9 Jan 12: Accept yourself

[Alice Macher]

To add to Zanosuke's words: What Lisa's feeling for Stan at this moment is certainly anger and frustration. I can see how that could be confused with contempt, but it isn't the same thing in this case. If Lisa felt nothing but contempt for Stan, she would've responded to his "I want to be your BF except when that gets in my way" shtick with nothing but contempt. Instead, what she's showing here is a mixture of emotions: anger and frustration, yes (exacerbated by her having just worked herself up into a tizzy over Hank), but also--despite his bullshit--a good amount of regard for him, in that she immediately follows her nasty outbursts with attempts to mitigate what she'd said and assuage his feelings. And in the final panel's "...Bye," I see her facial expression as conveying not "Good riddance, you bastard, and I hope a crazy person on the street kicks you hard in the junk!", but "I really do like you, but much as it pains me to say it, it's over."

[Tamar]

She believes he can never be anything more than a casual roll in the hay to anyone. I can not help but think that is a low estimation of him in her eyes.

Given that Stan has shown time and time again that, whether he can be more than that to anyone, he simply won't be, I'm not sure what you're getting at by reiterating this, as if the conclusion "Stan + exclusive monogamous relationship = FAIL" were anything but the correct one. It's not on Lisa being "contemptuous"; it's simply the truth about him. Even T, who still rather likes Stan, has stated repeatedly that the choice he made at the end of "Mister Smiles" is the choice he'll continue to make for life.

[Ameyal]

Everything she does, even outing someone at a large party, is eventually viewed as okay with her friends

Uh, no. Lisa didn't "out" anyone. Now, yes, Sara started figuring that out about herself afterwards, true. But it was in no way seen as "okay" with her friends. http://www.pennyandaggie.com/index.php?p=513 Aggie was pissed and wanted to know "why?" Now - yes, Lisa wanted Sara to think about it. Cripes, by that point, Sara should have been thinking more about things anyway, she was so deep in denial, her closet was in a bunker fifty feet underground, guarded by thirty laser-traps, about ninety missile and gun emplacements, and behind a twenty foot concrete wall. No, it was not the best place to pull that move, but Sara needed the impetus, because dang if her "friends" weren't really helping with her personal growth.

But even then, her attitude wasn't "I did it to try to help her evolve as a person" but felt more like "Lisa knows best what is good for you". And instead of Aggie's reaction being "You had no right to take that into your own hands", "She's not even your friend" or "How would you felt if someone, with all premeditation, pushed your buttons in front of everyone", but it was quickly defused with her "joking" about the idea of shipping Aggie and Penny. So yeah, she's proved to be in the absolute right, and shameless about how she proved her point. Even when she basically did the same to Aggie, she ended up being right about it too, and quickly forgiven.

And about Lisa trying to find a purpose in her life, remember Darren, the human mirror? The one every girl basically saw as a male version of themselves or a male that embodied the kind of guy they liked? Like someone else said, Lisa saw him like a big "eh". So, either she's immune to his "powers" (Which makes her more irritating) or that's how she sees herself.

[lilithanat]

On a related but different note: although we see Lisa telling Stan not to consider himself her "boyfriend," in this earlier strip, as someone's mentioned, Sara tells Jade "I think she's got a boyfriend." So what I'm wondering--because I see no reason Lisa would've taken one position on the BF-word to Stan and another to her friend (that's more of a "Stan" thing to do, hehe)--is whether Sara genuinely misunderstands Lisa's and Stan's relationship, or whether she knows it's an FWB thing but wants to discourage Jade, for whatever reason, from pursuing Lisa.

For that matter, does Sara even know the guy in question is Stan? I recall T saying in the General Q&A thread that Aggie and Daphne eventually found out, during senior year, that Lisa and Stan were fuck-buddies and were supportive of her, and that Aggie thought it best to continue keeping it a secret from Penny. But I don't recall whether T said Sara ever found out. Again, Sara clearly knows now, in college, that Lisa's been seeing someone somehow, but as Stan's name didn't come up in the comic until this last strip...does she know it's him? I bring this up because during the big "Stan" argument in "The Last Summer of Youth," Sara was firmly on Penny's side, looking genuinely angry that Lisa had any dealings with him. (There's the "contempt" for Stan, BTW: in them, not in Lisa.)

[Davidj]

She believes he can never be anything more than a casual roll in the hay to anyone. I can not help but think that is a low estimation of him in her eyes.

Given that Stan has shown time and time again that, whether he can be more than that to anyone, he simply won't be, .

No. He hasn't. Brandi was his first attempt at exclusivity and it broke apart not because he actually cheated on her, but because he got so obsessed with beating Cyndi that he fell into a verbal trap and lied about whether he was still the same slut he had been. I think Lisa is wrong about Stan.

[Tamar]

I'm just going to leave this here:

...Man, it just hit me that we probably have presented Stan fully on-panel for the last time already. I thought he might show up in this one scene in the coda, but it doesn't really make sense for him to appear personally there. Nor is there a good story reason to bring him back in the spin-off, or even to do a little one-shot with him. "Mister Smiles" said what really needed to be said.

Still, I'll miss him more than most. He represents some of my own worst failings, and who I might have been in another life. I'm not sure what it says that at least two of my best friends in comics, as well as many of this series' biggest fans, loathe him utterly. But to me he'll always be more of a sad, lost figure than a villain. A cautionary tale.

I mean, sure, "death of the author" and all that, but I'm just saying.

[retrophrenologist]

[

That doesn't invalidate my statement in any way. Lisa is very much not the type to be FWB with someone "because basically she holds him in contempt."

She believes he can never be anything more than a casual roll in the hay to anyone. I can not help but think that is a low estimation of him in her eyes.

No, Stan is the one who believes this. Lisa just isn't interested in getting emotionally involved with Stan, probably figuring (rightly) that she'd just get hurt.

[Adrishiana]

I personally wonder if Lisa's attempt to lie and manipulate her friends into liking Stan (and then screaming in Aggie's face when Aggie had the gall to protest this) was ever dealt with any farther off-screen.

[Alice Macher]

@Adri: This may shed some light on it, in a sidelong kind of way.

[Freemage]

Everything she does, even outing someone at a large party, is eventually viewed as okay with her friends

Uh, no. Lisa didn't "out" anyone. Now, yes, Sara started figuring that out about herself afterwards, true. But it was in no way seen as "okay" with her friends. http://www.pennyandaggie.com/index.php?p=513 Aggie was pissed and wanted to know "why?" Now - yes, Lisa wanted Sara to think about it. Cripes, by that point, Sara should have been thinking more about things anyway, she was so deep in denial, her closet was in a bunker fifty feet underground, guarded by thirty laser-traps, about ninety missile and gun emplacements, and behind a twenty foot concrete wall. No, it was not the best place to pull that move, but Sara needed the impetus, because dang if her "friends" weren't really helping with her personal growth.

But even then, her attitude wasn't "I did it to try to help her evolve as a person" but felt more like "Lisa knows best what is good for you". And instead of Aggie's reaction being "You had no right to take that into your own hands", "She's not even your friend" or "How would you felt if someone, with all premeditation, pushed your buttons in front of everyone", but it was quickly defused with her "joking" about the idea of shipping Aggie and Penny. So yeah, she's proved to be in the absolute right, and shameless about how she proved her point. Even when she basically did the same to Aggie, she ended up being right about it too, and quickly forgiven.

And again, I note that for every bit of 'sin' in Lisa's "Kiss Rape", Sara herself was a hundred times more guilty. And no one in the strip ever ripped on her about it either. So I ask the Lisa-haters who insist on bringing this up, where's the anti-Sara outrage?

[Adrishiana]

@Adri: This may shed some light on it, in a sidelong kind of way.

So in other words, "not really."

[TCampbell]

@Adri: This may shed some light on it, in a sidelong kind of way.

So in other words, "not really."

I understand you disapprove of Lisa's actions there, Adri, but I don't really understand what you want anyone, real or fictional, to do about it. You want Penny to yell and be unpleasant to Lisa about it? Well... didn't she kind of do that? Did you want Sara to do that? She might've, but she generally doesn't get in the way when Penny's got something covered. You want Aggie to do it? Sorry, but no, it's not in her character to do that when she thinks Lisa sort of, sort of has a point... and that's what I think Alice is getting at. No, Aggie doesn't approve of the lying, but Aggie is exactly the sort who might wonder if it were a necessary evil. Again, you may not agree, but things like that are why Aggie and Lisa were friends to begin with.

And this is not, generally speaking, a group that holds long grudges. Every once in a while, a reader latches onto something that seems like it hasn't carried the implications it should, and I understand that, but if the characters were following up on all those things, they'd be backward-looking grudge-monsters and I wouldn't like them very much at all. In my experience, friends are imperfect, friends will sometimes do stupid things, and sometimes you just have to let it go.

[Adrishiana]

There doesn't have to have been a big showdown, no, but I think some sort of evidence of lost trust or looking twice at some of Lisa's actions for a while might have gone a long way for those of us who didn't think Lisa's good intentions outweighed her crappy, premeditated, disrespectful treatment of her friends.

[Shadrach]

Adrishiana, I'm beginning to think that a revenge tragedy in webcomic form may be more your cup of tea. Maybe an adaptation of Titus Andronicus, which is just one grudge and reprisal after another.

[bunnyThor]

Adrishiana, I'm beginning to think that a revenge tragedy in webcomic form may be more your cup of tea. Maybe an adaptation of Titus Andronicus, which is just one grudge and reprisal after another.

And I find Lisa's infraction so trivial as to almost be undetectable. "Oh noes! Aggie will have to give Stan a credit for a full three frames in her copyright-infringing YouTube video! That is, if she feels like it! Cue the Rarity anigif!"

Besides, it's ancient history, both in the real world and in the strip.