Literature / Dark Life

Dark Life is a series of books written by author Kat Falls. She describes it as a combination of Wild West Pioneers, the ocean, and the X-Men. There are currently two books, Dark Life (2010) and Rip Tide (2011).

It follows the adventures of Ty, an undersea pioneer, and his friend Gemma, a "Topsider" looking for her missing brother. Together, they explore the undersea wilderness, encounter a gang of outlaws, and find out some of the dark secrets of their world.

---

This work contains examples of:

• Action Girl: Gemma, despite being a Topsider who's unfamiliar with underwater life and lacking any Dark Gifts, is a tough, courageous fighter.
• Afraid of Doctors: Ty, is terrified of any medical or doctor related, he does not even trust the Territory's doctor, who is a family friend, enough to go see him for a routine checkup, thought he does mention he would rather he would be the one fixing him up if he got attack by a shark. Justified Give what he has been through after he develop his Dark Gift.
• After the End: The Book takes in where future where the ocean has risen due to Gobal Warming and the Eastcoast has somehow fallen into the sea. The people who live on land are crammed in tiny apartment in gigantic building and see space as a status symbol, There are people who are actively colonizing the ocean floor, as well as people living in repurpose oil rigs along the coast, house boats and mobile floating cities. One top of it the Government keep using it as an expect to stay in (and even abuse) its power.

• Alliterative Name: Ty Townson.

• Anachronistic Orphanage: Topside when a child turns six, if parents can't afford to keep them they turn they are sent to a Boarding Homes and become a Ward of the Commonwealth, but they can still visit them (if they can afford to rent a quality room). Gemma and her brother were sent to one because they were Orphans.
• An Aesop: "Don't judge a book by its cover" is a pretty prominent theme. The pioneers are treated with suspicion by mainstream society, especially those with Dark Gifts, which is constantly shown to be deeply wrong. For their part, the pioneers are overly suspicious of the Surfs, which leads to lots of needless violence.
• …And That Little Girl Was Me: Ty tells Gemma the story of the glowing mutant kid Akai, claiming it was a hoax. But turns out not only is the story real, but Ty is actually Akai. He did this because he was worried Gemma would be prejudiced against him for his Dark Gift. She takes it better than he thought.
• Animated Tattoo: Shade seems to like using his Dark Gift to do this oftenly.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Zoe to Ty, especially given the nature of her Dark Gift.
• Bald of Authority: Shade, the Leader of the Seablite Gang has one.
• Battle Couple: Ty is a tough settler who regularly tangels with pirates and dangerous sea creatures and also has superpowers, while Gemma is a formidable Badass Normal, and they end up together.
• Battle Strip: Shade's sharkskin vest. Camouflage skin works better when it's uncovered.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Pretty.
  "Pretty doesn't say 'stow it'! He just throws a knife at your head and calls it a warning!"
• Bioluminescence Is Cool: The settlers develop a bioluminescent shine from eating certain species of fish. Also, a number of real bioluminescent creatures make cameos: Jellyfish, green lanternsharks, lanternfish, a siphonophore, algae plumes...

• Black Market: Hardluck Ruins, where the Surf go to sell and buy things is the only place beside the Ocean and their monthly rations in Rip Tide, they can buy food. It is also where the Seablite gang sell their plunder and where Mayor Fife runs a Gladiator ring in a partly flooded stadium where he has Surf try fight Saltwater Crocodiles so they can feed their respective Townships for the rest of the Month, as well as entertain for Topsiders.
• Bizarrchitecture: The settlers' houses are shaped like jellyfish or other invertebrate sea creatures, because those shapes deal with the water pressure better.
• Breathable Liquid: Liquigen, which turns to vapor when exposed to air (so one transitioning back to air-breathing doesn't need to vomit it up) and somehow prevents the bends.
• Bribe Backfire: Mayor Fife and Captain Reevis. He pretends he was "fanning himself" with the money.
• By "No", I Mean "Yes":
  Ty: Are you going to throw up?
  Gemma:' No! [Beat] ... maybe.

• The Cavalry: When all of the settlers show up to rescue the surfs.
• Chekhov's Skill: Ty's ability to communicate in sign language comes in handy in book 2. Also, when Tupper points out that many creatures with biosonar can also use it to stun creatures.
• Charm Person: Pretty has a form of amped-up hypnosis, using infrasound to alter people's brainwaves, and then implanting suggestions.

• Cool Boat: The Spectre—The Seablite Gang’s submarine is shaped like a shark!
  • Also there is Ratter's green Narwhal shaped sub which hasa drill for a horn.
• Cool Ship: The Ocean Townships. There are like the main buildings of the pioneer's homesteads they are shaped like sea creatures, thought the old ones are describe as mountains of Metals be Fiberglass.
• Dark and Troubled Past: The Seablite gang.
• Dark Is Not Evil:
  • Dark Life is a name for the ocean floor homesteaders. The people who do this are not evil, they are just trying to survive and life better lives than the cramped surface dwellers. They're also are the victims of severe government oppression.
  • Dark Gifts is the name for the superpowers that children develop under the ocean. Despite widespread fear of these mutations, they're not dangerous and people who have them are perfectly human.
• Dark Secret: A number of people have these.
• Determined Homesteader: Determinedly homesteading the sea floor—in jellyfish-shaped houses, no less!
• Different States of America: The Commonwealth of State appears to a successor to (or at least control some territory of) the modern US, but its exact relationship to the US or any other modern North American state is not really clear, though it is mentioned in passing Pennsylvania is a part of it, though its exact status is not clear. ^note  Acrrocding to the first book all states have two representatives, but in Rip Tide where Representatives Tupper ments that a representative from Pennsylvania, had once been kidnaped by Surf, he refers to him as "the Pennsylvania rep", implying that they have only one, meaning either [[ Series Continuity Error a continuity error]], a Retcon or that Pennsylvania like the Benthic Territory is not a state. Appears to be some kind of Federal Parliamentary Republic, (through at best a corrupt one), with its main governing body being the Assembly which is made of two representatives from each state of it Forty-three state plus at least one more from the Benthic Territory (who cannot vote and is choose by the Assembly itself) and is led by the President of the Assembly.
• Disaster Scavengers: The Surfs are belligerent pirates who scavenge the sunken cities. Ty tangles with them on many occasions, but eventually befriends some of them.
• Doesn't Trust Those Guys: Ty about the surfs in book 2, and the surfs about the pioneers.
• EMP: Part of how the Seablite gang escaped, they also used one when they attack the Peavy's homestead —this due to Eel's Gift.
• Everything's Better with Sparkles: Eating bioluminescent abyssal fish gives the settlers shiny skin.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Ocean Townships. While in real life the word "township' has many different meanings across the world has either some form of local government, human settlement or even units of measure used by government for surveying purposes. But in the case of these Townships, there are actual town that are actual ships.
• Exact Time to Failure: Courtesy of Hewitt. His Dark Gift is Awesomeness by Analysis.
• Faking the Dead: Shade/Richard Straid.
• Fantastic Slurs: The Title Drop, "Dark Life" is what the Topsiders called the pioneers.
• Farm Boy: Ty—though their crops are various varieties of seaweed and their livestock are fish.
• Fish out of Water: Many.
  • Gemma, since she is a topsider who came subsea.
  • Ty, in the stack cities.
  • The Seablite Gang, pretty much everywhere.
• Flashback Nightmare: Ty, about his time as a medical experiment.
• Flooded Future World: After the ocean has raised and washed away the Earth's oceanfront property, the only land available is on the bottom of the ocean. Determined Homesteaders in underwater farms have to battle pirates, a corrupt government, and in the case of some of the characters Fantastic Racism from being born with superpowers.
• Forced into Evil: The surfs. As soon as the coercion stops and the misunderstandings clear up, they're friends.
• Form-Fitting Wardrobe: The dive skins. Justified as they are futuristic divers' suits and most of the series happens underwater.
• Freakiness Shame: Ty is ashamed of his Dark Gift to the point where he tries to pull …And That Little Girl Was Me about it. Gemma is definitely shocked when she finds out, but it doesn't change how she feels about him.
• Friend to All Living Things: Zoe and her menagerie. Her Dark Gift prevents them from hurting her.
• Future Slang: There is "Glacial!", which is used in place of Cool or Awesome, "Let's make wake." which Means some like "let's move", and "Gem 'o Ocean" a phare used by the pioneers to describe something that is beautiful.
• Global Warming: The setting is based on much higher ocean levels, the remnants of coastal cities on the sea floor, and the lack of available land for anyone who wants to live on the surface.
• The Great Flood: There is mentions of a new sect of Christianity called the New Puritan who believe that global warming literally was this.
• Good with Numbers: Hewitt. This is a result of his Dark Gift.
• Government-Exploited Crisis: The Commonwealth of State, the central government of the setting, uses the rising sea levels as an excuse to keep everyone under Emergency Law, allowing there to suspense people's right and postpone elections for the next 20 years or so.
  ”Can’t switch horse midstream,” the Representatives said with every cancelled election. An appropriate metaphor, considering 20 percent of the continent was now underwater.
• The Government: Uncaring at best. Trying to take over everything and leave the settlers in a rut, at worst. They Would Cut You Up is the reason everybody with a Dark Gift does their damnedest to keep it secret.
• Guys are Slobs: Eel is, anyway.
  "You mean the bunk the stinks so bad even you won't sleep in it?"
• Handicapped Badass: Gabion, a mute wrester who can match Shade.
• Hand Signals: All the pioneers know sign language, since they can't speak with Liquigen in their lungs.
• Hand Wave: Decompression? What decompression? They have Liquigen, they'll be fine!

• Heartwarming Orphan: Gemma grew up in an orphanage, but she maintains a a relatively optimistic attitude. In the first book, she searches for her big brother Shade, who was a substitute parent for her.
• Hollywood Chameleons: Shade's Dark Gift. Interestingly, his power is based on the octopus—which really can do this, quite a bit better than a chameleon.
• Honor Among Thieves: The Seablite gang. Pretty much has evolved into True Companions by the events of the story.

• I Gave My Word: Shade to Ty, about not attacking pioneers.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Ty.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Gemma.
• Justified Criminal: Both the Seablite gang and the Drift surfs. Trying to survive in an uncaring world, and in the case of the Seablites because they can't afford to risk being discovered by the government.
• Just Like Robin Hood: The Seablite gang eventually gets to the "stealing from the rich" part.
• Kid Hero: Ty and Gemma are both 15.
• Kiss of Life: Ty tires this with Gemma after she drowns in at the end of book 1. It does not work, so he uses his sister is a defibrillator instead.
• Large and in Charge: Shade, of the Seablite Gang.
• Luminescent Blush: Quite literal, in Ty's case.

• Magical Defibrillator: Zoe uses her electrical ability to revive a drowned Gemma in the climax of book 1.
• Magic by Any Other Name: Dark Gifts — mutant abilities, based on actual sea creatures' capacities mostly, but some go straight into artistic license (how would a human evolve a natural sonar?) and others (like Zoe's) are plainly absurd.
• The Medic: Pretty to the Seablite gang. Very much not your stereotypical medic...more of a Closest Thing We Got.^note His powers actually make him more suited to be the counselor of the group.
• Meaningful Name: The kid from the "hoax" articles about Dark Gifts name, Akai means "sea born" Become more meaningful after we learn that he is actually Ty, the first person to be born under the sea.
• Meaningful Rename: The Seablite gang, though we don't know all of the meanings yet...
  • Shade: Can change the color of his skin—which, as a bonus, allows him to cultivate a reputation of being able to vanish like a ghost.
  • Eel: Electrical powers.
  • Pretty: Hypnotic powers...plus being the resident Pretty Boy.
• Meta Origin: Dark Gifts are the result of the intense pressure of undersea living.
• Misplaced Wildlife: Justified, as the ocean level rising and the resulting changes to ocean currents as lead to creatures from Pacific to be found in the Atlantic. It is mentioned that even animals that used to live as far away as the coast of Australia can now be found in the Benthic Territory, thus explaining why Red Devil (Humboldt) Squid and possibly Saltwater Crocodiles appear.
• Mobile City: Townships which the Surf live which are basically small towns build in to ship that float on the they are also submergible, but they usually just float on the surface of the ocean. Also, like the pioneers’ houses, they are shaped like Sea creatures, though the oldest ones are described as "mountains of metals and fiberglass".

• Mutants: There is a hoax article talking about children who are raised under the ocean developing "mutant" superpowers due to water pressure affecting their brain development It turns out to not be a hoax.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: "Ratter" is sure to be a pleasant fellow, right?
• Narrative Profanity Filter: Ty doesn't let us know exactly what was said.

• Not Now, Kiddo: Ty and Gemma go straight to the authorities with news of Shade...and are told to go away.
• No Social Skills: The Seablite Gang, according to Shade.
• No Water Proofing In The Future: Very much averted. Everything is designed with the possibility of water (not to mention the pressure) getting to it.
• Ocean Punk: The waters have taken all coastal cities, many New Old West tropes are applied to the settlers of the sea, the governments are constantly trying to short-change and backstab everybody, technology has made it so anybody can afford their own Underwater Base (although it's not cheap, hence the rebirth of the Determined Homesteader), and in between all of this people are being born with superpowers that allow them to thrive in the depths of the sea with ease... and said government would kill to get.
• Official Couple: Ty and Gemma, starting at the end of the first book.
• Outlaw: The Seablite gang.
• Overpopulation Crisis: Though it is mostly due sea levels rising leaving less land to go around than a population boom, most the Topsiders live in one room apartments (some have two) crammed into buildings and Space is considered a status symbol. People even put themselves on a waiting list so they can a more spacious and higher up apartments, and Gemma’s Brother was called a thief, for stealing space when he was catch breaking into a Quality Time Room one night so he could spend some time with his sister. People are also trying to live on/in the ocean, wiether that be reusing old oil rigs turning them into towns off the cost, living on the surface like the Floaters or the OceanTownships, or actually reclaiming the land that is now the ocean floor. Heck the term Surf. which refer to the people who live on the Township and play the role of Native Americans in this sea western is literally short for surfeit(surplus) population. ^note  To put things into persecutive; Gemma, after learning there are only 22 kids living in the entire Benthic Territory remarks that she would consider it private if there are that many girls in the shower room with her.

• Parents in Distress: In Rio Tide, Ty’s and Zoe’s parents get kidnapped by the Surf of Drift while they go to sell some of their crop for them and saving them is Ty’s and Gemma’s main goal through the Book.
• Pastimes Prove Personality: Angelic little Zoe...collects a menagerie of poisonous, sharp-toothed, or otherwise incredibly dangerous sea creatures.
• People's Republic of Tyranny: You would think that a government called the Commonwealth of States would be an example of The Federation. While it does look like they may be an actual federation (you know like the United Sates, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Austria, Germany, Switzerland or Russia), but they are far from fitting the trope’s definition.
• Physical Scars, Psychological Scars: The Seablite gang. Their time as medical experiments in Seablite left them with plenty of both.
• Playing with Syringes: Seablite prison.
• Plucky Girl: Gemma goes on a dangerous quest in a hostile environment to rescue her brother, tangling with scavengers and dangerous sea creatures but rarely showing fear.
• Portmanteau: Liquigen (liquid oxygen).
• Power Tattoo: Shade, when he feels like it.

• Propaganda Machine: The Commonwealth as an entire department declare to pushing it agenda and discrediting anyone they see as a threaten including the scientist who said the sea levels as stop raising or or Doc when he published the “hoax” article about Dark Gifts
• Puberty Superpower: Play-with Dark Gifts seems to be able to develop to preteen and teenagers, but it seems one can develop one after only spending 3 months living subsea.

• Red Baron: Shade, maybe Hatchet. The rest of Seablite's chosen names are somewhat less intimidating.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Both Rangers Grimes and Dr. Kunze were both assigned to the Benthic Territory because they both have black mark on their records, but the pioneers do not care to ask them about it since many of them came down there to start anew. We never learn about Grime’s, but we do Doc/s It turn out was the one who wrote the “hoax” article about Dark Gifts and was discreated by the ‘Wealth
• The Reveal: Toward the end of the first book we get several.
  • Frist, it’s turnout Dark Gifts are real. Ty, who is in fact Akai, after having a terrible experience being a tested on and risk both being taken and making people to scare to move subsea out of ear their kid would turn into Mutants decides to pretend been Brought Down to Normal and has been making the other kids hidden theirs as well.
  • Not must later do we learn that the Prisoners that escape Seablite Prison and become the Seablite Gang were teenager and Richard Straid, Gemma’s brother, was one of them.
  • Closer to the Climax we learn that Dr. Theo Kunze used to go be Dr. William Metzger, the Doctor who wrote the supposedly hoax article on Dark Gifts based on the studies done on Ty/Akai and his work at Seablite, which was created to test his theory about how they formed and the ‘Wealth discredit him so people would not be scared off from moving subsea.
  • And Finally that Shade, the Leader of the Seablite Gang is Richard Stiard.
• Ruins of the Modern Age: Ty spent a lot of time around Coldsleep Canyon looking for the remains of the cities of the old North American East Coast, which fell into the sea during the massive landslide that created said Canyon.
• The Savage Indian: The Surfs play this role in the "Western" setting—at least at first.
• Save the Villain: Ty saves the Shade from being hanged by angry settlers-despite the fact that he still has broken ribs from their last encounter, AND the fact that only way he can get them to listen was by telling them that like Shade, he as a Dark Gift.
  • He does it again in Rip Tide, this time it is a little different. At the beginning, the Drift surfs are the villains, but by the time he saves them at the end, Ty's realized that they were never actually the bad guys.
• Scavenged Punk: Hardluck Ruins and the Surf's garden. Both are partly submerged cities being reuse by the Surfs. One is as a Black Market whitch part of it is made out of parts of various boats stack together and another part in cin a few of the remaining buildings. The other as the top of its buildings and recycle bottles formerly polluting the oceans being uses to grow crops.
• Sea Monster: Of the real-life varieties: Red Devil Squid, giant sharks, oarfishs...
• Secret Project Refugee Family: The Seablite Gang after they escape their namesake prison.
• Shock and Awe: Zoe's ability.
• "Shut Up" Kiss: Ty and Gemma, once in each book.
• Sonic Stunner: Ty, eventually hones his Dark Gift to be able to do this.

• Space Clothes: Played With. The pioneers wear specializes Form-Fitting Wardrobe dive suits which has builded-in instruments to monitor their health called Driveskin whey they go outside, but typically wear modern day causal clothing when they are just hanging around. Topsiders on the other hand tend to wear a wide (and exotic) variety of clothing that both suit for higher temperatures place and produce protect from UV rays which include things like sundresses, caftans, sari, muumuus, cossacks, robes, etc. There also Clothing made from sea animal hides, like the cloths wore by the Surfs and Shade’s sharkskin vest; and Sunscreen that come in the form of colorful thick zinc paste.
• Stay in the Kitchen: The New Puritans (who believes that Global Warming was God punishment for your sinful ways) believe that woman should “wear long dress” and “practice obedience”.
• Submarine Pirates: The Seablite gang.
• Sunken City: Any city that was coastal in our time.
• Super-Senses: Ty's biosonar. Gemma Straid's hearing.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: Gemma dresses up as a boy at one point.
• Tag Line: For first book we have "Beware the deep!"
• Tattooed Crook: Shade, through give the of his dark gift and the fact that they move they are probably not real, not that it matter.
• They Would Cut You Up: Why Ty makes the younger kids keep their Dark Gifts secret. He knows from personal experience he absolutely would.

• Threatening Shark: At least, when they think you'd make a good meal.
• Title Drop: Dark Life is a Fantastic Slurs that topsider used to refer to the people who live subsea.
  • For the sequel, Rip Tide is the Name of the offshore city that is the only one place near the shore that the Surf are allowed to go to and where get their rations, and which plays a huge role in the plot.
• True Companions: The Seablite Gang are a rough gang of Surfs, but they are very loyal to each other and they eventually ally with Ty and Gemma, showing the same bond with them.
• Underwater Base: The Pioneers live in houses that are shaped like aquatic invertebrates, mainly Jellyfish, because these shapes have give.
• Underwater City: The Pioneers set these up as an alternative to living in crowded stack cities under the government's rule or living a rough life scavenging the ruins of sunken land cities. It works pretty well overall, thought they do have to tangle with hostile serfs and sea creatures. Also, the government is not happy about them, and some children develop mutations.
• Underwater Ruins: The remains of the coastal cities of our time. Now only the Surfs scavenge them.
• Unusual Pets for Unusual People: Zoe holds a variety of outrageously dangerous sea life (such as snakes) as pets. Her power of animal control keeps them from being harmful to her.
• Vigilante Execution: What the settlers try to do to Shade, before Ty stop them.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Gemma: Heights and the ocean, for a while. Ty: Doctors and anything medical.

---