Up until my switch to a Wiki environment in 2009, all the code and database architecture on the site was designed by me-originally using Active Server Pages and a Microsoft Access database back end. It existed on the site in 20, but did not last. You'll notice on the story page I had a comments feature at one point. At this point the number of stories posted was 296. The original idea for the motif was that the brick red would wrap around the top and left sides of the page, framing the content, but that went by the wayside in favor of a more open look, as you can see from the April 2003 snapshot (via Wayback Machine). I also wanted to develop a theme in warm colors revolving around dark red and rich shades of orange (but with supporting tones in pinks and lavenders for some reason). The main inspiration was to do something that continued the original idea of honoring the "meta" in Metabods by deriving the logo partially from Greek text (but this time, because I was working in all caps rather than in lowercase as before, stupidly using a sigma in place of an E, despite knowing better). I'm not sure exactly when this logo came into service, but it was in use for a few years up through 2003.
I do seem to recall that the original logo was half Greek, half Roman, in lowercase-much like the Big Mu logo I briefly used at the end of 2006. (At one point early on I remember having had to reconstruct my story database from what was already posted online.) Wayback Machine has archived the site as far back as 2001, but before that there are no vestiges that I can find, and two hard drive failures in the early 2000s pretty thoroughly rid me of any local copies of my earliest efforts.
I honestly have no idea at this point what the site looked like back in the 20th century.
Why "Metabods"? “My first site was on a UNIX server and I needed a site account name that was eight characters or less.” So, being a web developer, I started my own web site, sometime in 1997.” “At first I was angry at being discouraged so soon after my revelation, but later I realized he was right in a way: The proportion of one writer to all the writers on Nifty is probably not dissimilar to the proportion of gay guys interested in multilimb stories in relation to the gay population. The Nifty Archivist duly posted my stories, but then sent me a note that suggested that perhaps one prolific author in this vein might be enough for his site.” I was immediately inspired to write my first two multilimb stories (“The body shop” and “Army experiment”-still two of my personal favorites, as your firstborn often are ), which I submitted to Nifty. And here were these stories on the net for all the world to see! If there was another guy there had to be more. It was like coming out all over again: I had always thought that I must be the only one who had fantasized about guys with extra arms (among other things). “Somewhere around 1996 I discovered Josh Dugan's multilimb stories on the net at Nifty, the comprehensive erotic story archive. Here's the origin story for the site, as told in the FAQ: To see the history of cover images used with the site updates and flashbacks, visit the cover images page. 2021: Weekly Updates and Various Tweaks.Metabods was originally created in 1997, and the site has changed its look a lot over the years.