Are you ready to be strong?

[fan_eunice]

So I was thinking about iconic moments from my shows. And, like, if I had to pick one that has the most effect on me. The answer was actually kind of immediate for me. It's this one, hands down, this one



It's funny that a character with no name who shows up exactly once for about ten seconds of total screentime in the final episode could sum up everything that 7 years of Buffy meant, and means to me, in that one image. But she does. Hell, I just burst into tears posting it. But yeah, little baseball girl is going to my grave with me, for real.

And now I am curious what is yours? What is that one moment that is so overwhelming in it's perfectness to what a show or character means to you? Share!

Comments

[lizbee]

For me, it's Romana opening the Countess's puzzle box in "City of Death". There's Countess Scarlioni, beautiful and glamourous and very grown-up, talking to this centenarian Time Lady like she's a child. And Romana doesn't need to put her down, or assert her own power in any way, because she doesn't see anything wrong with being a child! She's wearing a school uniform, for heaven's sake!

So she just opens the box and pulls out the bracelet, and she beams like a little kid who's just figured out a big secret. It's so perfectly Romana that it makes me grin every time.

[the_shoshanna]

OH GOD THAT ONE. Baseball-playing girl, absolutely. I was skimming visually before actually reading, and got chills from the picture alone.

Also, the moment in the last season of Nikita (the original) when Michael, having realized how badly he had been betrayed, drew his knife and cut himself high up on a cheekbone, so that he wept blood. I hated the plot development of that betrayal, but loved that moment: for me it was completely IT NEVER EVER HAPPENED EVER EVER BUT IF IT DID THAT IS OMFG EXACTLY HOW IT WOULD HAPPEN.

*uses icon in honor*

[jetpack_monkey]

Oh, man. The first time the Ninth Doctor smiled and said, "Fantastic!" in front of the London Eye. I wasn't even watching the show yet, just poking at the promo clips. At that moment, I knew this show would *own* me. And it has for the past 7 years.

[alchemise]

Angel 4x01 "Deep Down": after Wesley feeds Angel his blood and manages to get Angel into the car. That extended look between the two of them. There's no dialogue, but Angel finally understands why Wesley did what he did and accepts it. None of the rest of the characters ever get that moment of understanding, but at least Angel did. I mean, that whole episode is just *flails* but that moment in particular.

[littleheaven]

I've been pondering this, and while, as an Angel/Cordy shipper, I desperately wanted to say the scene where Angel says "I need you back" to her in "To Shanshu In LA" there's one that affected me much more. Becoming Pt 2, where Buffy kills Angel, knowing he just got his soul back, to save the world. It's kind of that moment where she realizes that being The Slayer means that, for her, there are no happy endings. That look of horror on her face, it just breaks me every time. When she whispers "Close your eyes..." Waaaaaah. I think, above all else, it was her coming of age as The Slayer. Even moreso than in The Gift, because she had to live with the repercussions of the loss.

[klia]

Ep 3 of Longmire was really upsetting for me because of some truly horrible animal harm and death (arson fire in a horse barn) at the beginning that I had to close my eyes through. And I almost bailed on the ep, but a friend reassured me that I'd already endured the worst, and there was some revelatory character stuff at the end. So I stuck with it, and a little later on, Walt took personal and financial responsibility for a critically injured horse, telling the vet to do whatever it took. Later, he called the person responsible for the fire a horse murderer, and I was stunned, because I couldn't remember anyone saying anything like that, ever. And then at the end, while the intro to Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah played, Walt comforted the dying horse, saying he'd proven how tough he was and it was okay for him to go, and then he read the horse a beautiful poem. I cried SO HARD, OMG. And that pretty firmly cemented my love for Walt.

And the first ep of PoI that I watched hooked me because of what happened between the two lead characters. When Finch (who's disabled, and NOT a physical person at all) realized Reese had been betrayed and set up, he rushed off to rescue him. In the meantime Reese got shot multiple times, managed to get away from the shooters, but things looked pretty bad. He called Finch to say thanks for giving him a second chance, and when Finch said he was close, and for Reese to get to the ground floor, Reese told him to stay away and not even risk it. And what did Finch do? FLOORED the accelerator! And, wow, did that ever hit my sweet spot. *OMG, hearts*

The great thing was, it was totally representative of the characters, not just an isolated incident. That was the last ep before holiday hiatus, and most shows would've moved on and had some time pass, but PoI picked up where it left off, with Finch taking care of Reese. I mean, we used to have to write h/c like that! It was awesome!