章 83: Spotlight#92: Live with Yourself
Have you ever managed to see a perfect follow-up on what came before? If not, then I hope I can keep meeting your expectations because, in this spotlight sequel, the past, future, and present are going to combine to give you the light on Live with Yourself by Shen and Dave Mercer!
Summary
Have you ever wanted to have some time to yourself? If so, then be careful what you wish for, because after a freak accident involving New Year's Eve, corporate scams, and a giant computer related to a time machine 20 something Todd, unfortunately, finds himself living with ... himself. Or at least, himself from various points in time, all living in this present moment.
With no real way of fixing this crazy chorno cluster fuck, Todd seemingly has no choice but to try and live with himself and carry on with what he's done. With both himself and himself... and himself (you get the idea).
Characters:
Todd: Our sorta main character, Todd, is, for the most part a very energetic, aggressive, spanotenous, stubborn, lazy, and self-destructive nerd. Since he is the most current, Todd has to learn and make his own decisions, so others prosper. No matter how much pain it often causes him.
Tomo: Our sorta main character with a couple of years on him, Tomo is a lot more irritable, responsible and tired. He often has a brotherly relationship with Todd and tries to get him to a better him today instead of tomorrow.
Oldie: Our sorta main character with all the years on him, Oldie is probably the most mellow out of the Todd's. He has a helluva lot of experience, wisdom, and future knowledge in his noggin. While this leaves To Oldie passive on most decisions, Oldie can be a conniving and crazy son of a gun once he gets started.
Babs: Our sorta main character with fewer years on him, Babs is a time god. That's about it since you know. He's a fucking baby.
Overview
Since this is a side work, everything I said about Bluechair's art style pretty much holds up here. Live with yourself with a simple shape used as an outline for very exaggerated characters and body types. However, unlike its predecessor, I think that the streamlined colors and more established backgrounds basically help it make it a more controlled version of the predecessor. Another thing I do really like is the usage of the thumbnails to segment the multiple-part arcs, something that I don't think anyone else has done before.
As the title suggests, most of the main gimmick of the series involves the causes and effects that carry over from the four being in the same space. So basically, this is a fancy way of saying that any small change that happens to the younger Todd's carries over to the older Todd's pretty drastically. Combine that with the other additional chronal abilities of the others, and the series is naturally a mess of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.
However, over time the series, through various events and story arcs, actually shows a world beyond the paradoxes as we get introduced to aliens, gods, anime-themed superheroes, and pretty much everything in between. Like Bluechair, I was very much surprised at how deep cut some of the references to earlier chapters and just how far some of these characters have come.
All jokes aside, Todd manages to develop as a character and gains more friends; we see a more colorful cast beyond him. In fact, with the now mass of side character quests, I do think that we are leading up to a lot more serious plot points that are currently building up.
Overall, if there was a distinct message in all this, Live with yourself is a story of taking care of yourself. Throughout the story, especially the earlier parts, Todd finds out more about himself in a sense through his other-selves. This means that the kid who would try to scam other people for an extra buck now has become an emotionally strong adult who is still trying to find his place.
This basically means that no matter what life throws at you, try to be at least a little bit selfish. Because you're unfortunately the only one that's going to give yourself enough credit. And sometimes, the only way to do that is to move on and see what the present takes you by glancing at the past through hope for the future.
Epilogue
Live with Yourself was a fun reread, and I think just what I needed to get me back into the spirit of the spotlight. I'm still trying to find myself here in college, so I don't know what or when I'll upload something, but I'll try to stay consistent. But until then, let's see where the spotlight takes us next.
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