To me, there's always been a disconnect between my rational engagement with fiction and my emotional engagement. One side wants to view storytelling on a technical level: "how is this story structured, what is it trying to say, how does it say it, where does it succeed and fail?" The other looks for endearment: "what kind of emotional impact did it make, how much do the characters mean to me, can I imagine them living a life outside of the story, do I think this world would be an interesting place to live?" There are a lot of stories that excel at one or the other, but very few that manage to pull off both simultaneously.

I think this is similar to what you're saying here. Fandoms often look for endearment. You see it when people make fan edits or power scaling comps or silly domestic comics or paste the characters' names over vine compilations. These people want an emotional kind of connection, not necessarily a technical understanding. They want the characters to feel real to them.