven't read arc 3 in a bit, and I haven't read THP at all, so I will focus on describing the ships from the first two arcs.
Without further ado, onwards, from most to least normal:
Kinkajou and Turtle: They met at school. So very normal. It got much more not normal from there, but their first meeting was in class together.
Starflight and Sunny: (I don't know if they count but the prompt says 'ships' rather than 'couples' and they definitely were a possibility for a while there). They grew up together, childhood friends and all that. Possibly slightly weird because of the Westermarck effect (which does spell their downfall after all) causing Sunny's feelings for Starflight to be more sibling-adjacent than romantic, but otherwise, pretty normal, pretty standard.
Tsunami and Riptide: Riptide sees her, asks her what she's doing, she replies with something totally incoherent, Riptide mistakes this for a declaration of affection, and comes in closer, she attacks him. Somewhat believable, especially in the land of fiction. I can imagine this happening in a YA novel.
Starflight and Fatespeaker: They met while both on the NightWing island, when Fatespeaker was loudly following Morrowseer. She then proceeds to announce within an hour of knowing him that she predicts that they'll be king and queen of the NightWings one day (implying marriage). It is worth noting, Fatespeaker has been convinced he's her ~destiny~ from the moment she saw him being carried in, unconscious. The situation of their meeting itself was not terribly weird (if you excuse Starflight being kidnapped and them competing to see who Morrowseer hates less), Fatespeaker, however, is so lovably weird that she makes this interaction so much stranger. I am willing to switch around this one and Ripnami though, they feel about the same level of not-normal.
Moon and Qibli (and Moon and Winter, and Qibli and Winter): Moon and Qibli meets when Qibli tries to de-escalate his roommate from killing Moon on the off-chance she was about to eat his pet. Winter and Moon meet when Moon captures Winter's pet and tries to protect it from being eaten, causing Winter to threaten to violently murder her because he assumes she was going to eat his pet. Qibli and Winter met because they were roommates and Qibli let Winter's pet out. The pet in question is a human. This is a completely ridiculous and frankly terrible way to meet people, 0/10, very weird (except, funnily enough, Qibli and Winter, they were ~roommates~ that's not so much of a strange way to meet people, but they are a) inextricably tangled up in the whole Moon situation, b) met off-screen and c) aren't nearly as much of a canonically implied possibility so I'm filing them under here).
Clay and Peril: Meeting while Clay was in prison, and Peril was essentially the top gladiator he'd have to fight. Not whatsoever normal. At all.
Glory and Deathbringer: Deathbringer has been sent to kill her, arrives near the Ice Kingdom, where she is disguised as an IceWing (the historical enemies of the NightWings), and he proceeds to shamelessly flirt with her, as well as tipping her off that he is coming to kill her and some of her friends. It is unclear during this interaction if he is aware that he's speaking to Glory or if he believes he's just chatting up a random IceWing. Despite this nonsense, he is very persuasively handsome, and Glory continues to show him unexpected mercy and bashfulness in their every following interaction. This is super weird. This is beyond weird, it is ridiculous. This is not even slightly normal. This is, if possible, the least normal way to meet people ever.
Thanks for sending an ask, I had a great time answering it!
