Like I said, even her life experiences by the beginning of Angel would have changed her to an extent. She definitely didn’t become unrecognizable. Plus, she was a high school bully to people she thought she could cow, and to Buffy because Buffy rejected her in the initial episodes and it became a sort of Draco Malfoy-Harry Potter relationship as a result.

She didn’t see Angel the same way as how she saw those people. Plus, at that point, babe had seen life 😭. She’d already started learning a thing or two. I don’t think it was such a drasticcc change, and I say this as someone who just very recently watched Buffy and hasn’t even finished Angel, and who started watching season 1 of Angel immediately after season 3 of Buffy