Wake Up - The Making of Metamora

This all dates back almost five years now. I was studying Computer Science in college and just learned a bunch of completely unmarketable programming skills that I so desperately wanted to put to use. Of course it was that exact kind of misguided ambition that led my first project to never bear any fruit, but nonetheless, that was the start of something that would eventually become what you’re (hopefully) reading today.

My project, which I still hope I may one day release, was an ambitious idea - a broad adventure game where you controlled a collective of Changelings as they tried to operate a love gathering operation in Canterlot, right under the nose of the Royal Guard. I most frequently called it “Queen’s Heart” because I could never think of a better name. It was a grandiose idea that pulled in story from both my own imagination and works like SPark's Ember’s and Denim_Blue’s The Everfree House, in gameplay from a bunch of shitty flash games and some more polished work like Fenoxo’s excellent adventure games (which I can’t link here - rules is rules).
From a technical standpoint I tried to build this game in just about every possible way; I tried discrete engines like Flash or Unity, web-based approaches riding on tens of different architectures, and even more purpose-built tools like RenPy. I never got much of anywhere with the development of the game, but the worldbuilding - that’s an entirely different story. Or it could have been if I wasn’t so determined to present it as a game. Everything I wrote, everything I designed was meant to be presented organically; no linear flow to hinder presentation, what I couldn’t handle in characterization or description I could craft a feature to replace or draw attention away from with other content.

But there was one thing I built in all of this that was truly portable - something I was able to bring over to this story. Early in the development of the game I decided that there would be three tiers of Changeling - the “worker”, the “assistant”, and the “queen”. The queen was an obvious choice of character, as we’ve already got one in-universe, and the worker didn’t really need to have much character - they were a tool as much to the player as they would have been to the hive. But for the assistant I had to create something that didn’t yet exist, a Changeling with a story, a personality, a life. And I called her Metamora. She was always a plucky, strong-willed Changeling that took the world way too seriously, but at the same time was immensely capable of seeing things for what they really were. I always imagined her as capable and determined, but always teetering on the edge of self-doubt and failure by self-fulfilling prophecy, a kind of inverse Icarus if you will.
One of the things I settled on more recently, and only really finalized with the creation of this story was the concept of a Changeling “class system”. This system is defined by metamorphosis, where the first metamorphosis is synonymous with adulthood, cementing your place as a drone or a worker of some sort, and then a second metamorphosis that only the most talented or capable Changelings could undergo which gave rise to more specialized roles, like a Soldier, Engineer, or Infiltrator. This gave me the mold for what I long knew was going to be Metamora’s main internal conflict. Her struggle was always going to be about not fitting in or trying to be something she wasn’t, but I finally settled on what we see in the story, where she is physically a Soldier but plays the role of an Infiltrator. Her mind is constantly at war over whether this means she’s so good she can be both, or too conflicted to be any good at either. Of course we all know she’s doing just fine, but that’s the point of an internal conflict - it’s something that only makes sense to her. Anon hasn’t quite figured out what sets her off on this, but he’s beginning to piece it together.
Metamora’s disguise, Atlas, is her exact antithesis. He is everything she isn’t because she is always so worried about not being good enough. That whole being two different things part - he studies geobiology; couldn’t pick geography or biology so he decided to do both! His personality contrasts with hers as well; where Metamora is often quiet and contemplative, strong willed and sharp tongued, Atlas is instead talkative and air-headed, indecisive and aloof. The crucial distinction is that Atlas is Metamora. He is everything she could be if she stopped worrying, but he is also everything she would be if she stopped caring. His shortcomings are her strengths, and her faults his strong points. In this Metamora acts as her own foil, never noticing the delightful irony of it.

I would be remiss if I weren’t to mention a particularly crucial element of Metamora’s character development as of late. I owe the resolve to make her a strong, deep character to the masterfully written Apocrita of No Pony’s Bugging Out. As I mentioned, that story is the chief reason I’m writing this. I fell in love with the world No Pony built us in that story, and specifically how he(?) portrays such deep, relatable characters - a skill I never quite developed. I won’t put words in his mouth by trying to describe Apocrita here, but nonetheless she and Metamora fill similar roles in our respective stories. I would like to take a moment to clarify - Metamora is not Apocrita, she is her own individual with her own strengths, weaknesses, problems, and desires; but nonetheless such a strong leading character is a lasting example that I can’t help but be influenced by. I hope the differences stand on their own merit, but I also hope that you’ll come to love Metamora in the same way many came to love Ap.