The idea of Atomic came about from seeing other people's fanfic rec sites. I enjoy reading fanfic and have often read a fic where I'd like to spread the word about it. However, I also wanted to do something a bit different than just the standard rec site, where I would rec just fanfic. I wanted to have a site where it also helped writers by introducing them to lesser known archives and sites to help them find readers and to hone their skills.

Pretentious? Possibly, that's for you to decide. I am not going to say that I carefully select fics or sites to see only the best of the best in the fanfiction community flourish. The community will flourish with or without this site. What I want to do is to help readers find some decent fic that they might not come across due to the sheer size of the fanfiction community. I also want to help writers find archives and resources that they might not know about. The primary focus of this site is enjoyment.

When it comes to recommending fic, I rec fics that I have personally enjoyed reading. Some of the fics I have stumbled across on my own by doing google searches and by searching archives. Other fics I have found through someone else's recommendation. Basically when a fic rec shows up on this site, it's because I've enjoyed it and for no other reason than that.

That said I do focus on certain elements when I read fanfiction and those elements will probably become apparent in the recommendations that I make. I do find that I prefer fics that have great characterization, a decent plot, and originality. For me, at least two of those three elements should be in a fic for me to enjoy it. I am tired of reading the same old plots in fics focusing on a pairing. I am tired of reading fics of a great pairing where the characterization of the main characters is so off, that it might as well as not be the characters from that particular fandom.

Fics should always have good characterization, originality and a good plot. Whether the author has the characters outside of their normal canon setting is not as important to me. However the characters remaining true to themselves is what matters. You won't find a fic here with a character that is completely out of character, unless there is a reason for it. Sometimes the author's writing goes beyond perfect characterization.

Sites and archives are a little more difficult to define why they'd be on this site. In some cases, it's because I have found the site to be a great resource to me when it comes to writing. In the case of archives, I will largely recommend archives that focus on quality and not quantity. The larger sites that cater to everyone's tastes in genre, pairing and ratings can easily be found by doing a goog le search. The smaller and lesser known sites that focus more on genres, ratings, characters, pairings, etc aren't as easily found by doing a google search.

The site, itself, has been made using Photoshop CS2 and Macromedia Dreamweaver MX2004. It's hosted on Dreamhost.

Layouts:

V2. (April 2007 - )

Uses a promotional picture for the show: Supernatural. The font used for this layout is called Beyond Wonderland.

.1 (November 2006 - April 2007)

Uses a picture of Sarah Michelle Gellar from a photo spread in an issue of Entertainment Weekly.
The font used in this layout is "As I lay Dying" and it can be found at Dafont.com.