Crack Broom
| Journal Community | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Crack Broom |
| Date(s): | 18 November 2004 – present |
| Moderator: | iwao, this_bloody_cat & starduchess |
| Founder: | violet_quill |
| Type: | recs community |
| Fandom: | Harry Potter |
| URL: | Crack Broom |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Crack Broom is a Crack Van-inspired recs community on LiveJournal for Harry Potter fanworks. It was founded in November 2004 by violet_quill,[1] and remains active as of 2015. The main focus is fanfiction, but vids, fanart and podfic are also recommended. The tagline is HP Flavoured Crack. ... fly high. The community profile states:
- crack_broom is a Harry Potter version of crack_van, a popular multifandom fanfic rec community. We're here to help you feed your multi-ship HP addiction by providing a constant stream of recommendations to high-quality HP stories, as well as an opportunity to volunteer to share your own recs with the fandom at large!
As of September 2015, the community has over 9400 posts and is watched by nearly 2500 people. In 12 July 2013, the five most commonly recommended pairings/categories were gen (551 recs); Harry/Draco (514); Snape/Lupin (502); Snape/Hermione (477); and Snape/Harry (451). There were nearly 450 different pairings in the community's memories.
In June 2015 the new mods decided to compile the vast amount of recs posted to the community into a searchable database [2]. To that end, in August 2015 the mods posted a request for help [3]. A permanent link to this post can be found on the Big Queue.[4]
Organisation
The recs are primarly organised by pairing, with a set of regular pairings appearing each month (volunteers willing), plus two additional monthly featured pairings. As of June 2013, the pairings on permanent rotation are:
- Harry/Draco
- Harry/Ginny
- Ron/Hermione
- Snape/Hermione
- Remus/Sirius
- Remus/Tonks
- Draco/Hermione
- Albus Severus/Scorpius
- Rose/Scorpius
- Ron/Pansy
- Ron/Draco
- Draco/Ginny
- Snape/Lupin
- Snape/Harry
Although most recs are for a specific pairing, there are also slots for gen and crossovers/fusions, as well as nonspecific threesomes, femslash, rare and next gen pairings. A slot for cross gen, defined as pairings with an age gap of at least 15 years, was added in June 2013.[5][6] Up to two slots for featured characters were added in May 2014.[7] June and December are "free-flying months", during which any member can recommend a single fanwork.
Originally, volunteers were requested to recommend between four and eight pieces of fanfiction in their monthly stint, plus up to four non-fanfiction works (vids, art, podfic). All recs were required to be new to the community. From July 2012 up to two of the recs could have appeared previously, as long as the earlier rec was more than four years ago. But in June 2015 the new mods updated and modified the Community Rules [8]. Volunteers can now recommend a minimum of four- and up to eight- fanworks, be they videos, fics, art or podfics. In the same way, several of the community's regulations and structure have been updated.
History & Staff
Crack Broom was founded by violet_quill;[1] herlifeisbroken was among the early moderators. Other former moderators include tarie, lore, geewhiz, nursedarry and cassie_black12. The community had a brief hiatus from organised reccing in early to mid 2012 owing to moderator problems and a lack of volunteer reccers.[9] The re-reccing rule was introduced subsequently to make it easier to find works to recommend.[8] Podfic was introduced for November 2012.[10]
scarletladyy and wwmrsweasleydo took over from nursedarry and cassie_black12 as Crack Broom moderators in June 2013.[11] In March 2015, iwao, this_bloody_cat and starduchess became the community moderators.[12]. Shortly after, ownership of the community was transferred to this_bloody_cat.
Reviews
Since I'm mourning the imminent closure of crack_van, I've decided to do a shout-out to its sister com, crack_broom, which specializes in monthly recs for a wide variety of HP fanworks. I say "fanworks," although the community skews heavily toward fic (but then, so do I). Regardless, I love reading the tributes paid to various authors and artists, vidders and (recently) podficcers. I also love writing recs, and I've taken several turns on the 'broom for the sheer pleasure of serenading readers with my opinions. Every month a volunteer crew of reccers spotlights stories and art to share with the larger fanbase, urging the curious to take a chance. There are regularly featured ships - such as Snape/Harry - and looser categories for femslash, next gen, and rarepairs. I always enjoy hearing people talk about what they love and why, and crack_broom is an ongoing forum created for the purpose of sharing that love. (Perverse Idyll)[13]
References
- ^ a b crack_broom: Toss me some candy, stranger! (accessed 12 July 2013)
- ^ *Database of Past Recs* (accessed 3 September 2015)
- ^ crack_broom: *Help us complete our Database!* (accessed 20 August 2015)
- ^ crack_broom: The Big Queue (accessed 3 September 2015)
- ^ crack_broom: Welcoming Cross-Gen! (accessed 12 July 2013)
- ^ crack_broom: *NEW CATEGORY*: Cross Gen (accessed 12 July 2013)
- ^ Crack Broom: Featured Character (accessed 28 April 2015)
- ^ a b crack_broom: Community Rules (accessed 29 June 2015)
- ^ crack_broom: Admin: Announcement (accessed 12 July 2013) & locked admin post of 30 April 2012
- ^ crack_broom: Admin: November Fliers (accessed 12 July 2013)
- ^ crack_broom: New Mods! (accessed 12 July 2013)
- ^ Crack Broom: New Mods, Calling for Fliers and Other Matters of Interest (accessed 28 April 2015)
- ^ perverse-idyll: Snowflake Challenge: Days 2 & 3 (accessed 7 September 2014)