(major spoilers for deltarune chapter five maine route) the choice to have the whole opening of the chapter primarily be an incredibly heartwarming sequence dedicated to Susie and Noelle's romance and then introduce an antagonist who is trying to "replace" one of the characters most frequently shipped with Asgore feels very pointed me. besides Flowery's textual role in the story he also as a character feels to me like a metatextual commentary on the way fandoms will often prioritize shipping over narrative, not in the least because he so closely resembles a quintessential early 2000s/2010s tumblr sexyman (or the fact the flowers are attempting to mimic humans in the first place, like how every non-human character who becomes important enough in fandom will inevitably get an "official" widely accepted humanized design). i wholeheartedly believe Toby Fox loves his fandom but i also don't doubt he has become a bit jaded from over a decade of watching large parts of that fandom choose to focus on male side characters and ignore the female or nonbinary characters whose arcs are much more important to the story.
This is why it always baffles me when people obsess over deep lore, because the surface level story of deltarune has JUICE. This is just about one small part of it and you can get so much out of it.
