Achilles

s3e01 - Detroit:

T. Rex, band (Daniel)

Joey Chestnut, competitive eater

[Gaetano] Donizetti, composer

David [Bowie], musician

Freddie [Mercury], musician

Prince Rogers [Nelson], musician

Post Malone, musician (Daniel)

Jelly Roll, musician (Daniel)

Frederick Law Olmstead, landscape architect ("Olmstead Park")

Bela Lugosi, actor / Bauhaus, band

Chris Rock, comedian (Daniel)

Torvill & Dean, ice skaters

The Smiths, band (“Frankly Mr Shankly”/“The Queen is Dead”)

Stewart Copeland, composer (Christine)

s3e02 - Toledo

[Sigmund] Freud, psychoanalyst

Aristotle, philosopher

Erasmus, scholar

[Thomas] Aquinis, philosopher

Cicero, scholar (Gabriella)

[Leon Battista] Alberti, architect (Gabriella)

[Giordano] Bruno, philosopher (Gabriella)

Thin Lizzy, band

Grace Jones, musician (Christine)

s3e03 - Toronto

Justin Bieber, singer (Daniel)

Jefferson Starship, band

Raphael, artist

[Constantin] Brancusci, sculptor

[Italo] Calvino, writer

[Wolfgang Amadeus] Mozart, composer (Nicki)

Herman’s Hermits, band

The Police, band

Eminem, musician

s3e04 - The Devil’s Road

[Bob] Seger, musican

[Jackson] Browne, musician

Jon Bon Jovi, musician

Phil X, musician

Richie Sambora, musician

P Diddy, musician

[Anthony] Bourdain, chef

[Joe] Rosenthal, photographer (Daniel)

[Matt] Apuzzo, journalist (Daniel)

[Ronan] Farrow, journalist (Daniel)

[Glenn] Greenwald, journalist (Daniel)

Phish, band (Daniel)

[Josef] Mengele, Nazi physician (Daniel)

Dee Dee [Ramone], musician

Joey [Ramone], musician

[Steve] Perry, [Neal] Schon & [Jonathan] Cain, members of Journey, band (“took the midnight train”)

Dante [Alighieri], writer (Gabriella)

s3e05 - New York

Elvis [Presley], musician

Andy Kaufman, comedian

Yoko [Ono], artist (TC)

[Helen] Mirren, actor (TC)

Florence Welch, musician (Gabriella)

Milli Vanilli, musicians (man on street interview)

[Marie] Antoinette, queen

Thomas Aquinas, philosopher

s3e06 - Montreal

Drake, musician

Mayor [Ray] Nagin, politician

James Carville, political consultant

Taylor [Swift], musician (Daniel)

Travis [Kelce], American football player (Daniel)

Jesus Christ, religious leader (Daniel)

Iggy Pop, musician (Daniel)

[Stephen] Sondheim, composer

[Ryuichi] Sakamoto, composer

s3e07 - The Failures

Fred Stein, photographer (Armand)

Drake, musician (“Wheelchair Jimmy”) (Daniel)

[Vincent] Van Gogh, artist (Gabriella)

Robert Plant, musician (Louis)

The Pope, religious leader

Bonus! References in songs

Babe Ruth, baseball player (Plastic Fiends)

[Elon] Musk, businessman (Plastic Fiends)

Vlad[amir Putin], politician (Plastic Fiends)

Harvey LeRoy [“Lee” Atwater], political consultant (Plastic Fiends)

Louis XVI, king (Plastic Fiends)

[Marie] Antoinette, queen (Plastic Fiends)

Friedrich Flick, businessman (Plastic Fiends)

The Vampire Lestat (2026), AMC+

—and her reaction is supposed to be:

"Oh.😊"

"That explains a lot."

THAT'S IT??? THAT'S THE REACTION??? BECAUSE I'M SORRY BUT IF I'M GWEN I'M STARTING A FUCKING INVESTIGATION.

Imagine being married to Arthur Pendragon. Imagine spending YEARS with this man. You know his habits. His moods. His fears. His strengths. His weaknesses. You know exactly what he looks like when he's angry. You know exactly what he looks like when he's happy. You know exactly what he looks like when he's worried.

Then one day you look back and realize there has been ONE CONSTANT in his life. AND IT WASNT YOU. 🤡

MERLIN.

Merlin is always there.

Always.

Arthur gets poisoned? Merlin. Arthur gets kidnapped? Merlin. Arthur gets cursed? Merlin. Arthur gets stabbed? Merlin. Arthur gets depressed? Merlin. Arthur gets into trouble? Merlin. Arthur is happy? Merlin. Arthur is sad? Merlin. Arthur is breathing?

MERLIN IS SOMEHOW INVOLVED.

At some point I'd start wondering if these two were separated at birth.

And that's BEFORE you discover they're in love.

Because then suddenly every weird little thing comes back to haunt you. Every time Arthur dropped everything for Merlin. Every time Arthur forgave Merlin for something nobody else would've survived. Every time Arthur defended Merlin. Every time Arthur chose Merlin. Every single fucking time.

And Gwen is supposed to just nod and go:

"Yeah fair enough."

NO. NO THE FUCK SHE ISN'T.

This is discovering your husband has spent the last decade emotionally orbiting one specific idiot. This is discovering there has been a third person in your marriage the entire fucking time.

It's MERLIN.

The man who is literally always there. The man eating dinner with you. The man sitting at council meetings. The man standing behind Arthur's chair. The man Arthur talks about constantly. The man Arthur brings up in every conversation. The man Arthur would probably mention during a house fire.

"Arthur, the castle is burning."

"Has anyone seen Merlin?"

BROTHER.

FOCUS.

Imagine the questions. The endless questions.

How long? When did it start? Did everybody know? Was I the only person who didn't know? Was I standing in the middle of the world's longest slow burn and nobody thought to mention it?

Do you have any idea how humiliating that would feel?

I think she'd spend at least six months just being angry.

Because suddenly Arthur's behavior starts looking VERY different.

Arthur exiling her over a kiss?

Interesting.

Arthur forgiving Merlin for literally everything?

Also interesting.

Arthur treating Merlin like the exception to every rule in existence?

VERY interesting.

Arthur trusting Merlin more than his wife?

EXTREMELY FUCKING INTERESTING.

And suddenly Gwen's sitting there like:

"Oh. Oh that's why.

That's why the rules were different. That's why the standards were different. That's why Merlin always got another chance. That's why Arthur could never quite let him go.

That realization alone would make me need several business days. Maybe weeks. Maybe months. Maybe a chair to throw. Potentially several chairs. Possibly Arthur out a window.

Because fandom keeps acting like Gwen discovering Merthur would be this sweet little revelation.

No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It would be a forensic investigation. A retrospective analysis. A decade-long audit.

She'd be looking back through ten years of memories going:

"YOU DID WHAT?"

"YOU FORGAVE HIM FOR WHAT?"

"YOU CROSSED A KINGDOM FOR HIM?"

"YOU RISKED A WAR FOR HIM?"

"YOU THREATENED WHO FOR HIM?"

"YOU SAID WHAT TO WHO FOR HIM?"

"ARTHUR WHAT THE FUCK."

The more she looked back, the worse it'd get.

Because eventually she'd reach the horrifying conclusion that every single person around her had been competing with Merlin for Arthur's attention.

And nobody ever stood a chance.

Merlin occupied a category all by himself.

A category nobody else could enter. A category nobody else could challenge. A category Gwen didn't even know existed until it was too late.

A CATEGORY THAT SHE WASNT IN.

And THAT is why I cannot stand fics where Gwen discovers Merthur and immediately becomes their biggest supporter.

Give me Gwen staring at both of them like she's solving a murder.

Yeeeeaaaah was literally talking with someone yesterday about this and how they didn't see the problem T^T The callousness for friends is way too normalized.

Like - obviously it's a happy thing for them to get a lover tbh. That's not the issue. The issue is when the fast-and-loose intensity of the feelings and the social expectations and the hormones or whatever basically tells people "friends what friends there is only lover now".

It's heartbreaking. When I hear some of the stuff I hear that's being only ever played as a "perfectly normal common sense thing" without taking so much as a step back to see how that would hurt another person it just adds to the many reasons why I lost any hope in ever finding community somewhere - which is heartbreaking because it IS what I yearn for, much more, I think, than anyone hyperfocusing on a romantic relationship as the ultimate goal.

the concept of star-eating microbes causing a crisis and the solution being the introduction of space wolves to space yellowstone to control the space elk population. i love a good trophic cascade

dr ryland grace immediately pitching "turn the spaceship into a giant centrifuge to generate gravity" and then not balancing his actual centrifuge later on

the entire "life is reason" scene really

grace forgetting to open the mystery alien container in a fume hood AND immediately sticking his nose in it. if we did this in chemistry lab we were executed on the spot

academia drama being one of the cornerstones of grace's character

grace switching through every spectrum setting on the microscope to try to see into the astrophages and not being able to (relatable)

also: the astrophage dying and grace going "ohhh it died..." (very relatable)

grace having his not-scientist buddy Carl to give him frank solutions when he's overthinking. yes, often the solution is just to put the box in another box

copious duct tape usage

just sticking a filter into the path of the petrova line to collect astrophage goop

eva going "so it's alive" when grace tells them the astrophage are moving, and him being like "WELL ok that could be for a lot of reasons" in the tone of someone who doesn't even know where to start explaining why that's a hasty assumption

grace referring to the first new astrophage as his and carl's baby multiple times (HIGHLY relatable)

“Can’t they already see my bones? Do they mean like an x-ray?”

“What is x-ray, question”