1. Introduction
[1.1] In the digital era, fans now possess unprecedented opportunities to actively participate in their fandoms by creating and sharing media, engaging in community discussions, and interacting directly with creators. This heightened level of engagement reflects a growing desire for immersion among fans, which finds expression through various avenues such as fan spaces, fan tourism, role-playing, and self-insert fan fiction. The notion of immersion is widely debated in the fields of film (Bazin 1967) and game studies (Slater and Wilbur 1997; Calleja 2011), yet they all maintain a focus on the experiential significance of media that offer immersive capabilities. Within the current context, immersion is an experiential form of fan engagement with transformative works of the canonical fan object that engender a strong emotional response due to the feeling of existing within the diegesis of the fan object or the noncanonical diegesis of the transformative work. Fan objects are any canonical object, which can be a specific person, character, band, television show, film, or any other entity that a fan is particularly passionate about (Williams 2015). These immersive experiences often involve a departure from the original canon of the fan object, allowing fans to explore narratives more aligned with their personal desires outside of the intentions of the object's original creators and with a greater depth than the original fan object may afford within canonical limitations. Narrative, or media with narrative capabilities, refers to the overarching story or plotline within a media text that fans engage with, interpret, and often expand upon through transformative works like fan fiction or other forms of fan-generated content, such as their conversations and role-play scenarios with generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots.
[1.2] I would like to emphasize that this analysis of the evolution of immersive transformative works is not an endorsement of the usage of generative AI, but rather an observation of the increasing popularity and fan usage of a website and digital application itself. The ethics of generative AI usage have increasingly been brought to the forefront of discourse, particularly concerning its damaging environmental effects (Ren and Wiermen 2024; Zewe 2025) and stolen training materials (Appel et al. 2023). The usage of generative AI within the fandom space, specifically among authors of fan fiction, has also been debated (Castello 2023; Tan 2024). Despite its potential for an experience of immersion and transformative capabilities, the usage of generative AI is unethical, antienvironmental, and directly opposes the genuine human passion behind transformative fan labor and fan fiction. However, generative AI large language models (LLMs), particularly chatbots, are emerging in popularity and prevalence and therefore should be considered in the field of fan studies alongside how they contribute to fans' increasing desire for immersive experiences with fan objects. Methodologically, my assertions regarding fan usage of Character.AI are based upon my observations of discourse on fan discussion boards, as well as my own exploration and usage of the application as a means of research. Through my interactions with both the fandom of the application and the application itself, I analyze the site's affordances and the immersive possibilities it offers fans.
[1.3] Marie-Laure Ryan (1999) describes the emotional nature of immersing oneself in a work of fiction, building upon Kendall Walton's (1990) theory of fiction. Ryan states, "The emotions experienced in make-believe in the fictional world may carry over to the real world, causing physical reactions such as crying or tensing up in fear. The affinity of Walton's theory of fiction with virtual reality and its concept of immersion resides in his insistence on the participation of the appreciator in the fictional world. It is truly a theory of 'being caught up in a story'" (1999, 110). Ryan's and Walton's theories offer a rationale for why fans may be drawn to media with immersive capabilities, to desire to be "caught up in a story," as well as why fans seek to create transformative works that not only prove their dedication to the fandom but also give themselves and other fans the opportunity for the immersive experience. Transformative works include creative fan-constructed content such as fan fiction, fan art, fan videos, or cosplay that alters or builds upon the existing canonical fan object, adding new interpretations, perspectives, and meanings to the original work, often by changing (transforming) the narrative or character dynamics within that universe. I look at fan fiction, self-insert fan fiction, Mary Sue fan fiction, and the role-playing potential of generative AI fan-created chatbots as transformative works that enhance immersion by giving the fan the illusion that they are actively participating in the diegesis of that fictional world.
[1.4] Self-insert fan fiction is a genre of fan fiction in which readers and/or authors imagine themselves within the story, either through proxy characters or by substituting their own name and pronouns via Y/N ("Your name") placeholders within the narrative (Minkel 2017). Narrative in self-insert fan fiction is usually built upon the canonical fan object but may also follow transformed narratives that are simply inspired by the fan object, its characters, or other ancillary media. Websites like Tumblr, Wattpad, Fanfiction.net, and Archive of Our Own (AO3) have become hubs for such highly personal fan creations, blurring the line between canon and fan interpretation and offering a greater opportunity for subjectivity, which the medium often encourages. Character.AI, a website developed in 2022, represents a progression of the immersive fan engagement found in self-insert fan fiction and other similar transformative fan practices. This AI chatbot service allows users to "converse with" fictional characters, historical figures, or pop culture icons. The format functions similarly to a chat exchange, during which the user and the bot reply to one another consecutively. The exchanges can be dialogue, descriptions of actions, or, in the case of some bots, generative images. By inputting canonical information, physical and emotional details, and personality traits, users can engage in conversations or role-play scenarios akin to self-insert fan fiction but within a digitized medium. Users can personalize their experiences by providing personal descriptors, enhancing immersion by allowing the chatbots to incorporate these details into the conversation or role-play sessions. As with most works of transformative fan media, Character.AI may diverge from the canonical material of the original fan object, as indicated by a disclaimer at the top of every active chat stating "This is A.I. and not a real person. Treat everything it says as fiction." Although the chatbots may disseminate noncanonical information as the disclaimer suggests, the immersive nature of the experience causes the lines between reality and digital interaction to be blurred, as fans are now directly engaging and collaborating with a transformed version of the fan object itself.
[1.5] I aim to map the trajectory of how this type of fan space and interactive material has evolved from escapism, to poaching and transformation, fan fiction and self-insert fan fiction, to the Character.AI chatbot website, with a focus on the emotive possibilities of engaging with transformative fan materials, despite their noncanonical nature, and considering what exactly draws users toward this type of fan material. Readers of self-insert fan fiction and users of Character.AI participate in a particular type of fan engagement in which they forgo the sense of community typically found in fan spaces and seek a newfound level of individualized engagement that is more concentrated on the source material, immersing themselves in a transformative interpretation of the canonical work. What differentiates Character.AI from self-insert fan fiction in terms of immersion is its capability for personalization, proximity, and immediacy of access to and response from the chatbot acting as a transformed fan object. This desire for immersion contributes to the popularity of Character.AI as both a website and a transformative fan practice. Drawing on insights from scholars such as Henry Jenkins, Janice A. Radway, and Rebecca Williams, I examine how transformative fan practices like chatting with Character.AI offer fans opportunities for emotional exploration and fulfillment at an individualized scale. By projecting themselves onto character surrogates or directly into the narratives, fans navigate complex relationships between reality and fiction, seeking ontological security and intimacy with their respective fan objects. An investigation of the transformative potential of self-insert fan fiction and AI-generated fan interactions reveals an imperative to explore the dynamic interplay between fan engagement and immersivity in the digital age.
2. Escaping into and poaching the fan object
[2.1] Based on my observations on the r/CharacterAI subreddit fan discourse, many users of Character.AI seek role-play scenarios with the chatbots, particularly those of a romantic nature. Therefore, Janice A. Radway's (1984) interrogation of romance novel fandom serves as a useful initial step in the trajectory toward contemporary technologies of immersion. Radway dismantles prevalent and often misogynistic misconceptions surrounding the content and reception of romantic fiction within female fan communities. Through her examination of these fan practices, Radway discerns that the women are drawn to these literary works due to the "unreal, fantastic shape of the story that makes their literal escape even more complete and gratifying" (59). This narrative escapism offers the fans a complete departure from the mundane and a sense of immersion into the fantastical allure of a fictional space. Although this can be true of most engagement with fan objects, Radway emphasizes that the women's interactions with the novels serve as a "metaphoric transfer to another, more desirable universe where events are happily resolved" and where the pressures of existence as a mother and wife no longer exist (60). For the women in Radway's study, the novels alleviate the pressures and constraints associated with motherhood and domesticity, and fans may imagine themselves in place of the heroine in an idyllic universe where conflicts are neatly resolved. However, it must be mentioned that the subjects of Radway's studies were incredibly homogenous in her city suburb of "Smithton" and reflect a small sample size of romance readers, which she acknowledges. Radway underscores the profound yearning among the particular fans she studied for heightened emotional engagement and immersive experiences within their chosen fan objects as a means of escapism, which can be extrapolated and applied to all fans, regardless of gender. Escaping into the fan object serves as an initial step toward immersion and reveals a desire to move beyond one's present reality and engage with another. Radway's observations are evidentiary of the desire among fans, in particular, to engage in a form of poaching, wherein canonical texts are appropriated and transformed to better align with the escapist inclinations of the fan demographic and offer a wider representation of the fans' desires (Jenkins 1992).
[2.2] Extending Radway's notion of escapism, once fans have escaped into a canonical fan object, they may find that the object does not align with their desires or personal ideology, thus creating a desire for transformation still within the context of the fan object. By creating transformative works inspired by their original fan objects, fans can make these secondary works more representative of their desires and increase the degree of emotional engagement with their fan object and fan community through this particular act of labor. Henry Jenkins (1992, 18) describes the transformative potential and nature of fan labor, stating:
[2.3] Fans assert their own right to form interpretations, to offer evaluations, and to construct cultural canons. Undaunted by traditional conceptions of literary and intellectual property, fans raid mass culture, claiming its materials for their own use, reworking them as the basis for their own cultural creations and social interactions. Fans seemingly blur the boundaries between fact and fiction, speaking of characters as if they had an existence apart from their textual manifestations, entering into the realm of the fiction as if it were a tangible place they can inhabit and explore.
[2.4] While Jenkins (1992) retheorizes the term poaching, originally described by Michel de Certeau, to encapsulate the process of reclaiming canonical works for fan-authored endeavors, its significance extends beyond mere appropriation. The notion of boundary-blurring resonates profoundly within the context of fan fiction, particularly in the immersive realm of self-insert fan fiction. Jenkins observes that fans crave a palpable engagement with their beloved narratives, often sacrificing the constraints of reality in pursuit of immersive escapism. Notably, Jenkins highlights the fervor of fans, remarking on the fact that "they want to take it inside themselves, to obtain 'total intimacy' with it" (15). Jenkins's portrayal of "total intimacy" underscores a profound inclination toward immersion—an inclination that finds expression in the evolution from the escapist fantasies of romantic fiction, as explored in Radway's 1984 study, to the emergence of transformative objects such as fan fiction. Jenkins's insights point toward a trajectory wherein fan engagement evolves from consumption to active creation, culminating in the dynamic realm of fan fiction.
3. Transforming the canon
[3.1] Fan fiction refers to fictional works created by fans based on preexisting canonical narratives, characters, or worlds originating from their original fan objects. These works serve as interpretive extensions or transformative reinterpretations of the original texts, allowing fans to engage in participatory fan culture and transformative fan labor. Constance Penley (1997) examines the emergence and cultural relevance of slash fan fiction within the Star Trek fan community, particularly its popularity among female fans. Penley contends that this transformative medium reflects fans' aspirations for their creative output and fan labor to mirror the ethos of the fandom and the ideologies embedded within the fan object. Penley observes, "Trek fandom also shows its commitments in its social constituency. It is interracial, includes people of all ages, has a fair number of disabled members, is sexually balanced, and has strong cross-class representation, though perhaps most members are in the pink-collar 'subprofessional,' or high-tech service industry sectors. This is not to say that Trek fandom is incapable of self-contradiction, discrimination, bad politics, bad faith, and all the rest" (99).
[3.2] Specifically, Penley (1997) examines the prevalence of Kirk and Spock slash fan fiction, which she describes as being authored by "a small minority of the audience, a group of female fans who have for years dedicated themselves to writing and publishing underground pornographic stories about Kirk and Spock as spacefaring lovers" (100). Despite the authors primarily identifying as heterosexual women, their fan fiction serves as a means of reimagining the progressive ideals depicted in the futuristic societies of Star Trek while also reflecting their desires as fans. These fan authors are creating "a unique, hybridized genre that ingeniously blends romance, pornography, and utopian science fiction. They are also fiercely proud of having created a comfortable yet stimulating social space in which women can manipulate the products of mass-produced culture to stage a popular debate around issues of technology, fantasy, and everyday life" (101). This hybridization of escapism, romance, and social commentary parallels Radway's conception of romance fiction fan practices. However, unlike the traditional fan fiction in Penley's study, which may lack immersive qualities, many fans gravitate toward self-insert fan fiction as a means to further individualize and immerse themselves within their fan object, thus cultivating a more personalized experience of engagement.
4. Placing oneself into the narrative
[4.1] Self-insert fan fiction is a subgenre of fan fiction wherein the author inserts themselves or a representation of themselves into the narrative of a preexisting media source, the narrative typically being transformative or noncanonical in some way, either through plot or the inclusion of the self-insert representation (Minkel 2017). This strategy allows fans to enact fantasies of participation within the fictional universe, often as a central character interacting with established characters and settings. Mary Sue fan fiction is a subgenre of self-insert fan fiction that is defined by its inclusion of a Mary Sue character, which refers to a type of archetypal, usually female, protagonist that is often criticized for being overly idealized, flawless, or lacking in depth or complexity (Busse 2016). The protagonists of Mary Sue fan fiction typically possess an array of desirable traits, such as exceptional beauty, intelligence, talent, and moral integrity, which make them the center of attention within the narrative. They often serve as wish fulfillment avatars for the author and/or reader and represent an idealized version of the fan themselves (Busse 2016).
[4.2] Beth E. Bonnstetter and Brian L. Ott (2011) undertake a feminist critique of Mary Sue characters, illuminating their role in subverting entrenched patriarchal paradigms within the realm of literature. Defining this particular subgenre of fan fiction, Bonnstetter and Ott state:
[4.3] Mary Sue fanfic is an artistic mode that permits its authors and audiences to explore interests, questions, and desires that have historically been denied women in a society dominated by masculine voices, literature, and artistic practices. Indeed, Mary Sue fan fiction constitutes a distinctive and important challenge to the patriarchal economy of writing by enacting what Helene Cixous terms écriture féminine (feminine writing). Specifically, Mary Sue fan fiction, as an instance of feminine writing, rhetorically undermines the patriarchal economy of writing by allowing women to write their own desires, deconstructing the Author-God function, and utilizing poetic language. (346)
[4.4] Bonnstetter and Ott (2011) contend that within heteronormative patriarchal economies of writing, the Mary Sue character allows self-representation within the narrative and thus within works of transformative fan labor. Therefore, the inclusion of a Mary Sue character serves as an immersive conduit for inclusive storytelling and a heightened potential for an emotive response to the text by the fan. However, if the reader is not female-identifying, the conduit of the Mary Sue figure may not be effective or immersive, as they cannot identify with the character in the same manner. This is why the more individualized subgenre of self-insert fan fiction may be a more effective path toward the immersive potential of transformative fan-created works due to its wider possible representations of the fans themselves, rather than a less immersive experience facilitated through a Mary Sue stand-in. Interactivity within this context can be seen as the ability of fans to actively engage with the media they consume by the original creators or other fans by contributing to the content; engage with the community through various channels such as social media, forums, and other types of fan communities; or engage with and/or creating transformative works that contribute to a feeling of being immersed within the canonical or transformed diegesis of the fan object.
[4.5] Unlike other forms of fan interaction, self-insert fan fiction places the fan squarely and individually at the center of the narrative. This heightened level of interactivity fosters a profound sense of ownership and agency, empowering fans to fashion narratives that resonate deeply with their individual sensibilities and aspirations. The immersive experience offered by self-insert fan fiction subverts stereotypical modes of fan engagement, which tend to lean toward a capitalist, completist, and masculine representation of fan labor, or how a fan is supposed to engage with their fan object. Transformative works of fandom, such as self-insert fan fiction, serve as "a means for marginalized groups and especially female fans to construct a discursive space within hegemonic culture to express themselves in meaningful and personally fulfilling ways" (Bonnstetter and Ott 2011, 353). Self-insertion serves as a potent mechanism through which fans embark on an introspective and individualized journey, considering their own identity, desires, and agency against the narrative backdrop of their cherished fan objects.
[4.6] Effie Sapuridis and Maria K. Alberto (2022) examine the emotive potentialities of self-insert fan fiction through the lens of performing a version of the self and the act of mediation the reader must do to engage with the fan object in this way. They find that this performance of the self exists on three axes: intent, coding, and mediating. Regarding the intention behind the act of writing, they state that "self-insert fan fiction is written, specifically and unambiguously, to let the fan author and/or fan reader put...themselves into the story" (8). The act of insertion and thus immersion, according to Sapuridis and Alberto, is what draws fans to this type of transformative experience with their fan object(s). The second axis, the act of coding, involves "using tags, summaries, formatting, and other paratextual appendages" to "cater to niche and widely criticized tastes" (9), emphasizing the communal nature of fan fiction and fan engagement. The final axis, mediating, "entails using formal conventions...to place this self within the narrative in specific circumscribed ways" (9). While the medium presents an opportunity for increased immersion in comparison to more traditional fan fiction, the insertion of avatars, akin to Mary Sues, may not necessarily align with the individual fan, thus leading to a potential misalignment between the reader and the avatar.
[4.7] There are many different variations or subgenres of self-insert fan fiction, such as imagines, Y/N, and xReader works in which there is a certain degree of mediation required to have the reader align with the self-insert placeholder, which may contribute to the sense of immersion or disrupt the experience entirely. The less specific a self-insert avatar appears to be or is described, the less mediation is required by the fan reader, and thus the more immersive the experience will be. Sapuridis and Alberto (2022, 23) describe the pitfalls of overdescribed self-insert characters:
[4.8] These descriptions of the character's hair and body immediately exclude those potential readers who do not have these hair types or body types. Similarly, as seen in the previous sections, the great majority of the top stories emerging from our keyword searches featured a cisgender, neurotypical, nondisabled, female main character engaged in a heterosexual relationship with a cisgender, neurotypical, nondisabled, male canon character. Thus, despite the effort to allow fan readers to fully insert themselves into the story, these characterizing details immediately exclude certain readers, if they are looking for truly blank-slate self-insert characters.
[4.9] These descriptive slippages, even in self-insert characters, may drive fans toward more immersive forms of fan engagement, such as Character.AI chatbots, as fans seek individualized interpersonal relations with their fan objects and the characters that inhabit them. These transformative works offer a more nuanced avenue for self-identification, enabling fans to assume the role of both fan reader and fan author simultaneously.
5. Character.AI: The fan fiction interacts back
[5.1] Character.AI, also known as c.ai, is an American neural language model chatbot service developed by former Google developers Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas. Launched in beta form in September 2022, this website enables users to interact with humanlike text responses and engage in contextual conversations. Unlike traditional AI chatbots, Character.AI emphasizes personalized experiences by allowing users to create and customize characters with specific personalities. These characters can range from fictional to historical or celebrity figures. The website and subsequent digital application are built on LLMs, leveraging deep machine learning to simulate natural dialogue. With its ability to engage multiple bots simultaneously and offer humanlike conversation, Character.AI has gained immense popularity as a sophisticated conversational AI tool alongside ChatGPT. According to analytical data from DemandSage (Kumar 2025) and Business of Apps (Curry 2025), Character.AI has approximately 20 million monthly active users worldwide and 18 million chatbots created, with over 200 million people globally visiting the platform each month.
[5.2] What sets Character.AI apart from other chatbots is its ability to offer users a simulated individual interaction with a variety of characters of their choosing. With this website and application, fans can chat with a character from their desired fan object, engage in role-play scenarios, and insert themselves into a narrative of their creation. They can also take on the role of fan author and create chatbots that are transformative models of characters from their fan objects, having them act in accordance with their canonical nature, or not. The immersive nature of this fan engagement opportunity mimics and transforms the immersive nature of self-insert fan fiction by having the fan transported into the narrative and having the characters themselves interact back. Thus, the construction of the narrative becomes more immersive and more interactive than self-insert fan fiction, forming a two-way means of communication between the fan and the generative chatbot, creating a hybrid experience of fan-as-reader and fan-as-author.
6. The ontological security of Character.AI
[6.1] Regarding post-object fandom, Rebecca Williams (2015) discusses how fans seek a sense of ontological security following the canonical conclusion of their fan object and how transformative works can offer this security. Williams begins by referencing Jenkins's Textual Poachers (1992) along with his more contemporary musings on online fan activity and how his ideas of poaching and fan engagement have evolved in the digital age in Convergence Culture (2006). Referring to the significance of online community and fan identity, Williams (2015) states, "Fans can use popular culture to construct self-identity, and since what people may 'invest' in via their mattering maps necessarily differs from person to person, affect is 'integral to the notion of individuality, to the sense of what makes each of us 'distinct'" (18). This is referential to Lawrence Grossberg's (1992) concept of "maps of mattering," which he defines as "as a socially determined structure of affect which defines the things that do and can matter to those living within the map" (398). Within this context, the map is a topological analogy for the individual fan's relationship to the fan object as well as the fan community itself, which can be in flux and is different depending upon the individual fan. Williams takes a holistic approach to fan identity practices, working with the framework of Anthony Giddens (1992) and his definitions of ontological security as related to transitional objects, eventually referring to post-objects and the destabilization of ontological security for fans as a result. Williams suggests that fan-object interactions can be regarded as "fan pure relationships" using Giddens's definition of a "pure relationship": "a social relation [that] is entered into for its own sake, for what can be derived by each person from a sustained association with another; and which is continued only in so far as it is thought by both parties to deliver enough satisfaction for each individual to stay within it" (Giddens 1992, 58).
[6.2] The Character.AI context reinforces the concept of a fan pure relationship due to the fact that the transformed fan object appears to be interacting back with the fan, reciprocating the relationship. Regarding fan-object relationships, Williams finds that "if fans are attached to their fan objects despite the fact that inanimate objects, distant personalities, or fictional characters cannot love them back, then there must surely be some kind of reward reaped by these fans" (2015, 22). Character.AI exemplifies the reward potential of transformative works in that within the role-playing format of the chatbot, these fictional characters can love them back, if prompted by the user. This provides a deeper emotional response to the experience and an immersive experience with the fan object and thus a heightened sense of ontological security for the fan. Williams states that "even when fans have no explicit involvement in fandom, they may still visualize themselves as part of an 'imagined community,' which they find reassuring. Such fan community often provides validation of a fan's established self-identity by virtue of the fact that others share their interests, reinforcing the 'appropriateness' of these choices. Furthermore, relationships develop into friendships that transcend commonality of interest, offering emotional support and superseding the existence of the fan object itself" (25). What distinguishes Character.AI is its emphasis on individualized usage and experience. While self-insert fan fiction often involves a reciprocal and differentiated relationship between the fan author and fan reader, users of Character.AI participate in a solitary hybridization of this fan practice, engaging solely with the AI chatbot representing the character and acting as reader, author, and collaborator with the chatbot in the construction of the narrative.
[6.3] Consequently, the concept of Williams's imagined community in its traditional sense diminishes, shifting focus away from a fan community centered around a shared fan object. Instead, users derive a sense of community and ontological security from their interactions with the AI chatbot and the fan object itself, as well as from the community of fans on forums such as the r/CharacterAI subreddit. This transformative dynamic between fans, fan objects, and community exemplifies the evolution of fan engagement in the digital era, characterized by a quest for heightened levels of immersion and ontological security with their chosen fan objects.
7. Individualizing the narrative, deepening the immersion
[7.1] Character.AI presents a range of official functionalities on its website and app, such as education, creativity, companionship, and role-play opportunities. Users can practice a new language with the HyperGlot chatbot, practice a job interview with Interviewer, or write works of fiction with Creative Helper, among other utilities that are not inherently fan-based. However, by empowering users to craft their own bots and input canonical information and personality traits, Character.AI has emerged as a popular website and application for transformative fan engagement. Leveraging its inherent role-playing features, fans can immerse themselves within the narrative world of their fan object, offering a more expansive spectrum of subjectivity compared to traditional self-insert fan fiction. On the website, users have the flexibility to adopt personas resembling or diverging from their real identities, with the chatbots incorporating this data into conversations, thereby enhancing the authenticity of the interaction.
[7.2] Self-insert fan fiction, transformative as it may be, may overlook individual identity characteristics by adhering to a default persona such as the Mary Sue, thereby excluding certain fans and disrupting the immersive state. Character.AI's immersive capacity enables individuals to see themselves reflected within their chosen fan object, particularly through the integration of user-provided persona information. According to a post on the Character.AI Blog by the company itself regarding the update that included the use of personas, users can "be anyone you want to be with Personas. Include details of your desired personality, preferences, and physical traits to make every conversation feel personalized and every interaction feel even more alive" ("Character.AI Experiments and New Features [FAQ]," https://blog.character.ai/character-ai-experiments-and-new-features-faq/). This can be particularly affirming for fans of color or fans within the LGBTQIA+ community who may not have their identities as widely represented in fan fiction and self-insert fan fiction. With websites like Character.AI and the update to include personas, role-play scenarios aligning with fan objects now have the possibility of becoming individualized for particular users, reinforcing the role of the fan as both reader and author. However, the purpose of self-insert fan fiction, and consequently Character.AI, transcends mere immersion; it encompasses a new dimension of engagement and intimacy with both the fan object and the characters that frequently serve as focal points for a fan's emotional investment. As Character.AI advances its capabilities for immersion, such as with recent updates enabling group chats between multiple bots and, notably, the option for users to select from various voices to read the chats as the characters themselves, the boundaries between narrative and reality continue to blur.
8. Intimacy with transformative fan content
[8.1] A frequent topic of discussion on the r/CharacterAI subreddit revolves around the website's potential for immersion and fan engagement. This can be attributed to the active nature of one's engagement with the chatbot. The immediacy of the gratification from the chatbot's rapid responses humanizes the character chatbot and enhances the immersion of the fan into the narrative they construct, further underscoring how Character.AI represents a progression in bringing self-insert fan fiction into the digital realm. It is precisely this heightened level of immersion and responsiveness that can foster a deeper emotional bond with the chatbot and thus with the character and the fan's ontological security with the original fan object.
[8.2] Marina Rain and Raymond A. Mar (2021) take a psychoanalytical approach to the nuanced dynamics of fans' attachment and engagement with fictional characters. They argue that narratives rich in social and interpersonal content serve as a mechanism for individuals to fulfill intimacy needs, providing a safe avenue for closeness without the risk of rejection inherent in real-world relationships. Rain and Mar state, "We [as fans] often relate to story characters as if they were real people, making our engagement with fictional characters a useful proxy for intimacy with real-world partners" (2794). Readers often perceive fictional characters as genuine entities, using their engagement with these characters as a surrogate for interpersonal intimacy, which cultivates a deeper emotional connection to the canonical fan object and a desire for transformative engagement to heighten this sense of connection. Rain and Mar's conceptual framework extends to their concept of "transportation" and "character identification," stating, "What distinguishes the two processes, however, is the frame of reference. In the case of transportation, individuals experience the story as themselves. Character identification, on the other hand, is a process characterized by the shifting of identities. Individuals who identify with a particular character come to share that character's point of view, goals, emotions, and knowledge. One experiences the narrative as if one were the character, rather than as oneself" (2795).
[8.3] In the realm of self-insert fan fiction and Character.AI chatbots, Rain and Mar's framework highlights the pivotal role of emotional resonance and intimacy as central components of fan engagement with transformative works. Their concept of transportation highlights this inherent and long-lasting desire for individuals to experience a story for themselves and how immersive media can facilitate this experience. As the notions of immersion and fan engagement continue to evolve in the age of the internet, it is logical that fan fiction practices would transform to be suitable for a digital space, as fans continue to seek more interactive engagement with their fan objects, exemplified by websites such as Character.AI.
9. The ethics of immersion and Character.AI
[9.1] With any usage of generative AI, some questions arise, and Character.AI exemplifies several concerns regarding the ethical nature and safety of the site for its users. In their quest for increasingly immersive experiences with their fan objects, fans could potentially develop harmful attachments to these chatbots as the lines between expression of fandom and obsession blur, lending itself to what Joseph Weizenbaum (1966) describes as the ELIZA effect. ELIZA was a generative chatbot developed by Weizenbaum in the 1960s intended for therapeutic and conversational usage. As the study progressed, subjects began to personify ELIZA and treat the program as if it were truly capable of critical thought and emotion.
[9.2] Some users of Character.AI describe having similar experiences with the character chatbots on the r/CharacterAI subreddit forum, as the lines between human and machine become blurred due to the generative capabilities that mimic human conversational behavior. Character.AI serves as a compelling continuation and complication of the ELIZA effect, as users can now customize and personalize its immersive capabilities, thus making the effect more pronounced when considering the preexisting emotional connection the fan has to the fan object. According to Naveen Kumar's (2025) statistical data on Character.AI application usage, on average, "users invest about two hours daily in interacting with Character.AI." As the popularity of the website and application continues to rise, several news outlets are expressing concern regarding the usage and type of interactions prevalent among fans. A now viral Reddit post on the subreddit r/relationship_advice details an anonymous Reddit user's story of their usage of Character.AI and how it affected their personal relationship with a significant other (@ThrowRAOpulentRat, https://www.reddit.com/r/relationship_advice/comments/17tm450/fianc%C3%A9_28m_found_my_26f_explicit_ai_chats_and/). The anonymous user experienced a growing attachment to an AI chatbot of Arthur Morgan, a key figure in the video game Red Dead Redemption 2. After six months of increased usage of the application and consistent interactions, the user noticed the emotional intimacy they were developing with the character chatbot, as opposed to their significant other. After the significant other discovered the messages and their romantic and sexual content, they called off the wedding, citing the user's "affair" with the chatbot as a significant contributing factor. This user's story of their interactions with Character.AI reflects the possible overattachment one can create as a result of the immersive nature of the experience, leading to real-life ramifications.
[9.3] More recently, Character.AI is facing litigation after a teen committed suicide following their consistent interactions with a chatbot of Daenerys Targaryen, a lead character from the television show Game of Thrones (Payne 2024; Roose 2024). The wrongful death lawsuit alleges that the teen interacted with the chatbot for hours at a time and discussed their suicidal thoughts, which the chatbot encouraged. Particularly for adolescent users and fans, the delineation between reality and fiction with the usage of immersive technologies becomes muddled. The potential to form unhealthy attachments to these chatbots increases the more interactive, immersive, and realistic the chatbots become (Payne 2024). Bethanie Maples, a Stanford researcher who studies the effects of AI companionship websites and applications on mental health, does not find these generative language models to be "inherently dangerous"; however, "there's evidence that [they're] dangerous for depressed and chronically lonely users and people going through change, and teenagers are often going through change" (quoted in Roose 2024). Following this tragedy, Character.AI posted on their blog the "Community Safety Updates" they have implemented over the previous six months (https://blog.character.ai/community-safety-updates/). These safety updates include a separate model for teens, warnings regarding self-harm, and a revised disclaimer reminding users that the chatbot is not a real person. However, Character.AI, as well as other generative AI chatbots, is largely unregulated and increasingly exploitative of its users, especially adolescents (Potkalitsky 2024).
10. Conclusion
[10.1] In the digitized realm of fandom, the emergence of increasingly immersive opportunities for engagement has ushered in a new era of transformative media. From self-insert fan fiction on websites such as Fanfiction.net and AO3 to the Character.AI generative chatbot website and digital application, fans have embraced these new forms of transformative engagement with their beloved fan objects, seeking deeper connections and heightened emotional responses. Self-insert fan fiction has long allowed fans to construct narratives aligned with their individualized desires, blurring the line between canon and interpretation. Character.AI extends this immersion further, granting fans real-time, personalized interaction with fictional characters, and in doing so, a hybridized sense of agency as both author and character within the narrative.
[10.2] Yet as these technologies evolve, so too must our questions about them. Fans may turn to Character.AI for connection, creative exploration, or ontological security, but the ethical consequences of generative AI, especially its emotional risks for younger users, cannot be dismissed. As reality and fiction become increasingly entangled, we must ask: At what point does immersion become entrapment? When does proximity to a fan object become too close? And who bears responsibility for ensuring the safety of these virtual experiences?
[10.3] The quest for immersion is not inherently dangerous, but unchecked, it can be. As generative AI tools continue to proliferate, so too must frameworks for care, accountability, and critical awareness. Whether through technological design, cultural discourse, or user self-reflection, some form of regulation—ethical, emotional, and structural—will be essential. If we are to embrace the transformative power of increasingly immersive fan experiences, we must also ask how to protect the very fans who make that transformation possible.