wild to see someone complain about other people's media literacy and simultaneously claim Liam never had anyone love him before Buffy and that's why Angel is like that
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
recognising that is not a lack of media literacy, it's just watching what happens on screen and not automatically buying in to poor unloved Liam when the show (possibly by accident, sure) doesn't actually show him as unloved, never mind abused
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