Blog / Myths Retold

Blog by Cory "Ovid" O'Brien in which he recounts myths and legends from various cultures in his own irreverent vernacular. Also features some multi-part video retellings.

The subjects covered on the blog include Classical Mythology, Norse Mythology, The Bible, Arthurian Legend, Fairy Tales, Celtic Mythology, Arabian Nights, Native American Mythology, Egyptian Mythology, Hindu Mythology, Japanese Mythology, the Cthulhu Mythos, the works of William Shakespeare, and more.

A collection of the myths (along with several new ones) has been published as Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology. A second collection, focusing on American history, mythology, and folklore has been published as George Washington is Cash Money: A No-Bullshit Guide to the United Myths of America.

The blog itself is found here. His multi-part video retellings can be found on his Youtube channel.

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This blog contains examples of:

• all lowercase letters
• The All-Solving Hammer: In "The Bible Took Out All the Coolest Shit About Solomon," when the title character gets another case to judge.
  and Solomon's first instinct is to chop the goats in half
• Attention Whore: In the Exodus videos, God makes events unnecessarily protracted to give Himself more chances to show off, because He wants to be "famous~!"
• Black Comedy Rape: Inevitable and unavoidable with the content of many of the myths, especially ones concerning Zeus. Ovid goes out of his way to laugh only at the ridiculousness of the rapes (as many involve weird myth stuff like turning people into animals) or people reacting to it in blase or irrational ways (such as falling in love with the rapist, or punishing the victim), rather than just laughing at the act of rape in itself.

• Disappeared Dad: Billy the Kid has "an Irish mom and an invisible dad."
• Disproportionate Retribution: The sultan in "This Turkish Princess Gets a Little Salty," who orders his daughter executed because she used the wrong simile.

• Evil Laugh: In "WHOOPS":
  and then he's like goodnight girls
  sleep well
  try not to die brutally during the night
  HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: These are myths. They are being retold.
• Familial Cannibalism Surprise: Referenced in an Overly Long Gag in "This Turkish Princess Gets a Little Salty," which features a dinnertime revelation that isn't this for once.
  and this is when the sultana stands up at the other end of the table
  and reveals
  that he was actually eating his kids the whole time
  no wait i mean
  that he was actually eating his kids the whole time
  no wait i mean
  that he was actually eating his kids the whole time
  NO
  WAIT
  I MEAN
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The multi-part video myths tend to go this way. For instance, part one of the Genesis series was called "Did somebody say GENESIS?", and subsequent entries continued to speculate on whether or not anybody had indeed said Genesis.

• Judgment of Solomon: One of the stories unique to Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes covers the original. Solomon himself is incredulous at the response.
  Seriously, lady
  what were you even planning on doing with the top half of a baby?
  You’ve already got 100 percent of a dead baby
  no questions asked.
  What are you, making a casserole?
• Metaphorgotten: Used from time to time, such as in "Medea Kind of Sucks Also".
  so medea has effectively killed 2 birds with one stone
  or 2 birds with one robe i guess
  one poisoned robe
  and instead of birds it is nobles
  but the metaphor holds
• Mundane Utility: In "Krishna is a Butterface", Krishna uses the divine effulgence of the many precious gems on his body to help him steal the neighbors' butter.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Medea is a "barbarian witch robot dinosaur."
• no punctuation is funnier: The writing uses very Little punctuation, and is written like your average tweet or Tumblr post.
• No Punctuation Period: The earlier stories had very little punctuation; with time Ovid shed even what little there was, so that most of his myths are completely unpunctuated (emphasis and pacing is provided instead by line/paragraph breaks and frequent use of ALL CAPS).
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: In "The Miller is one Drunk Motherfucker":
  [THIS IS LITERATURE GUYS. THIS IS FUCKING LITERATURE]
• A Rare Sentence: In "Robin Hood is for Pussies":
  so the next morning the thief shows up at the count's place
  and he's like yo
  you should check your closet full of doves
  there are religious personages in there
  and the count is like boy
  how did I get to a point in my life where that sentence makes sense
• Record Needle Scratch: Inserted into a myth in "It is hard for Set to not be a douchebag".
• Running Gag: Several ones.
  • Dwarves sure do love themselves some gold. Like, carnally.
  • Consulting the Oracle at Delphi is a terrible, stupid idea.
  • Ovid keeps sniggering at anything that sounds a little dirty.
  but the place where daphne finally gets tired
  is right on the banks of this river Peneus
  haha peneus
• Satellite Love Interest: Ovid notes that the princess from Prince Ivan and the Grey Wolf is an extreme example of this, considering she does not say or do anything in the entire story. invoked
• Shown Their Work: He often shows extensive knowledge of the myths he is retelling, such as pointing out how Beatrice in The Divine Comedy is actually based on a woman that Dante basically stalked in real life.
• Sophisticated as Hell: A key element of Ovid's writing style.
  one of my favorite things about having this blog
  is I get to routinely use words like fucking and seminary
  IN THE SAME GODDAMN SENTENCE
• Space Whale Aesop: A natural result of trying to synthesize a moral out of most mythology.
  so the moral of the story
  is if you are going to have a goddess for a mom
  try to have a less shitty one than aurora
  one that can save your life in battle
  instead of turning your smoking corpse into some angry birds

• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • In "ENOUGH with the cows":
    and the gods are like no no no
    why would we do that
    what do you think we are
    desperately afraid of you or something
  • In George Washington is Cash Money:
    This is definitely a grand humanitarian gesture
    and not a way to get out of paying Chris his 10 percent
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Ovid often goes shirtless in his videos. He lampshades this in part 4 of his Inferno retelling.
  good thing I forgot to wear a shirt today
• Work Off the Debt: Little Ajax offers to wash Athena's dishes to atone for rape.
• Your Mom: Apparently The Iliad did the nasty with her. Your dad too.

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