Giovanni Potage

### Theme

**Giovanni Potage** is a major character in *Epithet Erased*. He is an inscribed 19-year-old man who was the leader of the group of Banzai Blasters that broke into the Sweet Jazz Museum to rob it of it's treasures, but ended up being imprisoned with Molly Blyndeff by Mera Salamin and Indus Tarbella instead. He quickly forms an alliance with Molly and later reluctantly recruits Sylvester Ashling to defeat Mera and retrieve the Arsene Amulet for himself. After beating Mera and stealing the amulet, he heads to Redwood Run to get it appraised by Ramsey Murdoch. Later, he gets humiliated by his superior officers, who took the amulet for themselves, causing Giovanni to renounce the Banzai Blasters and become a solo villain. Since he accidentally revealed his identity to Percival King, he is currently on the lam.

## Physical Appearance

Giovanni is a tall and lanky young man with white skin and spiky pink hair. He wears a yellow suit with white boots, which is his Banzai Captain's uniform, but he has also added a long red cape as an accessory (which is actually just a towel).

He wears a jacket and jeans as casual wear, alongside black nail polish, on occasion.

## Personality

Giovanni is a very ambitious troublemaker who loves baseball, robots and anything edgy. He has dreams of one day becoming the greatest villain of all time.

Giovanni usually tries to look cool and menacing (when it really just comes off as pathetic), this was shown in "Quiet in the Museum!", when he attempts to knock over a potted plant to prove that he is a "Certified Bad Dude™" and fails.

Giovanni believes that his epithet "soup" doesn't sound cool or threatening at all, so he tries to make his attacks sound cooler by calling his soup "lava" or steam "demon energy".

Despite constantly insisting that he is a villain, he seems to have a secret soft side as he is shown to care deeply about each and every one of his minions, even if he's willing to mess with them at times. He has also sworn to never abuse his authority or steal his minions' hard labor, and goes so far as to quit the Banzai Blasters entirely when convinced that the only way to get ahead is to do so.

While some fans have speculated that Giovanni has a fear of his boys betraying him because of the effects of Sylvie's Nightmare Fuel, Brendan Blaber himself has said that this is false.

## Abilities and Powers

### Epithet

Giovanni's epithet, "Soup", allows him to create and control soup, which ends up having a wide variety of applications due to his high creativity.

* **~~Lava~~ ~~Acid~~** **Lav-acid:** Giovanni can form orbs of tomato basil soup out of thin air. This ball of soup is also described as scalding by Giovanni.
	+ **Lava Grenade:** Giovanni creates a scalding hot orb of soup that he can launch at an area. When it hits the floor, it explodes, hitting enemies in its vicinity.
* **Demon Energy Aura:** Giovanni creates a whirlwind of soupy energy, capable of blasting dust particles away.
	+ **Teleports Behind You:** Giovanni builds up steam around him, using this for a sudden burst of speed to the point where it looks like teleportation to observers. This can also be used to give himself a large jump.
	+ **Fog of Lost Souls:** Giovanni covers the area with a blanket of thick, delicious-smelling fog, useful for making a getaway. It also restores 1 HP for anyone standing in it.
* **Soup That is Too Hot:** This is Giovanni's self-proclaimed ultimate attack. He can increase the temperature of soup, without a line of sight.
* **Ancient Potion:** Giovanni sweats a bottle of healthy soup that he can drink to regain 15 HP. Giovanni can only use this move once per battle.

### Weapons

Giovanni's signature weapon is his homemade "Soul Slugger Doom Bat of Maximum Destruction", which is a regular baseball bat with a knife taped to it.

### Miscellaneous Skills

Giovanni is shown to be quite skilled in wielding a baseball bat. Giovanni claims that when it comes to baseball, he cannot be beaten, and Brendan has confirmed that Giovanni won the multiple baseball trophies seen in his bedroom fair and square.

Giovanni is also a pretty good chef, as it was confirmed by Brendan Blaber that his extensive culinary knowledge is what makes his signature soup taste so good.

As 13 is Giovanni's lucky number, every 13th attack deals extra damage. This can be charged up ahead of time by gently knocking objects. This non-epithet related ability is named "CRITICAL 13".

## Relationships

### Molly Blyndeff

At first, Giovanni saw Molly as a minor nuisance who hindered his heist. But after Giovanni was forced to recruit her in order to escape their "prison", Giovanni began to take a liking to "Bear Trap" after they began bonding over their mutual interests. Eventually, when Giovanni learned about Molly's familial troubles, he begins to give her an inspiring pep talk about how she shouldn't let her family push her around and that she should learn to stand up for herself.

Although this is non-canonical, in "Two-lloween" Giovanni considers Molly his favorite minion, this could be because she accepts his softer side, while Giovanni fears how his minions would react to his niceness, because in his own words, "only cool minions like [Molly] would understand".

### Mera Salamin

Giovanni has a mutual hatred with Mera after Mera injured Dark Star, Spike and Crusher, and later trying to harm Molly. Another reason why he loathes her is how she intervenes in his plans and mocks how sloppy his approach is when it comes to crime. He takes pleasure after he manages to beat Mera in the final confrontation in the museum.

### Sylvester Ashling

Giovanni and Sylvie got off to a bad start and got worse from there. His tolerance levels for Sylvie hit rock bottom after he used Nightmare Fuel on Molly, which surrounded them with fire and terrified Molly so much she started crying in his arms. After defeating him in battle, he took delight in rubbing it in Sylvie's face. After Molly convinces him to let Sylvie join their party, he reluctantly agrees to let Sylvie join the Banzai Blasters, only to be irritated by Sylvie even further when he outright refuses to do such a thing, laughs at the idea and scoffs at Giovanni for assuming he would follow him because, in his words, Giovanni is weaker than he is. They team up all the same, though albeit, very reluctantly. Giovanni and Sylvie's alliance is an unstable one as they dislike each other a great deal and have absolutely no respect for each other whatsoever. With Giovanni mocking and berating Sylvie at every opportunity and Sylvie getting more and more irritated with him as each moment passes. Giovanni is likely holding a grudge against Sylvie; still angry with him for attacking him and Molly and scaring Molly to the point of tears. If he is still upset, he likely won't let it go until he hears Sylvie apologize for his actions.

### Giovanni's Boys

While most villains would view their lackeys as mere tools or cannon fodder, Giovanni shares a strong mutual friendship with each and every one of his minions, and will stand up for them if needed. He feels comfortable with venting his frustrations with Car Crash, and even trusts him enough to drive him to Redwood Run, despite his namesake. Unbeknownst to Giovanni, Spike and Crusher both have romantic feelings for him. Despite this, Giovanni does feel uncomfortable showing his true colors to them as, in his own words, they wouldn't get it.

## Trivia

* His favorite color is pink.
* Giovanni's last name literally means thick soup.
* Giovanni's pink hair was actually inspired by Team Rocket grunts having pink hair.
	+ His first name is likely a reference to the leader of Team Rocket.
* The "W" on Giovanni's uniform is actually a sideways "B" for Banzai.
* Giovanni's knife is revealed to actually belong to his mom, which he took without permission.
* One of his hobbies is knitting. He even carries knitting needles and yarn with him.
* Brendan Blaber originally asked Danny Cooksey, the voice actor of Jack Spicer, to voice Giovanni, but later Kyle Igneczi was chosen instead.
* His bat, the Soul Slugger Doom Bat of Maximum Destruction, is also called the "Soul Crusher Bat" by himself in the show.
* The "horn" in his hair is actually a hair clip.
* He perceives "boys" as a gender-neutral term, hence why he calls Molly and Spike boys. If one of Giovanni's minions didn't want to be called a boy, he’d stop.
* Roob, the original creator of Giovanni, has confirmed that Giovanni is cisgender and bisexual.
	+ Despite this, Roob is fine with people having headcanons about his sexuality as long as fans don’t entitle Giovanni as their own character.
* Giovanni earned his Banzai name, Creampuff, by bringing in cream puffs for his birthday.
* Giovanni's birthday is February 6th. This makes Giovanni an Aquarius.
* Brendan has confirmed that he has plans to have Giovanni reunite with Molly despite still being on the lam. He had also confirmed that he wants Giovanni and Molly to have a simple yet chaotic episode where they bake cookies together.
* Apparently Giovanni is from a lesbian family, meaning that he is raised by two moms. One is a smoker type woman (the one who partakes in yoga night) and one is a crystals and essential oils type, the essential oils mother conceived him after a man donated his sperms to her, the smoker is the head of the house.
* Giovanni seems to have an interest in the supernatural as he has searched a way to obtain a possessed doll and even if it was legal to marry, kiss, and hold hands with one.

## Reference Sources

1. ↑ https://jelloapocalypse.tumblr.com/post/189002297122/
2. ↑ https://tmblr.co/Z0Wm1x2mPKWag
3. ↑ https://tmblr.co/Z0Wm1x2mHWzFR
4. ↑ https://jelloapocalypse.tumblr.com/post/189894508412/psst-what-was-giovannis-banzai-name
5. ↑ https://twitter.com/BrendanBlaber/status/1348434083857260544
6. ↑ https://jelloapocalypse.tumblr.com/post/189621335637/so-did-giovanni-actually-earn-all-those-trophies
7. ↑ "https://jelloapocalypse.tumblr.com/post/189658337927/is-giovannis-epithet-made-soup-naturally
8. ↑ https://jelloapocalypse.tumblr.com/post/189242080482/so-can-giovanni-do-the-13th-hit-thing-because-of
9. ↑ https://jelloapocalypse.tumblr.com/post/189376659342/im-going-to-ask-the-obvious-question-did-you-get
10. ↑ https://jelloapocalypse.tumblr.com/post/189394251227/heya-i-wanted-to-ask-what-the-w-on-giovannis
11. ↑ https://jelloapocalypse.tumblr.com/post/189851198967/ah-just-read-your-lgbt-answersthank-you-for
12. ↑ https://rooby.tumblr.com/post/189851257104/hey-everyone-its-me-ya-boy-roob-jello-made-a
13. ↑ https://jelloapocalypse.tumblr.com/post/189903371922/p-please-tell-me-how-giovanni-got-the-nickname
14. ↑ https://tmblr.co/Z0Wm1x2nCCPQt
15. ↑ https://youtu.be/uIC1G2DQ--U?t=741
16. ↑ https://jelloapocalypse.tumblr.com/post/619515233841692672/do-ever-find-out-what-happened-to-giovannis
17. ↑ https://twitter.com/BrendanBlaber/status/1258131762888282112