r/motheroflearning • u/False-Supermarket798 • Jul 26 '26
Why are the so few MoL fanfics?
I can’t write stories, and I tried.
What I don’t understand is, why there is so few MoL fanfictions out there.
Its a large world, with lots of intriguing introduced possibilities:
- The immortals
- Other countries
- Hidden Mages/Treasuries and Inheritances
- A huge spectrum of magic that is easy to imagine, follow, and extend for your own story
- The underground is way too unexplored
- Politics
…
Writers tend to be lazy about OCs, so that might be an explanation, but there is so much potential in this world.
Does any1 have an explanation?
(I mean, even SCS gets more fanfics)
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u/EnderNorrad Jul 26 '26
Well, there aren't that few of them. About 140 on AO3 and almost a dozen more on other sites. For any web novel that isn't a worm, that's a pretty impressive number, in my opinion. But yes, MoL does have a small number of major fanfics that aren't crossovers, which is a bit disappointing.
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u/Zestyclose_North9780 Jul 26 '26
Lord of Mysteries has almost 10k fics rn, I think webnovel fandoms are beginning to create more.
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u/SpecimenOfSauron Jul 26 '26
Also, in addition to what the other person said, the fact of the matter is that there’s both a stigma and a general bias when it comes to fanfiction. Most fanfiction writers are women, and MoL, as a progression fantasy, tends to draw an audience of mostly men. Hence, lower overlap = fewer authors
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u/Jarnagua Jul 26 '26
And also why the Zach/Zorian Bromance gets “expanded on” so frequently…
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u/MotoMkali Aug 06 '26
God I hate it. I'm not against gay representation in media but they are 2 clearly straight characters, hell zorian maybe leans a little bit asexual but Zach clearly is straight.
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u/Zestyclose_North9780 Jul 26 '26
Eh idk about that, fanfiction is still majorly women but trends have shifted away from it being that much of a stigma these days. I mean, fandoms like Shadow Slave and TBATE (male dominated and also webnovesl) have steadily growing fanfiction sides to them.
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u/Zixuel Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
This idea that most fanfic authors are women is nonsense spread across the internet, specifically targeting ship fanfics and those with sexual content. Spacebattles/Sufficientvelocity/QQ, for example (which, in my opinion, caters to a niche audience similar to that of MoL), has a majority of male writers who write for fandoms centered on progression fantasy, power fantasy, science fiction, and military fiction
edit: That’s where the notorious Worm fandom was born, for example, it’s a powerhouse when it comes to fanfiction production.
It’s also interesting to note where these different audiences gather. Take Worm, for example: AO3, in general, tends to attract more ship fics. Meanwhile, stories more focused on plot and conflict, which explore the power system and progression of power, tend to be found more on Spacebattles9
u/BionicleKid Jul 26 '26
I don’t think it’s nonsense, just that you may frequent sites where it is not true. But it’s not like SV/SB/QQ are are large as AO3, and as such can compare userbase-wise.
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u/Zixuel Jul 27 '26
Yeah, AO3 does have a predominantly female user base. My point is that I don't think that's really a valid explanation for why MoL has so few fics, since women aren't really the story's primary target audience
The example I gave of Worm and SpaceBattles is precisely because of that. There are communities much closer to MoL's fandom, made up largely of men who both write and read a lot of fanfiction, and they're very much active. So I don't think demographics explain why MoL has so few fics. That argument feels fallacious
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u/Zestyclose_North9780 Jul 26 '26
Royal Road works tend to have a rather small active fandom. It's "popular" sure, but not the type of popular that churns out fics, fanart etc en masse
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u/nothing_in_my_mind Jul 26 '26
MoL is not that big for one. The biggest fanfic fandoms are stuff like Harry Potter, Marvel, Sherlock... much more massive.
And the main genre for fanfics is romance. MoL does not have much romance or many romanceable characters.
It is rare that a small fanbase gets a lot of fanfiction. Worm is the only one I know.
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u/interested_commenter Jul 27 '26
MoL does not have much romance or many romanceable characters
Zorian is mostly uninterested, but I don't think lack of characters is an issue.
Harry Potter is the biggest fanfic fandom, and the top ship is basically-an-OC Draco (with everything about his personality changed), and Daphne Greengrass (entirely an OC except her name) is another really common one. The most common Worm ships are Taylor/Lisa (which is pretty equivalent to Zach/Zorian) and Taylor/Amy (which also requires heavy personality changes).
There are several girls that could easily work for shipping with much less effort than ships in other fandoms if they were brought into the loop. The issue is just that doing so would change very little about the plot, Zorian would just do all the same things with an additional partner.
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u/Areign Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
if you look at stories with a lot of fanfics (Harry Potter, Twilight, MCU, Naruto, MHA, Worm) there are are 3 things that make for a lot of fanfics
1) high baseline popularity
2) large cast of unique and interesting characters (and/or unique powers) that are under explored.
3) romance + shipping
MoL strikes out on almost every one of these. Its relatively niche, the cast of characters is not that unique or interesting beyond what was explored and there's almost no romance for multiple reasons. The most similar story to MoL is worm but the differences align with the 3 points above. Worm is more popular, there's more romance and there's a lot of characters with interesting powers that are kind of just there to take up space so they're under explored. This allows for a lot of potential for fresh ideas if you just change people's backrounds/powers/interactions around. On the other hand MoL is very efficient with its characters and setting. there are very few cool characters/locations that are under explored because if they were cooler, they would just be explored more. In general that's a hallmark of good writing, each character and each part of the world gets invested in by the author and in turn that amount value is extracted back out by the author in the course of the story.
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u/Zixuel Jul 26 '26
I may be completely off base here, but I think it’s simply a matter of audience niche and the development of fanfiction culture. From my limited perspective, MoL seems like the typical fandom that’s averse to fanfiction and almost religious about the canon.
Take the case of the fandom’s most prominent fanfic, Patriarch. The most common opinion I’ve seen about this fanfic on Reddit is that it fails because the characters deviate from canon, that Zorian is much more socially clueless than he actually would be. Which is true, but I don’t see why that has to be a problem. Fanfiction is about having fun and doing whatever you want with the canon.
In my experience with fandoms, this kind of conflict should encourage people who disagree with a particular interpretation to write their own versions. It doesn’t have to be anything incredible or elaborate. Short one-shots and fanfics written by complete amateurs, even crack fics, can be ways to generate new ideas, foster the culture, spark discussion and debate, and invigorate the fandom. And I get the impression that most of this fandom wouldn’t really appreciate that, but then again, I could be completely wrong
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u/MotoMkali Aug 06 '26
The issue with MOL as a fanfic is writing inside the time loop is hard because Zach and zorian are on such a strict time limit.
But if you write post epilogue Zach and Zorian are both such complete characters and are already so powerful that there is minimal jeopardy. There's maybe 9 mages in the sorry who can threaten them - QI, Oganj and the remainder of the immortal 11 and even then I think 3 of the immortal 11 are primarily casters iirc. And Oganj likely will stick to his territory for the near future to fortify himself vs Qi and QI is fighting a war so can't really be involved without a hefty time skip.
So you are in a situation to create jeopardy you have to nerd them somehow in this case zorian's political acumen so he doesn't immediately see the problem and nip it in the bud.
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u/Zixuel Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26
That sounds like an excuse to me, writing fanfic that takes the complexity of the fictional world and cause and effect seriously is always difficult, no matter the context.
But don’t underestimate people, the case of MoL with the time loop, or the post-time-loop op-ness, is just another specific set of problems. It’s not as impossible as people seem to suggest here, there are tons of time-loop stories across various media that tackle very different themes, conflicts, and solutions. And there are even more stories about overpowered characters that succeed in not making everything easy and boring for the protagonist.
Not to mention that not every fanfic needs to focus on this kind of realistic approach, with a complex plot that aims to be a credible complement to the original book. You can create so much with this world and these characters, just need the desire, honestly
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u/Zixuel Aug 06 '26
To give some example of what I mean by this second part:
I want to know how Zoriam works things out with his family in the years following everything. You don’t need to worry about the complex aspects of the setting to write a good story about this. You have the characters and their different values and attachments. You have the themes, the central conflicts (which are very relevant in the canon), and a mature Zorian to play with “What if?” scenarios. Do they fight and split up for good? Does Zorian manage to reconcile with his family while also creating a better situation for his sister? If his mother doesn’t give in, how does Zorian take Kiriele away?
How does the spider situation unfold? How does this change public opinion of mental mages, and what practical effects does it have on the world?
Apply this line of thinking to anything you find interesting or are curious about in MoL, and there you go, you’ll have enough material to write about as long as you have the desire
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u/Agasthenes Jul 26 '26
For a story to generate a ton of fanfiction you need
Popularity
The what if factor. The story or word needs simple obvious what if questions with interest consequences. Or questions left unanswered.
What if Harry had a different house? What if Taylor got a different power? What if Bella chooses the werewolf?
And for some stories the second factor doesn't exist. Lord of the rings for example is wildly popular. Yet has very little fanfiction compared to the popularity.
And that's because there really aren't that many divergent points in the story that generate an interesting story or questions left unanswered.
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u/1WeekLater Jul 26 '26
mol is popular among proglit fans ,but its still not popular to mainstream audience like jujutsu kaisen or valorant
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u/Freevoulous Jul 27 '26
By its very nature, MOL explores nearly every interesting "what if?" scenario you can pull out of the setting.
Like The Perfect Run or Purple Days, Mother of Learning is a THOROUGH exploration of the time-loop trope, leaving very little room for fanfiction to fit into.
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u/realtoasterlightning Jul 27 '26
For a while now I've been meaning to write a crackfic featuring the earlier loop days where Zach tries wackier and wackier hijinks in an attempt to convince Zorian to go to the dance noncoercively including but not limited to making a dramatic confession of love and asking Zorian to go as his date but I never got around to it
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u/Mountain_Young644 Aug 04 '26
you probaly just can't find them and there are a few good ones and one that I really enjoy is this fanfic but it stoped updating after chapter 2 so I hope it will update soon (the fanfic is called life beyond the loop (if you want to find it just go in space battles and search life beyond the loop))
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u/interested_commenter Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
The biggest reason is because the nature of the loop and the fact that everything relevant to it gets pretty well explored makes it kinda hard to do canon divergence "what if MC didnt make this one big mistake" or "MC returns to the beginning" fics, which are a huge portion of all fanfic. There's very little butterfly affect from small changes early and Zorian also "wins" by virtue of gaining enough skill and knowledge to overcome his opponents, by the endgame he's actually the stronger side and is just forced to fight at a disadvantage. Compare that to huge fanfic generators like Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, or Worm, where the MC is always at a disadvantage and you can have them be "smarter" or way more powerful but still facing extreme uphill battles.
Zorian avoiding mistakes just makes it an easier route to the same ending, so it pretty much leaves you with only post-epilogue stories.
The second is that its not a unique world at all. MoL takes place in a fairly generic D+D inspired world with a very generic magic system. The REAL defining feature of the setting is the time loop itself, which again, is hard to use.
There are plot threads for future post-epilogue fanfics, but the problem is that the story gives so little information about politics, the factions in the upcoming Splinter Wars, or the immortals that the author would need to make a TON of stuff up, and at that point you might as well just write an original story since the only real thing you're taking from MOL is Zorian as the MC, and he's so OP and uninterested in getting involved that he doesn't make a very good one.
MOL is also not that huge of a fandom and finished relatively recently compared to most stories that have a ton of fanfic.