i want to do a more proper analysis of this because it interests me as a potential aspect of a transfem egg ralsei read, but i feel like ralsei's hatred of flowery is being read as a very direct "because he sucks," and while i don't think it's inaccurate to say that he sucks, i don't think that's entirely why ralsei hates him. flowery is a darkner(-adjacent) who projects self-actualization very confidently, and ralsei tragically sees this as shameful and thusly feels a strong sense of shame regarding their own want for self-actualization. hating flowery, from what i can tell, is very much a way of expressing self-loathing for ralsei. and there's some irony here, too; flowery is a mirror to ralsei in a lot of other ways, devoted wholly to the lightners above himself, trapped in an archetype that he seems to take on largely for the approval of an authority figure who doesn't like that he's become a person, unable to truly live for himself. ralsei doesn't recognize this because flowery doesn't recognize this, and because they see only the want for self-actualization they feel so ashamed of, but his ending is a reflection of what their ending could be if they let their own fate consume them; in the end, only a simple object. it's interesting to me that in the end, for reasons ralsei cannot identify, ralsei finds themselves crying for his sake.
this dynamic between the two of them; ralsei projecting their shame and self-loathing onto flowery's confidence in his ability to defy his own fate (and flowery intentionally provoking ralsei to try and get them to see his way); is fairly self-evident, i think;
but i think this scene with orange hints at it, too. ralsei is pretty mean to orange and even tries to rope susie in on it, and i think this is because they're carrying this same mindset over into their conversation with her.
strangled by their roles as the lightners' servants. wanting, at the same time, to actualize outside of that, to do what darkners(-adjacent) aren't meant to do. flowery being unaware of just how little of their own he and his friends have, ralsei seeing the little of their own flowery and his friends do have and finding even that to be too much to bear, too sacrilegious. dramatic irony, ect. these two sicken me.
