ha ha ha ha

laughs and points at Sean...

Actually - realizing the FE had been on before was a weird thing for me to. I had just converted a very tough to convert guy at work and he was watching S3 on FX and we were talking about S7 and I was complaining because I wasn't sure the First was going to be a cool villain and he was like "hello, Angel trying to kill himself and the mutual sex dream with Buffy - it's gonna rock!"

And that was so great because he had only been converted like a month earlier. I was a proud, proud fangirl that day...even though I should have remembered that darn it.

Yeah, my "brick to the head" moment also made instant sense of all the conversations I did see about Jenny Callendar not being the FE in S7.

At the time, I just figured y'all wanted to see JC among the dead people the FE appeared as. In all that talk, I somehow never caught a reference to the fact that she'd done it before.

It never even pinged on my radar.

So, again with the big giant idiot-ness.

My list:

Buffy: most definitely the Class Protector Medal; second happiest might be the Christmas morning moment when her eyes lit on the Fray axe.
Willow: the moment when Tara says "Can't we just be kissing now?"
Giles: possibly the rose-in-hand stairclimb from "Passions" but maybe also the earlier episode (can't recall the title) when it became clear that Jenny was not only flirting with him but asking him out. I can't remember the episode or even the lines; I just remember that Jenny says something mildly naughty and a soft little light goes on in Giles's eyes. I think that moment should get bonus points for not being immediately followed by his discovering her corpse.
Angel: what Jeff said.
Dawn: what Jeff said.
Cordelia: probably "Go Fish" - by and large, pure happiness was no real part of her experience in life (though, compared to her life on AtS, her Buffy life was three seasons of nonstop rollicking bliss).
Oz: the Monkey Pants speech. Relaxed, happy, and he could tell from Willow's reaction when he said "You have the sweetest smile" that he'd just opened some door inside her. Actually, most of their non-Veruca scenes together have that happy glow. The actors are longtime friends who totally trust each other, and it shows.
Anya: the moment in "Hush" when Xander attacks Spike and frantically embraces her.
Spike: pre-soul, pre-chip, the moment when he offed the Annoying One. Pre-soul, post-chip, the moment in "Intervention," in the moment after Buffy's kiss of forgiveness, when she tells him never again about the 'Bot and then adds "What you did for Dawn and me? That was real." Post-soul, post-chip, when Buffy's deep in her exhausted sleep and he touches her hair.

There's also the question of when they were the most content - quietly, non-epiphanic or soul-losingly mellowly content. Most of the Oz/Willow moments are sheer contentedness; there's the Scoobies' Bollywood musical viewing; there's Spike letting someone's mom fuss over him in the wake of a shitty breakup and make him hot cocoa with marshmallows.

Uhm, Sean - have you heard my I thought Giles had been to hell and kept waiting for three whole seasons to find out how and why even though there was no real evidence to support that story?

Because if there was a prize for biggest dumbest misreading of a character, storyline, have-you-ever-seen-this-show-before moment - that'd be it.

Willow: the moment when Tara says "Can't we just be kissing now?"

I got all choked up at that one. Tara spent so long working up to that, and describing all the rough stuff that people normally go through to get to that point, that when she asked if they could just skip all that and get to the kissing, I was bawling like a baby.

t /sap

For Giles, I'd kind-of-sentimentally like to think it would be the moment he came back from England in S6, and saw newly-not-dead Buffy for the first time. 'Cause that one made me sniffly.

Giles' moment of happiness: When Buffy comes back from L.A. at the start of Season 3.

Or, for Giles, when she comes back at the beginning of S3 and the moment in the kitchen by himself making tea for the gang - that look - and he is so happy that she is not dead and in the living room. Super sniffly.

x-post. yeah justkim. that.

Also at the prom, when Buffy gets her award and he says "I had no idea young people en masse could be so gracious." Delivered so quietly, but conveying such wonder at Buffy's classmates, such a father's love for her. That's the moment that gets me teary every time. That, and when he returns at the end of S6 and says, "You cut your hair."

I got all choked up at that one. Tara spent so long working up to that, and describing all the rough stuff that people normally go through to get to that point, that when she asked if they could just skip all that and get to the kissing, I was bawling like a baby.

Me too, also, because I was spoiled that Warren was going to kill her. Broke. My. Heart.

I can't think of the Class-Protector-Awardage as Buffy's happiest moment, because she was so *determined* in her I'm-unhappy-but-dammit-my-friends-won't-be way that her buddies would have a good prom. Her lover had just broken up with her and she was dateless. It must have been a very satisfying moment for her, but I think I'd go with Jeff on the beginning of S5, just before she met Drac. She was coming into her own. She had no secrets from her mother, her lover, her friends. She was interested in her origins. I think that was her moment. Also though? I think the very end of Chosen was another moment for her. I wish Joss had given her the last line, though. I feel as though he cheated the character.