I should make a Greek mythology dating sim.
I mean, hell, it almost literally writes itself.
Wanna date Helen of Troy?
Only if you don't mind pissing off the entire population of Greece.
Wanna date Achilles?
Only if you don't mind the game constantly hitting you over the head with how dead you are every chapter.
If you play as a girl, you've got the constant threat of Zeus or Poseidon taking a liking to you,
plus Hera may be trying to kill you, depending on how far that gets.
And no matter what gender you pick, there's about a 10% chance of Apollo randomly falling in love with you and getting you killed on principle.
There's almost too much material to work with.
But if there's one simple, absolute truth of the ancient Greek dating world,
it's that you should absolutely never try to date Narcissus.
Doesn't matter what you do, that boy is nothing but bad endings.
So, through the conveniently multiple-choice medium of simulated video games,
let us explore the deservedly tragic tale of Greece's most ineligible bachelor,
and the numerous ways he broke hearts and lives throughout the Greek mythosphere.
Now, choose your character!
Welcome to ancient Greek mythology!
You are Echo! A lovely nymph with an unfortunate speech impediment.
Due to a long and varied history of playing wingman to Zeus by distracting Hera with colorful tales
so Zeus could pursue mortal women in peace,
Hera finally got tired of your shenanigans, and cursed you to only be able to repeat what you've just heard.
This has rendered you incapable of confessing your love straight out,
and you must instead wait for your beloved to use some words you can remix into a love confession.
Echo is basically hard mode in this analogy.
Conveniently, you are in love with Narcissus!
A beautiful and skilled hunter, who loves nothing more than to talk about how pretty he is.
With material like this to work with, it's no trouble at all to construct a suitable confession.
But here's the big problem:
Narcissus may be sexy and he knows it, but he's got no interest in sharing it with the rest of the world.
And while characters like Artemis and Athena set a mythological precedent for the perpetually single,
it's not that Narcissus isn't into people like that.
He's just WAY too arrogant to ever feel like anyone's worth his time.
Narcissus rejects your confession and crushes your spirit,
leaving you to pine away endlessly.
Without love, life is like the seasons with no summer,
and stripped of your future romantic prospects, you waste away to nothing until only your voice remains.
So here's what happens next.
Welcome to Ancient Greek mythology!
You are Ameinias! A strapping young lad.
And because this is ancient Greece, you want nothing more than to get with another strapping young lad
and live out the rest of your days together until one of you dies.
Probably tragically, and most likely prompting the other to go on a deadly murder spree
to carve out their vengeance in Trojan blood.
Unsurprisingly, you and every other dude on the block are in love with Narcissus!
A beautiful and skilled hunter, who loves nothing more than himself.
While he's so far turned away every other suitor who's come to his doorstep
with anguished declarations of love,
you've polished your declaration to a mirror shine and are confident he'll be swayed by your words.
Unfortunately for you, Narcissus may be sexy and he knows it,
but the only use he has for mirror shined things is admiring his own beautiful face.
He soundly rejects your shiny declaration, and on top of that,
he sends you an equally shiny sword and, not so subtly, tells you to use it to put yourself out of your misery.
Without love, life is rock and roll without a drummer.
So you do so, putting a tragic end to your tragic tale with a compounded tragedy
that you don't even have a pissed-off indestructible boyfriend to avenge you.
So here's what happens next.
No matter who tries to romance Narcissus,
their brutal rejection and subsequent death catches the attention of Nemesis, the Greek goddess of revenge.
Or, more specifically, the deific embodiment of all those karmic punishments for hubris Greece is such a huge fan of.
Fun fact, in some versions, she's also the mother of Helen of Troy.
So Nemesis sees Narcissus all hopped up on his own ego
and playing fast and loose with the hearts and lives of those who love him,
so she prepares a suitably ruinous punishment for him.
Since Narcissus loves his own face so much,
she just draws his attention to a nearby reflective pool and lets his rampaging ego do the rest.
Narcissus is entranced by his own reflection, but being that it's all ephemeral and non-physical and stuff,
all he can do is pine from a distance, until eventually he dies, just like what he did to his suitors.
Brutal.
Also, as is fairly common for cute boys in Greek mythology,
he turns into a flower upon dying, unsurprisingly, the narcissus.
I think the moral of this story is that Artemis had the right idea:
in this game, the only way to win is not to play.
[Carly Simon - You are so vain] You walked into a party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf, it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte
And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner
They'd be your partner, and...
You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?