Chapter Text
What is A Ship Manifesto? What is the Intent?
Per Fanlore:
A ship manifesto is a meta essay meant to introduce fans to a ship and promote it by explaining its appeal. The name comes from the Livejournal community The Shipper's Manifesto.
Ship manifestos generally include nonfiction character studies of the characters involved, canon information and analysis about their interactions, as well as information about the fannish activity around the ship, including links to active communities and/or other fanworks recs. They sometimes include picspams as well.
I've retained the links from the article here to give a good overview. What the intent of this ship manifesto is to give a concrete answer to the question of "Why do you ship DalPony?" It's a question I've received for a long time now that I've been back in this fandom to varying levels of intrigue. It's an oddball ship in the greater landscape of this fandom and this Ship Manifesto exists to answer that question and to give my own perspectives.
I am going to also attempt to address criticisms and fan wank regarding this ship and to preface this, I am someone who firmly believes in Ship and Let Ship. This is fiction and I don't care to impose on others. I'm just expressing my passion for a ship and if you don't like it, fine. I just ask you read this with an open mind or at the very least, with a level of politeness. I am always happy to talk in the comments as this progresses.
What this Ship Manifesto Contains:
- An Introduction and Overview of Canon — This will have all versions of canon, and will have spoilers for all of them.
- Ponyboy and Dallas Winston: As Individuals — The two main players in this ship
- Dallas and Ponyboy: Together — Their journey together in canon
- The Jacket Exchange — The most pivotal moments between them
- So Real, It Scares Me — Jay Mountain and Beyond
- In A Hoodlums' Jacket — Dynamics Between Them
- A Brief Aside: The Musical — A Note about the Musical
- Stay Gold (If You Can) — Conclusion, Some Thoughts
- Tarnished Gold — Notable Fanworks
Subject-wise, this will discuss themes of poverty, child abuse, suicide and suicide ideation, murder, adolescent sexuality, depression and other mature themes that show up inside and outside of canon. Much of these will be discussed within the lens of the time canon was presented and the prism of the 1960s.
What this Ship Manifesto Does Not Contain:
Seeing as of this writing, there is no free, publicly available version of the Musical out there, I cannot give much information about it besides things I've gleaned from spoilers or reviews. Which leads me to- A generally positive outlook on the Musical. If you've come here for that, I cannot do much other than say that I think it's the worst version of this story thus far which says a lot given the television show. As of 10.31.24: I have seen the Musical and addressed it. In short: It's not good.
- If, by chance, another form of this media is out there, this was written in Spring 2024. So anything else, I simply cannot address that ahead of time.