my main f/o of ALL TIME!!!!! Is the Negative Spirit from doom patrol tv (only the show!!)

i've been self shipping with them (i use xe/they for the negative spirit exclusively. nonbinary or else) since before i even knew what self shipping & the community really WAS!! specifically, i've been self-shipping with them since 2019 - for 4 years as of the time i'm writing this!! isn't that so cool???

i've been told it's silly to love them so much, because xe doesn't ever speak on screen except for one word, but... honestly that's one of the reasons i love them so much! i love it because it makes their actions so much more interesting and important! yes, the negative spirit is an alien, but they're not so alien that it makes them cold and indifferent to humanity!

the negative spirit repeatedly helps the humans they live with (like helping them out of the donkey dimension, helping collect jane from the underground, etc) and also makes efforts to save strangers they don't even know (like in cyborg patrol, when they free the other ant farm captives!!). many people note this; larry says "you wanna go be a hero? okay, i wanna see the sunset", and vic says "maybe larry isn't a hero, but that thing inside him is". and xe doesn't HAVE to do any of this; xe was stranded on earth against their will!!

i feel like what most people don't understand about them is that they REALLY DO care about the things around them, they just don't understand how to deal with the strength of their emotion + the strong emotions of larry that they are forced to feel in addition to their own. niles says that the spirit is powerful, but sensitive; that's another thing that i love about them!! they're in this weird stasis of being human as defined by being caring, emotional, and ensouled... and yet they're so far away from being human in every other sense. IT ACHES TO THINK ABOUT!!

i fell in love with them on my FIRST WATCH of doom patrol. on my very first watch-through in 2019, i started watching shortly after the release of hair patrol, and was caught up by the next episode. i fell in love with them instantly, and as i watched their relationship with larry soften, and saw how happy it made them, i just kept falling for them... i have so many old messages to my friends talking about how deeply i adored them. they've been such a huge part of my life for such a long time and i wish i could hold them and hug them forever and ever and ever....