The Bald One
@croissantlune201 sure.
Mer!Bubble, aka the "Bald Dunkleosteus Merman"
Created after Caine, largely by the same people that created Caine (sans Kinger, who has quit, though his research is still being utilized).
"Born" with a series of birth defects or genetic mutations. The primary of which has rendered him "Bald", aka scaleless. Save for having a properly armored head (which is arguably more external bone plating than scales), he has no natural armor. The feel of his skin is comparable to that of an eel. Very smooth.
His skin is a bit on the thick side (due to being designed to act as an anchor for thick scales and armor plating), it is still easily penetrated. His body can be easily cut just by rubbing against rough rocks. Lack of scales also means that he has 0 protection from aquatic skin parasites. Which technically isn't a huge problem considering that he lives in fully treated and maintained water that is largely parasite free. But it does mean that a lot of extra care needs to go into his care, especially in regards to his environment.
He DOES have his claws and teeth. So there is nothing to prevent him from reliably eating his food. Which is good, because he has a preference for live prey items. He has an excellent prey drive (desire to hunt) and being given food to chase/catch is good enrichment.
While he (and other artificially created, hybridized mers) cannot EVER be released into the wild, it is important to note that his odds of survival in the wild would be incredibly low. His lack of scales leaves him vulnerable. He would suffer frequent infections as a result of skin injury and he would easily become overrun by skin parasites. Any attempts he could make to remove those parasites would also damage him further. So in the theoretical situation in which he is born in the wild, he suffers a very early and incredibly unpleasant death at the hands of overwhelming infections (parasitic and otherwise).
His pale coloration is the result of Leucism. Which is effectively, diet albinism. He is largely lacking in pigmentation, but it is not 100% gone (as it would be if he were albino). He is easily mistaken for albino, due to his pale coloration and pink tint; but his dark pupils are the dead giveaway.
Were he NOT Leucitic, his body would have been very vibrantly colored! His pink tint is actually a result of this! His primary colors would have ranged from red to orange (with splashes of white) with the hues being darker o his top/back with his stomach area having brighter tones. Almost comparable to the patterns found on some koi fish/goldfish. (Which may seem strange, but coloration is not "uniform" among merfolk in my AUs. Nor is body form! These are details I might expand upon later if asked.)
Moving on to his history; Bubble is more the result of scientists wanting to research an abnormality than anything else. His unique genetic defects were noticed very early on during his "Gestational" period (it is important to note that he, Caine, and Abel were "born" in their full adult forms and required a lot of socialization/education once the woke up). It was understood that he was an entity that would require intensive care. Rather than cull and start on the next specimen; he was allowed to fully gestate and then was "born" all so that the team could gather data pertaining to his unique series of defects.
He was, in essence, a Cadaver. Born not with the intention of being kept alive in the long term, but born for the sake of bettering scientific understanding. The plan was to cull him as soon as enough information was gathered. Very little was put into socializing and educating him once he actually became an actively animated and conscious entity; because it would have been a waste of resources when the plan would be to kill him after a few months to a year. He would have been vivisected and his parts preserved for study, had they failed to sell him to the rehabilitation facility that purchased Caine.
His "Sale" was very much a strongarm. The result of a company with HIGHLY QUESTIONABLE ethics being aware of the empathy of people in a completely different area. Not unlike the people who irresponsibly breed or catch horses and strongarm empathetic people into buying them, because "if they don't get bought, they're going to Mexico to be killed for their meat". The knowledge of Ayala's empathy was used to effectively say "You either buy him to save his life or we kill him". And it worked. Which, unfortunately, means that there is now an incentive to intentionally bring deformed/sickly specimen into the world; because there's a sucker out there that will be willing to buy and care for them.
Some fun additional byproducts of his genetic defects means that he will burn easily in direct sunlight and needs to be kept in darker environments/provided lots of shade (even after being given some experimental melanin treatments. He can't be out of the water for long because if his skin dries out, it will crack and peel (and bleed) like human lips in winter. He also requires weekly full-body rubdowns with specialized lotions that help his body resist infections (and reduces the potential of sunburn).
Now to move on to personality, behavior, and any additional traits!
Bubble is full grown, but he is smaller than Caine. I'd ray roughly 2/3rds Caine's size. Which doesn't mean that Bubble is small, per say. Caine is just a large boi.
Bubble very obviously has 0 awareness of what Caine has done to Abel (regardless of if we're talking about a variant of the AU where Abel survives the attack or not). He also has 0 fear of Caine, despite the fact that Caine is larger and very much a hazard (in the sense that trying to cuddle with him would be like trying to cuddle with a rock).
That lack of fear extends to a desire for companionship. Which is less of an "instinctive" thing and more, a natural byproduct of being an unnatural freak. There's not really anything else like you in the world, so finding someone that IS (mostly) like you triggers a sort of innate sense of illogical kinship. He very earnestly wants attention from Caine. But Caine, for a range of reasons, doesn't want to interact with Bubble. Which in turn leads to Bubble, like an annoying younger sibling, taking whatever attention he can get. So he starts to take actions that intentionally irritate/piss off Caine. Such as getting overly cuddly with Caine's favorite handler in a performative way.
He is a male dominant hermaphrodite (like Caine). Which is just a fancy way of saying that he technically has both reproductive parts, but he primarily expresses male characteristics. This, surprisingly, it not actually a genetic defect! Though it is not the standard, many merfolk are born with both parts but express one sex dominantly (appearing to be male or female). This likely has something to do with the fact that an asinine amount of fish are also hermaphrodites.
He can lay eggs! Those eggs, however, are 100% sterile with little to no yolk. This IS a defect, and an unavoidable one, brought about by flaws in his genetic code. It is the downside of being a man-made abomination meant to re-create a long extinct subspecies.
Those eggs often wind up being used as food for all of the mer. Its not weird. They can't hatch so the only reasonable thing to do with them is eat them!
This part is mostly for fun and I don't fully consider it canon, but Bubble is a bit of a whore with 0 sexual preference. Full on pansexual. DTF pretty much anyone or anything that shows interest, with 0 interest in monogamy. Also he's a bit of a size queen.
That's pretty much everything of relevance that I can think of for Bubble!
Also tagging @chimkin-samich cause... Reasons. Idk maybe I missed something and they can point it out!
