Yeah, one wonders if Ripp will keep his hair long anyway, since it's come to be a part of who he is, or if he'll eventually "let it go".

I really like symbolism, especially with images. I really love Dutch still life paintings and vanitas, where every flower, fruit, and other object had a specific meaning. That's one of the reasons I really liked the idea of Ophelia working with flowers (that, and the connection to her namesake - paintings of Shakespeare's Ophelia almost always show her drowning with an armful of flowers). I probably add a lot of tiny symbolic things that nobody would ever pick up on, but I promise to draw at least some attention to it if it's very important to the story.

How about a dream sequence? They usually have lots of symbolic meaning. I'm thinking of adding one to the next chapter, just to paint out someone's insecurities a little better.