ok so I typed up every single one of my thoughts on why I think Sebastian Solace mpreg would be incredibly fascinating as a character study. Spoiler: I have a lot of thoughts (that's a threat). I did not proof read this because I didn't feel like it, so it may make no sense, sorry. Enjoy (?)
Ok so first I want to consider Sebastian as a father, just like in general. Let's say for the sake of the argument this is an au where he's human and never went to Urbanshade, ie he lives a normal life. I think his parents would play a pretty decent role in how he feels about being a parent himself. On the one hand, we have his father, who is often assumed to be absent. My headcanon is he was always pretty distant, then left not long after Isaias was born. I think from a young age Seb knew he never wanted to be like that, he's determined to be a better father. And then we have his mom, who is usually depicted as being pretty amazing, and I like this interpretation too! So he'd perhaps also feel some pressure to live up to the standard set by his mom. Honestly I think without all the trauma and stuff, he could make a decent parent, the biggest issue would be the pressure he'd put on himself to do a good job. He's seen two very opposite ends of the parenting spectrum and he doesn't want to end up on the wrong side.
Ok so now we factor in the part where he's stuck in the Hadal Blacksite and also is a giant scary fish thing now. First of all, the Hadal Blacksite would be a horrible environment to have a child in, obviously. And if you agree with my analysis from above, then Sebastian would absolutely not be happy about having to take care of a child there! He wanted his kid to have a better childhood than him, but how is he supposed to do that in an underwater prison!! And also there's the fact that he has spent 12 years trying to escape, he's finally almost made it out, and suddenly this wrench is thrown in his plan. He doesn't have time for a child, he needs to focus all of his energy on getting out! He hates the situation, but he could never hate his child despite the fact that their existence makes everything more complicated for him.
Oh and for anyone saying "Sebastian is mean though he would be a terrible parent" please consider two things: he is only mean to the player because they're actively working against him, and he's shown being kind to Painter. It's clear that he's very caring towards those closest to him, which no doubt includes his hypothetical child. Also remember what happens in the STTS ending when Painter gets killed? Yeahhh, so I think it's safe to assume he's gonna do whatever it takes to protect his child.
I do still agree though that the trauma he went through, and potentially any animalistic instincts he got during the experiments, would definitely have at least some impact on his ability to take care of a child. For the past decade or so he's learned to be more aggressive and hostile just to survive, and now he's gonna have to learn to do the exact opposite of that. I think that would cause him some issues, for sure. Im seeing something like, he accidentally loses his temper at his kid then feels immensely guilty afterwards... or maybe he's afraid to even hold his child cause he doesn't know his own strength sometimes and doesn't want to accidentally hurt them. However we gotta remember this is the same guy who spent twelve whole years trying to escape prison without giving up; he's incredibly stubborn imo so I'm sure he can learn to work through these problems, it'll just take some time. He is going to try his absolute best, he is going to be soo careful and gentle, and he is going to do whatever it takes to protect his child!
Oh and also I think the mental image of Sebastian with a baby is very adorble. Giant scary mutant fish man but he is very carefully holding a baby! The same claws once used to kill now gently cradling a newborn ☹️☹️
Okay and NOW we actually talk about the him being pregnant part lol. Cause the thing is, he's got one of those anglerfish lures, which only female anglerfish have, so like. Obviously Urbanshade wasn't using exclusively male dna. It's not completely unreasonable to suggest the lure isn't the only female anatomy he got, and therefore it is not completely unreasonable to suggest he could get pregnant. I think he would feel incredibly uncomfortable about the whole situation. I mean pregnancy is weird enough as it is tbh, let alone if you're a guy who never even thought it would be possible to get pregnant. It would just give him more reasons to hate his body and hate Urbanshade for what they did to him. Especially if we say this is happening during the lockdown, years after the experiments ended. By then he'd probably gotten used to his body, he'd know exactly how it worked and knew what to expect. Perhaps he'd almost began to feel comfortable in his own skin, for once. And then this curveball gets thrown at him, and all those old feelings he thought he'd gotten over get dredged up again.
Also I like to see Sebastian as somewhat of a control freak, and so putting him in a situation where he feels completely out of control and wildly unprepared would be very interesting lol. Especially due to his messed up biology, there are soo many unknown variables that he'd have no way of controlling for, and I think this would really freak him out (just a few examples off the top of my head to show what I mean: what exactly would his child look like? Will it be human? Partly human like him? Not human at all?? What if it's born with a bunch of birth detects, because of how messed up his biology is? What if it doesn't even survive? What if HE doesn't survive? If something goes wrong, what can he even do? He doesn't really have anyone to help him, except for Painter but it's not like he can do much, he's a computer. Also exactly how many babies will he have, because humans usually give birth to one at a time but apparently some mantis shrimp give birth to FIFTY THOUSAND which is absolutely terrifying. I could probably keep going but tdlr there are a million different things that could go wrong so if he starts trying to plan for every worst case scenario, he's going to get very overwhelmed). But again, as I mentioned earlier, I do think he'd be determined to be a good parent whatever the circumstances may be, so despite absolutely hating the experience he's still going to care deeply about his child. Like it would be very confusing emotionally I think.
Oh also fun fact, did you know that many species of sharks can apparently reproduce asexually? It's very rare, and usually only happens in captivity when a female shark is isolated from males for a long time. Anyways remember how Sebastian is part great white shark and has been isolated for a long time? Now great whites are not one of the species explicitly known to reproduce asexually... but also they're not explicitly known to NOT reproduce asexually. I guess they don't do well on captivity, so there's no real way to prove or disprove it. But given that they share dna with a lot of the species that do, it is hypothetically possible. This information I think would make the situation funnier/worse for Sebastian, because imagine how insane it would be to just be existing then suddenly you're pregnant ??
I think it takes him a while to figure it out. He notices that something feels "off," but he just shrugs it off at first. Then when it doesn't go away, his next thought is maybe he's sick? Contracted some sort of rare fish disease? So he finds himself in the library, frantically searching through every marine biology book for answers (something he did often when the experiments were fresh, but hasn't done in a very long time). And then he figures it out and he just... has no idea how to wrap his head around it. And then you know, all the other stuff I mentioned above 👍
So yeahhh I think watching him navigate all this would be incredibly entertaining! There's a few different layers here I think, and seeing how those all interact and how he handles it would be neat!
Oh and if you were wondering WHY this idea got planted in my head in the first place, it's because of two specific Tumblr users. The first is someone whose whole gimmick is that they run a bracket style poll tournament for which character would make for better mpreg, and at one point Sebastian was one of those characters so the poll came across my feed. I thought it was pretty weird ngl, I was very confused. But also I like to be open-minded, so in an effort to understand what the appeal of making my favourite fish pregnant could possibly be, I read the comments/reblogs. And there was this one person whose comment was, to summarize: "Whales sing to their babies before they're born, Sebastian is part whale, and he's also a musician. Imagine him singing to his unborn babies." And I read this and went "aww 🥺🥺 Wait what." AND NOW I CANNOT ERASE THIS IDEA FROM MY BRAIN. Thanks a lot random Tumblr user, I don't remember your name but you know who you are
Anyways I hope this was interesting! And perhaps makes my last post sound slightly less unhinged with the added context? Or makes me sound even more unhinged, either works tbh. Goodnight and happy early Canada Day lmao 🫡
