Top 5 velanna ships
i’ll do you one better and i will tier list every velanna/canon character ship in awakening
the S tier velanna pairings (to me☝️) are sigranna and justvelanna. i think we should all be much more abnormal about these pairings on account of there is soooooo much crunch to be unpacked here. the isolation & experience of being other, the way they understand each other in ways others Do Not (& also the way they can’t understand each other at all), their principles and the way they are At Odds. can we all ponder them together? forever?
the A tier of velanna pairings (to me☝️) is. okay you have to hear me out on this bc she’s dead outside of my beautiful vision that is savuninverse but velanna/mhairi. yeah the warden recruit who dies tragically during her joining. i said HEAR ME OUT!!!! i just think there is soooooo much potential crunch in a Knight (a girlknight even…..) BREAKING with the crown she swore to serve after losing respect in its values and joining up with the wardens out of a belief that they are More worthy of serving + the contrast of that with velanna’s pragmatism (& cynicism!!) towards the wardens is really really fun i think. what jory and daveth poke at very lightly wrt the kinds of people who end up w the wardens/why velanna and mhairi really accentuate. pondering them & putting them in situations <3
we actually have all the rest down in B tier (literally really good i’m just not actively losing my mind about them ALL the time) on account of i think velanna is the most interesting girl on earth and i don’t think she has a dynamic without Any crunch. i will take a moment to yap about them at length bc i rarely do and there are matters to discuss here!!
velanna/anders i think is really really fascinating to ponder in light of like. i was actually talking abt this with ria earlier but anders really has a fraught relationship with violence whereas velanna… its complicated for sure but wrt protecting her freedom or that of her people it’s just not even a question. which is something awakening anders is really grappling with!!!! he’s in disbelief when u kill templars for him. he’s so so scared. and i think she makes him feel insane. and that’s a beautiful thing <3 also. important note that while the anders keeps hitting on her when she has Shut That Down is mostly classic bioware sexist writing i do also believe that is real and true of them in awakening era. one sided workplace sexual harassment into mutual workplace sexual harassment dynamic. they are not talking normalstyle!! velanna is confrontational and anders is avoidant. whenever one of them tries to approach a serious topic the other rebuffs them in a manner that makes them double down on their own Tendencies and so it goes. i think they’re neat!
velanna/nathaniel ofc also has the classic bioware sexist writing going for them and i will say the flavour of this pairing that veers into “he wears her down eventually” is the LEAST interesting one to me. i do think it’s real and true of their early relationship but it’s kind of nothing to me even then. that’s not where the chemistry or crunch is imo. what i find fascinating about these 2 is them being the outcasts from their families & also helpless to protect them when it mattered even though they are The Eldest. like i think there really is a weight to that which hangs over them HEAVILY when they join the wardens under those circumstances and like. the fact that delilah is fine & happily married is something velanna can’t help but resent i think. it works out for them. for seranni…. yeah. i think there are a lot of levels on which they relate (& their pragmatism plays well together on the job™️) but there is a lot of bitterness here too. i like it <3
