Nesspaula

Nesspaula is the het ship between Ness and Paula from the EarthBound fandom.

EarthBound
After Ness defeats the guardian at Giant Step, he receives a telepathic message from Paula in his sleep, asking for him to come rescue her. Ness finds Paula locked up in a shack in Peaceful Rest Valley. She tells him that is happy that he came to help her, and she had a dream that Ness was her "destiny". In the original Japanese, she says she would have cried if Ness didn't come. Then, she gives Ness a Franklin Badge so he can reflect Mr. Carpainter's thunder attacks. She tells Ness she'll wait for his return, and not to worry about her.

After defeating Carpainter, Ness is given the Shack Key and he frees Paula from her prison. Paula thanks Ness, and joins his party. Together, the two defeat the sanctuary guardian Mondo Mole, and then go back to Twoson. They explore Threed together, and get knocked out by some zombies, causing them to be trapped together underground until Jeff comes to rescue them. Later on, in Fourside, Paula gets kidnapped inside the department store. The Department Store Spook makes provoking announcments over the loudspeaker, telling Ness to hurry get to Paula. Once Ness finds Paula again, she says that she believed he would save her.

At the end of the game, Paula asks Ness to escort her back to her home in Twoson. If Ness says "no", Paula says then she'll escort him instead. Ness doesn't have to take Paula home right away, and can take time to go anywhere in Eagleland with her. When Ness drops Paula off at her house, Paula thanks Ness for escorting her home, and then says there was something she was going to tell him, but she forgot. She says she'll probably remember it the next time they see each other. She appears to stall a bit by saying multiple forms of goodbye, and pauses in front of the door, before finally entering her house alone. Ness can still go inside as well, and Paula's father tells Ness he's okay with him dating Paula. Alternatively, Ness can take Paula to visit his house. Before they go in, Paula says she probably shouldn't be wandering about wherever, but if Ness disagrees with that, Paula agrees to stay with Ness a bit longer. Ness brings Paula inside, and both his mother and Tracy tease him about having a girlfriend, and then everyone looks at Ness's photo album together.

Chapter 1
As Buzz Buzz dies, they tell Ness that the first thing he must do is head to Twoson to find Paula. Immediately after, Ness gets a telepathic message from Paula, calling out for him, "a friend [she] has not met yet". Paula asks that if Ness can hear her calling him, to please respond. As soon as the message is gone, Ness suddenly feels lonely somehow, and something warm about hearing Paula's words fills Ness's heart. Ness decides that he wants to meet Paula as soon as possible and become her friend as she addressed him as. Ness becomes motivated to go look for Paula.

Chapter 2
Unfortunately, the road to Twoson is blocked by the Onett police, so Ness decides that if he solves the city's gang problem, they'll be willing to let him through. Ness ends up getting severely beat up in a fight with Frank, but he thinks about how he still needs to complete his mission, in which he first must meet Paula, which motivates Ness. Ness also notices that whenever he thinks of Paula, he seems to hear her voice. Communicating with telepathy, Paula tells Ness to keep fighting, and that she believes in him. Paula suggests they "wake up" some of the strong powers that are inside Ness. Ness is then able to use Healing, and gets up thanks to the encouragement from Paula. Ness manages to best Frank, but he still has to face the Frankystein Mark II. Ness panics and asks Paula for help, who tells him to stay calm and to use PSI. Paula guides Ness on carrying through with a PSI attack, and he successfully destroys the robot.

Afterwards, Ness also collects his first Sanctuary, and Paula congratulates him. Ness is able to hear her more clearly this time because his PSI abilities grew stronger. Paula once again asks for Ness to come to Twoson and find her. Ness is happy to see that the roadblocks have been removed, and tries to contact Paula to tell her he's on his way, but he doesn't get a response. This makes him very worried, and he starts running as fast as he can to try and reach Paula.

Chapter 3
It turns out that Paula got a phone call telling her that Ness was waiting for her at Burglin Park because he was injured. Even though she found it suspicious, as there's no reason Ness couldn't meet her at her house, or why didn't he send a call for help if he was injured, Paula went anyway. It was a trap, however, and she gets kidnapped and locked in a shack in Peaceful Rest Valley. After refusing to eat the strange blue food provided to her, Paula begins to get hungry and almost gives in, but hearing Ness call out for her snapped her out of a trance. Paula responds and calls for help, giving some hints as to where she is located.

Meanwhile back in Twoson, Apple Kid gives Ness a Pencil Eraser so that he can continue on his way to rescue Paula, and mentions that Paula was already very pretty when she was just a baby. Upon hearing that Paula is cute, Ness blushes.

Ness eventually confronts Carpainter, the leader of the Blue-Blue cult, introducing himself as a friend of Paula's and asks to let her go. Ness is no match for Carpainter's lightning attack, though, and he gets mortally wounded, subconsciously teleporting away just in time. Paula's voice wakes Ness back to reality, and noticing she sounds so close, he finds the shack.

Upon finally seeing each other, the two run up close, hold hands and just break out laughing, so overjoyed to have finally met. After a while, they calm down and Paula gives Ness her Franklin badge so he can withstand Carpainter's lighting attacks and get the cell key from him. Paula assures Ness she'll be waiting for him no matter how long he takes, because she believes in him, which fills Ness with courage. Ness succeeds in freeing Paula and disbanding the cult, which returns Happy Happy village to normal.

Outside in the sun, Paula appears to shine very brightly to Ness, and while he wants to get a better look at her, he feels it would be rude to stare so he turns away. Paula comments that Ness keeps apologizing about things, and says he must think that if they walk side-by-side, it will look like they're on a date. She offers to hold hands with him, which makes Ness blush, but he refuses, claiming that they need to be on alert in case they have to fight. As a compromise, Paula places her hand around his arm, because she doesn't want to have him run off after waiting so long to be with him. Ness gets more nervous as Paula eventually wraps her whole arm around his, and he realizes that at some point they're going to have to stay somewhere overnight together. Paula says she has the feeling that they'll meet another friend in Threed, and when Ness expresses interest in whether they're a boy, Paula feels hurt and storms off. An attacking mushroom, however, sends her running back to Ness, and he catches her. The mushroom's spores cause Ness to pass out, and so Paula takes him back to her house.

After Ness recovers, Paula's parents tell him that ever since Paula was young, she had many dreams about Ness and would call him her "prince in a red ball cap". Ness later sees Paula's father crying over Paula leaving, and Ness internally makes a promise that he'll return Paula home safely after this is all over. That night Ness rests at the house, and has a dream that takes him through significant events in Paula's life and showcases her relationship with her father. The next morning, Ness and Paula set off wearing matching raincoats. Thanks to the Runaway Five giving them a lift, the two make it to Threed.

When Paula sees the graveyard, she seems to enter a delirious state and falls limp, Ness deducing that she caught a cold. Since the hotel is closer than the hospital, Ness carries her there, and completely focused on making sure Paula will be okay, he ignores the suspicious eeriness of the hotel and enters anyway. Ness is shown a room, but it's a trap, and the two of them get locked inside it. Ness apologizes to Paula for being so careless, and in turn Paula apologises for losing herself. Paula tells Ness that while she was unconscious, she had a vision of their friend, and asks for Ness's help in calling out to him.

Chapter 4
After more than a day, Paula and Ness grow more discouraged and more irritable. Just as they start entering a fight, Jeff crashes into their room, and unlocks the door for them. Ness and Paula both rush to use the bathroom.

Chapter 6
Much later on, Ness, Paula, and Jeff fight Pokey on the rooftop of the department store in Fourside. Paula praises Ness when he removes the alien energy presence by destroying the mini Mani-Mani statue. As Ness climbs up the Ferris Wheel to chase after Pokey, Paula holds his bat and hat while begging for him to come back down, worried for his safety. Ness keeps climbing the Ferris Wheel, and Paula comments that he's brave and smiles without meaning to.

Chapter 7
Once the three crash land in Summers, an onlooker assumes that both Ness and Jeff are Paula's boyfriends.

Suddenly, Paula starts flirting with Jeff and runs around with his glasses, causing Ness to watch them melancholily. A man approaches Ness, guessing that he has a secret crush on Paula, and says he doesn't have to be ashamed of being jealous. After the man leaves, Paula and Jeff come back, Paula apologizing for leaving Ness alone.

The three then manage to get a fancy hotel room to rest. Paula accidentally gets drunk, and while Jeff is trying to get the alcohol away from her, Ness walks in on them and thinks he's interrupting them, so he immediately turns away, flustered. Ness tells himself that it makes sense, that Jeff is a better person for Paula than him. His thoughts lead to him thinking about everything he loves about Paula, and he realizes he loves Paula. Jeff soon explains to Ness what was actually happening between him and Paula, and Ness feels relieved.

Chapter 8
After defeating the Kraken on their way to Newport, the Chosen Four are honoured with a celebration, and unlike Jeff and Poo, Ness and Paula both wear the special clothes given to them to wear for the party. Paula takes Ness's hand so they'll stay together.

Later on, the four venture into the Deep Darkness. Ness comments that he's impressed by Paula for not complaining once yet.

Fanon
Nesspaula is a popular ship within the EarthBound fandom, likely due to the fact that both are main characters with hinted attraction on Paula's side. Most people think that before Paula went inside her house at the end of the game, she was about to confess her feelings toward Ness, but decided not to. Many shippers wish that she did actually say something, or that Ness wasn't so oblivious and just let her leave. Some of its shippers reason that Ness is the ideal choice for Paula, since they spent the most time together in the game and can bond over having similar PSI abilities. Nesspaula rivals the ship Nesscas. It is often considered the EarthBound equivalent to MOTHER's Nintenana.

Fandom
FAN FICTION
 * Paula/Ness tag on FanFiction.net
 * Paula/Ness tag on FanFiction.net

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Trivia

 * Paula follows right behind Ness in the party lineup.
 * Many people think Ness and Paula are dating, including Ness's mom, Jeff Andonuts, the Runaway Five, and various NPCs.
 * Calling Ness's mom after Paula joins the party causes her to say she heard he got a girlfriend.
 * When the Runaway Five give Ness backstage passes, they tell him to "come with your girlfriend".
 * An old woman in Twoson says she thinks the two of them make a nice couple.
 * An NPC in Onett says they heard Ness "asked a Twoson girl out on a date".
 * At the end of the game, Jeff says if the two of them ever "get hitched", maybe he could be the guy to repair appliances for them.
 * In Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Paula appears alongside Ness during his Final Smash.
 * In the description for Paula's trophy in Melee, it is implied that she is the one who taught Ness how to use PK Thunder and PK Fire.