C · Reading List and References — The Agentic Waifu Codex

Consolidated; chapter-level inline citations supplement this list.

Foundational papers

Vaswani et al., "Attention Is All You Need," 2017.
Kaplan et al., "Scaling Laws for Neural Language Models," 2020.
Hoffmann et al., "Training Compute-Optimal Large Language Models" (Chinchilla), 2022.
Lewis et al., "Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Tasks," 2020.
Hu et al., "LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation," 2021.
Dettmers et al., "QLoRA," 2023.
Rafailov et al., "Direct Preference Optimization," 2023.
Ethayarajh et al., "KTO: Model Alignment as Prospect Theoretic Optimization," 2024.
Hong et al., "ORPO: Monolithic Preference Optimization without Reference Model," 2024.
Ouyang et al., "Training Language Models to Follow Instructions with Human Feedback" (InstructGPT / RLHF), 2022.
Yao et al., "ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting," 2022.
Liu et al., "Lost in the Middle," 2023 (and follow-ups).
Anthropic, "Building Effective Agents," 2024.
Anthropic, "Dreaming" announcement, May 2026.

User psychology, parasocial & companion research

The demand-side evidence base — who bonds with fictional/AI characters, why, and to what effect (→ ch. 02 §7, ch. 06).

Karhulahti, V.-M. & Välisalo, T., "Fictosexuality, Fictoromance, and Fictophilia: A Qualitative Study of Love and Desire for Fictional Characters," Frontiers in Psychology, 2021. The fictophilic paradox, stigma, and supernormal-stimuli themes. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.575427/full
Leshner, C. E., Reysen, S., Plante, C. N., Roberts, S. E. & Gerbasi, K. C., "You would not download a soulmate: Attributes of Fictional Characters That Inspire Intimate Connection," Psychology of Popular Media, 15(1):51–61, 2026. Appearance→sexual, personality+similarity→emotional; male visual skew.
Lotun, S., Lamarche, V. M., Matran-Fernandez, A. & Sandstrom, G. M., "People perceive parasocial relationships to be effective at fulfilling emotional needs," Scientific Reports, 14:8185, 2024. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-58069-9
Horton, D. & Wohl, R. R., "Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction," Psychiatry, 1956. The origin of the term.
Derrick, J. L., Gabriel, S. & Hirsch, J. L., social-surrogacy / parasocial buffering work, 2009–.
De Freitas, J., Uğuralp, A. K., Uğuralp, Z. & Puntoni, S., "AI Companions Reduce Loneliness," Journal of Consumer Research, 2025 (arXiv:2407.19096). Benefit mediated by feeling heard.
Skjuve, M. et al., Replika user studies, 2021–2023. "Feeling heard" as the reported bond mechanism.
"INTIMA: A Benchmark for Human-AI Companionship Behavior," arXiv:2508.09998, 2025.
"Harmful Traits of AI Companions," arXiv:2511.14972, 2025.
Barrett, D., Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose, 2010; Tinbergen, N., The Study of Instinct, 1951; Lorenz, K., Kindchenschema (baby-schema), 1943.
Buss, D. M. et al., A Half Century of Mate Preferences (2001) and the 37-culture study (1989); Symons, D., The Evolution of Human Sexuality (1979). The invariant core of mate preference (→ ch. 06).
Fiske, S. T. et al., stereotype-content model (warmth × competence); Bowlby & Ainsworth, attachment theory.

Specifications

Character Card V3 — kwaroran. https://github.com/kwaroran/character-card-spec-v3
Character Card V2 — malfoyslastname. https://github.com/malfoyslastname/character-card-spec-v2
SillyTavern World Info docs. https://docs.sillytavern.app/usage/core-concepts/worldinfo/
Model Context Protocol — Anthropic. https://modelcontextprotocol.io

Practitioner guides

TavernSprite, "The Complete SillyTavern Character Card Creation Guide." https://tavernsprite.com/blog/sillytavern-character-card-creation-guide/
meganova, "5 Lorebook Entry Types Every Character Needs." https://blog.meganova.ai/5-lorebook-entry-types-every-character-needs-complete-setup-guide/
charactercard.com, "SillyTavern Character Card Examples for Beginners." https://charactercard.com/blog/sillytavern-character-card-examples-for-beginners-what-good-cards-actually-include
AICharacterCards, "What are SillyTavern Character Cards and Where to Get Them." https://aicharactercards.com/sillytavern-guides/what-are-character-cards-and-where-to-get-them/

Open-source reference projects

AIRI (moeru-ai) — the most important single companion-product reference to study. https://github.com/moeru-ai/airi
ElizaOS — agent framework with character-first abstractions and out-of-box social-platform connectors. https://github.com/elizaOS/eliza
ElizaOS character file spec. https://github.com/elizaOS/characterfile
Soul of Waifu. https://github.com/jofizcd/Soul-of-Waifu
Open-LLM-VTuber. https://github.com/Open-LLM-VTuber/Open-LLM-VTuber
Awesome AI VTubers. https://github.com/proj-airi/awesome-ai-vtubers
Awesome AI Waifu. https://github.com/parallelarc/Awesome-AI-Waifu
"Eliza: A Web3 friendly AI Agent Operating System." arXiv 2501.06781. https://arxiv.org/html/2501.06781v1

Market analyses (2026)

TechBuzz, "AI Companion Apps Hit $120M Revenue Run Rate," 2025.
Sacra, "Character.AI revenue, funding & news." https://sacra.com/c/character-ai/
Harvard Business School, "Replika AI: Monetizing a Chatbot," 2025.
AI Magicx, "The AI Companion Market in 2026," 2026.
Companion Guide, "Complete Guide to the AI Companion Market in 2026."

Technical 2026

"RAG Architecture for AI Agents," rapidclaw.dev, 2026.
"AI Agent Memory 2026: Vector, Graph, Episodic Update," digitalapplied.com, 2026.
mem0.ai blog, "The Architecture of Remembrance," 2026.

Books and long-form

Sherry Turkle, Alone Together, 2011.
Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun, 2021.
CLAMP, Chobits, manga + anime, 2000–2002.
Masamune Shirow / Mamoru Oshii, Ghost in the Shell, manga 1989 / film 1995 / SAC 2002.

In-book cross-references (re-listed for convenience)

Market sizing and the strategic call — ch. 04.
Monetization and pricing patterns — ch. 39 (Part VII).
Legal and regulatory floor — ch. 41.
When to use what across the brain stack — ch. 12 (Part III).
Character-card spec deep dive — ch. 07.
Memory architectures deep dive — ch. 15.
Worldbuilding and companion lore — ch. 10.