barnegat lives in a large insulated underwater structure way at the bottom of the abyssal zone that houses a bunch of sea guys sometime in the fish future. coming from a lineage of artists, he took up music pretty early in his life. he developed proficiency with a handful of instruments and has at least passably played a pretty significant list. he went to school with al and befriended him before losing contact to pursue his own interests for a year or so.
al and barnegat met again in college and became good friends. after composing and playing by himself for a while, barnegat sought someone to fill his weak spot and would eventually recruit al, as he'd shown himself to be a skilled pianist and generally cool guy who he could work with. they would perform together for a few years before asking noela, a woman they'd become acquainted with along the way, to be their vocalist. they saw quite a bit of recognition as a jazz trio.
eventually the three of them pursued a relationship and had a daughter. barnegat, however, grew unhappy in the relationship and left after becoming severely, chronically burnt out and finding that he was Not in fact prepared to raise a kid. he had also developed an intense worry that chloë didn't want him around because he spent so much time being Ill and Not paying attention to her. leaving didn’t really work ( in fact it exacerbated the problem by moving him further away from people he could talk to ). barnegat never got back together with al and noela, but they were able to become friends again after a few years of hard feelings. chloë and barnegat have a fairly strained relationship, but they're in the process of working it out
the divorcenning
the eponymous separation that earned barnegat the mystical magical title of "guy from divorce" was his own fault 😀 i feel this needed its own section for explanation but my rundown is that he was asked if he was cool with being a father and he said yes. but then when chloë was born he was like wait a hot minute ...... that means i have an extremely important new list of responsibilities but im not the guy from fatherhood im the guy from famous fish jazz band Nettle. so he tried to do both "perfectly" at the same time but that's not possible so he got scared and ran away when she was 5
turns out cutting off contact with your whole family ( except for your mother ) is a bad idea and instead of being the best at fathering and making tunes he sucked at both and didn't have anyone to complain about it to so he just dug his own grave and laid in basically ( /fig ). eventually he did reach out to noela and al again though and after some bickering he started seeing chloë ( who wasn't really that enthused to talk to him again but she gets along with him Okay and they're definitely making progress )
notable personality changes around this time are that he listens more now and he's stopped talking about himself as if he's amazing. he's more of a wet cat that can do a cool trick now than a peacock ... also while he was away he was really bitchy and self-absorbed and the most insecure he's ever been. he kinda just sat around complaining to himself all day
so next time you are in biology class tell teacher these awesome fish facts and they'll be wowed !
