Sebastian x Bethany, anyone?

So lately I've fallen completely head-over-heels for Sebastian x Bethany. I always kind of vaguely shipped it in the context of a modern AU since I felt they would go well together, but once I discovered their in-game flirtations and learned that they were originally supposed to end up together if Bethany is alive and Sebastian not romanced it kind of... spiraled until it's now one of my all-time favorite ships. I'm even actually writing fanfic about them! I haven't actually written anything other than an outline in years!

I've always had a thing for softer characters, the ones who want to do good and help people even when the world tells them they're naive for doing that or makes it hard for them, and both Sebastian and Bethany fit that description. And I like shipping those kinds of characters together and exploring romances where any hardships in the relationship come not from miscommunication or clashing personalities but from self-doubt and external factors. Not to mention as a bisexual, I just enjoy taking two characters of any gender who are my type and going "now kiss" lol.

As I write and eventually publish my fanfic I'll share more details but the general gist of it is that Bethany (who is a circle mage in my canon) remains in the Gallows to care for the surviving children, tranquil, and injured mages after Meredith and Orsino's deaths. While still working for the chantry, Sebastian arranges with Ser Rylen to escort the survivors of the Gallows to Starkhaven's rebuilt circle. Along the way, he and Bethany grow closer and eventually he asks her to be his princess when he retakes the throne and that he'll find a way to convince the chantry to let them marry. Unfortunately, the grand cleric in Starkhaven refuses to let the prince marry a mage, so Bethany becomes his mistress while he keeps petitioning the chantry and eventually, when Divine Victoria is named, she allows the marriage to take place. (Vivienne becomes divine in my canon, and hearing about a man with a similar name to her late lover wanting to marry his mage mistress touches her.)

Soooooo yeah. I'm completely obsessed with this ship to the point that I played Mark of the Assassin with an archer Hawke and Sebastian and Bethany in the party along with Tallis just so I could get a 20 second cutscene of them flirting.

Oooh, I love that ship! I saw their interactions on Youtube and oh my! They just go so well together. And since I like to think Bethany is a hopeless romantic, her ending up with a handsome prince is like a fairytale come true (especially for an apostate mage).

Your fic idea sounds super interesting. I'm really looking forward to it :)

ohhgreywarden wrote:

Not to mention as a bisexual, I just enjoy taking two characters of any gender who are my type and going "now kiss" lol.

I think I suffer from the same affliction, lmao. I just like taking two characters I like, no matter how little interaction they've had, and pair them together. But in this case, they do really pair well together ^^

CocotteJenn wrote:

Oooh, I love that ship! I saw their interactions on Youtube and oh my! They just go so well together. And since I like to think Bethany is a hopeless romantic, her ending up with a handsome prince is like a fairytale come true (especially for an apostate mage).

In Bethany's World of Thedas entry, it actually says that as a child she knew lots of stories about princes and princesses and even danced with her favorite storybook! It's very much a "if I could tell my younger self about this, she'd never believe it" kind of thing.

CocotteJenn wrote:

I think I suffer from the same affliction, lmao. I just like taking two characters I like, no matter how little interaction they've had, and pair them together. But in this case, they do really pair well together ^^

Another one of my favorite Dragon Age ships is Josephine/Scout Harding... who only briefly mention speaking to each other... and then in other fandoms I definitely have a few ships where they've literally never spoken and pairing them off because I love them separately. This one at least has some canon interaction for me to build on!

ohhgreywarden wrote:

In Bethany's World of Thedas entry, it actually says that as a child she knew lots of stories about princes and princesses and even danced with her favorite storybook! It's very much a "if I could tell my younger self about this, she'd never believe it" kind of thing.

I knew that headcanon had to come from somewhere. I just couldn't remember if it was from canon or from a random post I'd read. I'll have to read her WoT entry again, this is just too cute!

ohhgreywarden wrote:

Another one of my favorite Dragon Age ships is Josephine/Scout Harding... who only briefly mention speaking to each other... and then in other fandoms I definitely have a few ships where they've literally never spoken and pairing them off because I love them separately. This one at least has some canon interaction for me to build on!

Oooh, this is a pairing I haven't considered before. But I'm fully behind it! I can imagine them dancing under the moonlight (Harding offers dance lessons after the Winter Palace so I assume she's a good dancer, which Josie would definitely appreciate).

CocotteJenn wrote:

Oooh, this is a pairing I haven't considered before. But I'm fully behind it! I can imagine them dancing under the moonlight (Harding offers dance lessons after the Winter Palace so I assume she's a good dancer, which Josie would definitely appreciate).

Yessssss welcome aboard the Lacephine ship! There's a dialogue with Harding where she mentions that Josephine sent her a basket of flowers to thank her for her work with the Inquisition and I've seen some fanfic and art where that was her attempt at flirting but it went over Harding's head haha. And yes, them dancing together is such a nice mental image! It'd be a good break from their work.

To bring this back to Sebastian and Bethany, I found a video with all the variations of their banter in Legacy (starts at 51 seconds in):



And this is my video of their interaction in Mark of the Assassin. I'm just using my video so you can see the cute mod I use for Bethany that's become my personal canon appearance for her lmao. This shows all the variations.

Anyway, I'm sad that these two conversations are all that was left of their plan to have these two get together in the right circumstances! At least it gives us room to explore in fanfiction.

Also, I have to say, as much as I prefer putting Bethany in the circle and have that as my canon, the dialogue in Legacy when she's a warden is so good.
"If there's something good or beautiful in any of this, please enlighten me."
"Well, there's you."

So... I finally made them kiss in The Sims... Sebastian was pretty surprised.



(They're in a Hanged Man lot that I downloaded from the gallery!)

Awww, they're so adorable

Gosh, I forgot how much of a smooth talker Sebastian is. It's no wonder he makes Bethany so weak in the knees. People must have been lining up for him in Starkhaven, back when he was, ahem, a wild boy. It's a shame we can only see him them interact in the DLCs though. He should have been a full companion in Act 1 like the others.

CocotteJenn wrote:

Awww, they're so adorable

Gosh, I forgot how much of a smooth talker Sebastian is. It's no wonder he makes Bethany so weak in the knees. People must have been lining up for him in Starkhaven, back when he was, ahem, a wild boy. It's a shame we can only see him them interact in the DLCs though. He should have been a full companion in Act 1 like the others.

I'm moving the "So, Sebastian, you're a prince" conversation to happen at Chateau Haine during Mark of the Assassin in my fic (since my Hawke didn't take Sebastian on the Legacy quest and even if I fudge it to say she took everyone it just makes more sense there to me) and during that convo Sebastian thinks about how, if he was still how he was back then, he would have had sex with Bethany before the night was over. It makes him realize how much he's matured but also that he's definitely attracted to Bethany because flirting with her feels different. He's not even trying to flirt with her when he smiles at her when they're going to rescue Hawke and Tallis, he just thinks it's cute that she's getting so frustrated and ranting about how it's not like in the books she's read.

And I KNOW! There's a mod to get him in Act 1 that I've thought about using but it's just not the same since it can't add any interactions with him and the twins. I'm pretty sure he was even supposed to be in the game not as a DLC character but they moved him to DLC which also makes me sad because that means a lot of people don't have him and base their opinions of him on what others say. I could write whole essays on how much I love Sebastian and how I feel like fandom misinterprets him.

There's nothing wrong with rewriting canon to fit your needs. I do it all the time

I'm really looking forward to your fic! It will be interesting to see Sebastian's introspection and slow realisation that his feelings for Bethany are very much not like his previous experiences.

And gosh, I know exactly how you feel. A lot of people only base their opinion on the Chantry explosion scene alone, or on the fact that he is a chaste romance option (which makes him boring for some reason?), so they didn't even buy the DLC. It's sad because he's such an interesting character once you get more deeply into his story.

Yeah, it starts where Sebastian is going to the Gallows to find Bethany since Hawke hasn't heard from her in a while (long story short, Cullen quarantined the Gallows after kicking out some templars who started acting weird after being on courtyard duty near petrified Meredith). It doesn't take long after that for him to realize he's in love with her but there will be flashbacks to how it builds. Although Bethany is totally in denial about him genuinely liking her back even though he's not exactly subtle because she thinks she has no chance with him as a mage.

I haven't actually played his romance yet but I have watched it on youtube and I do think it could have been... more but it's not because of the lack of sex, it's because of the lack of development. I did use some mods/tricks to get my favorite Bethany mod to be my Hawke for a playthrough so I will romance him with her, lol. I think another part of why people discredit him is the fact that Varric doesn't like him and calls him boring so they take that as the truth.

However, that does make for some funny mental images when you think about Varric realizing one of his least favorite people in Hawke's circle and one of his favorites are in a relationship...

Awww, not gonna lie, I'm a sucker for stories where one or both protagonists are oblivious to the other's feelings (maybe because I'm such a huge awkward bean myself, lmao).

Ah, yes. His romance does feel a bit rushed at times, although that's an argument one could make for the entire game. But yeah, it doesn't have as much content as the others. I have yet to experience it too, but I have an OC paired with him (oh, the joys of multi-shipping) so I might do it at some point too ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I love to think that, in worldstates where she survived, Varric was so shocked to learn that Sebastian and Bethany are together that this is the reason he "forgot" to put him in the book and only remembered him halfway through his retelling to Cassandra, lmao.

Edit: I just remembered that Varric dislikes Sebastian so much he actually made him the main villain in Hard in Hightown, lmao.

My girlfriend and I were... very much that way before we started dating. I spent several hours calling her to give her a list of mods to download for DAO "because it's easier than just sending them" and it still took us almost another month to get together because we both kept on believing the other was platonically liking every single one of each other's selfies on twitter and instagram...

Oh I like that headcanon!
Varric: *telling the story without Sebastian*
Cassandra: Wasn't the only surviving member of Starkhaven's royal family there too?
Varric: You would literally have to pay me to talk about him
Cassandra: Okay I've got seven bucks

Oh wow I really do need to read Hard in Hightown finally, huh?

Actually that reminds me, before I looked up the timeline and realized it's well post-Trespasser, I was actually planning to rewrite part of Knight Errant with Bethany appearing as Sebastian's semi-secret lover. Then I realized that in my timeline, they would have been married for at least two years by the time the comic takes place AND have baby twins (since Bethany is a fraternal twin she's likely to have twins herself) so... Instead of Varric finding out they're together when the whole burglary at Sebastian's birthday party happens, instead Bethany is just at the party and Varric is still somewhat convinced that this is all an elaborate joke Sebastian and Bethany are playing on him.

As a big romantic, Cassandra would totally pay Varric to hear Sebastian's story, even though I bet he would be more than willing to tell her himself (and probably with more accuracy, lmao).

If you can't afford to buy the book, most of it is available in codex form in DAI (and therefore on the DA wiki). I don't have a copy but apparently, the character's name was changed between DAI and the book release to Weal or something like that to make it more obvious that he's supposed to be based on Sebastian, lmao. The entire Kirkwall gang have cameos, but sadly not Bethany as this seems to have been written with a worldstate where Carver survives in mind :'(

Gosh, the idea that Varric is in denial concerning their relationship is so hillarious to me!
Varric, watching Sebastian and Bethany cuddle lovingly over their babies' crib: "Totally fake. Did you get stuck babysitting? When are their real parents coming back to get them?"

I actually bought the book when it was released and just haven't gotten around to reading it yet haha. Not surprised it's written with Carver surviving in mind since that's Bioware's canon (which is also why I wanted to rewrite part of Knight Errant to have Bethany alive and Sebastian's mistress until I realized the timeline wouldn't work for that).

Varric gets invited to the wedding and thinks it's some elaborate joke at first because he's certain he would have known if Sunshine was getting married and then when they're saying vows it hits him that this isn't actually a joke. Hawke insists she did tell him before and he thought she was joking back then, too.

I seem to remember reading somewhere a while back that Gaider wanted to write another comic centring on Bethany and Sebastian. I'm not his biggest fan, but I'm still a little sad it never happened.

Lmao, Varric Tethras is the living embodiment of the surprised Pikachu This has got to be some peak comedy.

I heard that too, I believe he also said Nathaniel Howe might be involved? I'm also sad that never happened but at least I can write fanfiction to fill that space!

Everyone else is at the wedding crying with joy and Varric is just sitting there like "okay... when are they gonna say sike..." It's too cliche even for him, the girl who always loved fairy tales growing up to marry a prince.

Isabela is absolutely the one who's crying the most during the ceremony because for all that she pretends romance doesn't matter to her, they're just so sweet and lovely. She does try to give suggestions for the wedding night during the banquet though.

Isabela would probably be their most supportive friend. She always struck me as having some big sisterly instincts towards Bethany and she would be overjoyed to see her happy. Although she might also ask Bethany for the spicy details of the wedding night. I bet she's curious to know how well Sebastian fares in that department

Agreed, although I don't know that "sisterly" is the right word considering she offers to get Bethany a night at the Blooming Rose when she finds out Bethany is a virgin...

In my headcanon their wedding night is not their first time, basically when they're refused permission to get married at first because Bethany is a mage, Sebastian decides that since he already gave up his vows to pursue the throne, he has no reason to remain celibate either, especially since it's different with Bethany because he loves her. That and Bethany just wants to lol. Isabela's already heard some details by the time of the wedding much to Hawke's annoyance because "I did not need to hear you ask my sister about that, for Andraste's sake!" (Not that Hawke can talk because my Hawke has probably gossiped to Isabela about Fenris's skills in bed)

Well, I meant "sisterly" more in the sense of "bros, but women"

That's a nice way to see it
I hope poor Hawke won't be having too many nightmares, lmao.

"Bros, but women" is definitely a good way to describe Isabela's relationship with Bethany AND fHawke who doesn't romance her, lol I would say Merrill too but I hardcore ship Merribela

It's going to be a bit more romantic than I made it sound haha, I have the sentence "Nothing, he thinks, can be a sin involving Bethany Hawke" running through my head to use in the fic. And something about "Even if he can't have her as his bride, he still wants to treat her as such." In addition to the, you know, relationship with Sebastian part, Bethany ends up liking being his mistress for the fact that it makes her sort of infamous in the Starkhaven circle. She could do without the people who call her names behind her back but she secretly likes that she can be the subject of gossip for something she chose rather than for being a mage or "the Champion's little sister".

Lmao I think Hawke's already seen and heard too much shit from all the other companions that she's just objecting to Isabela asking Bethany about her sex life on principle rather than it actually phasing her.

Aaah, this is so beautiful!! And so very in line with their characterization!

One of the things I'm realizing in planning this fic is that there's a fine line to walk if you're trying to avoid both the "relationships are only valid with sex" and "Sebastian having sex with someone again is a sign of corrupting him" tropes. He's still sort of conflicted about whether or not taking the throne is a sign that he's weak to temptation but being with Bethany never is. In the friendship romance he'll talk about "pure love" in regard to the "chaste marriage" with Hawke, but here he realizes that sex doesn't make love less pure.

And then on Bethany's side, having her time divided between the Starkhaven circle and visiting Sebastian at the palace makes her feel like she's really living and not just keeping her head down to survive for the first time since she was a little girl. She's generally respected at the circle, which is also not nearly as oppressive as the Gallows, and she's allowed to leave it to see Sebastian and have the beautiful romance she's always wanted but thought she could never have. Sebastian ends up becoming the main source of stability in her life in the end as circle politics get more and more tumultuous...

I know exactly how you feel. I'm also writing a fic with Sebastian and that's the part I'm struggling with the most, but I think you're handling it quite well. While he isn't part of the Chantry anymore, sex is still a big deal for him. Not because it's wrong, but because he wants it to be meaningful. His problem before joining the Chantry was that he was lining up conquests without having actual feelings. That was the weakness he was trying to overcome when he made his vows. But he then realizes that being in love is a completely different situation and it's not a weakness. The only reason he might hesitate in my fic is because he wants it to be special and not a spur of the moment thing on an old wonky table, lol.

As for Bethany, I agree. After everything she's been through, she can finally take a breath and let herself be truly happy. She can finally grasp the happily ever after she always wanted but thought would be out of her reach for the rest of her life.

CocotteJenn wrote:

The only reason he might hesitate in my fic is because he wants it to be special and not a spur of the moment thing on an old wonky table, lol.

Way to call Cullen out!

On a serious note, though, that's exactly what I'm trying to convey as well. It was never specifically the sex that was the "sinful" part of his past, it was the meaningless sex with people whose names he never bothered to learn and partying and excessive drinking and not caring about anything but momentary pleasure until it stopped being fun. And honestly after ~15 years it's not like he's going to even WANT to go back to how he was when he was 19 or whatever. (That's another subject but I tend to find people estimate Sebastian's age too low imo, I put him at 19 when he was sent to the chantry and then in act 3 he states he hasn't been to Starkhaven in 15 years so that makes him 34 in act 3 and thus 28 when his family is killed.)

Bethany may have never gotten to live in the Amell estate but the royal palace of Starkhaven is a pretty good substitute lol. And with the world changing she also doesn't have to worry that her magic will be seen as a stain on the Vael bloodline forever. In my TTRPG campaign set 250 years later that I mentioned in my thread about my Cousland, the ruling Vael princes and princesses have all been mages for several generations at that point and it's just an accepted thing.