Spike does. I think Dawn does.

Oh, Betsy, with the being right. Yes, they do. But not onscreen (much), which I think was at least partially my point. Maybe.

Okay, no, my point was that generally the focus of characters on a show is their own lives, leaving little time to be involved in someone else's storylines. But you're right, they are shown to get involved in TV shows. Okay, I take it all back.

I've read "character reads/writes fanfic" as a sort of parody - often the character is reacting to common problems or annoyances in fics, like the ones where Garak bitches about Garak/Ziyal stories...."I suppose I should just lie down and think of a nubile Englisman," or Spike's "'I hope you dance?' More likely, 'I hope you get eviscerated."

Willow did get a strange look for admitting to the fanfic. And I have no problem imagining her writing herself as a Mary Sue at age 12 into a Doogie Howser story.

characters on TV don't tend to watch TV

Very true, in the main. I cannot recommend too highly (AD's ex girlfriend) Caroline Aherne's show The Royle Family, which is about a slobby working class Northern family who spend every episode sitting in front of the telly smoking and drinking tea. It's entirely possible, of course, that it's too culturally specific in terms of both humour and pathos, but I swear I've not seen anything better on stage or screen, imho. She's a f*cking genius. It's poised perfectly between comedy and drama, totally accessible (to a UK audience, at least) but still very subtle and true and cringe-inducing. And moving. Bathetic and pathetic both, in the best sense of the word.

t / gushiness.

Caroline Aherne is AD's ex-girlfriend? No way! I didn't know that. (I love The Royle Family too.)

Well, they don't spend a lot of time showing them watching TV, though they often make references to it, and will often show a few minutes of it. "Friends" has shown characters watching soap operas, Baywatch, videos - though typically it's just for less than a minute at a time. "Roseanne" often showed the characters spending a lot of time in front of the TV - though it probably was supposed to be a statement on working class lifestyles.

Hec, absolutely. That was believable, organic, and in character. My bitch is only about fanfic in fanfic.

I'm sure a good writer could pull it off, though.

I've seen it. Livia Balaban has two XF stories set during seasons 8 and 9 which posit Mulder as a writer of "SETI Troopers" (basically Enterprise) fanfic. The first one is structured as snippets from the weekly "Feedback Day" on a big fic list. The second one is structured as a series of LJ posts. Livia's a designer, so half the story is in the format. I thought they were pretty fun, and a great spoof of the mailing list and blogging communities.

My concern about the Doogie Howser thing is that Willow's way too young for that. The show went off the air before she was in her teens. If we assume real-time, Willow was far more likely to be writing XF fic than Doogie Howser.... *grin*

I'd peg Willow for either "Young Indy" or maybe some DS9 - definitely some Bashir/Garak or Kira/Dax.

As noted by Ple, Doogie Howser was in syndication for a while.