Fandom Snowflake Challenge Day 3 - Favorite Canon Moment

[mad_madam_m]

Day 3's snowflake_challenge prompt is In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.

I'm gonna try to limit myself but uh. We'll see how well that works.

Teen Wolf

Season 1, Episode 9: Wolf's Bane
This is the episode that got me shipping Sterek. I knew people shipped it, but up until this episode, I didn't really see it. But in this one, Derek sought help from Stiles, who not only hid Derek from his own father but also gave up his chance at being on the lacrosse team's first line—something he'd wanted all season—to help Derek out. And you could tell Derek didn't have any idea what to do with this scrawny teenage human who went toe-to-toe with him without batting an eye. After this episode, I went "Okay, yes, I am on board with this."

Voltron: Legendary Defender

Season 6, Episode 5: The Black Paladins
Holy mother of God, all the stuff with Shiro that had been hinted at for three seasons finally came to a head in the most absolutely stunning way. The fight scene that takes up at least half the episode is amazing and beautiful and absolutely heartwrenching, and I don’t think I stopped screaming for the entire thing. Everything about it—from the writing to the music to the animation to the voice acting—is just absolutely top-notch. This is easily one of the best episodes of the entire series, if not the best, IMO.

Leverage

Season 5, Episode 9: The Rundown Job
This episode is also known as The OT3 Job, and it demonstrates so much of what I love about the relationship between Parker, Eliot, and Hardison. When you look at where they started in episode 1 and see where they are now, from the competence porn opening scene to the way they work together to defuse a land mine to Eliot and Parker's silent communication at the climax of the story, it's just absolutely beautiful. Their individual relationships are strong but, as a unit, as a team, they're even stronger. And it has Parker's line that sums up so much of their relationship: "For better or worse, we change together." It's a stellar episode made all the better by the years of relationship building we've already seen.

Tiger & Bunny

Episode 13: Confidence is a Plant of Slow Growth
So if I were listing the parts of Tiger & Bunny that were my favorite, we'd be here for the next two weeks at least, but considering that this episode contains my favorite scene in the entire series, I'll give it the nod for this day. Trying to summarize just why I love it so much is kind of difficult, considering I've previously written close to 1000 words of flailing on this episode alone. It's not only the culmination of the main plot of the first season and Barnaby's 20-year quest, but also of the rivals-to-actual-partners relationship between him and Kotetsu that's been slowly building since episode 2, and it's so flipping good on all counts. Like some of my other favorite episodes listed here, it's the way everything we've seen up until now has built on each other to reach a beautiful resolution. Endings are hard, but by God, Tiger & Bunny sticks the landing.

Plus, we get the precise moment Barnaby realizes he's in love with Kotetsu, which makes me grin like a total goof every time.

Comments

[glittering_git]

Ooh I'll have to check out that episode of Teen Wolf! Thanks for the rec <3 I've read so much Stiles/Derek, but haven't seen any of the original canon. At this point, I'm like do I even need to? But I think I'd enjoy the experience.

[mad_madam_m]

I really, really enjoyed the first two seasons of Teen Wolf. It has a similar "feel" as Buffy (at least to me), even if it's not quite as good quality-wise, but that didn't bother me.

Most of the Sterek fandom diverged from canon around the end of season 3b/season 4 for a number of reasons, so like you said, you probably don't need to, especially if you've only been exposed to them via fic. But it's nice to watch some of the early episodes and see where we all started to fall in love with a teenage boy in a red hoodie and the grumpy leather-clad werewolf he got stuck with. <3

[glittering_git]

"But it's nice to watch some of the early episodes and see where we all started to fall in love with a teenage boy in a red hoodie and the grumpy leather-clad werewolf he got stuck with. <3" This sounds exactly like something that I would want to do, so I may be watching the first two seasons of Teen Wolf soon :)

[mad_madam_m]

Awesome! I hope you enjoy them. :-)

[littlelostcat]

Yes to the TW episode. I have a lot of feelings about the TW fandom, but there were a handful of episodes that made flail and say, "THIS IS WHY I SHIP YOU TWO IDIOTS". Wolfsbane is definitely one of them. I'm also a major Stiles girl and it was such an amazing Stiles episode. <3

And, yes with the Leverage episode! The three of them were complete opposites at the beginning, but by the end there were extensions of the same entity. I loved the trust the three of them built and the solidity of their relationship. I've never really been an OT3 fan of shows, but Leverage made their OT3 so organic and gradual that you couldn't help but suddenly realize you shipped it. And then it went canon and all was perfect <3

[mad_madam_m]

Stiles was my favorite character from episode 1 and is at least 90% of the reason I watched the show as long as I did. And he had so many great moments in that episode.

And I'm the same way; I had never full-on shipped an OT3 before Leverage. But gosh, the way all their relationships built throughout the season to the soft "'til my dying day" in the last episode, and I was on the couch, clutching a pillow, writhing over how much they loved each other.

I still can't believe that they're canon. <3

[littlelostcat]

Oh, yeah, Stiles and the Stilinski father/son relationship was just a core point for the show. And, you know, Johnny Cage haha.

And, YES YES YES. I've never seen a TV show show the growth of the threesome as beautifully as they did on Leverage. Because the characters didn't change, you could still identify final Parker and pilot Parker, same with Hardison and Eliot. But they just grew so much <3!!! Oh babies

[mad_madam_m]

Gosh, I love Stiles and his dad. And YES Johnny Cage, aka my favorite headcanon for the series.

And really, Leverage is a master class in letting your characters grow without having them turn completely OOC. They all grow noticeably from being part of the Leverage team, but as you say, Parker in the pilot and Parker in the last episode are both definitely still Parker. It's just brilliant, and it's one of the reasons I love the series so much.

[spikedluv]

That was such a great Derek/Stiles episode! I really miss the first season, before I started using the tag 'jeff davis is not a gift'.

You're making me all nostalgic for Leverage! I adored that show. The ultimate in found family.

So I might have checked out Amazon for Tiger and Bunny DVDs and there was like a lot of them? IMDb said there was just one season (at least here in the US), so I was very confused. Help? What should I be looking for?

[mad_madam_m]

Gosh, the first two seasons of TW were so fun and then. Yeah. Jeff Davis is not a gift. *sighs eternally*

I love Leverage and I was so sad when it left Netflix. I've got the first two seasons on DVD but I need to get the last three. So much found family and so much my jam.

For Tiger & Bunny, you don't have to get them on Amazon, because the series is available to watch on both Netflix and Hulu in the US! :-D Netflix, at least, breaks the series up into 2 seasons, which has been delightfully confusing when talking to people who watched it when it originally aired. XD "What do you mean, season 2 episode 2?" "Uh...*counts* episode 15?" "OH YEAH."

What you'll probably see on Amazon is two DVDs/Blu-rays for the series, set 1 and set 2. (There are two complete story arcs in the series and the second one is set about 10 months after the first, so it's a natural place to break them up; that's where Netflix breaks the seasons.) You'll also see The Beginning (which is the first movie; it's the first 2 episodes of the series with a little additional story added) and The Rising (which is the second movie; it's set probably a year or so after the end of the series).

Hope that's helpful! :-)

[spikedluv]

Thanks for explaining that! I was very confused with the one and two and movies, lol! Would you suggest just watching the first half of season one without seeing the movie first, and then doing the movie after?

[mad_madam_m]

I would suggest watching the whole series first, and then the movies. The Beginning is fun and you could watch it after the first season, if you wanted to, but IMO it doesn't really add a lot that would make it required viewing before you watched s2. (There are some neat things it includes that aren't in the series, and I think it makes it a little more obvious that Kotetsu's not in a great headspace when the series starts, but it's not enough that you need to watch it before finishing the series.)

[spikedluv]

Okay, thank you for clarifying that! *g*

[mad_madam_m]

No problem! And if you have any other questions and such, just let me know. :-) I'll be happy to help! (I could talk about this series for aaaaaaaaaaages. >.>)