I hear you in regards to struggles with finding things for a ship you enjoy. I’m like- the only person who’s written/drawn anything for the Watcher and Ironclad which is a specific type of agony for me ;w;
I hope that you get some more stuff for Silent and Ironclad soon! They’re such a fun pairing and I can definitely see the appeal. They’re fun as hell to think about
ahhh glad to hear I'm not alone in that ;w; Ironwatcher is kind of fascinating to me tbh, I'm mostly neutral on it as a ship but I did see some art on Twitter and it got me thinking...they intrigue me. I mostly ship Watcher with Silent and Necrobinder (latter thanks to this one fan artist that made incredible art of them…) but I’m pretty open to the idea of most STS ships and headcanons. I even don't mind Watcher being alone or being aroace honestly, like I have multiple interpretations of the characters coexisting in my head. I’m a multishipper hahaha
Also if you're the person who posted the recent fics on AO3 I'm definitely interested in reading and hearing you out 👀 I’ll look into those fics soon!
also thank you!! I know it’s a bit different because there is a loooot of Silentclad fan content on the Chinese side of the STS fandom (bless the artists on Xiaohongshu/Rednote for feeding me) but I wish I could read an English fic of them 😭 the writing is taking some time (currently doing a one shot for them for now, it’s also very self-indulgent and maybe a little OOC) but I hope to have it up sometime soon 💗
I think about them too much — I know that many shippers have various interpretations of them but I see them in a softer light more generally…maybe it's just me being slightly biased and liking my ships with a soft side to them, but I feel like after the initial period of slight distrust and getting used to being allies climbing the Spire together, Silentclad just finds a quiet understanding that eventually grows into a bond that is something more...though they’re awkward about love/can’t name it as love right away because 1) they’re both over 1000+ years old and 2) have never experienced love in their extremely long lives, they do love each other deeply. To me the deeper appeal is that they soften each other’s edges — like they both have their darker pasts, their own personal trauma, and a lot of self-hatred for themselves but the strong mutual respect they develop for each other and the way they love to exist together silently is what sort of melts down the emotional barriers they usually put up in front of everyone else, if that makes sense. Idk if this link is visible but the vibe of this cute fan art (on the second slide) is sort of close to how I picture them when they're alone at a Rest Site, not fighting enemies or sparring...
(to me, it feels like Ironclad and Watcher are somewhat similar in terms of having the same mutual respect, except Watcher is slightly more talkative than Silent and doesn't seem to have as much emotional baggage or trauma as Silent. Not by much though, I feel like Watcher is a woman who chooses her words carefully and says things in a very concise manner)