[8/1/11]I...didn't want drama.

[JerrBear]

Lisa just admitted a motive, to make her friends owe Stan and like him as a result. She lied to her friends that the camera was from her dad, whom P&A&Co. were willing to owe a favor to, when in fact it was from Stan, whom they didn't want to associate with. She put them in a bind by tricking them in this way, because Stan asking for credit is a fully reasonable request which was very foreseeable even if she has the lame excuse that she thought--imagined--otherwise. It's pretty rich of her to accuse her friends of being wrong for not liking poor, misunderstood Stan under those circumstances. Especially when she turned out to be so wrong about Stan being the kind of guy to do something nice for nothing.

I'm not saying Lisa's a horrible person or malicious or anything; if she's horrible then I've been downright awful at times. Pavement on the road to hell, etc. The mistake endears her to me as a character and gives depth to someone who until now was largely a commentator who tended to stay above the fray. She may be ready to step in with friendly tricks and trippy life lessons at a moment's notice, but she turns out to have her own flaws and blind spots when her desires and feelings are on the line. I find it refreshing, and look forward to where this is going.

I was more talking about them seeing Stan as having bigger ulterior motives (other than wanting credit), though I agree Lisa had an ulterior motive herself.

How about comparing to some baseline of integrity instead of to other characters? I don't get the whole "better than someone" game anyway. Having personal principles and trying to meet them is more meaningful to me. So let's look at Stan's principles or lack thereof.

I won't dispute that Stan has good impulses, and he tends to do the right thing when it doesn't interfere with his desires. Driving Helen home didn't cost him anything in terms of power, popularity, or poontang. (Sorry, love my alliterations too much.) Neither did checking up on Michelle. As for watching out for Jack and Katy-Ann, he asked Penny to help him watch out for them so he can be class president without any worries. Again, doesn't cost him anyhing, in fact it's mighty convenient for him. None of these were real tests, just showed that Stan isn't all bad--when it's convenient for him.

But when he actually has to choose between his desires and things like integrity or friendship, he's made the same choice every single time. He did so during the first and second elections, and did the same with Karen at first until her tactics became too much for him. And it wasn't like the defection was a sacrifice anyway--being Karen's advisor was more of a sideline for him and not his main thing. All he had to give up was his enmity for Penny, which again showed his good impulses but wasn't one of the things he really wanted.

Real or fictional, it's people's choices that define who they are. It's easy to stand for integrity or friendship when it's, well, easy, when you don't have to choose between doing right and getting what you want. If you go out of your way to destroy people, then you're a bad person; if you choose to stand for principles or the people around you when it's convenient but not otherwise, well, you're not terrible but you're just not committed to principles or people. By sacrifice I'm not saying Stan should have given his life for Brandi or anything--I'm pointing out that he has consistently shown his priorities. That's why Brandi very wisely got out, because relationships are miserable when priorities don't match. It's why the Pennies and the Aggies bailed on him, because they don't agree with his values, or some might say lack thereof.

I've seen arguments that all this is a tempest in a teapot, and things like high school relationships or class presidencies don't say anything about who Stan is. I'd like to turn that proposition around: if Stan prizes small prizes like being class president so highly over his integrity, why in the world would he value the bigger prized less when he goes out into the "real world?" Stan won't get magically better as an adult, not unless he goes in a different direction. Not unless he makes a different choice.

I can agree that he tends to make the wrong choices. I even think his big issue is that he values his image too much. Stan chooses actions based on his image. His problem, though, is that he values almost everyone's image of him.

[CBrachyrhynchos]

They don't have to like him, they don't have to associate with him, they don't even have to look in his direction when he walks past. The thing is that they're demonizing him. He might not be the best guy, he might do a lot of things that feel sleazy, but he's not completely bad. We always want to think the worst of people who have hurt us, because it helps us to stay angry at them, but even bad people tend to have some good qualities.

I think I'm most bugged by the fact that everyone here keeps saying, "Penny's not telling her friends who they can and can't hang out with" while Penny and Sara are clearly about to use Lisa as a scratching post when Lisa was just trying to help simply because she got the help from someone they don't like.

I mean, it seems like the only other camera option they had was Sara's possible connections, and that clearly didn't happen. So maybe they should ease up a little.

This.

This this this.

This with sprinkles on top.

THIS.

THIS!

Note to budding film director Aggie. It's not about who you like, it's about who you need to cut deals with to get the freakin' film produced!

[Adrishiana]

This thought just occurred to me, and it may be entirely baseless but whatever.

I kind of wonder if Sara isn't so angry at Stan in some part because he was still involved with Karen's group at the time the rape video came out. As far as we've seen, of course, the video seemed to have been entirely the brainchild of Meg, Karen, Samantha, and Cyndi, with some assistance from Tharqa (who I imagine was only too happy to help) and none at all from Stan (who may well have been as surprised as anyone else when the story broke).

Stan did break ties with the Injustice Gang not too long after (the "no fat chicks" comment Cyndi made seems to have been the straw that finally broke the camel's commitment to a cause he seems to have been questioning since finding the "Lighter than Air" book in Michelle's purse), but I could see Sara associating him, consciously or not, with a video that *could have gotten her into major trouble on any number of levels and may continue to circulate on the internet and cause trouble for her for years (especially if it has her full name attached to it). This wouldn't be especially fair, no, if she's aware that Stan had nothing to do with it, but I could see it happening all the same.

*I remain amazed that, as far as we've seen, not one member of the school faculty or administration noticed the posters apparently plastered all over the school and/or saw the video, and if they did notice it, they apparently chose not to address that one of their students was leveling fairly serious charges against another student.

[JackFairy]

They don't have to like him, they don't have to associate with him, they don't even have to look in his direction when he walks past. The thing is that they're demonizing him. He might not be the best guy, he might do a lot of things that feel sleazy, but he's not completely bad. We always want to think the worst of people who have hurt us, because it helps us to stay angry at them, but even bad people tend to have some good qualities.

I think I'm most bugged by the fact that everyone here keeps saying, "Penny's not telling her friends who they can and can't hang out with" while Penny and Sara are clearly about to use Lisa as a scratching post when Lisa was just trying to help simply because she got the help from someone they don't like.

I mean, it seems like the only other camera option they had was Sara's possible connections, and that clearly didn't happen. So maybe they should ease up a little.

This.

This this this.

This with sprinkles on top.

THIS.

How can it possibly be "this"? We're not talking about Lisa trying to convince them to accept Stan's help because they have no other options and he's willing. That would have been fine prior to the shooting, but it's not fine after the fact.

We don't know what other options they may have had or they may have been willing to try--because Lisa never gave them the opportunity to explore those options. She went and made the choice for them. They thought they had an easy way to get the camera on terms they found acceptable, so they didn't need to look into other avenues. If they had known that it was really Stan behind this "favor," they could have:
a) saved up a bit of money and looked for a cheap camera on Craigslist (T recently confirmed that Aggie has a fair amount of disposable income, and a camera for a project is a respectable investment)
b) asked around more of their parents
c) asked for a loan/use of their school AV department's equipment (high schools will let you use their video equipment for your own projects if you get permission and sign up ahead of time, possibly even in the summer)
d) some other option.

They have no reason to be grateful because they never had the chance to make a fair decision with all the relevant info on the table.

[Corneel]

I can think you can all argue about whether Stan is scum or not, whether Penny & Sara (and to a lesser degree Aggie) are justified in ostracizing Stan, whether Lisa made a mistake in covertly involving Stan in their project etc., until you see blue in the face (and I think there are good arguments on both sides). What I don't think you can argue about is that the reactions are all very much in character, whether you agree with them or not.
Penny has been shown to highly value loyalty to friends (her reaction to finding out Katy-Ann told that she eloped with Rich, her reaction to the Brandi-Stan break up, her own loyalty to Michelle, her angry reaction to discovering Aggie "ratted" on Brandi in the "Missing Person" arc,...). It did take her quite a while to forgive Katy-Ann and Katy-Ann was a friend, while she never really liked Stan, so that she hasn't forgiven him yet is par for course. And Sara has been shown to be loyal to Penny in these things.
As far as Aggie goes, I think that it has been shown she values honesty even when it comes at a cost (the "ratting" on Brandi) and would be especially miffed that Lisa, her BFF, has been hiding this from her. She also doesn't like Stan very much, but more on general principles than on a personal level (see Penny's and Aggie's reaction at the end of the "Mister Smiles" chapter).
Lisa on the other hand has never been that close to Brandi and has been shown to be sympathetic to Stan after the Brandi incident ("Summer of Youth: May"), but even before that she was the most enthusiastic to go campaigning for Stan. And, as Sara knows, Lisa is with Katy-Ann one of the more accepting and least judgmental people in their circle.

What I think is what Lisa should have done is taking Aggie apart and explaining (before actually borrowing Stan's camera) what was going on and hope that Aggie could talk some reason into Penny and Sara (especially since it's Aggie's project).

[MudFlap33]

Sorry, but the whole "but he did nothing to Brandi" is simply not true.

Stan treated Brandi like she was nothing to him. He knew such a thing would hurt Brandi. Yeah, he was setup... but he was setup because Cyndi knows him, and knew he'd totally sacrifice that pawn called Brandi. She knew that he would never stand up for Brandi. Brandi was not worth it to him.

If there was ever a single sign in the strip that Brandi wanted their relationship to be public, I'd agree with you, but to me it seemed like Stan not mentioning his relationship with Brandi was as much to cover for Brandi as to cover for himself. There's been a lot of people in this thread basically saying "Brandi dumped Stan, what did Stan ever do to her?", and for good cause. This feels like something where the intent didn't come through properly in the writing. I've kind of picked up on the intent since from some things T has said, and from what you've said and so on but when I read those strips I nearly felt bad for Stan because, like, if Brandi wanted their relationship to be public and wanted Stan to admit it in front of the whole school, why not ask him and give him the chance to do so? I felt like he got slammed for doing something he thought for good reason Brandi would want him to do. And I like I said, I really disliked Stan and felt they let him off way too easy for Michelle (and had no idea why Brandi hooking up with Stan in this situation wasn't being treated as a major betrayal of Michelle), so it's not like I was predisposed to feel bad for Stan.

But you contrast how they treat him after Michelle and the Popsicle War, and how they treat him after Brandi, it's way inconsistent. It just bugs me. It's a writing problem, not a character problem.

I got the impression they were keeping their relationship a secret because they weren't sure how to break it to Michelle, who would obviously be hurt. However, once the cat was out of the bag, they didn't have much incentive to keep it secret--the only reason left was so that Stan could continue to play the ladies' man to win votes for the election. There isn't much evidence that Brandi wanted him to keep things a secret after Michelle knew--this was his decision, and one that ended up speaking volumes to Brandi about his level of commitment to her.

As for your second point, I believe the fact that he was on his way to help Michelle at the same time Penny was (and, perhaps, because he had useful insider information--it was a war, after all) was enough incentive to make most people forget his transgressions against Michelle, at least temporarily. The enemy of my enemy and all that. However, as events unfolded, it soon became clear that he didn't have much in common with the rest of the Peacies, and the tentative friendships were pretty strained. How he treated Brandi became the straw that broke the camel's back here.

[Adrishiana]

You know, at this point I don't think it even matters if Stan is scum or not (I don't particularly think he is, but I don't think the girls are unjustified in not wanting to be around him, either) or whether any individual girl is justified in liking or disliking him. What matters is that Aggie is well within her rights to decide who she does and does not want to be indebted to, without even having to justify why she doesn't want to be indebted to a particular person. Lisa decided (as she has done in the past) that Lisa Knows Best and took that decision away from her.

tl;dr: Let's just say, hypothetically, that Stan is a gentleman and a scholar and an all-around great guy and Aggie trusts him with her life. She still gets to decide if she actually wants to owe him, and making that decision for her isn't really fair or right.

When it turned out that Lisa Does Not In Fact Know Best and Stan did something she didn't expect but should have totally seen coming (and, seriously, it didn't occur to her to cover what Stan would expect in advance? Despite being the person who comes to (correct) conclusions on an unrealistically frequent basis on a mere speck of information?), she opted not to own up to Aggie and allow Aggie to decide if giving Stan credit was acceptable to her, instead letting Aggie finish the project before she spoke up. It's not necessarily impossible for Aggie to reshoot with a different camera if that's what she wants to do, but redoing an entire, finished project is a whole different animal than scrapping the progress on an incomplete one and starting over (and I'm sure Lisa will be right there to make her feel petty and ungrateful if reshooting is what she does do, following up her comments with "LOL J/K but not really" for bonus points).

I guess I could see all this if Lisa genuinely thought that Aggie just wouldn't mind, maybe after Lisa had taken a few blows to the head (those low doorframes will get you!) or ate bad fish or something, or panicked when it turned out that Stan was... well, Stan. Aggie still wouldn't be out of line to be a bit miffed, but, well.

Instead, Lisa decided on this course of manipulation and lying IN ADVANCE, apparently with time to think it over, and held to that course even when Stan revealed there was a string attached.

Yeah, Aggie. How dare you be mad.

Lisa on the other hand has never been that close to Brandi and has been shown to be sympathetic to Stan after the Brandi incident ("Summer of Youth: May"), but even before that she was the most enthusiastic to go campaigning for Stan. And, as Sara knows, Lisa is with Katy-Ann one of the more accepting and least judgmental people in their circle.

Lisa has come a long way from her previous "you believe in Jesus and I don't and therefore you are stupid" and "you dress in mainstream clothing while I am a unique and special Hot Topic butterfly and therefore you are stupid" mindsets, but given that she is currently screaming in Aggie's face because Aggie has the utter gall to not fall in line the way Lisa wanted her to, I think she's still got a long way to go towards "open and accepting" and Sara is probably reevaluating her opinion as we speak. Not in the way Lisa just went ahead and imagined she would, either.

[Shadrach]

I think she's still got a long way to go towards "open and accepting" and Sara is probably reevaluating her opinion as we speak. Not in the way Lisa just went ahead and imagined she would, either.

I accept and respect the fact that you don't like Lisa, but I think you may be projecting your feelings about her onto Sara here.

[Adrishiana]

I think she's still got a long way to go towards "open and accepting" and Sara is probably reevaluating her opinion as we speak. Not in the way Lisa just went ahead and imagined she would, either.

I accept and respect the fact that you don't like Lisa, but I think you may be projecting your feelings about her onto Sara here.

Appreciated! However, I don't dislike Lisa, per se - I certainly find her a bit irritating, but I think once she drops the "LOOK LOOK LOOK I AM UNIQUE AND SPECIAL ARE YOU LOOKING WHY AREN'T YOU LOOKING" routine and maybe learns that other people's feelings/opinions/decisions are just as worthy of respect as her own, she'll be okay. Luckily(?), neither of those traits are extremely unheard of among people Lisa's age and there's a good chance she'll outgrow both of them.

Or so we can hope!

It's hard to say how I would feel about Lisa's actions if I were a particular fan of hers, but if I were I like to think I would still object to her lying to a longtime friend for the express purpose of manipulating her feelings towards someone said longtime friend has reason to not wish to be affiliated with. Because... lying and manipulation aren't cool. Lying to and manipulating your friends isn't cool. I don't care how good your FWB is, that's just not something that you do.

Projection-wise, Sara is one who thinks about things a lot. It's why Karen picked Meg as her opposite number in the Popsicle War days, and while Karen definitely did some misjudging there, I think she wasn't incorrect about Sara being a fairly analytical person. (If anything, Sara is occasionally in danger of overthinking things.)

With that in mind, I could see her rethinking her previous assessment of Lisa as "open and accepting" based on the fact that Lisa apparently wasn't "open and accepting" enough of the mismatch in opinions regarding Stan not to lie to and manipulate (that phrase is starting to lose all meaning, like when you say "fuschia" too many times) her friends to bring said opinions regarding Stan into something more congruent with her own. This might not be a dealbreaker and I kind of hope it isn't, but it's still possible that Sara might more closely examine a lot of the things Lisa says for a while in order to see what her real angle is.

[TCampbell]

The reason "manipulation" can lose all meaning if one isn't careful is that everyone with social skills "manipulates" to some degree. You've ultimately got to distinguish between benign manipulation, like organizing a surprise party, and malignant manipulation, like putting a pro-Disney edit of Aggie's film online without her consent, just for the lulz. Still, when most people use the phrase "lie and manipulate," they're referring to really amoral playas like Cyndi, Karen or your stereotypical corporate scumbag. The connotations don't seem to fit Lisa, who is, at worst, severely misguided in her hopes that everyone can just get along.

[Adrishiana]

The reason "manipulation" can lose all meaning if one isn't careful is that everyone with social skills "manipulates" to some degree. You've ultimately got to distinguish between benign manipulation, like organizing a surprise party, and malignant manipulation, like putting a pro-Disney edit of Aggie's film online without her consent, just for the lulz. Still, when most people use the phrase "lie and manipulate," they're referring to really amoral playas like Cyndi, Karen or your stereotypical corporate scumbag. The connotations don't seem to fit Lisa, who is, at worst, severely misguided in her hopes that everyone can just get along.

I don't disagree that Lisa at the very least had good intentions, but the fact remains that she presented a resource under false pretenses to people she knew would be at best uncomfortable with accepting it (even on a temporary basis) had they known the real provider, with the express intent of forcing a change of opinion towards said provider. For, as far as we the readers know, her own comfort - as yet, we have no idea if Stan is interested in any kind of reconciliation with people he doesn't seem to have been too terribly close to in the first place, or if Lisa even told him the truth about who the camera was being lent to. If it were all out war between Aggie and Stan I would feel for Lisa more than I do, but as far as we've seen when they are together they seem to maintain decent if rather distant relations, with a minimum of bloodshed or verbal sparring.

Not that what Penny did was super-cool either, but while her own comfort was obviously figured in there, she did seem to have Aggie's interests at heart as well (given that Aggie had JUST said that she misses the tingles, whereas as far as I remember NONE of the other girls have said "God, I miss Stan").

All that said, I am more inclined to sympathize with Penny in Scenario A than I am with Lisa in Scenario B, because the thing that's causing Penny discomfort appears to be something along the lines of, "I am not fully prepared to admit my feelings towards a girl who was my MORTAL ENEMY a year or so ago, so I am going to give her what she wants and also take her off the table so I don't have to face this conflict for a while," with the possible addition of "when I have spent most of my life thinking I am 100% irrefutably straight and also just watched Sara be exposed to a whole load o' crap by people who decided to use her sexuality against her." Lisa, unfortunately, is more coming off here as, "but they don't like my fuckbuddy and they should like my fuckbuddy and I want them to like my fuckbuddy! *stomps foot*" Per usual, other readers' mileage may vary.

[Shadrach]

Lisa, unfortunately, is more coming off here as, "but they don't like my fuckbuddy and they should like my fuckbuddy and I want them to like my fuckbuddy! *stomps foot*" Per usual, other readers' mileage may vary.

Uh, no. T has just very clearly stated her motivation: she wants everyone to get along. Which is, as he said, somewhat misguided, true. But you're making her out to be an immature little girl throwing a tantrum. (And before you say "She's screaming in Aggie's face!" again, she is not. This is screaming in someone's face. Or this. Lisa is raising her voice, but still acting within the bounds of reason. And I don't see any foot-stomping.)

I think your arguments, for and against characters, would improve greatly if you avoided the gratuitous hyperbole and misattribution of motives that makes it difficult for people like me to see any difference between how you regard Daphne (whom you've made clear you hate) and how you regard Lisa (whom you claim not even to dislike, just to find "a bit irritating." Coulda fooled me).

[Alice Macher]

All I have to say is that I agree 100% with T and Shadrach here.

[Adrishiana]

Lisa, unfortunately, is more coming off here as, "but they don't like my fuckbuddy and they should like my fuckbuddy and I want them to like my fuckbuddy! *stomps foot*" Per usual, other readers' mileage may vary.

Uh, no. T has just very clearly stated her motivation: she wants everyone to get along. Which is, as he said, somewhat misguided, true. But you're making her out to be an immature little girl throwing a tantrum. (And before you say "She's screaming in Aggie's face!" again, she is not. This is screaming in someone's face. Or this. Lisa is raising her voice, but still acting within the bounds of reason. And I don't see any foot-stomping.)

I think your arguments, for and against characters, would improve greatly if you avoided the gratuitous hyperbole and misattribution of motives that makes it difficult for people like me to see any difference between how you regard Daphne (whom you've made clear you hate) and how you regard Lisa (whom you claim not even to dislike, just to find "a bit irritating." Coulda fooled me).

Well, to make it clearer, I think Daphne is actually a terrible person, where Lisa is merely immature. Again, both of those things may change. Like, Daphne might level up (down?) by eating a baby or something. (This is a joke.)

Lisa wants everyone to get along. That's fine, if a bit misguided, and as motivations go it's not a terrible one. The thing is that 1) her execution not only sucked but was highly disrespectful to Aggie and Co. and 2) the only person we know had a problem with the status quo is Lisa herself. Stan still has Jack and KA, Penny and Aggie and so on seem to be able to work with him towards a common cause with civility (although Penny inviting everyone who worked on to Second Looks while Stan was well aware he wasn't welcome was juuuuust a little rude) and haven't exactly set out to destroy his life - he just isn't much in contact with people he only had a shaky sort of friendship with to begin with, and if Aggie (who is, in fairness, a bit biased) is correct, Stan does have other friends.

I hope the issue is not enough to end Lisa and Aggie's friendship. (I don't know if Lisa is especially close to Penny or Sara, so I can't really comment there.) I just also hope Aggie sits Lisa down and says something to the effect of, "Lisa, I love you, but never do this again."

[Pink Freud]

Lisa, unfortunately, is more coming off here as, "but they don't like my fuckbuddy and they should like my fuckbuddy and I want them to like my fuckbuddy! *stomps foot*" Per usual, other readers' mileage may vary.

Uh, no. T has just very clearly stated her motivation: she wants everyone to get along. Which is, as he said, somewhat misguided, true. But you're making her out to be an immature little girl throwing a tantrum. (And before you say "She's screaming in Aggie's face!" again, she is not. This is screaming in someone's face. Or this. Lisa is raising her voice, but still acting within the bounds of reason. And I don't see any foot-stomping.)

I think your arguments, for and against characters, would improve greatly if you avoided the gratuitous hyperbole and misattribution of motives that makes it difficult for people like me to see any difference between how you regard Daphne (whom you've made clear you hate) and how you regard Lisa (whom you claim not even to dislike, just to find "a bit irritating." Coulda fooled me).

Hmm, widened mouth, leaning forward, louder voice with spikey-things on the balloon, making Aggie lean back... looks like screaming to me. Don't know where you're getting your definition.

Intentions mean exactly dick. Boil it down to what was done. Actions. Lisa lied and misrepresented for her own ends, which weren't of anyone's interest but her, and possibly Stan, though it's just as likely he did it to keep his piece of ass happy rather than for any more altruistic reasons. Self-serving and arrogant, is what it looks like to me. I'd be pissed as hell at someone who pulled that kinda crap. Hell, I have been pissed as hell at people who pulled that kind of crap.