So here's what happened.

I wanted to indicate some time had passed without using narration, as dates in the story have been vague enough that it would be easy to overcomplicate matters by being too specific, or imply elevated importance to any given date (one reason why I had been being vague in the first place).

So I thought "this will be easy. Grace will be in shorts. THAT will tell the whole story!"

(And also her being greeted by people and knowing the names of half the school, but SHORTS! Shorts were the primary visual key!)

In the end, did I decide shorts weren't good enough.

NO.

In the end, I was drawing Grace in these "clearly for warm weather" clothes, and I was trying to sort out exactly what to do with her really long, full hair. Meanwhile, in real life, the weather's been getting warmer, and in that moment of feeling the discomfort of the change of weather myself, and imagining her with that long hair in similar weather, several parts of me cried out in unison:

"NOPE"

So I did the unthinkable, and gave Grace an absolutely Fabius haircut (by which I mean similar to the haircut she had in the dream sequence in Balance).

So this is a thing Grace is going to be trying out for a bit because warm weather is warm, and if she wants to grow it back out later, she can literally do it in under ten seconds, because Grace is Grace. She might have trouble EXPLAINING that to a lot of other characters, but she can do it.

There are also other reasons this haircut is good for the storyline, but those are all things I thought of AFTER deciding to do it. I'd be lying if my logic wasn't primarily just "warm weather is warm." Heck, I felt like things got a bit cooler after I drew her with the shorter hair.

Anyway, Ellen has LONGER hair now, but ponytails.

Also earrings and a skirt, because things get WILD after small time skips.

Oh, and for anyone wondering about the names in panel two, those are all names of voice actors in Futurama.

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- Tuesday EGSNP