Spoilers for Felix' labyrinth chapters and chapter 359
This is all probably really obvious but I couldn't get it out of my head and wanted to talk about it sooooo
[Snippet from Chapter 359]
I was thinking about Oswald and Felix's relationship thus far when I remembered this line and it made me think back to Felix's experiences with his ex's and his love life in general up to this point. We know that Felix's relationship issues after the whole Kitty debacle largely had to do with either him trying to win the attention of women but being completely ignored or making a fool of himself during the first date because, as Felix says ". . . the gag demands it. . ."
Now whether or not his issues with finding and keeping dates is indeed due to gags interfering or if it is also partly his own fault (as we know Felix isn't exactly super reliable when it comes to his past, as we see when Felix explains away his issues with housing insecurities as being bc of the gags meanwhile Nora points out that not ever instance of him being homeless was the fault of a gag) I think it's still reasonable to assume that these are genuine points of contention he's dealt with.
And it puts the snippet above into a bit of perspective. While not entirely, I think that Oswald paying repeated attention to Felix, just noticing and even seeking him out is likely what made Felix's initial attraction and crush develop into something deeper. I think it's very clear that Felix is unused to being noticed or having someone's attention in regards to romantic situations, which I think would also partly explain why Felix gets flustered so easily, I'd have to comb through the chapters which I don't really feel like doing atm (but I might add additions/evidence in a reblog later on if I feel like it) but, like shown in the snippet above, I'd probably bet that most of the cases where he gets particularly flustered have to do with comments that involve Oswald mentioning how he notices/appreciates/likes Felix and his prescense (I know at the very least that in the Far West the comment that drove Felix particularly over the edge was Oswald saying that he specifically would like seeing Felix if he visited the circus more often, at which point Felix literally got up and fled the interaction).
This repeated attention is likely part of the reason why, as Felix describes, he kept falling harder and harder. Honestly it's, a bit sad really, but also telling, that Felix has felt so undervalued and unappreciated in a romantic sense that even just being the subject of someone's attention is enough for him to become so flustered and fall even harder.
Though, on the subject of Felix' past relationship hardships. Veering away from analysis into more theory territory, I've been wondering if the potential conflict that seems to be starting to arise more and more of Felix being compared to Ortensia or being implied that Oswald is using him as a replacement for her, I imagine that if that really does become a bigger problem, it might affect Felix on a really personal level. I mean, aside from the just, standard feeling of betrayal and heartbreak someone might feel if they think they're just being used by someone else as merely a replacement for someone else the other used to care about, given Felix and his past with Kitty and Alex, it might hit him even harder. As the situation would be very similar to that one, except here, Felix would be the replacement partner, unlike where Kitty replaced Felix with Alex. It'd be an odd reversal, but it still would probably hurt him a lot, the thought of him just serving as a replacement, and Oswald's feelings not really belonging to him but someone else? That might lead to the toxic train of thought that this is just another copycat situation, but where he's the copycat instead, and he couldn't ever live up to the original. Stars it really would just be the situation with Alex all over again. Granted, this is mostly just theorizing, as I have no idea if this issue is actually going to exacerbate as much as I've theorized here. For all I know this might not become an issue at all, or if it will, it'll only be a minor point of contention. Regardless, the thought of it was enough to stop me in my tracks when I was working the other day and feel a deep well of dread and fear open up inside of me, and I will continue living with this thought haunting the back of my mind until it is either confirmed or proven false.