Tropes and fan terms about copycats. See also Substitution Tropes, which many of these tropes may be used for.
Tropes:
- Alternate Species Counterpart: Creating a new character by changing the species of an existing character.
- Asset Actor
- Biography à Clef
- Borrowing from the Sister Series: A creator copies a successful feature from one of their series into another, minimizing the risk of trying something completely new.
- The Burlesque of Venus: StockParodies of Sandro Botticelli's painting The Birth of Venus.
- Canines Gambling in a Card Game
- Cliché Storm
- Composite Character: The adaptation merges multiple characters into one character.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character
- Counterpart Combat Coordination
- Creator-Driven Successor
- Cut and Paste Comic
- Cut and Paste Environments
- Decomposite Character: The adaptation splits one character into multiple characters.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Something closely parallels a Real Life event or situation without explicitly evoking it.
- Effective Knockoff
- Evil Counterpart: The villain is essentially an evil version of the hero.
- Costume Copycat: A bad guy tries to impersonate the hero.
- Evil Doppelgänger
- Evil Knockoff: The villain creates a clone or robot double of the hero so he can have the next best thing to having the hero work for him.
- Evil Twin
- Legendary Impostor
- The Psycho Rangers: A whole team of evil counterparts for a team of heroes.
- Expy: A character is clearly based on a pre-existing character from another work.
- Alternate Company Equivalent: A character who can be considered this company's equivalent to a character from a competing company.
- Captain Ersatz: The pastiche character is blatantly the character they're copying in all but name.
- Spiritual Crossover: A crossover done with Captain Ersatzes instead of the actual characters.
- Cast of Expies: Just about every character in the story is based on a fictional character from another work.
- Copy Cat Sue: A Mary Sue (or Marty Stu) who looks exactly like the character they're based off of.
- Sailor Earth: An OC that was made to fit the work's pattern.
- Corrupted Character Copy: A character is a pastiche of a pre-existing character from another work, but is notably a worse person than the character they are based on.
- Virtuous Character Copy: The inverse to the above, where the pastiche of a pre-existing character from another work is a far better person than the character they were based on.
- Distaff Counterpart: The female equivalent of a pre-existing male character. The reversal of this would be called a Spear Counterpart.
- Expy Coexistence: An Expy and the character, person, or thing they're based on both exist in the same universe.
- Knocking the Knockoff: An in-universe Take That! directed to the Expy by a character of the original work.
- Fountain of Expies: There are a whole bunch of characters who are imitations of this specific fictional character.
- Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: A work features a cameo by a copyrighted character, but they partially obscure the character, alter their appearance a little and/or avoid calling them directly by name to avoid getting sued by the company that owns the rights to the character.
- Similar Squad
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: A character gets replaced by another character who is essentially the other character in all but name.
- Meet the New Boss: When said new boss is exactly the same as the old one.
- More Popular Replacement: A new character takes the place of an old character and is received better than the old character.
- Replacement Scrappy: Fans don't appreciate the new character taking the place of another character.
- Send in the Clones
- Fictional Counterpart
- The Alternet
- Bland-Name Product: A fictional copy of a real-life brand.
- Fantasy Conflict Counterpart
- Fantasy Counterpart Appliance
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture
- Fantasy Counterpart Myth
- Fantasy Counterpart Religion
- Fictional Combat Troop
- Fictional Social Network
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: A fictional character based on a real person.
- The Ahnold: A character based on actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger.
- Bob Ross Rib: A character based on painter and TV personality Bob Ross.
- Borrowing the Beatles: A group of characters based on British rock band The Beatles.
- Bruce Lee Clone: A character based on actor and martial artist Bruce Lee.
- Elvis Impersonator: A character based on musician Elvis Presley.
- Freddie Mercopy: A character based on Freddie Mercury of the band Queen.
- Hoax Hogan: A character based on wrestler Hulk Hogan.
- Howard Hughes Homage: A character based on businessman and inventor Howard Hughes.
- Lorre Lookalike: A character based on actor Peter Lorre.
- Malcolm Xerox: A character based on political activist Malcolm X.
- Mock Cousteau: A character based on French marine zoologist Jacques Cousteau.
- Mumbling Brando: A character based on actor Marlon Brando.
- Mr. Alt Disney: A character based on businessman and animator Walt Disney.
- Shirley Template: A character based on child actress Shirley Temple.
- Trumplica: A character based on real estate mogul and politician Donald Trump.
- No Communities Were Harmed
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed
- Scout-Out
- T. Rexpy
- Follow the Leader: A work deliberately copies another work that has proven successful.
- Who Wants to Be "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?": Game shows that copied Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? that revitalized the game show industry in American television
- Foreign Remake: A work that is remade into a foreign work.
- Formula with a Twist
- Gendered Outfit
- Generation Xerox: The new generation consists of clones of their parents.
- Geodesic Cast
- Gun Counterpart
- Identical Panel Gag
- Internet Mimic: Someone online who mimics the talking/typing style of a celebrity.
- It's Been Done
- It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: An adaptation is disliked for not having many differences from the original work.
- Jack the Ripoff
- The Joy of X
- The Mockbuster: A work essentially copies the source or original work 1:1 as a low-quality imitation
- Modern Day/Sci-Fi RPG Class Equivalents: A game without magic has classes that serve the same roles as classes from RPGs with magic.
- The Moral Substitute: A work deliberately imitates another, but omits objectionable content or adds morals to appeal to audiences who find the original work too offensive.
- Moveset Clone
- New Work, Recycled Graphics
- Older Than They Think: Fan thinks a trope, plot, or line was invented by a work that he or she watches when in truth, its origins lie farther back in history.
- Palette Swap: A character is an exact copy of another except for a different color palette.
- Patched Together from the Headlines
- Pietà Plagiarism
- Plagiarism in Fiction: A character is a copycat in-story.
- Recycled In Space
- Recycled Premise
- Recycled Script
- Recycled with a Gimmick
- Ripped from the Headlines
- Roman à Clef
- Same Story, Different Names
- Sci-Fi Counterpart
- Spiritual Successor: An unrelated work share the same themes, story and characters from its precursor.
- Second Episode Substitute
- Self-Plagiarism
- Serial Numbers Filed Off
- Sistine Steal
- Snowclone
- Stealing the Credit: Falsely claiming you are responsible for someone else's work.
- Strictly Formula: Every episode of the show essentially has the same plot.
- Surprisingly Similar Characters
- Surprisingly-Similar Stories
- Suspiciously Similar Song: A song or piece of music that sounds like a copyright-friendly version of another song or piece of music.
- They Copied It, So It Sucks!: A work is bashed for being seen as an imitation of another work.
- Undead Counterpart
- Whole-Plot Reference
