A/N Author's note, you can skip this chapter if you want.
BMS, Sphygmus, as an adult I can very clearly see the grooming behavior Angel engages in and you are very definitely right, this episode screams it. As for the others noticing it, Xander was still smarting from her inappropriate behavior towards him and while he did recognize that she needed to vent, he is the one who said she was 'working out her issues' when she smashed the Master's bones, I agree that he didn't really understood the extent of what she was dealing with. The physical and emotional abuse he likely suffered at the hands of Tony Harris was not the same and he didn't even recognize that he should have been dealing with PTSD after dusting Jesse and being possessed by the Hyena. Willow is known to have studied her parents medical books, although that wasn't mentioned until the Angelus/Acathla incident a year later. She might have thought she understood what she was reading, but genius child or not, she had no frame of reference. I once read a medical doctor explaining that the word 'symptom' means nothing until you engage your senses, you see it, you smell it, you experience it. Reading the words gives you very little understanding.
Giles, on the other hand, should have. His training should have included it, if the Watchers actually gave a damn about the Slayers. Which suggests they don't care, or Giles doesn't care or he was trained for something entirely different. I've explored the, they don't care idea and Giles is ignorant in other fics. Since this will eventually include a competent Council being introduced, you can guess where Giles will fall in this fic.
As for Angel, as a teenager Buffy's dating choices made me uncomfortable watching them. As an adult who was educated as a teacher, I recognize grooming behavior and Angel ticks all the boxes of it. The Mayor ticked a few too, without the sexual component. Both of them would know damn well what they were doing to vulnerable teenagers, which is just another reason why the Buffy/Angel relationship is horrifying in its implication. Spike and Buffy is straight up mutual abuse, which Buffy stops when she realizes it. Willow doesn't connect her behavior to abuse because she thinks she's right and everyone else is wrong.
Xander leaves Anya because he's terrified of becoming an abuser and people hate him for it. And even though I personally believe either Willow, given the mindraping or Jasmine, given the manipulating, had more to do with the Fluke than Xander, I've explored the possibility that it was because of fears, subconscious or otherwise, that Xander had and given his family and his reasons for leaving Anya after being tortured with those fears, does make sense.
That being said, Xander and Cordelia were still the healthiest relationship on the show and if fears actually were at fault, they may have been able to work through them, I don't think he and Anya would have been able to.
One of those essays fans like to post insists it redeems Joyce as a mother that she seems to respect Buffy's right to choose who she dates. Oh Hell no, no it doesn't. Joyce's knee jerk reaction to finding out about the supernatural is normal, her berating Buffy for getting involved with an older man and never telling her about it is normal. Seeming to give tacit approval to Buffy and Angel is not normal or right
What if it was your teenage daughter? Joyce finally confronting Angel just before graduation wasn't well handled either. She seemingly used guilt to get Angel to break up with Buffy, but Angel doesn't behave like he feels guilty, he behaves like he's haunted and there's a difference, especially in light of the First literally haunting him. And it seems like a very flimsy reason for him to break up with her anyway. Like him reversing the day after he decides he feels weak as a human and the Oracles tell him Buffy will eventually die. Of course she would die, she was mortal and a Slayer. It's just an excuse he uses to justify what he really wants. He's done with Buffy, so he moves on, but won't let go of her and berates her for trying to move on with Riley and he hates feeling weak, so he goes back to being a vampire. Both times the audience thinks he's making a sacrifice for Buffy's sake, but given that Joss wrote him to be as unlikable as possible, those choices are likely not meant to be seen as sacrifices, especially for Buffy's sake.
This author's note became much longer than I intended and I apologize for that. It started out as a response, an agreement, with a couple of reviewers and grew. I'm going to post it anyway, if anything it'll provoke discussion and discussion leads to new ideas.
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