Call Of Destiny

The Joy of Androgyny

Locking the door behind her, Ana sat down on the toilet, but just to clarify- as Maurice Moss would- she wasn't actually using the toilet. She opened the bathroom cabinet and pulled out a handheld set of electric clippers. Well, technically it was a beard trimmer, but Ana reckoned it would do just as good a job. Carefully she lined up the areas of hair she was going to get rid off, forming two neat, equal squares on either side of her head. She watched her hands working on the hairdo in the mirror and short clippings of scarlet hair fell on the off-white tiles of the bathroom.

Before she really realised, she was rocking a brilliantly anachronistic red mullet. "Business in the front, party in the back." Ana joked to her own reflection, putting up a pair of finger guns as she said it. She opened up the bathroom cabinet, placing the beard trimmer back and pulling out a tub of hair gel. As she tousled her hair into upward-facing waves, she massaged gel into the strands so the style kept its shape. At the back, she deliberately let some of the hair fall naturally downwards to the base of her neck so as to make sure her mullet looked neither masculine nor feminine.

Walking back into her dorm in nothing but a black, basic bra and knickers combo, she noticed her teammates were also all in various stages of undress. Joanna, for example, had gotten as far as undoing the first two buttons of her shirt, whereas Jana had taken refuge behind a pinned-up duvet while she, in her own words, "had [her] bangers and twat out". Ana took a shirt out of her wardrobe, almost immediately selecting a number that feature orange and black floral patterns on a base of purple. Wrapping the shirt around herself, she buttoned it right up to the top, bringing the collar almost completely flush to her neck. She teamed this with a dazzling white, double-breasted jacket, which matched the tailored white trousers. On her feet, she rocked a pair of velvety, purple high heels.

"Woah," Jana vocalised, poking her head above her makeshift curtain. "You realise how gay you're making me, right?" She asked, flashing a wink and a finger gun at her friend. Ana half-smiled at this, as she threated her red, star-shaped cufflinks through her cuffs. Behind her modesty-protecting duvet, Jana had laid out her outfit for the evening. The main event was a long, green evening gown, made of smooth satin, with an outer skirt of lace allowing for large tree-shaped designs to cocoon Jana's pale legs. This would be tightly cinched in at the waist with a gold belt, made entirely of intricately braided strands of metal, all forging the shape of a dragon at the centrepiece. Her silver torc would remain on her neck, as Jana believed that, without it, she was under threat from the evil spirits of Queen Maedhbh. However, she did plan on unbraiding her long, ginger hair, and switching out her gold headband for a few green plants woven into her hairstyle. On her feet, she planned on wearing her trusty boots, as her dress skimmed the floor anyway, so fancy shoes would just go unseen.

Maciej had dug out one of his poshest shirts, a black button-up with solid silver around the edges of the collar and around the ends of the sleeves. This was teamed with a pair of tight black jeans and black brogues. Now he was dressed, he seemed to be spending as much time as he possibly could looking at his mirror, repeatedly brushing and messing up his hair. It seemed as if he was trying to make it look he had dragged backwards through a hedge, but in a very specific motion.

Joanna had chosen to eschew her daytime, slightly androgynous look in favour of something more classically feminine. She was wearing a red blouse with white polka dots over it, with a long black skirt. She had tied her hair back into a bun, and secured it into place with a black silk ribbon. She wore some red flat shoes with silver buckles, that showed off some of her white socks. If she stood next to Maciej, they looked almost like something out of a 1980s teen rom-com, as if they were the mismatched couple of a young skater who listened to Pantera on his Walkman, and a teenage waitress who loved nothing more than hairspray and gossip.

Once all of Team JJAM had managed to dress themselves up- and once Jana and Ana had finished painting themselves with copious amounts of makeup- they went to sit in the common room and went for the other teams to be ready to go downstairs. "I don't get why you girls wear all that stuff. It seems super uncomfortable." Maciej said, referring to the makeup his teammates were wearing. "I just like making art on my own face and looking good doing it." Jana explained, deftly filling in a line of gold between the two shades of green eyeshadow she was wearing. Ana nodded in agreement, adding, "For me, it really adds to the whole gender play thing. Look at me. High heels, girly. Suit, pretty manly. A mullet can go either way, but is likely to be read as masculine. So to balance it all up, and become an object of curiosity, I add makeup as a marker of femininity."
"Makeup is sensible, but I'd never go as far as to put purple glitter in shaved parts of my hair." Joanna said, gesturing to a rose Ana had made on one side of her head with glitter and a stencil. "You may not, but that's the joy of it. I get to wear makeup how I want, and you get to wear it how you want." Ana rebutted, seeming almost angry at Joanna for her criticism.

"Wow..." Jana interrupted, her voice full of wonder and awe as her jaw dropped. And when her teammates turned to the doorway and saw Yang's outfit, they could see exactly why the ginger-haired leader of their team was so enthralled.