Hey, it’s Ruth!  Everyone should get super-attached to her.  April Fool’s!

So some time in the previous school year I decided to introduce this Ruth person, right?  And I didn’t have any redhead girl characters yet, and so she became a redhead, because diversity.  So here’s the thing.  Howard was also a redhead.  And I though, hey, maybe they’re related.  Because they’re both redheads.  Two unrelated redheads?  Unthinkable!  I think a lot of black people end up being related in stories in a similar way.

Looking back, I find it amusing that one of my most popular characters is actually the big sister of one of my earliest characters, especially since we don’t see Howard much or at all anymore.  (He exists in the Dumbiverse, but he hasn’t had the opportunity to pop up yet.  Mostly because I’m not terribly interested in him at all.)