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

[CBrachyrhynchos]

One of the random thoughts that crossed my mind is that I hardly ever can get into the Manichean framework of these discussions about characters because I suspect they're missing the point.

Except for Penny, who's responsible for all of the Babylon 5 episodes getting pulled from Netflix streaming last month.

[TCampbell]

All the Babylon... I just got the next Widgetitis script, thanks.

[Adrishiana]

I might also add that I would think ENTIRELY differently of the whole situation if Lisa had gone to Aggie (with or without the other girls in attendance - if Aggie agrees she might have to be the one to work on Penny, I'd imagine) and said something (in Lisa-speak) like, "Look, I know Stan is not on your holiday card list, and I understand that, but he and I have become friendly and I'd really appreciate it if you gave him another shot." Lisa, whatever you or I may think about her more irritating mannerisms aside, has displayed a capability in the past to try to change minds about both situations and people in a direct manner.

There's no guarantee that that would go over well either, of course, but I think Aggie might at least think about it (Sara and Penny would likely be harder sells), and I also think it wouldn't go over worse than this did.

[Shadrach]

@Adrishiana: That's a reasonable alternative, agreed. The direct and up-front route is usually the best one.

@Pink Freud: Jagged speech balloons and such aside, tell me there isn't a difference between Lisa in the current strip, and Samantha and Aggie Beta Version in those other strips I linked. Lisa is angry, yes, but angry within reasonable bounds. She's maintaining that she doesn't think her friends' ostracism of Stan is fair, and that's it. She's not sputtering in half-coherent English (or "Angrish" as a certain media motifs wiki calls it), nor is she Godwinning anyone.

[Adrishiana]

@Adrishiana: That's a reasonable alternative, agreed. The direct and up-front route is usually the best one.

@Pink Freud: Jagged speech balloons and such aside, tell me there isn't a difference between Lisa in the current strip, and Samantha and Aggie Beta Version in those other strips I linked. Lisa is angry, yes, but angry within reasonable bounds. She's maintaining that she doesn't think her friends' ostracism of Stan is fair, and that's it. She's not sputtering in half-coherent English (or "Angrish" as a certain media motifs wiki calls it), nor is she Godwinning anyone.

I think the thing that probably prevented her from going the direct route is that there was a greater chance that the answer might be, "No, I'm not comfortable with that, sorry." Forgiveness, permission, blah blah blah.

While she isn't being quite as unreasonable as Aggie (who, I presume, is drawn cartoonishly and out of proportion in order to drive home just how cartoonishly and out of proportion Aggie is behaving there) is in the first example or as aggressive as Samantha is in the second, she IS very close to Aggie, leaning forward with a very angry expression (check the eyebrows), and a clearly raised (and possibly strident, going by the spikes) tone of voice. Also, look at the position of her arms and the action line denoting a quick bend forward. She may be less loud, aggressive, and/or in-your-face than Aggie and Samantha were in the linked strips, but she is certainly being loud, aggressive, and in-your-face.

[snowmansam]

While she isn't being quite as unreasonable as Aggie (who, I presume, is drawn cartoonishly and out of proportion in order to drive home just how cartoonishly and out of proportion Aggie is behaving there) is in the first example or as aggressive as Samantha is in the second, she IS very close to Aggie, leaning forward with a very angry expression (check the eyebrows), and a clearly raised (and possibly strident, going by the spikes) tone of voice. Also, look at the position of her arms and the action line denoting a quick bend forward. She may be less loud, aggressive, and/or in-your-face than Aggie and Samantha were in the linked strips, but she is certainly being loud, aggressive, and in-your-face.

Just to add to what you are saying here regarding Lisa: she's also standing up very quickly (she was seated in the previous panel) which only adds to the "aggressiveness" of her statement to Aggie.

[MudFlap33]

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).

I like Lisa, and I think I've had cause to defend her in the past, but I find myself mostly agreeing with Adri and Pink Freud here. Look, Lisa's intentions are very nice (I wouldn't go so far as to say "intentions mean dick," but I do think in this situation they're not what matters most), it really would be nice if everyone could get along. I also appreciate the bind she's in; she was attempting to change Stan's image in the eyes of her friends, but Stan, being Stan, turned what most high schoolers would consider a favor into something he wanted credit for (I'll admit I'm not a Stan fan, generally, but this doesn't matter much here) and made her look worse.

But I can't help approaching it this way. I'm sure everyone out there has had cause to cut someone out of your life (for me, it was someone who I considered a much closer friend than Penny ever considered Stan). Personally, I would be pissed if I found out friends had tried to lie to and manipulate me into letting this person back in, or into forgiving this person when I was not ready. It's just not something you can generally manipulate people into doing; if they're ever going to repair the connection, it has to be on their own terms and in their own time. It's a pretty big dick move to attempt to reverse what is often a difficult and painful decision for something else (yeah, in this case, it probably wasn't that difficult or painful, but my point still stands--it is not Lisa's decision to make). Lisa is being more idealistic here than maybe even Aggie. It's great for everyone you care about to get along, but sometimes it's just not in the cards.

What she says next could possibly change my opinion, though I doubt it, because her approach to this problem falls just into the kind of manipulation that would make me furious if I were Penny&co. YMMV.

[sgtrock]

:lol:

You know what ocurred to me? It's not only that they hate Stan. It's that after hand-painting FIVE HUNDRED logos, Stan's going to be on the credits as "assistant producer".

You know what, I'd say no. I'd flatly say no.

OK, THIS I'm in wholehearted agreement with.

[sgtrock]

Hi there. Lurker-turned-poster. Interesting how many of those seem to be popping up.

Anyways. I'm just surprised nobody has yet brought up the reason Stan graduated from annoyance at Penny to flat-outhatred of her. The reason is very simple: he briefly blamed her for what happened to Rich. He matured a little because I think he started to realize that that was mostly his regret for not being able to protect someone he cared about.He and Penny then worked together for Shelly's sake more than anything, and she saw the side of him that isn't focused on success and people-pleasing, but on the people he truly cares for. The human side, if you will. This side shows up again in a few other places, and I think the latter shows at least a GLIMPSE of why he's so driven to succeed.

What happened with Brandi was something that broke the heart of a close girlfriend, and though he was set up by Cyndi, who knew his winning tactics and personality, and somehow his relationship status, it was a tipping point for Penny. She'd had no real reason to like Rich other than being one of the people who helped her get through to Michelle. He's not a horrible person, just a selfish one who, like all of the cast, still needs to mature. I don't hate Stan, and think he's redeemable. I even think he and Lisa are a cute couple. But he shouldn't have asked for a credit (unless Lis lied to HIM about who was making the video), and Lisa shouldn't have tried to trick her friends into forgiving someone when they weren't ready yet.

Honestly, I think Brandi's quote here sums it up nicely.

You know what ocurred to me? It's not only that they hate Stan. It's that after hand-painting FIVE HUNDRED logos, Stan's going to be on the credits as "assistant producer".

You know what, I'd say no. I'd flatly say no.

... Good point, there.

Beautifully put.

[sgtrock]

One of the random thoughts that crossed my mind is that I hardly ever can get into the Manichean framework of these discussions about characters because I suspect they're missing the point.

Except for Penny, who's responsible for all of the Babylon 5 episodes getting pulled from Netflix streaming last month.

Which is why I insist on buying DVDs of anything I want to watch more than once.

[Freemage]

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.

There's an element of this that I need to highlight, because it's your assumption of how things went down.

What we KNOW is that Lisa, after talking it over (and yes, lying--I'm not giving her a pass on that) with Aggie and Co., asked Stan for the camera. She probably told him who it was for (and even if she didn't, there'd be a short list of suspects in his mind), but we have no way of knowing anything for certain about that conversation--most particularly, whether or not Stan's immediate response was to ask for Assistant Producer credit.

A proposed timeline for you:

1: Lisa lies about her potential source. This was, yes, wrong. Better would've been to say it to Aggie privately, and let Aggie decide whether or not to mention it to Penny.
2: Lisa asks Stan for the cameras, gets an affirmative answer. She doesn't necessarily state explicitly, "I'm trying to get you back in their good graces so you can hang with us again." Maybe she assumes he'll figure it out, maybe she figures that him not knowing about it would actually improve the odds of her scheme working.
3: Aggie shoots film.
4: Lisa returns the cameras to Stan while Aggie's making her final edits. Stan, possibly noticing how long the loan lasted for, realizes this is a fairly decent-sized project, and thus potentially useful to him. He asks her to ask Aggie if there could be a credit for him.
5: This scene.

Now, I don't know for certain this is how it happened, but it seems to me at least as plausible a chain of events as your assumption that as soon as Lisa got the cameras, she also knew that Stan was going to be asking for credit, and deliberately hid that fact from Aggie the entire time in order to snare her in the web of deceit.

As for the reasonableness of Stan's request, given that it's been noted that both Penny and Aggie have a fairly decent line of credit (sorry, but if you can just launch into clothes-buying sprees, you can manage a good mid-range camera on your own), it's very likely that what Stan loaned her was a much better piece of equipment, probably studio quality. That would definitely justify a credit of some sort, and Assistant Producer is vague enough to pass the bill. To compare it to the labor involved in the hand-painted signs.... How many hours did each girl spend on the signs? How many hours of summer-job-ness would Aggie have had to put in to pay for her own version of this camera, even as a rental? If Stan saved her even half as many hours as she spent painting, then his donation was materially significant.

[Corneel]

@Adrishiana: That's a reasonable alternative, agreed. The direct and up-front route is usually the best one.

@Pink Freud: Jagged speech balloons and such aside, tell me there isn't a difference between Lisa in the current strip, and Samantha and Aggie Beta Version in those other strips I linked. Lisa is angry, yes, but angry within reasonable bounds. She's maintaining that she doesn't think her friends' ostracism of Stan is fair, and that's it. She's not sputtering in half-coherent English (or "Angrish" as a certain media motifs wiki calls it), nor is she Godwinning anyone.

I think the thing that probably prevented her from going the direct route is that there was a greater chance that the answer might be, "No, I'm not comfortable with that, sorry." Forgiveness, permission, blah blah blah.

I think that Lisa's thought process is more or less explained in her text bubble in the second panel. She just didn't plan this through. She hoped that this would come out in some vague roundabout and maybe more gradual way some time later. She probably genuinely wanted to help Aggie and, as a side effect, might get Stan back in at least Aggie's graces. And while a reasonable "No, I'm not comfortable with that, sorry" might have been one of the answers to the direct route, "drama" would have been just as likely and that possibility probably played a bigger role in her not telling the true origin of the camera.

[DudeMyDadOwnsADealership]

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).

I like Lisa, and I think I've had cause to defend her in the past, but I find myself mostly agreeing with Adri and Pink Freud here. Look, Lisa's intentions are very nice (I wouldn't go so far as to say "intentions mean dick," but I do think in this situation they're not what matters most), it really would be nice if everyone could get along. I also appreciate the bind she's in; she was attempting to change Stan's image in the eyes of her friends, but Stan, being Stan, turned what most high schoolers would consider a favor into something he wanted credit for (I'll admit I'm not a Stan fan, generally, but this doesn't matter much here) and made her look worse.

But I can't help approaching it this way. I'm sure everyone out there has had cause to cut someone out of your life (for me, it was someone who I considered a much closer friend than Penny ever considered Stan). Personally, I would be pissed if I found out friends had tried to lie to and manipulate me into letting this person back in, or into forgiving this person when I was not ready. It's just not something you can generally manipulate people into doing; if they're ever going to repair the connection, it has to be on their own terms and in their own time. It's a pretty big dick move to attempt to reverse what is often a difficult and painful decision for something else (yeah, in this case, it probably wasn't that difficult or painful, but my point still stands--it is not Lisa's decision to make). Lisa is being more idealistic here than maybe even Aggie. It's great for everyone you care about to get along, but sometimes it's just not in the cards.

What she says next could possibly change my opinion, though I doubt it, because her approach to this problem falls just into the kind of manipulation that would make me furious if I were Penny&co. YMMV.

Let's hope that's what they're collectively mad about here, and Aggie making a "pot calling the kettle black" remark about Lisa's past issues with her choices of love interests is as ugly as it gets. Bring up the Constitution, bring up how Brandi and Michelle are both moving on since Funky Flashman burned them and are stronger for it, but for the love of crumbcake, do NOT call or point fingers at the former Alphas on anything, they and Aggie included will just get more irrational. Just say 'I'm sorry', leave the house with the camera if necessary, talk to Katy-Ann about it if you need to (she'll have good advice) but just drop it for now....

[Adrishiana]

There's an element of this that I need to highlight, because it's your assumption of how things went down.

What we KNOW is that Lisa, after talking it over (and yes, lying--I'm not giving her a pass on that) with Aggie and Co., asked Stan for the camera. She probably told him who it was for (and even if she didn't, there'd be a short list of suspects in his mind), but we have no way of knowing anything for certain about that conversation--most particularly, whether or not Stan's immediate response was to ask for Assistant Producer credit.

A proposed timeline for you:

1: Lisa lies about her potential source. This was, yes, wrong. Better would've been to say it to Aggie privately, and let Aggie decide whether or not to mention it to Penny.
2: Lisa asks Stan for the cameras, gets an affirmative answer. She doesn't necessarily state explicitly, "I'm trying to get you back in their good graces so you can hang with us again." Maybe she assumes he'll figure it out, maybe she figures that him not knowing about it would actually improve the odds of her scheme working.
3: Aggie shoots film.
4: Lisa returns the cameras to Stan while Aggie's making her final edits. Stan, possibly noticing how long the loan lasted for, realizes this is a fairly decent-sized project, and thus potentially useful to him. He asks her to ask Aggie if there could be a credit for him.
5: This scene.

Now, I don't know for certain this is how it happened, but it seems to me at least as plausible a chain of events as your assumption that as soon as Lisa got the cameras, she also knew that Stan was going to be asking for credit, and deliberately hid that fact from Aggie the entire time in order to snare her in the web of deceit.

As for the reasonableness of Stan's request, given that it's been noted that both Penny and Aggie have a fairly decent line of credit (sorry, but if you can just launch into clothes-buying sprees, you can manage a good mid-range camera on your own), it's very likely that what Stan loaned her was a much better piece of equipment, probably studio quality. That would definitely justify a credit of some sort, and Assistant Producer is vague enough to pass the bill. To compare it to the labor involved in the hand-painted signs.... How many hours did each girl spend on the signs? How many hours of summer-job-ness would Aggie have had to put in to pay for her own version of this camera, even as a rental? If Stan saved her even half as many hours as she spent painting, then his donation was materially significant.

Oh, no, Lisa says right out that she didn't expect Stan to ask for credit, and I'm inclined to believe her. I also don't think Stan's request is entirely unreasonable - I can see arguments for and against an actual assistant producer credit, but at the very least he deserves a thank you of some kind in the credits if they use that footage (and a verbal thank you, if nothing else, if they don't, since Lisa's decision to lie to them is on Lisa, not Stan). In any case, though, since Aggie was willing to give a credit BEFORE she knew it was Stan, it would not behoove her to yank said credit away after.

I mention it mostly because Lisa's hope appears to have been that they would find out later on that Stan had contributed in what is actually a fairly major way to their project (since the amount of hours that would have to be put in at a most likely minimum wage job to earn the money for a mid-range video camera is not insignificant, say nothing of the fact that it means Aggie didn't have to take time away from the project to first find a job and then work at it) and think, "Wait, Stan?! Well, he did do a nice thing for us out of the goodness of his heart, maybe we should reconsider our feelings towards him." However, Lisa does have a tendency of getting to the heart of a matter in very little time with very little information, so I find it surprising that it just didn't occur to her that Stan (who I do not view as irredeemable scum or anything, but who - right or wrong - also just does not tend to do a whole heck of a lot that doesn't have some sort of benefit to himself) might, yes, eventually want something out of the deal. Even if it turns out Lisa is actually falling for Stan, I just don't see her being the type to be blinded to flaws by love.

So, again, I don't think Lisa expected Stan to ask for credit (since him doing so blew her original plan out of the water in a major way) and I don't think Stan is being a TOTAL SELFISH ASSHOLE MEANIEHEAD to want some credit in return for what may have been lending a rather expensive piece of equipment for, very possibly, a couple of weeks (or more). I just find it rather surprising that Lisa in particular failed to realize that someone who almost never does something for nothing would want... something, before she set off on a plan to somewhat manipulatively rehabilitate Stan in the eyes of Aggie&c. that needed a dose of altruism on Stan's part to work.

ETA: And for Lisa's own sake, I do hope she didn't find out until the end of the project that, yo ho, Stan wants credit! Just, if that's not the case (and we may never find out if it isn't, I suppose), I could see Aggie being even angrier because Lisa let her continue with the project knowing Stan would want credit Aggie might be hesitant to give.

[Freemage]

I do agree that Lisa was being dishonest, and that was a BIG error in the case of Aggie and Sara (post-Alanis ironically, she'd have a better case with Penny: "Look, I was lying because I was trying to help a friend out. Can't you understand that?"--Penny'd have a really hard time splitting THAT hair between Lisa's behavior and what Penny's always declared as her ideal [see: Brandi/Xena, Katy-Ann]).

That said, the biggest difference between Lisa's behavior here and other folks that Aggie's had issues with (most notably Helen) is that LISA was the one who came clean and confessed. She should've apologized more directly for that lie, here, but otherwise, she didn't drag it out, or try to subvert the issue further.

That said... I still think that part of me squeed when I saw Lisa light into Aggie like that. It's just NOT something she does, really. She'll snark and sass and sarcas you with the best of them, but she doesn't generally go the outburst route.