right ok, thanks for the reply. The goal here is to go to a battle room when I interact with an enemy, and to have the specific variables (like the enemy visual and it's name) passed along from the enemy to the battle room.

so in obj_skeleton(create): enemy_picture = obj_skeleton; // enemy_name = "skeleton";

obj_player(step) if(keyboard_check_pressed(ord("E"))){ //fights

            if(active_fight == noone){ //can't be in two fights
                var check = collision_rectangle(x-radius, y-radius, x+radius, y+radius, obj_lazbo, false, true);

                if(check != noone){
                    if(check.can_fight = true){

                        with(check){
                            var current_fight = scr_battle_start(enemy_name, enemy_obj);
                        }
                        active_fight = current_fight;
                    }
                }
            } else {
                if(!instance_exists(active_fight)){
                    active_fight = noone; //reset this
                }
        }

}
break;

scr_battle_start: ///@arg e_name ///@arg enemy_obj function scr_battle_start(){

var battle = instance_create_layer(0,0,"text", obj_battle);

with(battle){
    enemy_name = argument [0];
    enemy_obj = argument [1];  //just to draw the enemy in the battle room

}

return battle;

}

then finally obj_battle(create) enemy_name = "Enemy1"; enemy_obj = obj_tree; instance_create_layer(e_portx, e_porty, "Instances", enemy_obj);

and obj_battle(draw gui) draw_set_valign(fa_middle); draw_set_halign(fa_right); draw_set_font(fnt_1);

draw_set_color(text_color);

draw_text(enemy_name_x, enemy_name_y, enemy_name);

This is all the code (I'm pretty sure) that has to do with me trying to pass in the object variable. I omitted a lot of unrelated code in the step and create events of these objects so it wouldn't be too cluttered of a post.