Okay, I apparently didn't really analyze the vision initially in beta thread. For this act of negligence, spawned by Alivaril's phone's autocorrupt and my attempts at copy editing or not, my Code of Nerd Bushido states I must commit sudoku.
Before I submit myself to my fate, though, I should probably give my thoughts on the vision.
First thing I want get out of the way is that this is VERY unlikely to be linked to Delight. This is almost certainly a vision of someone who hasn't even ever been to Delight's world. Notice that the world she was on was either very high-magic, or very high-tech. Or a mix of the two. I lean towards the latter, based on the skin-tight jumpsuits. Could be spacer's togs, or something of the like. The description of something like anti-gravity or artificial gravity fits with this idea.
Point is, the tech level is off for anyplace Delight is familiar with. Delight also didn't seem to know about our Talent, inadvertently shorted out our translation, and uses native terminology, something I find out-of-place if she was originally from another world (remember, the girl in the vision had been stranded on an unknown world).
It would also be a hugely unlikely coincidence for the girl to go from one world, to one with a magic system nearly identical to her home. For there to be others of Delight's kind here, there must be a similar system in her home world. And, so far, magic systems have varied significantly from world-to-world.
As for the vision, I'm actually a lot more interested in why and how we got a look at what looks like another world. Why did we have it from stepping on that ant? How did we manage to break the crystal if we were in the middle of getting to it when we stepped on the ant? Were we possessed by the same force behind the ants? If so...that opens up SO many other questions. For the sake of brevity, I'll stop there.
From the looks of things, there's a girl with voices in her head (demons?), who may or may not be the same thing as them (one of the voices calls the main voice 'White'). They seem to have been stranded by someone like us, on a world with much more advanced tech (or maybe magic) than their home. And may, or may not, be going insane, and fragmenting her mind to have someone to talk to.
Also, one of her voices knows 'Unwell' by Matchbox Twenty. Props to Alivaril for getting me to listen to a song I heard ages ago. My brother liked it enough to get it on iTunes, something I am very happy about, since we share purchases. So...Earth-like world confirmed? I dunno. It was a throw-away joke.
I'm inclined to try and find her, honestly. She could be an interesting source of information, even if she doesn't want to travel with us, which I wouldn't blame her for.
Personally I accept that this isn't going to cause dysphoria or weirdness or whatever, I just don't think Melia's the type of character who's better off with people going "awww, isn't she just a DOLL!" every time they see her... forever.
EDIT:
Plus a lot of Delight's ideas seem to revolve very heavily around local standards of beauty and some have unfortunate undertones. Like, 'ick, those muscles make you look like a peasant, you're a magician so why would you need muscle?' Gee, Delight, physical fitness isn't exactly shameful.
Or 'your elbows and knees are far too bony and gawky.' Well gee, Delight, she's what, sixteen? Gawkiness goes with the territory.
I just feel wrong about the idea of turning Melia into some fixed image of beauty, be it romantic beauty or doll-like beauty.
Why do people keep making this assumption, about local beauty standards? Obvious muscles make it harder to look vulnerable. Knees and elbows may also have some impact on pulling off the look, if pronounced enough. Nothing she suggests seem to be inspired purely by local standards, without a shred of logic behind it.
Honestly, it seems more like something meant to be customized to Melia herself, and not something cookie-cutter, to me. Avoiding that is a major point of pride to Delight.
Yeesh. I don't think Delight would turn Melia into some kind of doll-like template, but I do think that her pride in 'fleshsculpting' and her general preferred modus operandi could bite us in the ass. She was pretty clearly gleeful at the idea of starting some kind of feud among nobles over our hand in marriage and throwing the local court into chaos before skipping town and leaving the land with said frayed tempers in disrepair- that's the kind of thing she views as a reasonable and desirable course of action. What amounts to a con game.
So yeah, I don't think Delight's a terrible demon, but I do think she gives few fucks for anyone but herself and her host, and she tends to see the body as a weapon used in a con game. That could be problematic because in a con game seduction and underestimation are huge advantages- so while I'm sure Melia won't make us into a doll, I do think if we ask for it she will give Melia an appearance that is very good at being either seductive or underestimated.
The latter works for me. All the better to kick their asses. When it comes to combat/warfare, if you're not cheating, you're not trying hard enough.
And a Vasil breaking someone's heart by ditching them? Heh.
