YMMV / Overly Sarcastic Productions

• Accidental Innuendo: When discussing the punishment for those in Bolgia 8, Red makes an unfortunate statement:
  Red: They screwed their friends, so now their friends screw them! Dyuh...
• Angst? What Angst?: Krishna's future parents are locked in a dungeon with an Evil Uncle murdering each of their newborn children. They're seen sitting in their cell debating if they should have more sex or resign themselves to a lifetime of Yahtzee.
• Awesome Art: The animated episodes are full of very impressive (and frankly adorable) chibi art.
• Awesome Music:
  • Red has an awesome singing voice, as heard with her covers of popular songs that she uses in the end credits.
  • Red singing her own Major General Song called "The Philosopher's Song".
• Base-Breaking Character: In the story of "Medea", the titular character has divided the OSP fanbase. Medea got tired of Jason cheating on her and never appreciating her help, especially after he tossed her aside because she couldn't help him become king. In response, Medea wanted vengeance on Jason, which she set out to achieve by (among other things) killing their children. To some OSP fans, Medea is a Jerkass Woobie who, while not justified in Offing the Offspring, at least had an understandable reason to be so angry, and believe that the majority of the fault should lie with Jason for pushing Medea to such a Rage Breaking Point. To other fans, Medea ended up Unintentionally Unsympathetic for killing her own children when they had nothing to do with her husband's infidelity, and argue that Jason may have been an asshole, but not even he went so far as to bring their kids into it.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Many of Red's song choices, both during video edits and her covers at the end of said videos.
  • A standout example is the Halloween special on H. P. Lovecraft, a sizable portion of which is dedicated to recapping The Shadow Over Innsmouth, with all the aquatic horror of its fish people. The featured cover? "Under the Sea", a song from a movie portraying the majority of sea life as something friendly to man, with a beautiful mermaid to boot.
  • She also notes her original idea for an episode featuring a sun goddess lured out of a sulk by another goddess doing a strip tease was "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" but she felt that was a little too on the nose. What did she use instead? "Here Comes the Sun"!
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Journey to the West series, if the comments are anything to go by, seems to have a genuinely strong following who treat Red's episodes on it like actual installments of an ongoing TV series, and frequently ask when more will be coming out. The Mainstream Obscurity of the original text and its genuinely relatable characters (something even Red acknowledged) are likely the cause.
  • Similarly, the "Di-Vine" video was an unexpected hit, depicted by Red sitting at her desk... before getting buried by requests to make it a series. It eventually spawned a "Journey to the West" version, blending the two hits together.
  • Character-wise, Red's design for Hades as an emo teen apparently got a lot of commenters "thirsty."
  • Dionysus also got an uptick in popularity not just for this series, but for mythology in general after Red's extremely detailed deep dive into his history in the mythos. The deep dive format itself proved popular too, as she'd later do so for Aphrodite, Hermes, The Wild Hunt, Hades and Persephone (together), Loki, and Apollo and Artemis (also together) as well.
  • "Wimpy", the sad friend of the protagonist in the "Welcome To Super School!" Trope Talk, got so much attention that he got merch.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Blue's wife has been given the nickname "Cyan" by fans, thanks to her appearance as the camera person in Blue's Iceland trip vlog.
  • Red's sister has been dubbed "Magenta" by fans after her appearance in the "OSPlays Holiday Edition" video.
• Fridge Brilliance: In "Anansi wins Stories", Red points out that while it seems a cliché for Anansi to catch Osebo the leopard in a Pit Trap, Anansi and Osebo lived in a time when stories were all the property of a single god, so there wouldn't have been a frame of reference for Osebo to recognize how cliched it is.
• Fandom Rivalry: With Every Frame a Pause, after the latter made an eight hour video criticizing Red for her Stuffed into the Fridge Trope Talk.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Fans of OSP mingle incredibly well with those of Extra Credits to the point that they crossed over on December 3, 2018. They also mingle pretty well with fans of Jack Rackam and Terrible Writing Advice.
  • Fans of Blue's history videos have a pretty generous overlap with the work of Andrew Rakich and Atun-Shei Films, not only his larger series (Checkmate, Lincolnites! and The Witchfinder-General in particular) but also his video essays on more specific historical topics and works of fiction.
  • Many fans of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series of books and related material enjoy the Myths videos, and a new video from the series is often linked to new ideas in the fandom, and talk about the books and various details of them often appear in related myth videos. Red's discussion on the Mycenaean versions of the Greek Gods notably correlates with the emergence of the growing fanon idea of Percy being the son of Mycenaean Poseidon.
• Harsher in Hindsight: When the "Trope Talk: Post Apocalypses" video was released in February 2019, Red comments that "the pandemic apocalypse [...] on its own doesn't really get as much airplay these days". Come next year in 2020, the world was ravaged by the COVID-19 Pandemic, which wasn't officially downgraded from a global pandemic by the World Health Organization until May 2023. Suffice to say, the pandemic apocalypse got a lot more mainstream after Red talked about it.
• He Panned It, Now He Sucks!: In their Detail Diatribe on Superman Satires, Red cited Homelander from The Boys (2019) as an example for satires of Superman that didn't work. This alone wouldn't have been much of a sticking point, except for the fact that not only did Red state she didn't even watch the show or read the comic, but she cited the Plutonian as an example of the concept done well, who many fans of The Boys consider to be very similar to Homelander in the show. This caused many fans of both OSP and The Boys to criticise the video by accusing Red's take on it to be riddled with errors. Her doubling down on the video on Twitter did not help matters.^note Though, in a later podcast and on their twitter, both Red and Blue eventually apologized for misrepresenting the show that they did not watch.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the video about Narcissus, Red conceptualizes a Greek Mythology dating sim. One where the main character dies a lot. Enter Hades, a Greek Mythology roguelike whose entire genre is dedicated to dying a lot, and whose main character gets to romance Thanatos, Megaera, and/or Dusa.
  • In Red's video on Dionysus, she offhandedly mentions Zagreus, a very minor Greek deity and son of Persephone and Hades or Zeus who was syncretized with Dionysus, who never really was in public consciousness. A good time later, that very same Hades game—starring Zagreus as the main and playable character—suddenly made him a notable figure, which can certainly cause some amusement on how quickly he's mentioned in the video. What's more, in-game he's probably responsible for Orpheus's cult conflating himself and Dionysus, given all the prank origin stories he gave to the poor man.
  • The quote "Leave your Marvel-based assumptions by the door" from Red's video about the Poetic Edda became hilarious after Thor's design for God of War Ragnarök was criticised by being compared to Thor from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
  • In the "Those Dang Phones" trope talk, which discusses how the evolution of real-life telecommunications technology has changed how communication works in fiction, Red specifically mentions Sending Stones from Dungeons & Dragons and how some groups basically treat them as magic cell phones or walkie-talkies, despite them not working that way rules-as-written. This episode had been in the works at least a couple of months before Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was released, in which Sending Stones fulfill that exact function.
• Ho Yay:
  • Dante and Virgil in The Divine Comedy, to the point where Red narrates in a softer voice whenever Virgil protects Dante from danger in Hell.
  • Achilles and Patroclus in The Iliad.
  • Galehaut immediately stops fighting because he's utterly smitten with Lancelot.
    Arthur: If you surrender, I'll introduce you.
    Galehaut: (plants his claymore into the ground) DEAL.
  • The story of Gawain and the Green Knight features some Threesome Subtext between Gawain, Bertilak, and lady Bertilak, especially when Gawain kisses Bertilak.
  • Although mostly left as subtext, and likely a consequence of Tripitaka being a Distressed Dude, the monk can often be found being carried by a smug-looking Monkey at the end of an adventure. This one actually has some precedent, as some adaptations or re-imaginings of Journey to the West will Gender Flip one of the two, usually Tripitaka, or just keep the Ho Yay angle and pair them regardless.
  • Amaterasu towards Ame-no-Uzume (who decides to lure the sun goddess with a strip tease) in "Amaterasu and the Cave".
  • Much more subtly, the druidess Bodhmall and the warrior woman Liath Luachra, Fionn mac Cumhaill's foster mothers. While there aren't any explicit lines, Red notes that most records of the story are quite ambiguous as to the subject of their relationship, so it can be interpreted quite a few ways.
  • Averted with Artemis. The idea of a hunter goddess who swears off men and can generally be found in the company of other women might seem very lesbian, but Red is of the opinion that Artemis more likely was asexual. Helps that Red is asexual herself.
  • In Pygmalion and Galatea, Red talks about the trope of crafting your perfect girlfriend. She specifically says girlfriend, while the illustration is of a heartbroken woman. In a freeze-frame bonus, the girl in question is sketching up a distinctly feminine person.
  • In the Trojan War video, Red recounts an alternate telling from the Cypria where Iphigenia, instead of being killed by her father, was saved and made immortal by Artemis, who replaced her on the altar with a deer. This is illustrated by a crying Iphigenia being held bridal-style by Artemis.
• Jerkass Woobie: Red portrays Medea in this way; the killing of her children is not glossed over, nor is her penchant for murdering anyone who she deems a problem, but at the same time, she gave up everything for Jason. Her home, her family, her safety, everything, all because she loved him and he swore an oath before the gods to love her back. And then, after years of always bailing him out of sticky situations he'd never survive on his own, she finally gets to live happily ever after with him as his wife and mother of his children... until he realizes she can't help him with his ultimate goal, becoming king. So he tosses her aside like a toy he's no longer interested in, and she's supposed to be grateful that he intends to keep her as his sidepiece. Killing her kids wasn't really justified, but her utter hatred of Jason and desire to see him suffer absolutely was. The kicker is that it's Hera's fault she fell in love with Jason in the first place, since she convinced Eros to hit Medea with an arrow. Had that not happened, Medea might have fallen in love (organically) with some perfectly nice guy who wouldn't be dumb enough to cheat on his devoted Magical Girlfriend, and she might have been able to live happily ever after. But we'll never know. Dammit, Jason!
• Just Here for Godzilla: A good chunk of the fanbase are only interested in Red's videos on mythology, famous stories, and fictional tropes. With them having little to no interest in Blue's history videos.
• LGBT Fanbase: At least if the amount of LGBT fans in the Discord server is anything to go by. It helps that Red and Blue are both asexual and Red talks about the portrayal of LGBT characters in her Trope Talks quite regularly.
• Moe: Red's art style means a lot of the characters are really, really cute.
  • Eros and Psyche, especially the ending where they're reunited. They just look so sweet and adorable and happy!
  • There are lots of comments on the video about the Zodiac that aren't about the Zodiac, but instead about how adorable Red's depiction of her childhood self is.
• Moral Event Horizon: In the Frankenstein video, this trope is lampshaded when Victor Frankenstein gets a close family friend condemned and executed for a crime she didn't commit. Because he knows who really did it: the monster he created, and he didn't tell the truth all because he was afraid that it would incriminate himself.
  Red: Now this is the part where Victor goes from "self-absorbed jerk with no real mind for consequences" to "irredeemable asshole".
• Most Wonderful Sound: Red has a very lovely singing voice, which she's prone to showing off in the credits of her videos.
• Never Live It Down:
  • In the Dante's Paradiso video, Red lists Justinian as an example of an obscure historical figure who nobody today really cares about, referring to him as "a guy?" and "some fifth century Roman emperor, I guess?" In reality, Justinian was extremely historically important, and is one of the few Byzantine emperors the average history student would likely be familiar with; among other things, he compiled the Corpus Juris Civilis^note a comprehensive document of Roman law that massively influenced most modern legal systems; his portrait still hangs in the American Capitol building because of the impact it had on the Constitution, survived the first outbreak of the Black Death in Europe^note appropriately called either "The Justinianic Plague" or "The Plague of Justinian" depending on the source, and reconquered Rome, making it rather bizarre that Red had no idea who he was and assumed no one else would, either. Now, whenever a video mentions Justinian, the comments are flooded with people good-naturedly making fun of Red for this.
  • Red made a single off-hand joke in her video about The Aeneid about how confusing the Camp Half-Blood Series novels got (specifically regarding the alteration of the names of the Greek gods to their Roman equivalents) and has been characterized as someone who dislikes the entirety of the series ever since. She revealed on an episode of the Overly Sarcastic Podcast that she got into Percy Jackson and the Olympians in the second book, but fell off during The Heroes of Olympus due to the shift from first-person to third-person.
• No Yay: Mentioned by Red in the video on the Snow Queen, where she notes that the two girls sleeping in the same bed would be very cute if it wasn't for the fact that the Robber Girl is holding Gerda at knifepoint.
• Spiritual Successor: If someone were to make TV Tropes into a YouTube channel, it would look an awful lot like Trope Talk — both are in-depth discussions of tropes, subtropes, archetypes and whatnot with plenty of wit. The site even gets referenced in some videos, and many videos are straight up titled after trope names, like "Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass" and "Planet of Hats".
• Squick:
  • Red is clearly (and understandably) revolted when Phaedra attempts to come on to her stepson Hippolytus.
  • Happens again during Selene's incredibly manic, one-sided and unquestionably nonconsensual relationship with a sleeping Endymion, especially when she conceives 50 children with him.
    Red: (as the music grinds to a halt) Whoa! Not cool, lady! He's asleep!
  • The conception of Aphrodite, which involved her emerging fully-formed from the severed testicles of Ouranos. Red describes her as spending the next few millennia showering with a thousand-yard stare, complete with a drawing of Aphrodite looking thoroughly disgusted.
  • Cú Chulainn demanding that Aífe have his kid because he won their fight is very iffy already, not helped by the fact that Cú Chulainn is a minor.
  • After kidnapping Helen and realizing that she is too young to get married, Theseus and his brother Pirithous decide that they will keep her until she is old enough for Theseus to sleep with. Fortunately, the two end up trapped in the underworld and Helen is rescued before this can happen.
    Red: [Retching noises]
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: In the story of "Medea", some find the titular character unsympathetic for choosing to kill her children (if indirectly) just to get back at their father Jason. Yes he betrayed her devotion by cheating on her with Princess Glauce, and never appreciated her help, but some would argue her getting her innocent children wrangled into her revenge plan falls under What the Hell, Hero? territory and outweighs anything Jason ever did to her.

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