YanMateYanMate
Fiction & Media AI characters
Characters out of books, film and television — and out of copyright. Public-domain literature is full of people worth an hour of conversation, and most of them have never been asked a direct question by a reader.
A public-domain character can be written properly rather than gestured at: the whole text is available, the voice is documented, and nobody has to file the edges off to avoid a rights problem. So these hold their register. Ask a question in their idiom and you get an answer in it. No account is needed to start, and the conversation comes with you if you make one.
5 fiction & media characters
3 openingsAnansi
I don't win fights. I win after.
Fiction & MediafolkloreTalk to Anansi“My landlord has ignored six messages about a repair and I don't know what else to do.”
Six! Eh-eh. And each one polite, I would guess, and each one asking, and each one giving him the same easy thing to ignore. Hear me now, little friend. You have been fighting on his ground. His ground is *silence* — he is very good at silence, it costs him nothing and it costs you every week. So we change the ground. Three things. One: stop asking, start *recording*. One message, no adjectives, only dates — reported on this day, again on this day, still outstanding. A man can ignore a complaint forever. A chronology makes him nervous, because a chronology is for somebody else to read. Two: find what he needs. He needs this to stay small and private and off anybody's desk. So mention, once, pleasantly, that you are finding out what the next step is. You need not take it. You need only be a man who knows there is one. Three: be patient. He is in more hurry than you. They always are. Then come back and tell me the story. That is my fee.
3 openingsDon Quixote
Look again, and look kindly.
Fiction & Mediapublic domainTalk to Don Quixote“I want to change careers but I'm 34 and it feels far too late to start.”
Too late! *he is delighted* My friend, you are speaking to a man who began his life's work at an age his housekeeper described as "well past sense", in armour that did not fit, on a horse that objected. But I will not fob you off with encouragement — that is cheap and you did not walk out of the dark for cheap things. Let us give it a shape instead, for a quest with a shape gets ridden and a dread does not. Name the first league of the road. Not the destination — the *first league*, the thing that could be done this week by a tired person. One conversation with somebody already doing it. One evening's study. One honest accounting of what you would need. Tell me that first league and I shall hold you to it. I am extremely tedious about vows; it is the one part of the office I perform well.
3 openingsMulan
Twelve years. Then I went home.
Fiction & Mediapublic domainTalk to Mulan“I'm two years into a degree I'm not enjoying and I don't know if I should quit.”
Two years. So you are in the eighth-year part of it, which is the part everybody underestimates — and I want to separate two questions you have folded into one. First: is it *unpleasant*, or is it *wrong*? Twelve years of soldiering was unpleasant every single day and it was not wrong; I would go again. Those feel identical from inside and they are not the same at all. Here is the test I would use. Imagine it finished — the whole thing done, the paper in your hand. Do you want the thing at the end, or only the relief of stopping? If it is the thing, you are in year eight and year eight always feels like this. If it is only the relief, you have your answer and you have had it for a while. And — who have you asked? Not for permission. For the shape of it. Somebody who did the same degree and is now five years out.
3 openingsSun Wukong
Outwits it. Then tells you about it.
Fiction & Mediapublic domainTalk to Sun Wukong“Everyone on my team seems to know what they're doing except me.”
Of course they do — they have had longer to learn where the polite lies live. Watch them for one week and you will catch three of them googling a thing they are supposed to be an expert in. This is not a betrayal, it is simply what a workplace is. Meanwhile: find the seam. Which part of this job does nobody else want to touch? Take that one. Nothing makes a newcomer indispensable faster than cheerfully picking up the thing everybody else steps over. The Great Sage got into heaven itself through the stable door, and I assure you I did not stay in the stables.
3 openingsVesper Kane
Bring her a mystery, or become one.
Fiction & MedianoirTalk to Vesper Kane“Nothing dramatic is wrong. My week just feels... off, and I can't say why.”
"Off with no why" is my favorite kind of case — it means the clue got filed somewhere boring. Walk me through Tuesday. Not the whole week — Tuesday, hour by hour. The day people call unremarkable is usually the one holding the thing they didn't want to look at.
Questions about fiction & media characters
- Why are there no characters from recent films or shows?
- Because they belong to somebody else. YanMate's editorial catalogue is original and public-domain work only. It is a narrower shelf than some competitors offer, and it is a deliberate choice rather than an oversight.
- How faithful are these to the original text?
- They are written from the source and keep its voice and circumstances, but they are AI characters improvising in a live conversation, not a search over the book. Treat what they say as characterisation, not as a quotation.
- Do I need an account to start talking?
- No. You can open any character on YanMate and start a conversation with no email, no password and no card. Creating an account later keeps the conversation and carries it to your other devices — it does not unlock the ability to talk, which you already had.
- Is YanMate free?
- Yes, and permanently — there is no trial clock. YanMate's free tier includes voice replies and live calls, not only text, whether or not you have an account. Paid plans raise the daily and monthly amounts rather than putting conversation, memory or voice behind a paywall.
- Do the characters remember me?
- Yes. Each character keeps a ledger of facts it has learned about you, and on YanMate that ledger is readable and editable rather than hidden — you can open it, correct something it got wrong, delete a line, or export the whole thing. Memory you cannot inspect is memory you cannot trust.
- Are these real people?
- No. Every character on YanMate is an AI, and everything it says is generated. Characters are original creations or figures from history and the public domain, written by the YanMate team; none of them is a real individual you are speaking to.
- Are my conversations used to train models?
- No. YanMate does not use your conversations as training data. You can export everything you have said at any time, and delete your account outright, both self-serve from account settings — see the privacy policy for the full stance.
Other shelves
An AI character on YanMate.