The Moons of Iego: The Padmé Amidala & Anakin Skywalker Website

TMOI, A HISTORY

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The site's pages are coded by a mixture of hand, FrontPage, and Dreamweaver. The graphics are designed in Adobe Photoshop CS.

This site was launched at http://www.geocities.com/anakin_and_amidala/ (which is a dead address now) sometime around October 1999 (I've lost track of the actual date) under the name 'The Anakin Skywalker and Queen Amidala Website.' Creative, no? ;-) I changed the name once I found out Padmé didn't stay Queen. I think.

My intrigue with the character of Vader and the mysterious wife who is mentioned only once in the entire original trilogy had become, with the advent of Episode I, an increasing interest for me, sowing my 'shippy loving roots. Of course Ani being a 9-year old then, the dominant prequel fanfic pairing was Obidala or an Ani/Ami/Obi love triangle, which I found I despised. Scouring the internet I found very little, if anything that was pro-A/A (no websites; the fanfic I could count on one hand), and grew frustrated. I originally planned on an anti-love triangle site, but on a little bit of thinking decided to do a pro-Anakin/Amidala site instead, so I could be sure of at least one place on the internet I didn't run into any love triangle/Obidala crap and could enjoy my favorite couple in relative peace. For a while this cheese stood alone, but soon fortunately began to thrive. Particularly once the hype of Episode II began, more A/A sites began to spring up - many of which have since fizzled completely. Even this site went without updating for a very long time a few years ago, and may as well have been closed.

LAYOUTS
The original layout was a simple vertical red table layout, with the title banner by Anakin's Angel and the main graphic being a somewhat iffy looking Photoshop collage designed by myself. ;) I don't have a screencap of that layout.

Layout #2 looked very much the same, except with a blue color scheme and an only slightly less iffy-looking collage:

In October of 2001 I moved the site briefly to fan.starwars.com, looking for more space to expand the site. But that service fizzled after a couple of months, and I bought my own domain for it back at Geocities and moved it there in December. In March of this year I did the layout again to a lighter orange/peach horizontal table layout. This time the title banner was mine, though the style was still based on the original Anakin's Angel one. Again, the main graphic a collage by me, and the background a pale beige-ish adaptation of the Italian AOTC poster. (If you've seen that poster, you know it just had to be included somehow. *g* Gorgeous, sensual.) Layout #3 was also the last of my versions to include a section for Sabé/Obi-Wan - I initially included it to promote a counter-pairing to Obidala, but eventually decided this site's focus should be solely Anakin/Amidala - not to mention I never had a lot of interest in S/O, and there were plenty of other S/O sites springing up elsewhere anyway.

In November 2002 I changed to a light blue tables layout, using an image map for navigation, and for the first time began naming the versions of my layouts. This one was "Aggressive Negotiations," and featured pictures of our couple in their battle scenes/gear from AotC. (I've yet to find a cap of it, which I could swear I'd done.) It was my favorite of the old layouts, but I eventually grew a little tired of the blueness.

In the last days of March 2003 I changed to a brown frames layout, 'A Perfect Moment,' with a main graphic based on the picnic scene - I think this may still be my favorite layout. There are times I think about bringing it back. ;)

Version 6, implemented in October 2003 and lasting until late February 2004 was 'A Purple Mood.' I was never totally in love with this layout - not like the previous - but a lot of people seemed to love it, so I didn't complain much. ;-)

Version 7 was implemented in February 2004 and lasted until the end of October 2004. (The pinkishness of the layout and it coming out around Valentine's Day was a freak coincidence.) It was my first layout to incorporate Episode III imagery, featuring P/A images from all three movies, and was called 'Through the Years'. (No, I'm not creative with names.) This was probably my favorite graphic I ever designed for a site layout, though I never could quite figure out how to handle the affiliates page, and I think it unfortunately added a bit of clunkiness to what otherwise would have been a perfect layout.

Version 8, 'Innocent Beginnings,' was implemented in November 2004. With the impending doom and gloom of Episode III, I decided to revisit a happier time for our couple, knowing that TPM is an oft overlooked portion of their relationship anyway. I was proud of how it came out, though if I'd learned PHP then, I know that would have helped.

Layout #9, 'Loving Eyes,' featuring Hayden and Natalie, lasted from September 11, 2005 to April 23, 2006, and was the first layout of this site to utilize PHP and Coppermine. I liked it, but all of a sudden people started to think TMOI was a H/N site, so I changed it fairly quickly.

Layout #10, 'Clone Wars,' was implemented April 23, 2006 and stayed up probably longer than any previous layout - almost two years - until March 22, 2008. More because I was lazy than anything else, though I was fond of the layout. The layout featured images from the original Cartoon Network Clone Wars cartoon series.