"WELCOME TO THE EVIL GANG"
— Giovanni's second message in the gen-chat channel
Epithet Anthology is a private Epithet Erased discord Roleplay, with a heavy focus on character dynamics and developments, and occasional focus on action and intrigue. It is a Continuity Reboot of a more public role-playing project titled Epithet Alternate, that began in late 2019 and discontinued in 2020.
Epithet Anthology is heavily canon-divergent in a few ways, such as overhauls of the relationships between certain characters, and inclusion of original characters to enrich the cast and story. The creators also don't hesitate to take inspiration and story elements from Anime Campaign, as it is the foundation of the canonical source material.
Epithet Anthology provides examples of:
- Adaptational Relationship Change: In Epithet Erased, Naven Nuknuk and Yoomtah Zing are happily married. In Anthology, there is no romance between them whatsoever. Instead, Naven acts like Yoomtah's excessively controlling guardian, and now that they've made friends outside of Bliss Ocean, Yoomtah is increasingly fed up with his efforts to invade their personal life.
- Age Lift: Yoomtah Zing is 16 years old, while in canon, she has lived for 28 years.
- Chronic Self-Deprecation: Yoomtah thoroughly believes they are undeserving of the friendship and grace of the people in the clown server.
Yoomtah: I’m a bad person, (...) and I don’t understand why you, let alone the others, are treating me like I’m worthy of anything besides hatred or pity!
- Continuity Reboot: Anthology came about in 2024 as a redo of Epithet Alternate, which incorporated a lot more ARG elements into its storytelling, such as a public server where members can interact with the characters, and Tumblr blogs for each character. A few blogs are still up, but the discord server, where most of the story took place, is now effectively lost media, save for a handful of screenshots.
- Hopeless with Tech: Giovanni struggles with using a mobile phone that isn't a flip phone. In fact, he slips up and adds a random contact... that just so happens to be somebody he opposed in Epithet proper.
- Original Character:
- Collin Miasma, a barista at a mediocre coffee shop and eventual friend to several members of the group.
- Cred, a Banzai Valedictorian with a hobby of spying on people's lives through digital devices and brainwashing some of them to be their loyal Blasters.
- Skitty, a mysterious robotic counterpart to Yoomtah.
- Tastes Like Friendship: When Giovanni meets Yoomtah face-to-face for the first time, he delivers them cookies, and offers soup to help soothe their aching legs. It's later lampshaded in the chatroom as a gesture of friendship.
Dr. Ashling: And remember that you have friends that will want to be on your side if you need help.
YZ: friends?
Dr.Ashling: Potage shared cookies with you, didn't he? That's something a friend would do.
YZ: oh
Giovanni: YEAH I mean. I see you as a friend
- Queer Establishing Moment: Until after Yoomtah learns of their forgotten past, they exclusively go by she/her pronouns. After the foundation of their Bliss Ocean identity is exposed to them, they begin to question whether she/her really feels right for them.
"three thousand ways to explode is what we're inventing"
