Two.
snickfic wrote this great thing the other day about non-existent worldbuilding in BtVS. Any story I write with magic in it has been a fun exercise in figuring out how magic would work in that story, which is not just possible but required because the Buffyverse supplies a hundred different contradictory magic systems, whatever is most convenient for the plot of the week. And the town itself is like many sloppily-conceived television towns, that is maybe tiny & two hours from the nearest Neiman-Marcus, maybe has a private college or two, maybe has a UC-system big university in it, maybe has an international airport, maybe has a dock with active shipping, and is maybe out in the Mojave desert instead. It ends up being no town at all as a result.Dawn's very existence is a big worldbuilding WTF to me. It's never explained. I'm left thinking it really was just a massive clunker committed for the sake of writer convenience and demographics.
This is opportunity for the fic writer but blots on the experience for the television viewer. Truly great fiction doesn't skimp on the world-building. It gets its details right, so they support everything going on in the story. It sure as hell doesn't contradict itself. (Must footnote and say that I can imagine a story having a very good reason to contradict itself, and maybe it would be possible to do that without devolving into metafiction. Maybe.)
Three. Oh,
wickedfox, I'm not sure where this image of ASH comes from, but the blood spatters definitely made me think of you.Four. And
thea_bromine is scratching Giles-Xander gen hurt/comforty itches in her latest. Gah, I am such a sucker for these stories. This is what I come to fandom for. 