How much of what Shayde does is deliberately calculated to annoy/infuriate someone else (who is themself, annoying/infuriating), vs how much...

The percentage varies from time to time. There’s this essence of scale-balancing going on in her background thoughts, but only some of the time.

It depends on the individual. Asshats get karmic re-alignment. Horrible people get their just desserts. Rael gets teased because… Shayde’s never really learned how to handle infatuation and tends to revert to defending against it [Long story. Might be a book one day].

Needless to say, she keeps doing nice things to/for Rael - sometimes very subtly and quietly because she does like him. Even if she is messed up and doesn’t know how to deal with it or help him take the next step(s) with her.

I’m still noodling with all of it… so… TL;DR version: Nobody can tell.