"The problem is that you are being set up to be a character in a story played out in real life and that character is supposed to have a hairstyle in one of these categories and there are beings who don't have nearly enough regard for human well-being who are willing to enforce that and I can't stop them." Deep breath. "If you wanted to have your hair but nine feet long and then chop off the excess once the 'plot' had concluded, that would work. Probably. As long as nothing else you do egregiously pisses someone off, but that level of egregiousness would also fail to work in its own right." 

"So when you said things earlier like 'give you the mechanical attributes of the hairstyle you intend to actually have', that made it sound like the problem was unearned mechanical benefits, not unauthorized personal grooming choices. Now you're making it sound like I won't actually get to have the hair that I want at all until the end of the story regardless of my mechanical choices. Which is a little at odds with what you said earlier about it being just unreasonably psychologically difficult to get a haircut. Do you see how this is confusing?"

"No, not really. Sorry."

"Help me out here, guys."

"Oh, but your quixotic hair quest is so entertaining to watch."

"I don't really understand either, mostly because I haven't been paying attention because I am bored of hair." 

"...You're talking like the personal grooming choices and the mechanical benefits are separate, which is--not really the case? If you are bound and determined to have a specific hairstyle during the course of the story, then that is the hairstyle your character will have, and if you don't make a case that is compelling to my bosses that the hairstyle qualifies as the one you picked, then they will go, 'oh, it looks like someone checked the wrong boxes, we'll just make sure the right boxes are checked instead' and then you will get the thing appropriate to the hairstyle in question. If you want to not have those boxes checked then you need to either alter the hairstyle so that it qualifies as the one you want, or convince me that you're going to do something other than the thing you actually intend to do, because I am magically incapable of lying to my bosses and they will ask. It is conceivable that you will come up with some other way around this but I don't have the faintest idea where to start helping you do that." 

"...so, in the world I come from, there exist... more... than three hairstyles. What I want is to have a hairstyle that does not appear on the list of checkable boxes. The hairstyle I want to end up with doesn't have an 'appropriate thing', because it's not one of the ones you're offering. I would be fine—well, no, I'll be honest, I would be grudgingly willing to put up with nine feet of my natural hair and a free maid, and then come hell or high water I will hack that shit off to a nice mid-back length the moment I remember what my hair is supposed to look like, because I'm just a stubborn little shit that way. I'd even, a little more grudgingly, take the elaborate hair and omit the free maid because I know I won't be following through with the justification for having her, if that's likely to go over any better. But the hair I want is not one of the boxes I can check, and I am not going to stop wanting the hair I want."

"If I say that you are going to have the hair you currently have without any further explanation, my bosses will say 'drill hair' and move on. If you want to try to frame it as elaborate to get the free maid I am willing to help you brainstorm. Offering to do without the maid will not solve any of the problems that exist." 

"But does drill hair mean I'm required to take the evil laugh perk, or only that I can if I want? I do not want the evil laugh perk. It would detract from my sweet and unthreatening nature."

"Sweet and unthreatening," Ghys repeats skeptically.

"If you have drill hair you would automatically have the Ohohoho! perk but that perk only gives you the option of doing an evil laugh, it does not trigger automatically whenever you laugh." Pause. "Unless you take the In Character flaw, I suppose, but I don't think you're likely to do that, and you would have bigger problems if you did."

"But didn't you say it makes us more intimidating in general? I would be so disappointed if it didn't make me more intimidating in general."

"You will be more intimidating in general if you regularly deploy the laugh. It is the laugh specifically that is intimidating and the general intimidation factor is a knock-on effect. If you never deploy the laugh the perk will not disrupt any plans you have to play the ingenue. If you deploy the laugh only in front of people you then proceed to murder or throw in a dark dungeon where they can't talk to other people the perk will not disrupt any plans you have to play the ingenue with whoever's left." 

"I promise, no matter whether or not you take the perk I'm still going to be more intimidated by the skin thing," Didyme assures Ghys. 

"Hmm. Acceptable."

"Hang on, does that mean I couldn't omit the maid even if I wanted to?"

"There are no particular obstacles in place against firing your maids, even extra-competent ones. My bosses will not go 'hm no' if you declare an intent to do so." 

"Right, but she'll exist, she'll have been put in place by the machinations of the universe construction crew, regardless. Yes?"

"That is true. That is also true of every other person in this new universe." 

"Nearly none of the other people in the universe will be specifically constructed to be loyal to me personally!"

"Body swap plot," Ghys says abruptly.

"Wait, what? Who's swapping with whom exactly?"

"I want the evil laugh but I look lovely with straight hair. Naomi wants neither the evil laugh nor the maid but can't countenance straight hair. We look fairly similar, hair aside. So suppose that I make my choices and she makes hers but she takes the hair and associated perk that I want, and I take the hair and associated perk that she wants, and then, as a nefarious villainess will do, I steal her body and leave her in mine. With a dramatic evil laugh. That sounds like the sort of thing that might happen in this sort of story, if I stood to benefit from it. And then she would have the hair she wants through no fault of her own and in a narratively satisfying fashion that explained the, what's the word, discrepancy between her choices and her outcomes."

"That works if the bosses buy it and if I trust you to hold up your end of the bargain, which, to be frank, I do not."