This turned into a little bit of worldbuilding but here’s some ramblings:
Hot take love the sea creature mean gills headcannons but hear me out mean gills being kinda uncanny and kinda unsettling in the same way people with submechanophobia are unsettled by man made objects being submerged underwater
I have an explanation too! I like to think because any changes to a player due to environment or whatnot are for better or worse because of watcher involvement. I just like the idea that sometimes these changes just look off and there’s never something that you can specifically point out, it’s just a general unease.
They’re not even supposed to be there, none of the players are supposed to be there, not really. Pulled into the games by something unnatural, the beings that feed of the negative emotions from the games. I think it makes sense for them not to perfectly mesh with their environments, any adaptations they develop are unnatural and uncanny because this isn’t a natural environment. A server created and manipulated for the purpose of feeding of the negative emotions of the players.
I hope this makes sense and if it doesn’t don’t make fun of me or I will cry