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THE NSLARRY MANIFESTO

The Background

Larry Trainor

Larry Trainor was born in the late 1920s. He always knew there was something different about him, and so did everyone else-there were whispers all around about how Larry liked boys, how he was going to ruin his parents' reputation at the church. He married Sheryl Trainor and had two children with her, joining the air force and becoming a test pilot for their missions. Sometime in the 1960s, he met John Bowers, a mechanic who he would later fall in love with.

Before his mission on the X-15 that would take him into the Earth's atmosphere, John had asked him to make a choice-him or the lie of heterosexuality he'd been living. Larry blew up at him, and left for the skies. Every time Larry went up in an airplane, he was running from himself, trying to escape the suffocation of the ground below. Every time he landed back on the surface his heart would fragment even further. He loved John and John loved him but ultimately he was always too afraid.

The day of the X-15 flight, Larry's mission was successful. He left the atmosphere… and immediately merged with an energy rift that had appeared there, which sucked an alien life form known as the Negative Spirit out of their dimension and into Larry's body, where the Spirit would live for the next sixty years. He passed out, the plane fell back to Earth onto a field and exploded-but Larry walked out, alive, his body burned to something unrecognizable.

The Negative Spirit

The Negative Spirit is an alien from a dimension known in the comics as the Negative Space, or, in the show, the Negative Nebula. Not much is known about its history, other than the fact that it missed home deeply and never wanted to be inside of Larry either. The Negative Spirit, or TNS as I will refer to it in this document, has the ability to fly, possess electrical things, make portals between dimensions, electrocute people, and of course, to sustain the life of its host indefinitely. It can leave his body, but (for the first season) when it does, he passes out. With TNS inside of him, Larry is immortal and doesn't need to eat or drink. The presence of TNS makes Larry lethally radioactive, so he wears special bandages over his body all the time to contain the radiation-a radiation that would've been possible to contain without bandages if he bonded enough with the Negative Spirit possessing him, as we see later in Space Patrol.

The Negative Spirit's relationship with Larry is difficult at best, at least initially. It is not entirely antagonistic, as we see in 1996 (Portal Patrol), but they both resent one another for ruining each other's lives. Larry's life had been ruined by his own actions long ago, but he was never able to acknowledge that, placing the blame on TNS, who Did Not Ask for any of this really.

TNS is merged with Larry entirely, so it can see his memories, past, and thoughts. There is nothing he can hide from it. Larry is incredibly depressed and repressed and all of the "-pressed"s, so being forced to experience his mind at all times is deeply torturous to TNS, especially since Negative Spirits (also their kind's name) are implied to be more sensitive to emotion (Paw Patrol, when Niles speaks to Larry in the bus).

The ANT Farm Era

After being taken in to heal from his wounds, Larry is forcibly transferred to a prison for metahumans called the ANT Farm, run by a secret faction of the government intended to "contain and eradicate oddities" called the Bureau of Normalcy. He does not know at this point that he had merged with TNS.

One of the agents, Charles Forsythe, begins to torture Larry with electricity if he talks back or does not comply. They do a series of tests on his durability-with TNS he can survive deep cold and oven heat, he can take intense amounts of pain, he is immortal. He is also again lethally radioactive, so either he or the agents are in safety suits whenever they interact. Forsythe taunts him for his sexuality and for not being "normal" even before the accident. They want to use his radioactivity as a weapon.

One day after a particularly bad day of torture, TNS leaves Larry's body for the first time and kills the agents torturing Larry. This shifts Forsythe's focus from torturing Larry onto torturing the Negative Spirit, and Larry is fine with this. "If they're torturing it they're not torturing me." When TNS refuses to surface, Forsythe nearly shoots Larry, and when TNS surfaces, he immediately begins playing loud sound on a torturous frequency that would become near-lethal to TNS. Just before it kills TNS, Forsythe shuts off the sound. Larry goes back to his cell.

Once back in his cell, Larry meets Flex Mentallo, his neighbor. Flex has the ability to do magical things by flexing his muscles, and he opens the wall between his cell and Larry's cell so they can discuss an escape plan. When Larry refuses to try to escape, maybe even believing he deserves the torture, TNS leaves his body and asks Flex if he can take it home. He says yes, but TNS says Larry has to leave with them too. Before they can start their plan, Forsythe goes to Flex's cell and says he'll burn Flex's wife alive if he tries to escape, thus ending all hope of escape for NSLarry…

until years later, when:

Pre-canon Doom Manor Era

Niles, secretly working with the Bureau, comes to transfer Larry to his home in Cloverton, Ohio, where he lives with famous actress Rita Farr, also an immortal metahuman. They bond, and Rita's movies make Larry feel less alone as a gay man. Niles gives Larry special bandages to contain his radiation, goggles, and a more normal outfit to wear, so he doesn't have to wear a giant safety suit all the time. When he comes out, he looks like the Invisible Man.

For many years he is at war with the Spirit within him. In 1996, the Negative Spirit of that time gets a visit from a dying future Larry. Though their relationship has only been torturous and resentful at this point, TNS possessing 1996!Larry greets future Larry fondly by helping bandage him up and stop his bleeding. It holds Larry by the shoulders…

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…and comforts him. While it is unable to provide the help that Future!Larry needs, it states "You are stronger than my Larry, but… still so much fear."

Season 1 & Season 2

Their canon storyline begins when Niles leaves to go on one of his missions in 2019. Jane, their housemate, tells Larry, Rita, and Cliff (who moved to the manor in 1996) that they should go into Cloverton to do things. They do not usually go into town ever and prefer to remain isolated, but ultimately they all agree. Larry goes to a bar but gets nervous when he thinks people are staring at him/clocking him, and also Rita, Cliff and Jane are causing problems in the town due to their uncontrollable powers, so TNS Leaves Larry's body.

Over the course of season 1, the Negative Spirit and Larry have a complicated relationship. At first it is highly detrimental, with the Spirit describing Larry as torturous and Larry constantly yelling at and resenting its presence. He believes that the Spirit resents him too - and it does, but that is not the only emotion it experiences for him. It is also probably not the only emotion Larry experiences for it at first, either, because even through eleven episodes of the Spirit crashing Larry's bus, putting him on ceiling beams, and generally being at odds with him, Larry still calls it "pal", falls asleep with his hand over his chest (where the Spirit glows to indicate its presence within his body), and takes it with him fondly, saying "you're coming with me, pal" after a visit to the ANT Farm separates their consciousnesses enough for Larry to be awake when it leaves his body. The Spirit overall just wants Larry to heal - this becomes clear to me when the Spirit pushes him to go and find his former lover, John, who is still alive.

Over s1, TNS had been connecting Larry's mind to John's while Larry is unconscious - though Larry does not find this out until episode 11, when he discovers John is on his deathbed. The Spirit tells Larry where to find John by arranging sticky notes in the form of words on his wall, and Larry goes to him. They catch up, talk about their love and their lives after separating. John moved on - Larry didn't.

John asks him if there's anyone special in his life; Larry says no. John says "So you really haven't fucked anyone since JFK [was in office]?" and Larry laughs, then immediately after says: "Now that I think of it, there is a relationship I want to tell you about. It's not a traditional relationship, per se, but… There's something inside me. I wouldn't say we're friends. But… there's definitely a connection there. For years, I didn't know what it was, or what it wanted. But now, I think I might." After this, John falls asleep (or dies; it is left ambiguous), and Larry walks away with the Spirit glowing in his chest, thanking it.

A side note: I don't consider this canon as it wasn't in the final cut, but a while ago someone sold a draft script of Frances Patrol (this episode) on Ebay, and I bought it. It contains the following, which didn't end up airing:

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I just think this is so beautiful…. The Spirit isn't his heart entirely - their relationship is too complicated for that. But the Spirit is his soul.

When Larry finds out that Flex and The Spirit were going to escape together but couldn't, Larry, realizing he will die without the Spirit, offers to let the Spirit return home even though he'll die as a result. The Spirit goes to leave but ultimately cannot bring itself to leave Larry to die, returning to his body.

At the end of season 1, Larry and the Spirit work together to find a way out of a pocket dimension the villain trapped them in. He says, fondly, with his hand over his chest, "You're going to find a way to get us out of here. I know you are."

Season 2 of Doom Patrol deals heavily with themes of parenthood. Larry had been a father before gaining the Spirit, and the Spirit pushes him to reconnect with his family by connecting his mind to his son's just before his son commits suicide. He goes to his son's funeral and runs into his other son, who greets him and takes him to the rest of his family… only to secretly have called the Bureau on him to take him back. The Spirit, not having predicted this, flew Larry and Rita far away from the danger, and back home. This causes another strain on their relationship.

Season 3 & Season 4

In Doom Patrol season 3, the Spirit asks Larry to go home with it, back to their dimension of the Negative Nebula. Larry at first does not agree, believing that he needs to be there for his friends. But his friends want him to be happy. So Larry agrees - and he's ready, he's fully ready to go to another dimension alone with the Negative Spirit - and remember, he's immortal, so they would be there together. Forever. Until the end of time. He's wanting a new start, and this would be his new start. HE WANTED A LIFE WITH THEM.

But the Spirit left. I always have a hard time with this plot in an outside-of-canon sense, because I've been watching DP since day 1 and I really honestly and truly thought they'd develop this relationship more. But anyway, the Spirit flies Larry into space using his body. They eventually end up at the entrance of the Negative Nebula. Larry says, "Is that what I think it is? Is that your home, pal? You wanna show me your home?"

As the nebula reaches out and pulls Larry in, he gives a very sexual moan.

And when he's in the Negative Nebula, he sees the Spirit, tangible for the very first time, in front of him. It is wearing his body - his scarred body, representative of all the impact that the Spirit has had on him, scars and pain and roughness and resentment. The Spirit walks up to him and he walks up to it. They meet. He is speechless, taken aback by their presence-and, when faced with this ultimate representation of his own monstrousness, the thing he once thought ruined his life, he can only reach out and touch its face in awe. He strokes its face-fully thinking, at this moment, that they were still going to spend eternity together in the Negative Dimension, fully prepared for that when he touches it. The Spirit sinks into his touch, a blank expression, as if it doesn't want to leave. It reaches out its hand to Larry, who is frozen, as it disappears. Larry only reaches back out after it fully disappears.

A while later, Larry finds out he is pregnant - with a baby Negative Spirit. No, I'm not joking.

When Larry goes back in time to Doom Manor in 1996, though, he tells the past!TNS that eventually they go home and leave him with a second chance at fatherhood, and how happy it makes him-I think this is why they left, because they couldn't deprive him of that happiness. In season 2, when their departure is foreshadowed, they are told by an episodic villain "Your biggest mistake is thinking you can stay." They reached out for him, sank into his touch - they didn't want to do this to him, but they knew it would happen anyway and they wanted him to be happy.

More Personal Thoughts

I am deeply in love with the Negative Spirit on a personal level, and part of why I love it so much is that despite the roughness and rockiness of their relationship, the Spirit still sees the good in Larry. The Spirit is in a weird place of being both emotionally immature and emotionally… not mature, but maybe emotionally wise. It is extremely in tune with Larry's emotions - and the emotions of others, as we see when they emerge to help Cliff and Jane, but mostly Larry's - and I really do think it understands that Larry is only hurting, he does not mean to torture it. This is why the Spirit wants to help Larry even throughout the torture and hatred-it wants Larry to heal, wants to develop harmony with him. It sees all of his pain and it sees what he has been through and it knows he didn't deserve any of it--that's why it says Larry has to come with him when Flex offers to escape the ANT Farm, even though the Spirit could leave without him (I do not think it knew that Larry would die in separation at this point). It has good intentions for him, it just…. well, if you were someone who already experienced extremely heightened emotions, then were forced to live in the mind of someone with severe depression whose favorite activity is self-torture, wouldn't you act out in frustration sometimes? Some moments I really like:

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