Imitate

Allows you to imitate a character in a new part of the story. If you imitate the same character twice, it will now take the scale of the second and following character.

Makes it possible for your characters to assume the identity of another in appearance. Character imitation creates the mapping, which is what we call the relationship between the script character (the one you use in your script) and the mapped character (the one whose appearance and name you want your script character to assume).

This tool is especially handy when you have 2 (or more) characters that you’d like to streamline into one in the script for the sake of efficiency. Since most stories offer readers a love interest preference, the most common use for character imitate is for 4fplus & LGBTQ branching.

The Command for Imitating:

@JOHN imitates ALISON

In this example, JOHN is imitating ALISON. This means that the character that readers see is ALISON; the name you’ll use in the script is JOHN.

You can use “imitates” and “looks like” interchangeably: JOHN imitates ALISON means the same thing as “JOHN looks like ALISON.”

Let’s say ALISON is also imitating someone (suppose BOB).

@JOHN imitates ALISON
@ALISON imitates BOB

In the example above, JOHN is imitating ALISON, who is imitating BOB (a.k.a., JOHN looks like ALISON, who looks like BOB).

The character that readers see is BOB; the name you’ll use in the script is JOHN.

All of our in-house Love Interest avatar templates 60 already include a male and female option, imitates commands, and gains, so you generally don’t need to worry about coding this part yourself (link only available to commissioned authors). You will, however, need to spot place and resize your male and female avatars differently.