Here's Your Daily Picture Of Jon Matteson

Here's your daily picture of Jon Matteson

I've never loved a lawyer so much in my life

AAAAAAAA

this HURTS

He came back

So this is something I've really appreciated about Paulkins for a while that I want to see if I can put into words (nightmare time spoilers ahead).

So in Forever and Always, Emma expresses multiple times that she never wanted to get married. Despite this, Android Emma did get married to Paul 23, and not only does original Emma express interest in Paul, but it's heavily implied that Android Emma and her will make the same choices in the same scenarios (aside from murder lol), and that marrying Paul is something original Emma would potentially want to do in other timelines. I'm usually not a fan of the whole "woman who doesn't want to settle down just hasn't met the right guy yet" trope, because I feel like it implies women can't find happiness in lifestyles outside of conventional gender roles, and it's just generally a heteronormative/allonormative trope. Despite this, I don't think that notion really applies to Emma and Paul in the same way. The thing about Emma as a character is that when we are introduced to her in tgwdlm, she has just gone through a major loss that made her reflect on what she really wants out of life and starts to head in a new direction BEFORE she even met Paul. Emma's entire character arc is about realizing that the things she thought she wanted out of life are not the things she wants anymore. And that may include her romantic life, but it is not the only thing she wants. She wants to go back to school and start her own business, she wants to reconnect with her remaining family. Emma now wants to put down roots, so it makes perfect sense that putting down roots might include getting married, especially now that she's met someone she really likes. Before Jane's death, Emma went through life having all these various adventures and life experiences to learn from with no concrete ambitions, and came out on the other side of it realizing that the things she wants out of life have changed. And change is normal. Change is valid. It's totally normal for what someone wants when they are fresh out of high school to be different than what they want when they're 30, whether their new goal is more or less conventional than their previous goal. It's okay to know what you want from a young age, but it's also okay not to know.

But what I really love about this is how Emma's experiences are both contrasted and mirrored by Paul. Paul is a guy who went through life doing exactly what is conventionally expected. He works a 9-5 at a job with no upward mobility, going day by day with the same routine, the exact opposite of how Emma spent those years. Like Emma, he never had any concrete ambitions, but was content to live a pretty mundane life. Except, he's actually not content to live a mundane life. In tgwdlm, Paul is forced to confront the fact that for all his talk about never wanting to leave Hatchetfield and his dismissal of any concrete wants outside of the usual stuff everyone wants, he's never truly been happy. Paul spends the entire musical avoiding the kind of self reflection that pursuing things outside of his humdrum status quo (like pursuing a relationship with Emma) would make him happier. In many ways, that kind of makes Paul and Emma perfect for each other; Paul represents the stability Emma was seeking when she returned to Hatchetfield, and Emma represents Paul's desire to open himself up to new experiences. Both of their stories are about how sometimes the things you want out of life change, and that those changes are normal and healthy, but you have to discover those changes on your own.

Me when women

People seemed to enjoy my other hatchetfield art, so enjoy some murder spouses >:3

Is this stupid? Yes. Do I need people to see it? Also yes.