Lurker > NBIceman

What a thread this is.

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Dang. Well, I knew I must have had a bit of a streak coming at some point.

Old Haunt dropping is the big blow. That's my #1 or #2 TDH song depending on what kind of mood I'm in, along with being one of my overall 10 favorite songs of all time. The chorus is an obvious highlight, as you mentioned, but the real standout part to me is the "Wake Up" section at the end. Casey Crescenzo has some really awesome vocal performances across his substantial catalogue, but something about the singing in this track has always just hit exactly right with me, especially during that big swelling WAKE UUUUP. Hearing it live on the Act IV tour nearly brought a tear to my eye.

The lyrics being a weak point for someone who's not really connected to the story makes sense, though. I love them chiefly because of what comes later in the album. This is the first time that Hunter shows even a tiny semblance of self-awareness in actually trying to analyze all the tragedy that seems to follow him, and then by the end of the song his arrogance leads him to decide all over again that he's not really responsible for any of it.

It's the perfect setup for what comes in Ouroboros. It took nothing less than a feeling of absolute hopelessness, but Hunter is finally forced into some actual introspection that just comes too late for him to actually do anything to fix all the problems he's created. It makes for a nice contrast with how sinister the Pimp/Priest always is, because in the past, Hunter's self-confidence bordering on innate swagger had always been kind of a counter to it - even in his lowest moments, he'd always maintained the belief that he'd get through whatever was going on simply through his own greatness. The sudden absence of that in this song really gets across how much things have changed in the story.

I also always get a little jolt of excitement from the abrupt, dissonant ending every time I hear it, which I guess is a holdover from the year between Act IV's release and V's, when a popular theory among fans was that it was meant to represent Hunter snapping and stabbing the Pimp/Priest to death right then and there. Turns out that wasn't the case, but the effect is still there for me.

I don't have as much to say about Otriad considering there's far less context surrounding it - I'm just a huge Jim Grey fan that generally enjoys anything he's involved with. Having a WW2-centered album from the Polish perspective is a cool little dash of uniqueness, too. You're right that it certainly doesn't touch Graves, though.

I'm also surprised it took this long for one of my extra noms to fall. That wasn't the one I expected to go down first, either.

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Watch out, league. Keldon Johnson is really developing a 3-point jumper.

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LeonhartFour posted...

cerulean

Man of culture.

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Dang. Just a little bit short of going 200 songs without a drop.

Well, our Act IV rankings have diverged slightly now, but not by a ton - Abandon is still a lower-half track off the album for me. It's got some really beautiful parts of it, but it's definitely a setup song for the story in a lot of ways. Plus, even when judged individually and not in the context of the larger album, it's sometimes hard for me to separate it from the fact that it's sandwiched between two standouts in Bitter Suite IV/V and King of Swords, because the outro admittedly does drag a bit even for how lovely it is.

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La-Mulana 2, which I finally finished.

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Indeed!

Verily, I say... Ergo!

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Pearl Jam - Black

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Hell yeah, it's good to be on top.

Haven't lost one in quite a while, though. I'm worried there's some rapid fire eliminations coming soon.

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Yes

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBQP9gEldRk

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The Spurs actually looked like something resembling a modern basketball team tonight and I'm here for it. Johnson and Vassell gonna carry the team for the next decade to whatever heights that may mean.

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Along with my match here, I want to remind everybody that I'm keeping a running archive of all the matches in this topic in case anyone ever wants to go back to watch missed ones or something.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VXMwXb2uwSjPwWNR0BUhh9xNa68amq8dMeXwS_sY5h4/edit?usp=sharing

And with that...

Iceman's Match of the Week

Nigel McGuinness vs Austin Aries
Ring of Honor
Rising Above - December 29, 2007
Match Link: https://www.bilibili.com/video/av28429779/

Oh, how quickly the tides can turn in pro wrestling. Nigel McGuinness, the conquering hero who got an absolutely huge pop and a big-time celebration when he finally put Takeshi Morishima down to win the World Title, was already beginning to fall out of favor with some ROH fans just a couple months into his reign, which in this match sets up what is very often a huge strength of old-school Ring of Honor matches: atmosphere. The crowd is split and hot from the very beginning, and it gives this title challenge that oft-touted big fight feel right off the bat.

But the really cool part is that its also the impetus for the spot that makes this match pretty singularly infamous. Nigel almost immediately gets into a recurring shouting battle with some front-row fans, which Aries takes offense to first in the form of a bitch slap and then, shortly thereafter, a high-speed dive that sends his unfocused opponents forehead straight into the barricade. Its ugly; the champion is legitimately knocked loopy here, and he very clearly has no idea where he is for a decent part of this match.

Youd think thatd be a recipe for disaster but, at least match-quality-wise, thats not the case. This is the best defense of one of my all-time favorite title reigns. Ariess predilection for focusing on the heads of his opponents jives pretty well as a story component with the shoot injury (especially since hes actually pretty careful with his head shots for most of the match when you look close). Its very much a car-crash-you-cant-look-away-from kind of thing thats just the right amount of uncomfortable and unpredictable.

Look, I know we all hate Aries, and he comes by that honestly, but there werent many years in the 2000s where you couldnt make a compelling argument that he was a strong contender for the title of best wrestler in the world. And his performance is awesome here. He takes two absolutely wicked bumps to the outside floor, not to mention the one on Nigels last lariat that all but decapitates him.

Nigels performance is obviously the impressive one, though. Its gutsy and stupid in equal measure, and really, is there a better combination of words to define pro wrestling?

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Jakyl25 posted...

Where would you put MMA

Tennis/Racing tier

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You certainly managed to pick the correct two options.

Always fun to watch: Basketball, Hockey

Usually fun to watch: Baseball, Boxing

Only really fun if a team I root for is playing: Football, Volleyball

Can be entertaining on rare occasion: Tennis, Racing

Always boring: Soccer, Golf

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Biscuit is an absolute lunatic who went way above and beyond to get me Cuphead, Hades, and Stardew Valley. Super generous of you, man; thanks a ton! I do believe those games are gonna eat up a hell of a lot of my free time in the near future and I couldn't be more excited about it.

My gifts will be sent out at midnight Eastern time on Christmas Day, which is to say one minute after 11:59 on Thursday just to be clear.

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19/22 in the "Like" tier or better? Nice, I did pretty good.

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As a big Nightwish fan, I've always thought Ghost Love Score was a little bit overrated.

I really like it still, but I prefer at least a couple of their other epics over it. In fairness, though, I'm also less of a fan of Tarja's voice than many.

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azuarc posted...

Liiike Co-lummm-bus

has much less of a ring to it than the cadence of

Like George Washington

This. Never even knew Washington was a thing in the song. Always heard Columbus.

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Yes

Love Gravity Falls.

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Santo vs Casas vs Dandy
First of all, thanks for the writeup, Bidoof. Definitely added to this match to understand some of those details you tossed out there.

I guess it's pretty well known at this point that I'm not much of a lucha fan and likely won't ever be, and while this match did feature some examples of a few of the reasons why (awkward spots here and there, points where there wasn't much flow from place to place), it also managed to avoid a whole lot of those pitfalls. Violent lucha, generally speaking, tends to grab me a little better than high-flying lucha, because there's usually such a stronger feeling of authenticity to everything. And that pattern definitely holds here. There's venom behind every strike thrown, which makes for a whole match full of great visuals, especially when mixed with all the blood that shows up later. Hard to believe Santo's even wearing the same gear at the end of the match as he was at the beginning for how different the color looks.

I know the meat of the match was always gonna be in the 2-out-of-3-falls section and all, but I would have liked to have seen the beginning sections go on a little bit longer. I was enjoying the interplay between the three where the Dandy/Casas alliance threatened to explode a couple of times before they got refocused on their plan, and it just would've been nice to see a little more Casas in general. I'm also just not a huge 2-out-of-3-falls fan in general. But again, I understand why those first parts had to be slightly rushed in favor of the latter.

Random additional thoughts: very good crowd, liked Santo's submission work a lot, the diving headbutt was brutal, really enjoyed the bits where Dandy was just tearing at the mask. Can't say I loved this match - my small issues with the structure and flow hold it back some, as does the fact that I just don't have enough investment in these guys to really get drawn all the way into such a personal, story-based bout - but for something that kinda had to fight against my typical taste as a wrestling fan, it was quite enjoyable. Certainly something I'd never have watched if not for this topic, which is exactly what makes the series so fun.

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I'm in too.

https://store.steampowered.com/wishlist/id/iceman1956/#sort=order

Specs aren't an issue - I can run most things already and I plan to upgrade in the next year or so to the point that there's probably not much I'd have any trouble with.

Wishlist is ordered pretty well, but I have a pretty varied taste and usually enjoy trying most things so obviously feel free to go off the board. Only genres I tend not to like are WRPGs, FPSs, and visual novels. I love JRPGs in particular but I've probably played almost all of the big ones on console at some point. Other than that, open season!

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I'm always of the firm mind that these adaptations at the very least don't offend me, because no matter what, they can't change how great the original series was.

That said, there's no way this is any good.

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Anagram posted...

I'm still working on this.

Not sure I'll keep the Fan Art Factor element. I started trying to find some, only to realize that 99% of it is weird porn.

As opposed to what you were expecting, which was... What exactly?

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Matthew
20th now, 2nd when I was born in '95.

Would be Noah today, apparently.

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The bumpings will continue until morale improves.

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Wild Pegasus vs Black Tiger II
I always enjoy matches like this, where you get a glimpse of talent who would later become especially celebrated workers in a much more raw form. It's fun to pick out the aspects that remain across their careers even as they get more and more refined. That sort of thing is definitely on display here - Tiger's fluidity and smoothness and creativity are all very much on display - that springboard rana almost ends in disaster a couple of times, but that sort of thing is forgivable since, as Ed said, you didn't exactly see a whole lot of that in '94. And that all contrasts quite well with the violent straightforwardness of Pegasus's work. Every one of his suplexes or even just movements have a little extra snap to them, and it all just feels very deliberate and purposeful. I imagine I could pull up a Benoit/Guerrero match from a good decade later, across multiple countries and companies, and find that it looks quite a lot like this one, and that's pretty cool to think about.

I don't have a whole hell of a lot to say about the match itself beyond that, as the structure and so forth is pretty much what you'd expect from the ten-minute semifinals of a one-night tournament. Like everything else I see from outside of 2020 these days, it just makes me miss regular crowds. The finish was great and, even with awareness of the short runtime, caught me a little off guard in a good way. Always cool to see the flyer just getting caught eventually.

Guerrero just has hidden gems like this everywhere, doesn't he? Very good match, short and sweet, definitely will have to think about watching the rest of the tournament sometime.

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Dang, I figured that one would stick around a little while longer.

Is a fairly bleak line, but not quite what Im looking for. Possibly because the song itself never hits the right notes, possibly because the story thats being told of stolen identity doesnt really lend itself to feelings of abject sadness. Dont get me wrong, its still goodIm still rating it a step above neutralitybut not exactly what Im looking for and it doesnt have enough positive things to get it out of the low 50s.

Just to clarify, the stolen identity is only part of the story here. You're right that the protagonist has assumed his half-brother's name and identity after his death in the war in Act III, but the main driver of the song is that the Mother, who's actually the one singing, is trying to get over the death of her husband in the same war. Those two lines you shouted out, along with the rest of the end part of the song, are her acknowledgement that even though she has doubts about whether the man that appeared before her is really her son (which in fact he isn't), she'll go along with it, because if she doesn't, she has nothing left. The soul she wants returned is hers, previously lost with the deaths of her family.

It's her way of moving on until she sees her husband again "at the end of the earth" - harmony, or rather necessity, instead of actual belief.

By the way, we're still 3-for-3 as far as being step-in-step with our respective rankings of Act IV songs. AtEotE is another one that I love even more now than I did when the album first came out, but 13th place out of 15 is where it still remains.

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Lopen posted...

I'd say so to an extent, I mean he is 61 now but he was wrestling competently into his late 40s which you can't do if you can't wrestle a fairly conservative style.

But maybe this is a minority opinion!

Depends on what your line for competency is, I guess. He was forgetting finishes and so forth around that time already.

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"Kenny Omega isn't a draw."

-Dumb people

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I will continue hoping for Lloyd Irving or any Tales rep really, and continue to be disappointed.

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Iceman's Match of the Week

Ayako Hamada & Ayumi Kurihara vs Madison Eagles and Sara Del Rey
SHIMMER Volume 43 - October 2nd, 2011
Match Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eClN6zJQ0gs

Fun fact: Roughly a decade before Stephanie McMahon invented women's wrestling, a little indie promotion sprung up in Chicago for the express purpose of putting a spotlight on something that very closely resembled it.

Sarcasm aside, SHIMMER is a pretty cool part of modern American wrestling history. A good portion of the most popular women wrestlers in the world today spent at least some time there at one point, including Becky Lynch and Bayley. We kinda take it as a given these days that there's just a lot of good women's wrestling out there, but in the early days of the promotion, it was a pretty big deal to have a company whose selling point was, "Hey, we've got a bunch of ladies who just have really good matches."

And this is one of those really good matches. Most of the names in this match are probably at least somewhat recognizable to the folks in our little community: Hamada from her TNA days, Del Rey for being a big-time coach in NXT now and arguably the single biggest reason that women's wrestling in WWE has become what it is, and Eagles from my occasional rants in the Discord about how great she is. Kurihara may be an unknown, though - she's actually married to one YOSHI-HASHI, and make no mistake about it, she's easily the better worker in that relationship. She plays her part very well in this bout, as do the others.

There's nothing particularly revolutionary about this match, but it's such an easy watch. A hot start leads into some very solid heel work from the challengers, and then once they hit the halfway point, they're off and running, with basically no downtime until the end. It's a shining example of why indie wrestling was so popular among the portion of the fanbase that it was during this period; in a time where WWE was still calling their women "Divas" and running their top programs with such luminaries as Eve Torres, Maryse, Melina, Jillian, and the Bella Twins (long before people started pretending they were Kobashi and Misawa reincarnated, even), Dave Prazak and Allison Danger just put four of the world's best female workers in the ring and told them to go kill it.

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20/22 at 50 or above? I'll take that, especially since the two down are kind of as much album filler as they are anything.

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jcgamer107 posted...

sell your gamer girl bathwater and buy a new one

Well, I'm not surprised I was beaten to the obvious joke, but I'm still sad about it.

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Sweet, 72 other people watching alongside Scarlet and Ed.

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Waluigi1 posted...

Lmao so glad I'm not drunk on SM64 nostalgia.

I'm glad I don't think the only reason to like SM64 is nostalgia.

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No, and I remember being extremely confused that anyone in my class did.

People must have thought I was a psychopath if they happened to look over and see me smiling to myself as I read it.

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I love Primrose's theme. One of my favorite pieces of RPG music to come out in quite a while.

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Bruce Springsteen - Hungry Heart

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MetalmindStats posted...

Toad the Wet Sprocket - Walk on the Ocean

Second this.


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Blue Oyster Cult - Perfect Water

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punk saying something in bad faith? nooooooo

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UF8 posted...

i'm sad nobody will ever like the one piece song i posted besides me

I enjoyed it!

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Gonna bump this by taking the opportunity to post an archive of past weeks that I'm gonna keep updated for as long as this project continues just in case anyone ever wants to take a look at previous matches or something. Has all the links and so forth.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VXMwXb2uwSjPwWNR0BUhh9xNa68amq8dMeXwS_sY5h4/edit?usp=sharing

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Remembered has grown on me over the years, but that's probably to be expected when I've listened to that album start-to-finish at least a couple hundred times. It's definitely not something that really sticks in your mind after just a listen or two.

I'm gonna be interested to see how close your ranking of all the Act IV songs ends up being to my own. It's identical so far!

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Dang. Hoped I was gonna make it to 500 without losing one, but I figured if I was gonna lose one early it would probably be Rebirth. I'm a lot more positive on the instrumental section, but that's mostly because I just always enjoy the TDH stream-of-consciousness orchestral style that shows up sometimes.

Hard to complain about what is effectively an intro track being in this range, though.

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saxamaphoooone

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That's not even the best battle theme in its own game when Silver Will exists.

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NBIceman posted...

#EyesOnThePrize

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The Dear Hunter - A Night on the Town
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVjcsgrDErE

Diablo Swing Orchestra - A Tap Dancer's Dilemma
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8Ivkda8UUY

Dirt Poor Robins - Scarecrows
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WQxwM0kMHA

Rishloo - Just a Ride
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuqUBALfsL4

Seems like your taste lines up fairly well with the sort of thing I usually tend to nominate in these projects; we'll see if I'm right.

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