What are your top 3 proudest shmup clears/milestones?

[Astraea FGA Mk. I]

Clearing Death Label mode in Ketsui Death Label for the first time was quite exhilarating.

[Some-Mist]

mushihimesama futari black label maniac 1CC - took me a few months of attempts. still haven't tried reattempting it since the clear a year ago.

progear 1-ALL (still can't trigger that damned loop) but stages 4 and 5 were gigantic barriers in my 1-ALL attempts.

psyvariar 2: the will to fabricate 1CC (it was my first 1CC including the bonus gluon stage) which is the first game that I dedicated myself to the scoring system to unlock the bonus stage.

[Skykid]

1: DOJ BL

It's the one I wanted the most.

2: Progear

The one that taught me about scoring interwoven with survival.

3: Cho Ren Sha 68k: first shmup 1cc, done on a shitty laptop keyboard.

Memorable non-shmup:

Time crisis arcade series 1 - 3 + Crisis Zone: Arcade buzz of crowd drawing from 16yrs old.

Cho Makaimura 2LC: Knuckling down and forcing it through.

[ACSeraph]

Arcade buzz of crowd drawing

It makes me feel self absorbed to say it, but this is an awesome feeling. Kind of makes the work worth it.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I used to draw crowds playing Galaga in the 80s but since then I haven't seen crowds on any games at all besides Virtual Reality machines in the 90s or fighters. Maybe DDR for a bit. But those crowds generally don't exist anymore in the US. Nobody cares.

[Zaarock]

Hellsinker - 91k spirits with Fossilmaiden
3/4 of WR. Spent less than two months of consistent practice on this total though, feel like I could've gotten at least 100k with some more and I learned some strategies that surpass the WR. Learned to not get myself burned out by not taking breaks.
Figuring the game out from the ground up about 5 years ago when there was no information about it in english was also a fun experience, there certainly is a lot to discover.

Radiant Silvergun 1cc
My first clear using an arcade stick. Felt like my skills improved a lot after this and really got into shmups with varied weapon systems. Dodging walls made me learn to use the stick properly

Judgement Silversword 1ccs (normal with default ship, hard with secret ship)
This game used to be a wall for me but coming back to it later with better basic skills I really enjoyed it.

[Blinge]

Progear
Because it was the first

Gradius V
It's such a long and epic game, and I definitely felt like each stage provides a unique challenge, for it to finally all come together in one run and get the clear just felt awesome.

Ikaruga
I've reached several personal milestones with this game. The initial clears in easy and normal, Finally managing to clear normal on an actual arcade cab in London on my birthday last year.. I had a lot of trouble with that compared to the dreamcast at first.
Then repeating the feat in front of a Street Fighter kid who was interested in the genre, and who i was teaching the polarity/scoring to.
Then managing to clear it on my first attempt in front of Erppo himself at the same arcade this year, despite some embarrassing deaths and my nooby scoring strats. Seeing the legend in action has inspired me to break 20mil now, and leave the baby strats behind.