Heh. I really don't think it's a fanwank when what you are doing is explaining an alternate universe that you yourself are writing. Yeah, I guess the claim that Giles' subconscious impression of Xander was changed by his inclusion in the spell would be a fanwank if you were using it to justify his change in attitude within the show itself, but that's not really what you're doing. What you're doing is writing a fic about what might have happened if he hadn't been included in the spell, which means that anything your imagination comes up with for ramifications is, by definition, true. After all, it's your story.

I love the Citizen Kane reference, too. For a while, I thought Joss was going to more with that kind of thing during S5 Angel. He did a little, but he had everyone (who wasn't already dead) more or less resort to their S4 personas by the end. I was kind of hoping that at least one of them would buy into the evil all the way. Your Rupert may tick me off, but I have a bit more understanding for him now.