The first mysterious (but not TOO mysterious) sea city!

Friday, February 13, 3267

Sorry, I haven't been posting a ton of updates lately. I know, I know. Sometimes life is more entertaining to live than to talk about, and these past few days we've seen some beautiful and interesting things... and by the time we returned to our cabins in the evening, I was always too tired to update the blog.

We visited an absolutely delightful seaside town! Oh, as the old saying goes, "there are benefits to being a marine biologist"... and one of them, my dears, is that we're taking an incredible panoramic tour of the entire Mediterranean Sea. Oh, I love the Mediterranean!

For reasons of confidentiality, I can't tell you the name of the town we landed in, nor the exact date or time, but perhaps the photos might reveal which town it is (but not what day! Eh!).

Mistery photo!

Another mysterious photo. Just a little less mysterious.

Did I take only mysterious photos? Maybe yes.

The sea :O

We ate a particularly thick and tasty pizza, which even had lil' salty anchovies inside, diced cheese on top, and the most abundant tomato sauce I've ever seen in my life. Cascades, of tomato sauce (the sweetest and tastiest one). 

A large seagull landed next to us, craning and craning its neck, which was probably its way of letting us know it wanted to try the thick pizza too, so we let it try it.

The sea was calm, the breeze gentle. At a certain point, a huge white bus with silver lettering arrived, and a ton of tourists got off, all bundled up as if they were about to embark on an expedition to the Arctic Circle. I looked down at my short sleeves and smiled. Who knows where they were from... but they seemed so happy! Many of them had children with them, and they came down to the beach, after wandering the streets for a bit, looking distraught.

The children immediately began digging holes and building sandcastles, using reeds and pieces of wood, like little architects, to hold the structures up. I had never seen children build sandcastles like this on the beach: everyone I know (and I did, too, when I was little) uses only a bucket, making sure the sand inside is always wet to avoid losing structural integrity, and a shovel, maybe a few stones and shells to decorate the magical "crab palace," as I called it.

No, these children looked like they'd been preparing their whole lives to build sandcastles, and they didn't want to waste the moment, because they didn't waste any time getting down to business!

The adults, as I said, seemed happy. They didn't do much: they looked at the sea, talked to each other, smiled.

I feel lucky to be able to see the sea every day, especially when I remember that there are plenty of towns that don't even have access to the sea.

Oh, and then we saw so much art! In this town, they love their murals, their glazed tiles, and their decorations, I tell you!

Look at this! This view is fake, like in a cartoon. There's actually no tunnel in this wall!

 

Do you think this is an oarfish? At first I thought so, it even had a crown, but then one of my sisters pointed out that it's not the oarfish's crest, but the fin of the fish on top of it, and that ruined the magic for me. It's probably a conger eel or a "normal" eel, it's a rather generic fish, so who knows. But it's cute, like all the other fish drawn on this wall!

Probably only an eel...

This one, on the other hand, is an oarfish! (The Casalpalocco Rome tile isn't a spoiler about the location; the Rotary club does this thing where they exchange tiles with other Rotary clubs.)

We also went to a bookstore: it was really cute, full of independent projects. We also bought some postcards (but obviously we can't show you because the name of the city is on them) and a children's book called "Lilly of the Abyss" (or was it "Lilly IN the Abyss"? I can't remember right now, and the book is gone).

My brother loves children's books; he practically collects them, and who can blame him? They're beautiful, especially the intelligent ones, the ones that don't treat the child like an idiot. Even though I pretend not to notice, I spend a lot of time reading my brother's books... if he ever has daughters and/or sons (and he will have a son like him, there's no doubt about that), they'll be able to have a blast in Dad's bookshop.

Sangreal explored the city with us, with the enthusiasm of someone who's never seen a seaside town (and he's only seen those in his life, though, because as far as we know, he was born there, by the sea). I mean, he wasn't screaming and jumping for joy; he's not the type to do those things... let's just say that, in his own way, he seemed delighted and surprised by everything. Except the bread. Apparently, he hates bread. Have you ever met a person who doesn't even want to be touched by a sandwich?

Ionia bought a bunch of sandwiches.

Eeee... nothing. That's what we did.

It's nice, sometimes, not to have to tell strange things, to simply appreciate the life around us, the sea, a thick pizza that leaves your fingers greasy, the seagulls.

Until the next adventure!

Best (cuddly) wishes,

Your favorite marine biologist, Nana!

Friends and foes!

February 3 3267

I forgot that, since the blog is completely new, many of you have no idea who we are!

I thought about making some profiles explaining who's aboard the Nihil, and their roles, but I risk wasting a lot of time, since I want to illustrate them all and make them look good, and maybe do some mini-interviews with each of colleagues, so I'd rather take it easy. For now. (Muahahahaha).

Okay, I'll give you a quick guide to the "important" ones, okay? (I'll tell you about the others later.) 

MY FRIENDS:

Seraphin: He's my brother! In theory, he's the "boss" of this expedition, but in practice, he's (rightly) very democratic and (too bad for him) completely submissive to Sangreal. Sangreal, however, is kind of submissive to him. They have something strange between them, it's complicated to explain. Seraphin is a tall guy (6'3"), but he's incredibly skinny. All women who like men want him.

Martine: One of my sisters! Her name is Martine, but everyone, including sometimes people who don't know her, calls her Marti. Her favorite color is blue, and if you meet her, you'll immediately know it. She dyes her hair blue, loves blue clothes, and sometimes she even paints her nails blue. She's the oldest of us, so she's always in charge (not like my brother, who doesn't know how to lead and gets pushed around because he's too good).

Ionia: Another one of my sisters! Her favorite color is green, so she dyes her hair green. The problem with us sisters is that we look too much alike, and we have to find a way to tell each other apart, okay? Otherwise, everyone tells us, "You're twins, you're twins!" and we're not. But back to Ionia: she's very serious and capable (more serious than me and Marti, who are both clowns, but whatever), but she also has her slightly more relaxed moments. Without her, we'd all leave dirty dishes in the sink, unwashed clothes on the chair, and fruit seeds on the plates. Thanks for yelling at us, Ionia.

Celestine: Yet another (this is the last one, I promise) of my sisters. She seems like the toughest of us, but that's not true, it's just that she reads too many gothic novels and has absorbed the language like a sponge, so now she speaks like a vampire. She doesn't do it on purpose! In fact, sometimes she realizes it and even changes her speech pattern. Her favorite color is purple (even though her name is Celestine! Ha ha!) and at this point it makes me wonder what would have happened if we all had the same favorite color. She's good at math.

Seras Alkahest: She's the president! HAIL to the president, source of all the money that buys us little robots to explore the seabed and take pictures of cute octopuses! President Seras is very tall, very slender, very pure, with very long blonde hair and hands that look like they'll kill you instantly if they slap you. She always dresses in super-strange and super-elegant ways; I swear I've never seen her wearing a t-shirt. Her Holiness the president is very indulgent with us. If you're reading this right now: please don't hit me, ma'am, what I'm writing is a 100% positive portrait.

Sangreal: He's our supervisor, but he's not a marine biologist like us. How did he get to this place? Apparently he's an expert on marine creatures because he lives in the sea and is part of an ancient population. He doesn't have a last name, from what I understand, or if he does, it's like a monstrous sound that I don't know how to make or spell. He's two meters tall (that's not hyperbole! He really is two meters tall, maybe even taller), he has red hair, a beard, he dresses like a man who was super-elegant a thousand years ago, and I really don't know if there's anything else he could do to look even more striking. Seriously, you can tell from afar. He and my brother Seraphin have something strange going on—shh, don't ask.

Rosas: One of the president's men, an inventor apparently, and also an excellent navigator. Small and rotund (and very proud of both), he has the most muscular arms of the entire crew, and he's an excellent swimmer. From his appearance, he seems to be of Indian origin, but his family has probably lived on French soil for so long that he doesn't even remember what India is anymore. I don't know his last name; if anyone told me, I've forgotten (I'll have to ask him, so I can put it on the file).





THE "ENEMIES"

Bertram Fuka: He's a guy who's tall about one metre and one prayer, and he's the leader of a group of scientists who boasts and laugh from other boats because they usually manage to win cooler projects (and bigger budgests) than us. Everyone calls him Bertra, leaving out the final "M." Unlike my brother, he knows how to lead, and everyone bows to him. His last name allows him to make vulgar puns, which gives him an advantage over us.

Ippolita Ferro: She's Bertra's errand girl, she's 1,90 m (six feet) tall and weighs maybe two hundred kilos. She always has a gray parrot on her shoulder. Her hair is cut in a mohawk, just to make her look even more scary. When she walks around, she makes the sound of jingling keys, but rarely makes any other noises, because she doesn't dare speak in front of Bertra (what if she misses a breath?). When Bertra's not around, she trash-talks us, with the help of her parrot. They say she once lifted a great white shark with her bare hands, and a lot of people don't believe it, but I do (because I know great white sharks can be young and light).


??? (I don't know if they're allies or enemies)

Sangreal's Grandmother: I've never met her, but she's an important person because she influences the things Sangreal does, and since he's our supervisor, he influences us. Apparently she's gigantic (and if her grandson, who's two meters tall, says so, I'm worried), rigorous, and of noble lineage. She lives somewhere in the sea, but I'm not sure where. Apparently she's terrified of "sea monkeys" (Artemia salina).

Actually, there are a lot of other people, especially on Nihil, but if I tell you all about them, you might not remember them. And anyway, these are the people I write about the most, so it's best if you know them!

Now I have to go, Marti downloaded a really old game where you explore the bottom of a red ocean, or something like that, and she wants me to go give her my honest scientific opinions.

A lively bye bye from your favorite marine biologist!

-Nana

Vampire squid!

Thursday 27 January 3266

 Wow, today was a great day!

Our ROV saw some really cool things. And I can't wait to show you all! Unfortunately, the "deep silence" clause is keeping us all kinda quiet right now (on our social media 'n stuff). Oh no! I can't tell you everything I saw. But I do have some mini-permissions to tell you some mini-things (without, unfortunately, showing them to you).

For example, I can tell you that we spotted a vampire squid. Have you ever heard of one? I hope so, because it's a truly beautiful, absurdly beautiful animal.

It's a squid (no, wait, it's not exactly a squid, but at least it's a cephalopod!), but not a vampire, in the sense that it doesn't drink blood... the reason it's called that is to be found in its appearance (absurdly beautiful): it has a deep red body (blood red, you could say), which seems to be made of silk (and just like silk, it's iridescent. Yes, of course I know vampires aren't normally silky, I realize that...) what vampire squids have in common with vampires are their "teeth." I mean, no, not teeth, but spines. I mean, um... vampire squids are harmless. But it looks like they have teeth/spines (they're actually cirri!), because they're inside their "umbrella" made up of tentacles and the flaps of skin that go between them.

Basically, when seen from above, vampire squids are adorable little creatures: red, with a pair of fins, that pop out of their heads (a bit like the more famous dumbo octopuses! Or like flapjack octopuses, which are my favorites!).

I'm wondering if I should write a whole page dedicated to vampire squids, because they deserve it, they really deserve it... maybe even a little pixel art! You could put some stickers on your pages too! Some... little adoptables? Like the ones you put in forum signatures. Something cute, saying "I adopted the Vampire Squid" and a link to the page that explains all the cool things about this animal.

Woah. What a great idea. I think I'll make some "scientific adoptables" for all my favorite creatures, so you can put them on your personal websites or in your forum signatures! That'll be really cool.

But back to the vampire squid and its spine-like teeth that aren't really teeth: from above, they look like "normal" cephalopods, but when they feel threatened, they turn around, spread their tentacles, and... bam! They look like they're become a huge mouth overflowing with monstrous, pale teeth, like those of a lamprey, but worse, like the menacing whirlpool of Charybdis (I think I should tell you about Charybdis, it's a really cool story!).

In addition to having fake teeth that transform it into monstrous living jaws, the vampire squid also has two scary, glowing fake eyes, and can exude bioluminescent mucus from the tips of its arms (think Mega-Malamar, if you're a Pokémon fan! It does something similar!).

In reality, as I told you, vampire squids aren't dangerous at all: they feed on zooplankton, or tiny animals, and sometimes even... poop... yes, especially the younger ones, they eat the fecal pellets that come from animals that live in shallower layers of the water, so all the "coolness" of the vampire squids is just for show.

And I didn't tell you the funniest thing! But this isn't the vampire squid's fault for trying to look edgy; it's the fault of the people who gave it its scientific name: Vampyroteuthis infernalis, which actually means "vampire squid from hell." Wow. That's a lot for a colorful octopus that eats shrimp and poop!

Anyway, if you're curious to see what one of these creatures looks like, I can't show you what we recorded, but I can show you some old Nautilus footage, where you can admire the squishy, ​​silky skin of this adorable animal, completely different from what you'd expect when you hear the words "vampire squid from hell":

Well, now Seraphin's calling me, and we're about to have a midnight spaghetti dinner. Bah-bye from your favorite marine biologist!

 

The New Blog

Monday 25 January 3266

Hi, it's me again, Nana Panorme, your favorite marine biologist!
 

Some of you may remember the old blog, "Sirènes et café" (it meant "Mermaids and coffee"... now we're gonna write in English, so it's more international)... it was great, right? Unfortunately, some things went wrong, and I can no longer post on that platform. Oh well, that's water under the bridge (I can transfer the most important information from the old site here anyway! There was a lot of super interesting research).
Anyway, now my sisters and I have a new blog. We decided to call it "Fish Don't Cry" because when I lost access to the old blog, I was on the verge of tears (I'm not a super emotional person, but it happens to me every now and then, what do you want?) and my sister Ionia put her hand on my shoulder and said, «Don't cry. Do it for the fish. Fish don't cry». 

What a brilliant idea for the name of my new site/blog! Fish don't cry!
Anyway, we're here again to share with you our magical journey in search of extremely rare fish... and one in particular, the oarfish (regalecus glesne).

We're currently aboard the Nihil, a fantastic ship, granted to us by the benevolence of the president of Alkahest Inc. She cares about the sea, and the policy of her company is always focused on the future of conservation, which allows us to take this wonderful journey.
The expedition leader is supposedly my brother Seraphin, but our supervisor, appointed directly by the president, is named Sangreal, and he's certainly a special guy!

Unfortunately, I can't tell you about the research we've already done right now (there's a contract I have to respect: I can't say certain things, otherwise I think the president herself will appear with a hammer and smash my laptop while smiling creepily at me. She's generous and intelligent, sure, but she scares me, as she scares everyone a little), but I can update you on other things! And I can also tell you about our past research, the one we did before boarding the Nihil.
By the way, are you interested in a tour of the ship? Or are you not much interested in the technical specifications of our vessel?
Let me know!

A wet hug (hey, when you work at sea, it's all spray and salt)

- Yours, Nana Panorme