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This occurred to me recently, but do we know what Blessing Melaan has?

This is something that has been eating at me forever. Kandra definitely seem to have gender, and as far as I'm aware we've only seen kandra with binary gender, but that gender seems totally unrelated to sex. After all, when MeLaan used a man's bones, she still used she/her pronouns, which seems to imply to me that kandra definitely see gender as a social construct as opposed to a physical reality. Which is great! Kandra say trans rights! But how do they get that gender? Is is assigned at birth, but via method unrelated to reproductive organs? Do they discover it over time? Are there nonbinary kandra? Has the nature of kandra gender been addressed anywhere but I missed it? Thanks!

So, either something amazing happened or there’s a bit of a plot hole in The Bands of Mourning. Anyone else notice that, apparently, MeLaan’s weight changed when they all got into the little airship while escaping from the compound? She was behaving like a skimmer! If it’s not an oversight, then apparently the Kandra could use Feruchemy with Alec’s medallions. I know that Feruchemy is hereditary and the Kandra are Terrace, sort of, but they are drastically changed. Or no one caught it in editing.

In BoM MeLaan states clearly that Kandra cannot reproduce. My question is, while they might not be able to make more Kandra, since that requires spikes which were used to kill people, can they reproduce in the human sense. If MeLaan can imitate Marasi's blood type, and do a host of other unbelievable things to her body such as forming keys out of flesh and bone, can't she make an egg which can be fertilized. Heck, she can make the egg and sperm herself and self-fertilize. If she can imitate human genetics, can't she reproduce like humans as well?

"Thanks, Wayne," Marasi said as the short man opened the hotel room door to let himself out. "Oh, think nothin' of it, Marasi. If I had a problem like that, an' this was the only way I could get any sleep, I'd sure want a mate who could help out, so why not do the same for you?" He smiled and closed the door, then turned to head back to his own room. And barely avoided crashing into MeLaan, who had been standing outside waiting there for a while, by the looks of her. Wayne jumped, startled. "MeLaan! Errm... this isn't what it looks like," he proclaimed immediately. "Looks like you coming out of Marasi's room late in the evening," the statuesque kandra remarked idly, looking generally downwards at him. "Well yes, but--" "After helping her 'prepare' for bed?" Wayne stiffened. "Now it ain't like that!" "I don't mind. It's not like I'd get jealous over such things. I'm mostly just surprised. Never saw any signs that you two were that close." He scowled. "We ain't! This was a... a professional meeting, me helping her with a personal need--" he stopped. "That just makes it sound even worse, doesn't it?" The kandra just grinned cheekily. "It's kinda embarrassing, truth be told. She wouldn't want me tellin' anyone about her little problem, especially if it were to get back to Wax." MeLaan simply nodded, her curiosity thoroughly piqued by now. "It's... well... her allomancy." "Her allomancy?" Wayne nodded. "You know her and I have complimentary powers?" "You burn bendallloy to speed up time in a bubble, and she burns cadmium to slow it down." "Aye. Well, she didn't use any of her power on today's Mission." MeLaan nodded. "She tends to find fewer opportunities than you do." "And just to make it all worse, cadmium burns real slow. Well, wisdom of the Survivor himself says to always burn all the metal you got left before bed." "I've heard of that. Allomantic metals can be toxic." "Exactly. And cadmium, it's one of the worst of all. Really nasty, what it can do to a person." "So she needs to make extra sure to burn it at night," MeLaan said. "Where do you come in?" "Well, the problem with burning off cadmium at night is what it does to you. Most metals, you can just let 'em burn until they're gone, and not much happens if you don't do nothing with them, but cadmium..." That's when it dawned on MeLaan. "She wouldn't be able to sleep well because she'd run out of time." "Exactly." "Unless... if you burn your own power at the same time, close enough that you're both inside each other's bubbles, do the effects just cancel out?" "Now you got it, " Wayne said. She smiled. "You're a good friend, Wayne, more decent and loyal than you give yourself credit for. It's one of the things I like about you. " Wayne actually flushed a little at that. "Thought'cha liked me fer me natural wit an' charm, an' me skill at disguises an' such," he mumbled. She grinned and slipped a hand into his, smiling playfully and giving his hand a fond little squeeze. "One of the reasons." Then she leaned down and whispered in his ear, "do you have any slow time left?"

So I was checking up with my Deviant Art when I found this recent pic by Jazzy-Kandra (Please check out the link and tell him hi) http://www.deviantart.com/art/Melaan-621536006 When I saw it I instantly thought, "What if we were to write a story about the characters from Alloy of Law as if they were High School students attending a Elendel High School as normal students? Heck what if we did that with ANY of the Brandon Sanderson books!?!" Now I know this is probably not the first time someone has thought of this. I am reminded of the `Attack on Titan Junior High' series. Literally just using the characters in a completely different/more normal setting. But if there is anyone who fancies the idea, write a quick scene as how you would see the series. If you know of such a project that already exists, please leave a link so we can all check it out! I look forward to all the submissions, and when I can I'll write up one myself. Have fun!

So, something small but funny I did not see mentioned on this pages, I thought I'd bring up. There is a rather hilarious MeLaan horse joke in the book. There is WoB somewhere that the first mental image of Wax and Wayne books he had was Wayne riding into a Roughs town on a kandra disguised as horse. He then had to abandon that scene because other things became more important. The fact that the whole "Oh, you mean *riding* them?" is an homage to that first mental image he had, makes it even more fun to read....

This is kind of a useless topic, but since we've had epic shipping discussions about Stormlight and others of Brandon's series, I found it odd that nobody's hopped onto the most applicable ship from Shadows of Self: Wayne / MeLaan. The kandra and the one mortal who might rival her in imitation prowess. Not to mention their personalities compliment each other perfectly. And of course, as we learn from the end of the book, Anyone else got a ship that they're proud to sail?