In the First Light And Reionization Epoch Simulations (FLARES) suite of hydrodynamical simulations, we find the high-redshift (z > 5) intrinsic size–luminosity relation is, surprisingly, negatively sloped. However, after including the effects of dust attenuation, we find a positively sloped UV observed size–luminosity relation in good agreement with other simulated and observational studies. In this work, we extend this analysis to probe the underlying physical mechanisms driving the formation and evolution of the compact galaxies driving the negative size–mass/size–luminosity relation. We find the majority of compact galaxies (R1/2, * </p
