gingerbred

happy birthday, lost angel soul!

2025-05-29T20:09:11Z

Happy Birthday, lostangelsoul3 🎈 🥳 🎉 🎂 🍰

Hope you had a brilliant birthday, and wishing you all the best for the coming year. ☀️

happy birthday, adafrog!

2025-05-09T23:46:01Z

Happy Birthday, adafrog 🎉 🥳 🍰 🎂 🎈

Hope your birthday was lovely. Wishing you many happy returns of the day. 🌻

happy birthday, erexen!

2025-04-27T21:42:22Z

Happy Birthday, erexen! 🍰 🎂 🎉 🥳

Wishing you all the best and many happy returns of the day. Hope it was a lovely one. 🥰

happy birthday, francine!

2025-04-13T23:41:01Z

Happy birthday, francinehibiscu! 🥳 🎂 🍰 🎉 🎁

Here's hoping things settle down and you're able to relax and enjoy yourself soon. 🍀

happy birthday, blue artemis!

2025-04-06T20:27:45Z

Happy birthday, blueartemis07. 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁

Hope you have a lovely day. All the best for the coming year. 🍀

happy birthday, grooot!

2025-04-01T22:16:16Z

Happy birthday, grooot. 🎈🎂 🥳 🎉 🎁

Wishing you all the best, and health and happiness for the coming year. ❤️

happy birthday, gelsey dear!

2025-03-27T20:22:19Z

Blaise, his bunny and I just wanted to wish you the happiest of birthdays, gelsey! 🎂🥳🎉🍰🐇

alternative version after the fold...

All the best for the coming year and many happy returns of the day, hun. 🍀🥰

happy birthday, fawkesylady!

2025-03-24T21:25:35Z

Happy Birthday, fawkesylady394! 🥳🎉🎂🎁🎈 Wishing you many happy returns of the day. Lucius has a little something for you... 🐍

happy birthday, chienne folle!

2025-03-24T21:17:57Z

Happy Birthday, chienne_folle! 🎂🥳🎉🎁🎈 Wishing you all the best.

happy birthday, melodyssister!

2025-03-11T20:48:05Z

Happy birthday, melodyssister. 🎂 🎁 🎈 🥳 🎉

I hope you all are well. You're in my thoughts often. 🥰

happy valentine's day, everyone! 💝

2025-02-14T21:33:50Z

happy birthday, milotzi, take 2, this time: punctually!

2025-02-07T20:08:50Z

Alrighty, now that I've got a wriggle on... I'm retroactively decoupling yesterday's post (although I don't exactly think you can decouple preemptively...), and here's today's Happy Birthday, milotziherself / milotzi attempt. 😆 Wishing milotzi the happiest of punctual birthdays! 🎂 🎉 🍰 🎈

McGonagall wishes you a Happy Birthday, as well, and many happy returns of the day.

happy birthday, a little early, a little late...

2025-02-06T22:16:29Z

Wishing orlando_switch and milotziherself / milotzi the happiest of belated and early birthdays. (I got the week right! 😆) I hope you're both well and will be doing / did something nice with your days. Snape sends his love, too.

My apologies, Orlando. 🥰 🙏 I was a bit late getting my act together.

Happy Birthday, MyWitch!

2025-01-14T19:35:12Z

Wishing you all the best, mywitch, and many happy returns of the day. 🎂🍰🎁 Lots of love, xox. ❤️😘

Happy Birthday, Severus!

2025-01-10T01:01:54Z

Chatting with erexen and toblass, I was reminded of the tea drabbles based off one of Toby's pictures. Toby asked if Severus' mug remained pink, and I decided it was time to check in on him (and try my hand at some suitable AI art). As of part 2, it transpires it had (in part 3, she may have taken mercy on him, however):

The Tea Drabbles:

Prelude Part 1 (something floral, possibly rose hips)

the relevant work Part 2 (Earl and Lady Grey?) with pictures from Toby

the slightly spicy conclusion Part 3 (which I guess makes it Chai)

Loosely inspired by toblass's drawing of Severus and Hermione ('Tea and Toast' on AO3)

Happy Birthday, Severus. I hope you enjoy both your tea and your mug. Ladies, thanks for the nudge. ❤️

Professor McGonagall's portrait has spoken... 😭

2024-09-27T14:20:27Z

Everyone raise your your wands in memory of a class act.😢

Actress Dame Maggie Smith dies at 89

happy halloween, everybody!

2023-10-31T17:51:06Z

This year I did Bowser (of Mario Brothers fame).

Notable features, red hair (there may be a theme here), red eyebrows and red rings around his horns. Ever ambitious about perfectly questionable things, this time I tried adding a fourth "colour" to the mix. In addition to the peeled pumpkin skin which gets me the third colour to work with, I tried experimenting with scraping off different depths of the pumpkin flesh from the inside. Eh. If the pumpkin were of a more uniform, less fibrous consistency, that would probably work better, but as was, I feel like the horns still turned out lighter than the face, as intended, so I'm satisfied. The picture below better illustrates at least how three of those colours are achieved.

I hope everyone is well and has a lovely halloween. 🎃 ginger ❤️

Please give some thought to changing your LJ passwords...

2022-03-13T17:01:26Z

Social media is presently full of reports of, erm, well there's a bit of a cyber thing going on. You can guess why. That normally only counts for so much, but a flistie and RW friend mailed last night to say someone had logged into her LJ account, so it's starting to hit closer to home. (You can check for that sort of incursion here, btw: https://www.livejournal.com/manage/logins.bml. (Note: the sorting in that list is odd, you may have to scroll down a bit.) DW shows up as Dreamwidth in the US on the list. If you aren't using VPNs, then aside from them (that's assuming you imported your journal (<- if not, get on it)), you should see only your own activity from your country on your device(s) and operating system(s). If there's anything else going on in that list, please change your password now. **

On the off chance we should find ourselves unable to access LJ, either short or longer term, in the near future, that's a wise precaution anyway. If you're locked out, you won't be able to change it if there's ever an issue at a later date.

* You should change your LJ password to something unique (that you've never used elsewhere) and ridiculously robust and then please don't use it again anywhere else. Also, ideally you shouldn't save it in your browser, instead put it in a password safe or write it down in a bunch of places. I can pretty much guarantee no criminals are rifling through your desk looking for your LJ password. (Curious family members admittedly are a different matter.)

* Make sure the email address LJ has for you is up to date, and that you keep the email account LJ links to functional, preferably also with a robust password.

This is about a number of things. When your account is secure:

* It keeps your data, pictures, posts, email etc. safe.

* In the present circumstances, it reduces the risk to LJ itself. If you've appreciated the platform in the past, consider showing them that much respect. They can no more help the situation than we can, and no matter how you feel about things, I think it's safe to say they're more directly affected by it than the vast majority of us.

* It keeps your friends' data safe. Everyone who has flisted you provides you with access to information they may not be willing to share with the world at large. If someone is able to access your account, you're giving them access to that information as well. Keep your communities safe.

* In all likelihood, it will help keep still more of your accounts safe. People rarely use unique passwords.

And as long as we're on the topic, I know I bang on about this a lot, but can I get you to take a look at https://haveibeenpwned.com and enter the email you use for accounts like this. (You have nothing to risk beyond spam, and I've never had even that.) Often you'll discover some of the services you're using have already been cracked. Livejournal had a breach a number of years ago, Zynga games (which is something I know a lot of my flisties use) had issues, too, for instance. Anything else of yours that uses the same credentials (email / password combination) is vulnerable. Change them. That's just the cracked accounts themselves. They have no way of knowing where else you've used the same login information.

** It should go without saying, but if you're halfway through an import of your livejournal to Dreamwidth, wait until it's finished to change your password.

Keep safe, peeps. ❤️

QUICK AND DIRTY: HOW TO BACKUP ON DW

2022-03-11T16:21:17Z

Please give this a shot. Even if you've tried before and failed, try again now, dreamwidth and live journal have gotten things sorted and the imports (read: backups) currently seem to work.

This is the short(ish) and sweet(ish) and not pretty version as it's potentially time sensitive, but here goes:

If you don't have a dreamwidth account, go ahead and make one. (Flisties, please post your new nick here so your other flisties will know to add you.) Then add it to your profile page. When logged in, you can do that by editing your bio here: https://www.livejournal.com/manage/profile/ Scroll down to BIO. Edit and SAVE CHANGES.

Flisties, if you already have a dreamwidth account and haven't done so yet, please post your DW nick here and / or in a post of your own so your flisties will know to add you. Also, add it to your profile page. You can do that by editing your bio here: https://www.livejournal.com/manage/profile/ Scroll down to BIO. Edit and SAVE CHANGES.

THERE ARE ISSUES WITH FRIEND'S POSTS NOT SHOWING UP IN THEIR FLISTIES' FEEDS, so please try to be robust about sharing your dreamwidth nicks.

If you've never tried importing your journal to dreamwidth before: go here and do what it says. As long as you are careful to enter the right (read: LJ) password (please make sure not to confuse the two, autofill functions will try to enter the password for the wrong (read: dreamwidth) platform at the prompt because you're initiating the import from their site), you basically can't screw anything up. If you have more than one account and confuse the two, if you're doing this for the first time, you could still easily delete all the posts and start fresh. You will not mess this up. Go. Do it now. I'll wait.

If you've imported your livejournal to dreamwidth before but aren't sure what to do now, go here and skip to step 3. FULL DISCLOSURE: the import can make a slight hash of things with double entries, very occasionally the order of entries, and old / now defunct tags, but it's still much better than the alternative of losing your journal and all the wonderful comments. (If you have a journal where the formatting is far more important than the comments, for example if it's a book (who would be so foolish... 😉), then unfortunately 'importing' by hand is the way to go, copy / pasting into the other journal. You won't have any of your comments that way, though, and it's probably still easier to import and then adjust the order / tags / entires if need be.)

NOTE: If you're trying to import from a comm you admin, you cannot import from your journal and vice versa. Decide which matters more and prioritise it, and then do the imports successively.

IMPORTING OFTEN FAILS AT THE MOMENT. Don't panic. Check the import page periodically, and if it failed, either altogether or in part, then simply start another one. You can do this. You've got this. You may just need to be persistent and keep at it.

Now that the backup process is under way, make sure you can find your friends on dreamwidth. You can check their profile pages and hope they're up to date 🤣, or if we share a bunch of the same flisties, go through the list of dreamwidth accounts I've indexed so far, and add your flisties over on dreamwidth. (I'll try to put more details in the next post if you need them, but in broad strokes, click the name of the dreamwidth account you want from that list, and as long as you're logged in over there, somewhere in the upper middle of the screen you'll see the name of the account and if you haven't added them yet "Add to Your Circle". (If you've already added them, you'll see "Modify Relationship" instead.) Assuming you want to add them to your friends list to allow them to read your journal and want to read theirs in turn (to the extent they let you), click on "Add to Your Circle" then "Grant Access" and "Subscribe" respectively. Obviously it's easy to only "Subscribe" if that suits your needs better, for instance if you're eager for my pearls of support wisdom... 😉)

And that should get you started without sinking too much time into things. 🥳 I'll try to put something together explaining how to make your backup more robust in the next couple of days. (May we soon live in more boring times... xox G. ❤️)

Your Dreamwidth Identities Probably Shouldn't Be Secret...

2022-03-10T03:53:43Z

Things being as they are, a lot of us are scrambling to back things up over on Dreamwidth. There are issues with that, and I'll cover them in another post, but in order for journals and communities to work, as in so many other things: you need your friends. (Also, if you haven't already, consider creating a free account at Dreamwidth.)

Bear in mind, not everyone is/was able to get the same account names on both platforms (I myself couldn't), so before giving someone access to your journal on spec, it would be smart to hear from the horses' mouths that they're who you think they are. Best practices: if you're coming at it as an exclusive LJ user, only accept a Dreamwidth account's identity as verified if the corresponding livejournal account confirms it. (That's not to say there aren't completely legitimate users who are only on DW, just don't confuse usernames between the two platforms.) I'd like to suggest two things to help that happen.

First, leave a forwarding address on your profile page. In case you've forgotten where to do that, you can edit yours here: https://www.livejournal.com/manage/profile/ Scroll down to BIO. Edit and SAVE CHANGES.

Second, communities and groups of friends should consider making lists instead of everyone dotting their DW usernames in single entries throughout their individual journals. They aren't as likely to be found that way. The other problem is people's flists aren't identical. A helpful approach is to create nodes amongst flisties to increase the visibility, so if one of your flisties makes a post with their DW nick, comment and add yours. It doesn't matter if you've done it before, please do it again. (You're not desperate, you're sensible. I like that in a person... 😉) If you want to post them here, go for it. (Honestly it doesn't even matter if I know you or not, this isn't about friend requests. Let's try to make this as simple for everyone as possible.) Help your flisties find you on the other platform. Belts and braces people.

Most importantly, keep in mind both of those solutions are only going to work if livejournal itself is accessible, so to be on the safe side, try to get your "forwarding address" to as many of your flisties as you can as soon as you can, and try to update your flists on the other platform NOW. I'll try to keep this list current on dreamwidth as well for reference.

CONFIRMED NICKS I HAVE
(Note, I've copied and pasted them exclusively from user's posts / comments so they're confirmed. They're all links so you can click through to the user on dreamwidth and add them now (don't wait, do that now), and they use the lj user function so each user is notified about that link. If anyone is unhappy with their nick being shared here, please let me know and I'll remove you. ❤️)

COMMS
acciobrick remains acciobrick on dreamwidth.

deathtocapslock remains deathtocapslock on dreamwidth.

hpwu remains hpwu on dreamwidth.

mini_fest remains mini-fest on dreamwidth. NOTE: displays differently (hyphen / underbar).

snapecase remains snapecase on dreamwidth.

teacup_society remains teacup-society on dreamwidth. NOTE: displays differently (hyphen / underbar).

PEEPS
adafrog remains adafrog on dreamwidth.

arhythmthief remains arhythmthief on dreamwidth.

beffeysue remains beffeysue on dreamwidth.

beyondwandpoint remains beyondwandpoint on dreamwidth.

blueartemis07 remains blueartemis07 on dreamwidth.

chienne_folle is corylea on dreamwidth.org NOTE: not the same.

christmasspirit remains christmasspirit on dreamwidth.

dreamy_dragon73 is dreamy-dragon73 on dreamwidth. NOTE: displays differently (hyphen / underbar).

erexen remains erexen on dreamwidth.

gelsey remains gelsey on dreamwidth.

gingerbred is gingerbredrules on dreamwidth. NOTE: not the same. 😕

gingerbredshaus remains gingerbredshaus on dreamwidth.

gingerwitch remains gingerwitch on dreamwidth.

honeymink remains honeymink on dreamwidth.

hopelesliehermn is hope-leslie-hermnharry on dreamwidth. NOTE: not the same.

kellychambliss is kelly_chambliss on dreamwidth. NOTE: not the same.

lostangelsoul3 is lostangelsoul on dreamwidth. NOTE: not the same.

madeleone remains madeleone on dreamwidth.

merrymelody remains merrymelody on dreamwidth.

morethansirius remains morethansirius on dreamwidth.

mywitch remains mywitch on dreamwidth.

nocturnus33 remains nocturnus33 on dreamwidth.

nx74defiant remains nx74defiant on dreamwidth.

orlando_switch is orlando-switch on dreamwidth. NOTE: displays differently (hyphen / underbar).

reynardo remains reynardo on dreamwidth.

sigune remains sigune on dreamwidth.

snapebraille4tu remains snapebraille4tu on dreamwidth.

snapecentric1 is snapecentric on dreamwidth. NOTE: not the same.

sunnyskywalker remains sunnyskywalker on dreamwidth.

teddyradiator is teddy_radiator on dreamwidth. NOTE: not the same.

thankthefae remains thankthefae over on dreamwidth.

toblass remains Toblass on dreamwidth.

zigadenus remains zigadenus on dreamwidth.

IF YOU ARE VIEWING THIS ON DREAMWIDTH: Keep in mind on the dreamwidth copy of this that the first / left name in a line is the livejournal username and not the name you should be adding to your dreamwidth circles. For that please use the dreamwidth link instead which is the second name provided.

IF YOU HAVE COMMS THAT ARE MIRRORED ON DREAMWIDTH, PLEASE COMMENT BELOW AND I'LL ADD THEM. ❤️

UPDATED: 29 March 2022 13.21 CET

Happy Birthday, MyWitch!

2022-01-15T01:22:56Z

Happy birthday, mywitch. I hope your day is just as marvellous as you deserve, hun. ❤️🎉🥳

Suggestions on how best to remedy the situation if not... 😘

... because I know you're partial to my German Fire Punch. Ginger's Feuerzangenbowle, as dictated to Snape, because why not. And the good Potions Master has even been so kind as to add some thoughts of his own wrt fire safety. (I seem to recall some individuals of your acquaintance scoffing at my warnings as to recommended proofs... 😆🔥)

In theory, those three jpgs should print neatly to a page each and get around your not having the font installed. ѕ и ᗅ ᴘ ᴇ over on amminoapps took a great deal of pains and care analysing the handwriting of a certain wizard we all know and love and created the above font. I think they did an amazing job. ❤️

That second gif, on the other hand, apparently took them a whopping 15 minutes, and I'm going to go cry quietly and incompetently into my cocoa now. 😂 (Although tbf, someone else had done the underlying gif, so who knows...)

Anywhooodles, I'll make another post soonish explaining how to get the font and install it on an ipad (once I remember what I did; it's already been that kind of year) as they hadn't covered that bit on the site; giving back and all that.

Happy Birthday, snapecentric1!

2022-01-01T23:24:54Z

In honour of the day, Snape has brewed you something, snapecentric1. (Although I'm not sure you're supposed to drink it, so I'd hold off until he provides more details... He was in a bit of a mood. As near as I could tell, he was muttering something about guests overstaying their welcome, and I gathered he thought he was being useful? Hmm... Yes, some restraint is clearly advised.)

I was experimenting with different Snapes. If you'd like, you can pick your favourite for a(n as yet undisclosed) project you can expect to see soon. 🤔 The above is the medium aged of the lot. Below are younger and older versions. (The older is actually an official Snape!face, but he doesn't really look 38, does he? Certainly not for a wizard... So I took some liberties. *nods*) Anyway, if you'd care to, I promise to use which ever one you like best or just think feels Snape-ier (even the official one 😉). Collaborative efforts ftw!

Trailer! FB:TSOD

2021-12-13T16:48:01Z

Looks good. 😃 It seems Mads wasn't a bad choice at all for Grindelwald.

Oooo! Trailer for the trailer. lol

2021-12-11T00:10:14Z

Trailer should be out Monday. Here's something to whet our appetites till then...