Guys when I say I literally started crying when I found this, I mean it.
For those of you who didn't see my announcement, basically I charged up my old iPod from middle school and since it hasn't connected to wifi since 2014, the app hasn't updated AND it's exactly how I left it. Username, covers, stories, library, reading lists, EVERYTHING is the same.
You can roast me but also keep in mind that Wattpad was a VERY different place during these years and wasn't focused on aesthetics nearly as much. Everyone just did whatever they wanted to in terms of covers and story layouts.
For those who were on Wattpad during this time, the old layout will bring back memories. For those who joined later, you're in for a SHOCK.
When you open the app, it takes you straight to your library. There isn't a "home" page.
I'm exposing my whole library from this time (some of these are actually in my archive):
1. CONNOR FRANTA I AM SO SORRY. This was before he came out and when he did, I deleted all of the fics for him from my library.
2. The Doctor Who phase. Yeah I was neck-deep in it during this time.
3. This was also my PJO phase, as you can tell, as well as my Marvel, One Direction, Teen Wolf, and 5sos phases, so it was just chaos.
4. It was the beginning of my Maze Runner phase too. Different didn't exist yet, but would soon (TMR fans will probably recognize Fighter in there. I don't think I finished it though).
I couldn't load my profile without wifi, so I had no idea what my follower count was at this point, which is SO disappointing.
There is a side bar you open by pressing a button at the top left, and here you'll see my old user and icon.
Yep. TheReal_SlimShady. And that's 13 year old me in the pic. It's so dramatic.
RIP the news feed, you were so good to us :( it wouldn't let me load that either without wifi, same with the discover tab, so I had to skip those.
Let's check out my reading lists.
I really wish that it would show me any of the books in there, but it won't :/ I want to see what's in the "Finished and Loved" and "Stories I Recommend" lists to see my taste at the time.
And now... drumroll please... 🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁 my stories.
My covers were less-than-average AND YES THAT'S A DANCE MOMS FIC. BYE.
I'll talk briefly about each book now (even though it makes me wanna cry), except for WTC because I've talked enough about that already.
Dance, Love, Drama was about Paige Hyland and this new guy who joins the team (I didn't check his name oops). All of the girls are excited to have a boy since they don't get to dance with a guy often, but Paige knows she won't really get to interact with him much anyways because Abby never gives her special parts in the dances.
I don't remember the entire plot, but the chapters were pretty short and basically it was about Paige learning to accept herself and how she gets new opportunities to show off her dancing skills on the team. I also really villainized Maddie??? Idk what my problem was, but dang. She was mean and for WHAT? Well, I guess the "drama" part of the title had to come in somewhere 🙄
I was obsessed with Dance Moms in middle school LMAO, my friend and I literally had Instagram fan pages and one of mine had like 3k followers in less than a year BYE—
The Wattpad Goals book is exactly what the title says. It was just a list of my goals and I'd mark them off as they were completed. I don't know why I thought that this needed to be public ??? It really was a different time.
Some of my goals that I had marked off as completed in that book:
—Get 100 followers by the end of 2013
—Learn to make proper covers (did I though?? DID I??)
—Have 200 followers by the end of 2014
—Have 100 votes on a chapter
—Get 100k reads on one of my stories (I think this was WTC)
—Start my Percy Jackson story
TheReal_SlimShady's Tips and Tricks for Writing a Great Story!!! apparently needed three exclamation marks. Also Logan Lerman on the cover further proving he's the white boy of the decade🥰 Love that man. Anyways this book was stupid because I wasn't great at writing and had no business telling others what to do. But apparently I recognized how some tips were bad. Instead of deleting the book, however, I decided to make a "New and Improved" version which you can see further down.
Harry Potter Stole My Heart is a book I have little to no recollection of ??? The OC's name was Tasia and I have no idea why I thought that was a good name. Actually, all of my OC's names from this time were questionable (*cringes in Autumness Stella Moore from WTC*).
It's very unoriginal. I had to re-read some of it to get the gist of the plot and basically Tasia is The Girl Who Lived because her parents were friends with Lily and James, so they brought her over their house and then Voldemort showed up. Don't you hate when that happens??🙄 Smh Voldy. Then the parents all die and Tasia gets a scar behind her ear from the killing curse. But her uncle makes sure she's completely sheltered from the magic world so she has no idea she's a witch until she's 12. I guess her uncle wanted her held back for some reason so she gets her letter a year late and goes right into second year (don't ask).
My favorite thing is how Tasia learns her entire life is a lie and is just like "oh word?" and is not fazed at all. Like it's just another Thursday when you find out you're a witch and your parents were killed by some bald wizard with a snake fetish.
Flaming Arrows is a Leo Valdez book I talked about in my chapter under the "tags" section where I discussed my OC graveyard. It was accidentally deleted, which led me to then publish Different a lot sooner than I had planned, and directly led to me getting where I am today. Who knows if I actually would've published Different if I had continued down the path of FA??
Oh Leo, how I once loved you. How obsessed I was with you.
Avery Damian-Holmes, you are still so close to my heart.
This one was just a collection of Movie/TV show quotes that I liked, either for humor-related reasons or just because they were nice.
Some shows/films I included quotes from:
—The Internship
—Now You See Me
—The Sword in the Stone
—Aladdin
—Frozen
—Hot Rod
—Sherlock
—Teen Wolf
—Thor
—Harry Potter
Debt was my first ever attempt at a Marvel fic and I once again have no recollection of the plot of my own story. Also HER NAME WAS BLAZE???? Goodbye.
I had to re-read this one too, but I couldn't get very far. You see, my iPod's screen is completely white with a giant black blob in the corner, so I had to squint really hard to see what I was going, and was basically just taking screenshots of things I couldn't see. So by this point, my eyes felt like they were bleeding.
Blaze has the ability to manipulate the elements but apparently doesn't know it because they randomly manifest one day when she's dancing around her room ??? Idk. Then Nick Fury comes over and recruits her for the Avengers, which is convenient timing. Apparently he somehow knew about her powers before she did.
The title comes from her constantly being in Steve's debt because he keeps doing things for her and she feels like she has to repay him. Idk this plot was so boring I'm so glad I have Sick of Losing Soulmates now.
A better title for this would've been "Multifandom One-Shots" because that's essentially what they were. I'd create an OC just for the chapter and write a short story about them in whatever universe. For example, the Scott McCall one is about a werewolf hunter who runs into a transformed Scott in the woods and mortally wounds him, then realizes who it is and decides to stay with him in his final moments before fleeing town once he dies. And then the Hazel one is about her adopting some teenagers when she's in her 20s to help them before they're out of the system.
Also, here is what the app looked like while you were writing:
IS THAT COMIC SANS???? ALSO WHY IS THE FONT SO BIG AND THE SPACE BETWEEN LINES IS HUGE AS WELL. WTF. (Update: apparently it's "Chalkboard SE", not Comic Sans, but WHY was that my setting?) I had my reading options set to dark mode and the text was PURPLE, not white.
I don't have enough space to let you read each story in its entirety, but here is a screenshot of HPSMH so you can get a glimpse of what my writing was like during this time.
Then it's just her letter from McGonagall saying she's been accepted to Hogwarts and that her Uncle Max will explain everything. Clearly we were jumping RIGHT in and wasting no time.
I hope you guys enjoyed this glimpse of the past and how ugly everything was🥰