the sun sets and she appears

Going forward, Xander and Willow pre-Buffy’s arrival in Sunnydale are only ever spoken about in terms of “Xander and Willow” exclusively, no mention of Jesse. I understand this was a practical narrative choice by the writers and the show could’ve had a different vibe and journey for Xander and Willow if they did go everywhere with the spectre of the best friend they couldn’t save hanging over them (and I’m certainly not saying I would’ve preferred it if they did) and maybe we’re actually not meant to interpret Jesse, Xander, and Willow as a trio, and more “Xander and Willow, best friends since childhood - and also Xander’s friend Jesse” but if we were, that is fucking brutal for Jesse.

by the standards of the time, his dad was lowkey a softy; he just didn't want Angel to be a drunken wastrel impregnating the staff, that is not abusive! Angel is in his late twenties by the time his dad gives up on him ffs, we aren't talking about a child whose dad was awful to him, we're talking about a grown wholeass adult whose father eventually throws up his hands

I won't deny his dad could be considered harsh by modern standards, but even then... it's not nearly "he's abused and unloved" that's nonsense (his dad was a better dad to him than Angel was to teenaged, brainwashed, deeply traumatised Connor tbh)

Kathy: am I a joke to you, media literacy enjoyer?

I think it's made pretty clear that Darla loves him, albeit in a twisted way

similarly Dru loves him, and the twistedness of her love is entirely Angel's fault

if we believe who we are informs who we become - which is borne out by basically every vampire we meet for any length of time - then yeah, who Liam was informs who Angel is; the oldest son of a reasonably wealthy tradesman who did his best to have his son make something of himself (and unlike Angel, didn't throw an abused, traumatised teenaged son out onto the street the first chance he got, but in fact told a fully in his twenties son not to come back if he left, after years of bullshit), the brother of a sister who adored him and cried when he left the house, and the son of a mother who was distressed when he argued with his father, all of whom he killed at the first opportunity after he was turned

no amount of reaching makes Angel abused or unloved based on what the show showed us; it tried to depict Angel's dad as the bad guy and entirely failed, and it very clearly showed that at the very, very least, his little sister adored him

and he murdered all of them

In this hypothetical scenario, how are you feeling? A little uncomfortable, perhaps. The age gap isn’t sitting right with you, is it? Dawn being 14-16yo and Spike surpassing that by over a century; even if we don’t look at the years he spent as a vampire the age and maturity gap is still very… what’s the word? Illegal? Immoral? Predatorial? Perverted? This is a situation in which we would say the minor has been groomed

Cordy - Same age as the btvs gang, so 21 in season 3.

Gunn - In Double or Nothing we learn he was seventeen seven years ago, so 24 in season 3.

Wesley - The only one where we have truly no idea because we never get even a vague age for him at all. He’s fresh out of the Watchers’ Academy in btvs s3 but that means nothing since we don’t know when they start or end or how long they study. The popular consensus generally is that he’s 22 in btvs s3, so lets go with that. This makes him ~25 in ats s3.

Angel - obviously is 200 whatever and doesn’t count, but he died when he was 26.

And finally, Fred. In Supersymmetry she clearly says that she was a Grad student when she worked with the evil professor. She canonicslly dissapeared in May, so that’s the end of the school year, so even if it was her first year of grad school and she went straight from undergrad, she would still be at least 22 if not 23. Then she spent five years in Pylea, before being dragged out at the end of season 2. So in season 3, she would be 27 or 28, and therefore the oldest member of the team and 6 or 7 (shut the fuck up) years older than the Scooby Gang.