This Romantic World Page 326 (Patreon)

Thank you all so much for waiting! I'll talk a bit about the page first before recounting my current eyeball power levels for those who are interested.

This is a page for Liz I've wanted to get to for a long time. For some reason, I've always been drawn to "chill" characters who have a deeply emotional side. And outside of Liz's ending in the visual novel and perhaps a bit in the side content like the Rein Con from a couple years ago, that aspect of her has yet to really be presented until now.

Not to downplay that this is certainly a big Bria page as well. If there was any doubt before, it's spelled all the way out here that she's aware she's pregnant. My hope here is that in the bottom panel she doesn't come off as impatient or annoyed with Liz. Bria's just out of her depth here with someone she doesn't know terribly well and is frustrated that the one person who could likely cure Liz with a hug is mysteriously absent as of late. Also, everything on Millie's board will be detailed in the next page.

And for those interested in my journey through ocular peril, here goes. I didn't quite make it through Patrick Stewart's book, as I reached a point where I just couldn't take it anymore. Some highlights are that actress Vivian Leigh was an awesome person, he hated Star Trek Nemesis as much as the rest of us, and he ditched his wife the instant he got famous. More notably, he requested a love interest for Picard to be written into the show in the first season, and literally that actress in THAT episode was the homewrecker.  He continued his penchant for affairs with younger women all the way up until his current wife, who is 40 years younger than he is.

But I digress. Eventually it became clear to me that no amount of screen avoidance was actually healing my eyes the way it has when this has happened in the past. On Tuesday, after several frustrating phone calls, I finally found an urgent care provider in Florida that accepted my Washingtonian health insurance. In the end, it seems that I gave myself eyestrain so hard that my eye got infected somehow. (If I had to guess a catalyst, I'd say it was my getting writer's block on Monday's strip and just staring at the unmoving screen for hours trying to come up with something.) Also, just a little PSA here: Clear Eyes Maximum Redness Relief drops can actually make your eyes fucking WORSE for no reason and they frankly shouldn't be available over the counter according to my doctor! Good to know!

Anyhow they gave me a tube of goo that's ghoulish to apply but worked like a charm. By Wednesday afternoon, I could look at screens again without my eyes watering. And today, I'm almost completely back to normal.

I've had to take sick weeks before, but even when I had covid I could still comfortably watch movies and play video games to pass the time for crying out loud. In any case, thank you again for bearing with me. I'm back to work and hitting it hard, and I hope you like the page!