you want to be people? let’s be people.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER | 1997 - 2003 5x12: "Checkpoint"

7.13 | “The Killer in Me”

✶ Sarcasm as armor. (Break it with someone who laughs gently, not mockingly.) ✶ Hyper-independence. (Break it with someone who shows up even when they’re told not to.) ✶ Stoicism. (Break it with a safe space to fall apart.) ✶ Flirting to avoid intimacy. (Break it with real vulnerability they didn’t see coming.) ✶ Ghosting everyone. (Break it with someone who won’t take silence as an answer.) ✶ Lying for convenience. (Break it with someone who sees through them but stays anyway.) ✶ Avoiding touch. (Break it with accidental, gentle contact that feels like home.) ✶ Oversharing meaningless things to hide real depth. (Break it with someone who asks the second question.) ✶ Overworking. (Break it with forced stillness and the terrifying sound of their own thoughts.) ✶ Pretending not to care. (Break it with a loss they can’t fake their way through.) ✶ Avoiding mirrors. (Break it with a quiet compliment that hits too hard.) ✶ Turning every conversation into a joke. (Break it with someone who doesn’t laugh.) ✶ Being everyone’s helper. (Break it when someone asks what they need, and waits for an answer.) ✶ Constantly saying “I’m fine.” (Break it when they finally scream that they’re not.) ✶ Running. Always running. (Break it with someone who doesn’t chase, but doesn’t leave, either.) ✶ Intellectualizing every feeling. (Break it with raw, messy emotion they can’t logic away.) ✶ Trying to be the strong one. (Break it when someone sees the weight they’re carrying, and offers to help.) ✶ Hiding behind success. (Break it when they succeed and still feel empty.) ✶ Avoiding conflict at all costs. (Break it when silence causes more pain than the truth.) ✶ Focusing on everyone else’s healing but their own. (Break it when they hit emotional burnout.)

James Marsters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer 5.07 "Fool for Love" (2000) // Costume design by Cynthia Bergstrom

Harold Perrineau as Mercutio Romeo + Juliet (1996)

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come

Buffy the Vampire Slayer 5.14 | "Crush"

James Marsters shaving his bleached ‘Spike’ hair for charity after the Angel series finale (2004) (credit).

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER | 1997 - 2003 5x22: "The Gift"

Buffy the Vampire Slayer 6.14 | "Older and Far Away" — requested by @rabbitmotifs