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Nessten is the slash ship between Ness and Ninten from the EarthBound fandom.
Canon[]
Ness and Ninten have never met and have no canon interactions, but they do have many similarities. Ness and Ninten are both the protagonists of their respective games. In their official clay models, they both wear a blue and yellow striped shirt, blue shorts, and red and blue baseball cap, and red shoes. Both have a dog and at least one sister, and their dads are represented by black rotary telephones. Ninten and Ness both like meat, their favourite foods being Prime Ribs and Steak respectively.
Ness and Ninten both like baseball, and use baseball bats as their main weapon. Ness and Ninten both have PSI abilities, with Lifeup, Healing, Hypnosis, Teleportation, and Shields in common. Both have a condition unique to them in which they are prevented from doing anything in battle; Ninten can have an asthma attack and Ness can get homesick.
Although their journeys are vastly different, they have some similarities. Their first battles are against paranormal entities— for Ninten, a possessed lamp, and for Ness, a Starman Junior. Both involve them collecting eight of something; melodies for Ninten, and Sanctuary locations for Ness. Both visit Magicant, although Ness's Magicant and Queen Mary's Magicant are very different. Both face off against Giegue/Giygas in the final battle and use human emotion to defeat it.
Fanon[]
Nessten is mainly shipped for Ness and Ninten sharing a common interest in baseball and being the protagonists of their games. For the two in general, efforts are usually made to differentiate them, although there are also cases where artists play on their similarities by making them look and/or act extremely alike. Sometimes their likeness is addressed by having the characters "fight" with each other over it, such as accusing the other of copying them. Nessten has popularity due to the ship being between two of the protagonists in the series, but it's rather small, and rivals ships like Nesscas and Clausten, which are much more popular.
There are also many theories about the kind of relationship Ninten and Ness could possibly have.
A very prevalent theory about the two is that Ninten is Ness's dad, mainly because the time frames of when MOTHER and EarthBound take place were theorized to allow Ninten to be old enough to have Ness as a kid. Also, because Ness's dad is represented the same way Ninten's dad was, and because Ninten could have passed down his PSI abilities to Ness. However, this theory has lost popularity over the years, due to continuously being debunked by the fact that even if MOTHER and EarthBound took place in 1980 and 1999 respectively, Ninten would still only be 19 by the time he would have Ness (or similar arguments).
Else, some believe Ness and Ninten to be one and the same, which may have come from the idea that EarthBound is a remake or alternate timeline of MOTHER. Alternatively, they are also headcanoned to be cousins, or less commonly, brothers. Ness and Ninten looking so similar is the reason for this. Most times, like the majority of the other ships in the fandom, they exist at the same age at the same time, and are unrelated.
Fandom[]
FAN FICTION
- Ness/Ninten tag on AO3
- Ness/Ninten tag on FanFiction.net
