franken stein & spirit albarn
steinspirit (affectionately named cross-stitch) is the pairing of the characters franken stein and spirit albarn from soul eater.
stein and spirit are both employees at the death weapon meister academy, but they've actually known each other for a while. they were both dwma students, and were each other's first partner during their time studying there.
despite this, they're complete opposites. stein is the isolated type, with a way of thinking he's the only one to understand. he doesn't care about making meaningful connection with people, and has no qualms about cutting up animals and humans alike open if it's for the sake of his experiments. in comparison, spirit's much friendlier. he's a little strange in his own way, but he's also always considerate of other people and generally nice to everyone (despite his terrible tendency to run after women).
since they're so drastically different from each other, spirit's patient friendship serves as a way to keep stein's crazy scientist ideas at bay.
whenever they partner up, their souls resonate practically instantly. it's especially visible the first time the gang meets crona, because they're able to work in perfect sync together despite not having been each other's partner for over a decade by then. what stands out to me is that stein has a specific way of working his weapon, using it as a defense tool rather than a weapon to attack with. he wields spirit in one hand, and attacks with his other hand, and it gets me a little emotional that this is probably how they used to do it when they were young. Anyways.
in the kishin revival arc, stein goes as far as to get offended on spirit's behalf when medusa mentions not caring about her child. stein has literally no reason to get upset at her for saying that, especially considering he doesn't have a kid and is usually very emotionally detached from his students. and yet!!!!!! spirit is the one who starts crying over it, though. but this just sort of convinces me that if maka were to get a new dad, he'd treat her with more love and care than he seems to show (i refuse to acknowledge the manga, no point in trying to bring it up). actually now that i wrote this i just realized he acts weird as hell towards maka at the start, so maybe he maybe wouldn't be that good of a father, though that kind of goes without saying. plus the reason he treated her weird was because he knew she was spirit's daughter, and this was most likely the first time he met her (which makes me wonder about what the hell happened after spirit's wedding, since he attended........)
all this to say, they have a bond. and a really strong one! how would they be able to resonate if they didn't? if spirit was truly still upset at stein for what he did to him when they were teens, he certainly didn't show any of it. or he showed it for like, half a minute, and immediately soul resonated with him, which proves he did eventually forgive him. or that he likes him too much to stay upset. whatever the reason, they work well together, and have a special sort of chemistry whenever they're seen together in the anime. spirit is a strange guy all around. he does weird things, says weird things, but stein always entertains his silliness and most often ends up amused by it. spirit can read stein super well, too, to the point he's basically asked by lord death to babysit him (probably something he asked him 15 years ago, too,) and doesn't really mind doing it. i wish we could've seen them just hanging out a little more, because their relationship feels so simple in essence, despite the complexities of both of their personalities. it's like they help each other achieve a balance they can't find anywhere else.
i tend to feel like yoasobi's yoru ni kakeru fits them pretty well. stein was born in a world that doesn't understand him, but spirit makes it at least a little bit easier to navigate... something like that. i believe i would be a world famous writer if only i knew how to put those thoughts into words. the theme of the song is obviously not the same, and the lyrics aren't exactly easy to connect to steinspirit, but the vibes are similar. i think.....
"it was only a simple 'goodbye' / but it was all i needed to understand / the sinking sun and your figure / were overlapping beyond the fence"
this part of the lyrics truly reminds me of how spirit essentially abandoned stein after having been his partner for five years. he obviously left because stein was awful to him beyond just his attitude (((he cut him open in his sleep))) but we don't have the specifics of how it happened, how spirit broke the news that he was leaving to him (or if he even was the one to do it first)... i like to let my mind wander. i want it to have been a heartwrenching goodbye, where spirit truly would have wanted to stay but stein just went too far for him to accept the situation as it is. i like to think* that spirit would have stayed, if only stein had told him about the experiments beforehand...
*note: i am not the soul eater writer i only know these characters from what i read about them. i am making shit up because it's fun. spirit probably would have freaked out and left even if stein asked him to become his guinea pig, as it is the normal thing to do. (even then, i believe spirit was pretty weird to manage to continue being with stein for five whole years .)
while this is all i have to say about yoru ni kakeru, it's definitely not the only song that makes me think of them like crazy. i could probably picture them in any song that has a layer of drama to it. another weird ass example is amy winehouse's tears dry on their own, because it's talking about someone struggling to get over a relationship. i love to imagine stein despairing over the loss of the one person who could soothe his crazy guy tendencies.
on this note, i adore marie but this whole speech about her being able to easily soothe stein feels so silly. i refuse to base myself off of the manga so you'll have to take me to court over this opinion but i think it's just a cheap way of setting him up with someone. in the anime he generally doesn't really seem to care about her and whenever she has a chance to prove she can soothe him she does the entire opposite, which i get is not her fault but like, if they just sent spirit to stay with him instead.......