MerrySkeptic

When you keep your eyes on the cross it makes the faces in the periphery seem distorted. Whenever you look at the faces they are normal though

An excellent reverse take on what you're describing: The Wicked + the Divine. Premise: every 90 years 12 gods incarnate as (adult) humans but only live for 2 years. They're essentially treated as international pop stars when they are discovered and they always have drama with each other

The Killer Angels is set in the American Civil War, so not really as far back as you described,but it really set the standard for modern historical fiction. The author used primary sources (letters, journals etc of the officers on both sides) to get as accurate a depiction of events, personalities, and inner thoughts as possible. It is the book that the movie Gettysburg is based on, but written like 20-30 years before the movie.

You did say you were open to worthy suggestions and I think this is really a worthy one.

Oh man. Perfectly skewers megachurch culture. Outrageous, over the top characters. Can be surprisingly heartfelt at times but also random dick shots that give you no warning whatsoever. It has a very Danny McBride feel, so if you like his other stuff you'll like this.

Most people say The Sopranos marked the beginning of the prestige TV era, because it was the first of a cluster of high quality, high production value shows that came out around the same time. But there are some precursors that come to mind, mostly from HBO. Rome and Oz, for example.

You could make a case to go back even further with shows like NYPD Blue (90s) or even Hill Street Blues (80s) as examples of high quality TV with long, dramatic character arcs, though these shows didn't have much in the way of contemporaries to define them as part of an era.

Did you get that thing I sent ya?

They are semi sentient if I recall. Like they have personality traits of the killed people they are based on but he does need to be concentrating somewhat to bring them into existence. But they can go light years away from him

Spot on

I've been watching Blue Lock and really enjoying it so far. I usually watch more fantastical anime like JJK, stuff that involves magic or superpowers. This is the first one I've watched where the show isn't based in anything superhuman, but it's kind of presented that way. Like eyes flash or players get an aura when they're in the zone, and it really works. Also some genuinely surprising plot development.

I'm over halfway through the latest season of Fargo. This one is a bit more on the nose with its commentary than previous seasons but it's still better than most TV. Jon Hamm is just sinister in this.

Just started the latest season of The Righteous Gemstones. I love this show because I came out of a conservative Christian household so all the observations about the hypocrisy of megachurch culture ring especially true for me.

This might not be quite what you mean, but for DC there's Larfleeze, the Orange Lantern, AKA Agent Orange. His ring operates on the emotion of greed. Because of the nature of greed, he will not let anyone else wield an Orange Lantern ring. This would seem like a disadvantage given that all the other lantern corps have multiple ring bearers, often hundreds to form a corps. In Larfleeze's case he just made his own corps out of light constructs based on beings he's killed.

Space: Above and Beyond

Set in the 2050s as mankind has learned to predict and use naturally occurring wormholes for interstellar travel, they are drawn into a war with a new alien species that destroyed a colony. The show focuses on a squadron of fighter pilots in space. One of them is a cloned, enhanced human used to fight in an earth bound war against synthetics and is seen as subhuman by many.

The show had a very good plot, a serialized story but also self contained episodes, interesting moral dilemmas. But it was horribly marketed by Fox so it died after a season or two. The final episode was a huge cliffhanger too.

A coodle doodle do! A coodle doodle do!