#gray answers

[yeagrave]

For the art inspiration post, maybe hansgter cuddling on the couch/in bed? (Bonus points if Jake is giving Bradley a forehead kiss)

forehead kisses are in the works :))

[schakira]

joining the party in your inbox!!! congrats!!!!!!!

THANK YOUUUU!!!❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ PARTY IN MY INBOXXXX!! TELL ME ABOUT YOUR DAY OR PETS OR WHATEVER WHILE YOU'RE AT IT!!!

[asksprunkiestgray]

lowkeyyyy what happened to ur ears mane 💔💔😔😔😢😢

i- what- my ears are fine. theyre right here. [Gray reaches up and pats his ears]

[graytrailcam]

Just letting you know the picture of the red wolves with the christmas carol as the captian is AI 😔

NOOOO THAT’S DEVASTATING

I’ll go ahead and delete it, thank you for letting me know

[graymatters]

Hello! I'm not sure if you remember me, but we briefly spoke about medicine and magic in AO3 comments and I thought of an interesting query. How do you think potions work? Do you think it's through digestion? Touch of the tongue? Or do you think they're processed like medicine - different organs processing them such as liver and kidneys?

Hello hello! I recognize you asked this two years ago 🙃 So sorry about that. I've got a couple fics with magical-medical theory, so I can't remember where we chatted, but regardless, I have so many Thoughts.

I believe potions have to work just as anything else we consume. You eat/drink it, teeth/saliva start the digestion process, some more in stomach, followed by our small and large intestine. Whatever substances are in the potion are absorbed in various mechanisms and then shoved off to be processed, via liver, kidneys. Whatever doesn't get absorbed gets discarded, in addition to byproducts.

If that's the case, I have to imagine that just like medication, there are conditions that can make potions work more or less likely as they are intended. Genetic conditions, other things you're consuming at the same time (as with Calcium and Iron), varied effectiveness depending on route (IV, IM, PO, SL), autoimmune disorders etc. P450 mutation? Better believe it's impacting how your body processes Dreamless Sleep, right?

I think to back this up, I would look at what makes potions *magic*. Muggles can technically follow a recipe for a handful of the potions that are mentioned in the HP universe without access to 'magical' ingredients because all of the ingredients exist in real life. But if a Muggle makes it, albeit with a spoon and not a wand, it wouldn't be a Potion. It'd be a bowl of mashed up beetles and ginger paste (plus some armadillo bile and newt spleen 🤢). Not appealing, but technically feasible on a handful of counts.

On the other side of that coin, I believe it's canon that Muggles can consume potions, and they will impact Muggles as intended. So the magic of the potion has to come from the potion itself, and only the potion itself. It can't be some special wizarding digestive process, otherwise Muggles wouldn't be affected in the same way. I think this supports the theory they'd be digested and metabolized just like any old ibuprofen would be.

Part of me thinks this is the boring answer, and potentially a little confusing to reconcile with wizards having magic to begin with. What gives them magic? Is it a gene? Multiple genes? Being inheritable makes me believe this is at least part, but not necessarily all of it. If it's a dominant gene, then Squibs would need to inherit recessive non-magical genes from both parents, but then how do we explain Muggleborns? I think these two instances alone necessitate complexity. Autoimmune components? Epigenetic changes? Regardless, I'm making an assumption that it is a whole-body change, and not just some random organ that only Wizards have (because, boring...). That begs the question, if it's a systemic change, why wouldn't it impact some of the largest organs in the body? *cough cough* livers and intestines *cough cough*

Then, I look at magical diseases in canon and get sad. I'm not satisfied with she-who-must-not-be-named's explanation for disease in the HP universe (essentially, Muggles don't get Dragon Pox because statute of secrecy says we can't get near dragons? I call BS. And wizards can 'cure' pretty much any Muggle disease they could 'catch'? Don't get me started on ethical implications of that one). She only seems to see disease in the context of infectious disease, even likening Lycanthropy to HIV/AIDS. She also only seems to see disability as a result of an external event (Madeye's injury, Neville's parents' memory) -- nothing inheritable. I would prefer a better explanation for things like Wizard cancer, Wizard blood disorders. Are there Wizarding congenital malformations? Wizarding Crohn's disease? There must be, right? Because their digestive system is nothing special! And if they can get Crohn's, what other autoimmune conditions can impact Wizards?

But then again, if Wizards do not have fancy magical colons, it makes the medicine we use kind of seem magical, right? We kind of make our own potions -- and have been for millennia. So many modern meds we use have origin stories in plants and fungi (Digoxin, Penicillin, Morphine, off the top of my head). At the end of the day, it's all chemicals anyway, so maybe chemists have been the real wizards all along.

Ultimately, I think it would've been fun to have understood a little more about what makes Wizards, Wizards. Because that would inherently lend more to understanding Wizarding disease and disability. I suppose though, that's one of the things I find so fun about HP fic, to ask what if? and extrapolate from there. Sorry this was so long. And slightly off topic. And so late. 💚

[the-gray-ghosty]

Yes yes the height difference is staggering indeed. Now let's talk fist size difference

Woah-- omygod Sam's hands are huge compared to Deans' !?? I've seen this scene in many times but i never payed attention to the size difference

Yes let's talk about this

Also au!Dean's bracelet and au!Sam's watch

[grayscale-blep]

WAIT A MINUTE--

YOU ACTUALLY LIKED MY CRINGE PRODIGY POST (the Mercy AU lore one)???

AHHH TYSM, I DIDN'T EXPECT ANYONE TO EVEN LOOK AT THAT POST, I JUST DREW SOME RANDOM PART OF AN AU AT 11 PM

Always happy to see ppl make prodigy AUs/stuffs that I can fan over :) can't wait to hear more abt it!

[grayzeppelin281]

Hey Gray, I have decided to review and ask about the main characters from your KFP fanfiction series...the three former villains, aka the Trinity. The second one would be...Lord Shen!

1. I love the idea of giving Shen a family. Since there aren't a lot of fanfics that has him having a family. What inspired you to do it?

2. The family of Shen, Xia, and Lao(Dongji)was beautiful. And I have some questions about them...

-When did Shen and Lady Xia meet? Before Shen's banishment or after? Did Xia know about Shen's banishment? If she did, then how did she think about it?

-How did Shen and Xia get to know about each other before marriage?

-How did Shen react to having Lao? was he proud and happy? surprised? nervous and worried? how was he to Lao before their separation? a warm and loving father? a strict one?

Alright, that would do for our peacock lord! I hope you would kindly reply this one too!

Okay! My thousand apologies for not answering your questions for weeks now! (Real-life starts being a pain.) Now, I'll start off with one known villain most of the fandom loves (remember he's evil)!

1. I don't think either fanfics I know so far have Shen giving a family of his own, so I made his challenging aspect to hinder his plotting progression and the claims of gathering the mixtures of gunpowder and metal. Despite being a single-minded maniac to concentrate on his retaliation, Shen had his secondary objective to keep his family legacy going, regarding his father and mother propose him to marry a princess during his youth age, but otherwise. . . he denied to wed because of his ambition, Shen craved to achieve for. Until then. . .

Finding a new home for himself and his army was no easy task, banished across the northern plains before the tundra. Arriving there to the village where a place accepts people without homes (little did not the community know of Shen's crime at that time) had his unexpected cross path from another, meeting the outcast, like Shen.

Rather multitasking on his ambition, simply by doing what his parents recommended him for the continuation of their bloodline, he started an acquaintance with her.

2. Shen met Xia after his banishment, months of strolling to where he and his army were sent away. Despite the issues of him not wanting to go back home, having plans to conquer, Shen kept his dark secret from her. Little did Xia know him that he "left" Gongmen City to find himself a new home; she had the related experience of bitter relationship from one of her family members. Unrelated to Shen's banishment, she was forced to leave after her father's death, regarding her uncle becoming the next heir instead of her. (Uncle, you dumbass.)

Her discovery soon to reveal Shen's crime that early would have turned tables at him. During their time at peace, as they raised Dongji, and as for Shen secretly plotting to invest and craft weapons (stealing metal including), Xia's revelation only came to her when she found a message from Shen's parents.

3. Shen's reaction having his child did slow his "plotting" progression, but did his tries to spend more time with Dongji. His own father (Lord Feng) regrets not giving Shen's attention longer than he deserves, and what Shen could do to Dongji was allowing his time to be with his son. Being a father wasn't exactly his type, but he accepted to raise Dongji how Lord Feng treated Shen well. I would say Shen doing his best to entertain Dongji was quite warm at first but stubborn.

While gradually loving his son more, Shen was going to admit his resignation for the sake of his own family; Shen would have wanted his parents to be proud of him. His parenthood went downhill when the assassination attempt occurred - the raid at Shen's home after Xia's discovery of her husband's crimes.

Lady Xia and her son Prince Dongji fled their home from Shen. Now entitled the inheritance as the new heir after his parents' demises, the Lord of Gongmen, letting his family go from himself poisoning their minds, returns to his conquest scheme. And the rest becomes history. . .

That's all I can answer for the genocidal maniac, Righteous Flames!

And now, for our final mention, who will be introduced for another review for my favorite anti-hero / villain character!

The Supreme Warlord of all China will be summoned soon.