Metaphase

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Lauren really doesn't belong at superhero school. Growing up an orphan, no heroes ever flew over her corner of nowhere as she scrounged and scrapped just to last another day. But after she and her twin are stolen from their home and experimented on for an unknown purpose, Lauren finds herself in a city in desperate need of new champions, and a class full of powered teenagers with their own oddities and problems. Between the search for her missing sister, her volatile classmates, and a new hierarchy arising from the ashes, Lauren will need to rely on her instincts and her emerging powers if she's going to make it to graduation alive. Metaphase is a slow-burn, character-driven drama with bursts of action and a main character who slowly evolves and changes, not always for the better. For enjoyers of Young Justice, Invincible, and similar stories with superpowers and angst. Readers can expect:A serialized story that tries to move the plot along at a decent pace while still leaving lots of room for character moments, a cast of colorful characters that rotate in and out of the spotlight, two main PoVs with occasional chapters in other perspectives, an original superhero universe inspired by comic book shared universes without a unified power system, and plenty of teen drama; Special warning for occasional bloodshed, death, mass destruction, torture, and teens being realistically horny. . . . Currently posting roughly 4-6k word chapters once a week, usually on Mondays with occasional bonus chapters if I have the time. Metaphase, as with all my projects, will always be 100% human made, from writing to editing to any artwork. Cover by Lily Herring @elle.aech on instagram

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2025
Author: Ashn1

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 460
Views: 109,497

What readers say about Metaphase

“I like superhero stories. Not generally; superhero movies, comics, and tv shows haven't held much appeal since I was a kid, and never managed to hold much appeal besides. Sure, they can be excellent, and I can truly enjoy them, yet they also seemed exceptio…”
invidiousRoyal Road5.0 / 5
“Binged all the entries in an afternoon; love it and can’t wait for more; School+superheroes sign me up keep up all the great work; feels like a less dark worm so far; however depending on how some plot points develop it might not be less dark; and I compare…”
mmmBopRoyal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

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Community Reviews(9)

invidiousRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I like superhero stories. Not generally; superhero movies, comics, and tv shows haven't held much appeal since I was a kid, and never managed to hold much appeal besides. Sure, they can be excellent, and I can truly enjoy them, yet they also seemed exceptions rather than rules. It's written word stories that do it (cause I'm a written-word kind of person), however I don't like most superhero stories on RR. Too much of a one-dimensional power fantasy. Few interesting narratives, drama, or characters. All fat, no meat.
You might be thinking, 'Well, dickhead, it sounds as if you don't even like superhero stories.' Firstly, there's no need for namecalling, alright? Geez. Secondly, if that were the case then why would I be sorting RR by the superhero tag every few weeks?
Because while I like the notion of a society that has adjusted itself around exceptional, supernaturally capable individuals, I also won't settle for an unbalanced meal.
Metaphase feels balanced. There is action. There are character conflicts. There is an overarching plot. None of it is overly complex, however that doesn't mean it's bad. The action is easy to follow and almost always backed by high-stakes. The main cast are consistent and feel like teenagers, instead of adults masquerading as adolescents. They feel human, in their own immature way. The narrative has a lot of the same tropes you've seen before, but they're used competently, and supports the rest of the story well. I saw most of the twists coming, but the fact indicates that Ashn1 had the forethought to work those twists through the entire story; a sign of good craft.
The style is competent, and always conveys what it needs to. Rarely goes above that. If there were grammatical issues I didn't notice them
Yet it's always fun.
I could get more specific about the ways Metaphase is well-designed. The two perspectives complement each other well in what information they give readers access to without splitting the story in any significant way.
mmmBopRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Binged all the entries in an afternoon; love it and can’t wait for more;
School+superheroes sign me up
keep up all the great work;
feels like a less dark worm so far; however depending on how some plot points develop it might not be less dark;
and I compare it to worm mostly because of the similar way it delineates Arc#.chapter# and subject matter; not because I think it is a lesser version of it.
Endless PavingRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Reviewer after the apparent end of the first book, or story arc or whatnot. So far it has been mostly introducing the readers and protagonist to transitioning into the super school context.
It starts with your typical mad science experiment traumatic backstory super/mutant with angst ending up in a super high school. This one of the variety where said backstory continues to not be fully resolved so there can be a personal big evil villain to pursue revenge on eventually. We even get a little reason to actually care about rescuing the kidnapped sibling if she ends up being a character again eventually.
I do like the black sheep street urchin going to the prestigious super school. Conflict there, and the drama doesn’t have to involve the bogstandard stereotype bullying nonsense for once, because there are other forms of indignity.
There’s a little focus on a more ensemble cast, though our main girl is still the manority of the story content. Might end up with a splash of romance potentially. It does feel a little like a slow burn story, compared how most stories are paced on this site. This is the type of story where the first part can feel like a prologue if that makes sense.
Overall I’d say drama is the main focus. Emotions, relationships, politics, stuff like that. Action can also be a brutal at times, though that likely will be more frequent later on as the conflict escalates.
RDDR3295Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Short answer: a good novel to read so far
Long answer: I feel charmed to the mc because of her grounded conflict amidst the apocalypse happening in her environment. She isn't eager to save world either. The work also presents other characters with interesting personalities and I found Adam the most interesting. He's unique in that sense he contrasts from his family in their goals. The world seems promising and I hope that the novel will broaden it. Grammar is fine, I didn't find any major mistakes. I'll continue to read it.
TheAceOfSkullsRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I have an odd relationship with the Reluctant Hero trope, especially when it comes to cape-y stories. On the one hand, if you're doing any kind of in depth analysis of costumed heroes, relatable people probably don't want to jump into campy costumes to get into fights on the regular. On the otherhand, it can be frustrating to go into a genre and watch the protagonist(s) simply refuse the genre outright.
Metaphase is the story of a new generation of heroes attempting to go to a brand new superhero school in the wake of a cataclysm that wiped out most of the important capes several years ago and stars a former street urchin turned escaped lab experiment who only cares about finding her missing sister and a billionaire scion who isn't even sure he has powers and feels out of place.
Neither of these characters wants to be here, unlike their classmates, but each have different reasons for it. And on the surface that reluctance should clash with the expected genre tropes, but Ashn1 has done a fantastic job of avoiding what I like to call "The rogue in the tavern corner" problem, where a character feels like they're avoiding the main calling of the plot because they're too cool for human connections.
Lauren is slow to open up, and is extremely resistant to engaging with superheroes any more than she has to, but it feels like a barrier that's being chipped away at with very human emotions behind it, while the story also examines what a world of capes would look like and removes the naive grandeur of the comic-y world as the dangers set it, but importantly, doesn't feel like it condemns a love of these kinds of worlds in general.
It's less squeaky clean than some of the characters were hoping, but it walks the delicate balance that a grounded take on the genre should if it still wants to come from a place of loving the genre, and weaves in a lot of interesting hooks as we see the power vacuum left by the previous generation of heroes pulls in not just a worried government at
tori9Royal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Definitely hooked, definitely worth a read.
Well written story, with well written characters.
Only criticism i have is the story description says nothing about the second protagonist, spoilers: the story is told from at least two points of view, though i'd say the povs are nicely contrasting, coming from opposite sides of the sociopolitical ladder and both have room for growth. (Even if i personally kinda dislike the secondary protagonist at the mo).
Altogether good read.
CrashleyRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
(A lot of this is purloined from a comment I wrote in chapter 3.10, so it does technically have spoilers, but I hope nothing is major enough to ruin the mystery or what can be gleaned from early context clues, the series's premise, or simple genre savviness. Also, spoilers for the one big story arc Marvel Comics ran in the late 90's-early 00's.)
This series has a similar place in my heart as The Thunderbolts, in a good way. It lies in a similar setting to the 90's comic saga, one where a golden age of superheroes was also summarily beheaded by one near-apocalypse event. It's got a similar level of slow, interpersonal dynamics, societal angst, playing with ideas of bad-guys-gone-good-except-only-optically, and so on. It even has a similar emotional core to the Thunderbolts, one of people feeling fundamentally left out by society-writ-large and finding their place in the world despite prior circumstances.
Positive comparison to The Thunderbolts aside, the romantic teenage drama is nothing innovative, but it's an excellent, thoughtful choice by the author to vent pressure between violent combat and multi-layered intrigue while still keeping the sheer angst and pressure of the story ramping up. Moreover, said teenage drama threads into and overlaps the main narrative in very interesting and entertaining ways. In Lauren's case, the teenage anxiety, psychological anxiety, and romantic drama tonally mix quite well and even parallel the body horror, mystery, and intrigue she deals with as a superhero. In Adam's case, while I was openly groaning at the 'rich and powerful guy stuck between two women who both want him' trope at first, it steadily grew on me because Adam grows out of it in a way that set up his character and the broader narrative in an excellent manner if you can outlast the trope.
On that note, there's one writing choice that causes enough friction to prevent me from saying this earns a full five stars. While the school setting is metatextually justified as a
notgudatallRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
I felt the writing, pacing and world-building were overall great. There was a compelling narrative about Lauren's growth as a person, but my qualms are twofold:
- The ending for arc 2 kinda fell off the cliff in terms of quality. We're just gonna randomly bring in someone who can destroy Earth, let him curbstomp some kids, kill some heroes, then disappear? And the entire earlier plot spanning a dozen or so chapters around the theft of the alien body is just a device to rationalise this guy coming and disappearing within one chapter? I feel like there were probably some better methods to heap bad things on the characters because this didn't really make sense to me.
- The second protagonist's POV feels like the opposite of compelling. It's like he's just there to introduce, foreshadow and shed some light on the influencing forces behind the happenings we see.
Author says to trust them though, and the 50ish chapters before this were pretty good, so imma stay patient and hope that all these incongruities are part of some greater story structure and plot.
EisenYellsRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
The story has an interesting premise, and is keeping the mystery element high.
The characters are all well written, some a bit more of a caricature than others, but you learn their personalities, and feel like you'd get along with some while not others.
There is a massive unreliable narrator component to things as well, I'm not sure if that international.
The convenient thing about your typical superhero story is that you can do whatever the heck you want and not need to explain how it works, which makes the wordbuilding have an inherently shallow nature, but I feel it does not negatively affect this story in a notable way since it's society and characters are the primary draw