#ellie53

[7grandmel]

Rip of the week: 21/10/2024

Through the Bad Apples!!

Season 8 Featured on: The Joke-Explainer™ 7000's Highest Quality Rips: Nightfall

Ripped by Ellie53 (@ellie53real)

While the SiIvaGunner channel comes with a lot of repeating gags and bits, the ways in which they employ these can vary a fair bit. The channel's foundational meme, the ever-present funny Flintstone man Grand Dad which I wrote about on Waluigi Pinball (Beta Mix), is a simple leitmotif of just 15 notes, which makes it incredibly flexible; it can be employed as a standalone joke as practice for greenhorn rippers, or be wormed into the middle of more complex project. Memes like We Are Number One meanwhile have a very funny sound to them, yet require a lot of time and care to get to sound as good as rips like Robbie's Rotten Mine or Ska Cha Cha (Rotten Mix). And then, on the side of the spectrum completely opposite to Grand Dad, we have the jokes that feel more like a complete and total flex on the part of the ripper employing them. These "bits" are the ones that aren't necessarily reoccurring due to being funny, but rather due to being bangers with a complexity inherent to their composition, which makes any rip employing them feel like a big event. The main example would be Final Fantasy VII's One Winged Angel as featured on rips like I will Never be a Redneck, yet perhaps just as impressive are rips utilizing Dragonforce's legendary Through the Fire and Flames; rips like, indeed, Through the Bad Apples!!.

Made legendary through Guitar Hero III, Through the Fire and Flames is a song known far and wide across the internet; a piece of mainstream music that pierces through to the most shut-in of nerds due to the gaming legacy tied to it. It was the ultimate challenge for play in the ultimate Guitar Hero release, an absolutely unmissable part of pop culture of the 7th generation of gaming, and of course an absolute shredding banger in its own right. It's a natural fit for the SiIvaGunner channel, and ever since around ~Season 5 or so it's seen a pretty notable uptick in appearances - you may remember my writing of the legendary Through the F​-​F​-​Fire and the F​-​F​-​Flames, championing its ripper for his incredible ambitions and efforts made to make the rip feel as complete as it does. Its the typical fun of SiIvaGunner arrangement rips, the age-old question of how to transfer one song's intensity into the framework of a different song or video game's sound; Float Islands (Kirby 64 Arrangement), FEEL SO FINE STUCK INSIDE, and of course medley rips like SNES Mini Circulation all show just why it's such an appealing prospect. And so, we've seen a fair few rips aiming to do just what Through the F​-​F​-​Fire and the F​-​F​-​Flames did: take the legendary song and rearrange it in the style of a different game.

In large part, that is what Through the Bad Apples!! also does to great effect, imbuing the track with the distinct sound of the Touhou franchise. You can read the entries on W.E. Are Number One? and Beautiful! ~ Curveball of Sean Kingston to learn more about it, but to keep it concise it's a sound that I very much admire and enjoy despite having very little knowledge of the Touhou series as a whole. One Touhou song I'm most DEFINITELY aware of, however, is Bad Apple!! - perhaps the series' most virally spread anthem, and one that I officially fell in love with all the way back in Season 3 of SiIvaGunner through Imperial Touwer. It is, in many ways, a song just as legendary and known to the video game mainstream - if not moreso - as Through the Fire and Flames. And so, in some sense, it was only logical for Through the Bad Apples!! to instead flip things on its head.

Indeed, the rip isn't an arrangement of the Dragonforce track kept to the soundscape of Touhou 4; uniquely, it's instead the other way around, an arrangement of Bad Apple!! using the instrumental sound of Through the Fire and Flames. Upon relistening to Through the Fire and Flames a few times before writing this post, I had forgotten just how video game-y the original track actually already sounds, with a chirpy synth accentuating several key moments of the performance that just oozes 90s video games. As a result, the two tracks feel closer to one another than you'd once think; and Through the Bad Apples!! as a result manages to feel less like a straight interpretation of one into the other, and more like an even blend of the two sounds.

I'm yet to cover much of what Ellie53 has done on SiIvaGunner before this post, but she's been a constant presence on the channel since the tail end of Season 5, no doubt soon becoming aware of the rising prominence of Through the Fire and Flames rips. She's also tinkered around with Bad Apple!! in particular with Maçã Ruim!! back in Season 7; and so, I suppose it only makes sense that one would eventually put the pieces together and try their hand at mixing the two into one. Through the Bad Apples!! feels WELL worth the wait and is a shining example of Ellie53's growth as a ripper, and I'm hopeful that Through the Fire and Flames sticking around on SiIvaGunner for the foreseeable future can continue to inspire rippers just like Ellie53 to keep finding new ways to experiment with its sound.

Long live Dragonforce!

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 09/02/2024

Magolor's Shoppe Fusion Collab

Season 8 Featured on: The Joke​-​Explainer 7000​™​'s Highest Quality Rips: Sunrise

Ripped by SamanthaMK, ChickenSuitGuy, circunflexo, Cosmic199X, Edgi, Ellie53, Jiko Music, Memmy, Pan Visuals by BobTheTacocat

Tentative rip name: Joke-Explainer 7000 Fusion Collab

Look alive, everyone - Season 8 of SiIvaGunner has now officially premiered!

It may be a bit rich to say as someone running this blog, and with such deep investment into the channel, but...Season 7 really did bring me back into SiIvaGunner in a way I never quite thought would be possible. I'd sort of just accepted with Season 4, Season 5 and Season 6 that the channel had found a new direction: one that I was still VERY much a fan of, yet not quite the one that had "sold" me on the channel the same way Season 1, Season 2 and Season 3 did. I felt as if I was missing that energy of just...sheer visceral excitement for the future of the channel as a whole from the later-year seasons. There was instead a lot of per-event excitement, tons of little events to enjoy and still fun to be had in speculation of what could happen next, yet that aforementioned optimism still felt like it...missing, for a long time. And funny enough - last I discussed that feeling in particular was with Patched Plains Fusion Collab, a rip that Magolor's Shoppe Fusion Collab very much seems to be intentionally aiming to evoke.

Part of the reason that Patched Plains Fusion Collab works so well for me, and indeed why Season 2 has long sat as my favorite in the channel's life, is that feeling of raw forward momentum it conveys - the excitement of the entire fanbase thankful that SiIvaGunner hadn't actually ended, distilled into an anthem of so many different styles cheerfully pushing us forward. It was that sort of progress that, back when they were airing, I felt was sort of absent from Seasons 4/5/6 - the SiIvaGunner AI was still running things, Wood Man was still off effectively doing sidequests, and though the rips had obviously gotten better the cynical side of me couldn't help but feel a bit sad at how - for a lack of a better word - "predictable" it all felt. And to be crystal clear: A lot of those feelings have obviously changed for the better over the years. I love all of SiIvaGunner's Seasons nowadays, and I realized eventually that the prior-mentioned cynicism toward the new direction wasn't as fun as just, appreciating and LOVING the stuff to come out from the new seasons for the excellence that they were. And funny enough, I feel like that exact mindset is exactly what made Season 7 work so well for me.

Wheras Season 2 is one I remember for its feeling of constantly moving things forward at a rocket-speed pace, Season 7 excels by doing the complete opposite - the Year of Grand Dad is, at almost every possible turn, defined by its sense of self-celebration, a sort of "Sonic Generations"-type of tribute to the entire channel's life. Be it with RIP² as covered in SING A SONG ABOUT HOPES AND DREAMS, the entire incredible April Fools event I've alluded to within Violet Snow Memories, a newfound sense of chaos clearly inspired by Season 1 as shown in Hidden Headtoilets (skibidi toree 2) - yet with Seasons 4/5/6s newfound touch for genuine quality arrangements as found in rips like Forest of Tears. And, atop it all, the long-awaited continuation of the storyline last progressed back in Season 2 with the Christmas Comeback Crisis' eleventh episode. With such an incredible smörgåsbord of content on offer, it feels damn near impossible for me not to consider Season 7 my all-time new favorite.

And that optimism for the Season, that optimism for the future, is why Magolor's Shoppe Fusion Collab struck such a chord with me, with its release just a few days ago. With Season 7's ending, the status quo of the channel has been fundamentally altered in a way it hasn't truly been in a long while. For the first time ever, the long-present side character "Joke-Explainer™ 7000" is in full charge of the channel - her most prominent role ever despite having been around since all the way back in Season 1. I'll likely be dedicating another Season 8 post in the future to talking about her in particular with the same level of detail I did back in Vote Responsibly!!, but the context I'll provide for now is that her theme song, Magolor's Shoppe, has been a familiar, comforting tune to many a SiIvaGunner viewer since way back in Season 2. To see Patched Plains Fusion Collab not only get a spiritual successor, but one building upon a character and theme we've long grown attached to, means something so much to me and so many others. The added visuals, of her doing her duty with adorable Kirby-themed artwork as textboxes, are truly the cherry on top of an amazing collab.

From referencing the very beginnings of the channel with an initial arrangement using Pokémon Ruby, to using familiar-yet-infrequent sources such as Thwomp Volcano and Snail's House (jokes "worth explaining", so to speak!), to perhaps even hinting at what jokes are to become even more frequent in Season 8, such as the GOAT of all new jokes I Show Meat - I was long anticipating what the official premiere of Season 8 would be, and Magolor's Shoppe Fusion Collab was everything I never knew I wanted. My excitement for Season 8 is perhaps higher than for any other Season in the channel's long history, and I can't wait to get to share that excitement with all of you.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 08/04/2024

Shiny Smily TALE

Season 8 No Album Release (Read More) Shiny Smily Story (OST Version) - HoloCure

Ripped by Ellie53

Well, would you believe it - its the eighth Season 8 rip being covered, on the eighth of April (half of eight)! And what better way to celebrate this than to cover completely uncharted territory for the blog - an UNDERTALE rip!!

I kid, I kid - though Undertale is definitely quite prominently featured on here, I feel as if it is rightfully earned. It and its psuedo-sequel in Deltarune feel almost like the frontmen of the SiIvaGunner channel in some way, as Season 1 began mere months after Undertale and its music began making waves online in late 2015. Such a hot topic was impossible to ignore, yet SiIvaGunner and Undertale have a fair bit in common that made the game's continued presence on SiIvaGunner feel very natural. There's the lore theming of course, I covered that briefly in Your Best Nightmario, but it also extends to the very core of what Undertale is: A game shamelessly rooted in silliness and absurd, internet-age comedy, yet still able to evoke such real attachments and emotions. The fit was all too perfect, and so the Undertale rips have continued year after year - Hoopache, Outertale, Determination is Magic, BUSTER HAND, and on and on and on. It may seem difficult to imagine that these all manage to stay fresh for so long, but they all find a way - and Shiny Smily TALE, eight years into the channel's life, shows that they're here to stay.

Immediately upon first hearing Shiny Smily TALE, I was reminded of one of the most recent UT/DR rips to have been covered on here, in kris gaming. Its reference was completely lost to me, being an arrangement in the style of stock music popularly used within VTuber circles, of which I'm terminally unfamiliar with - but the sheer vibe, the coziness, comfort of it all just made it such a wonderful listen. I don't mean to say that the VTuber world is one I oppose, moreso that its a part of the internet that still feels so nigh impenetrable to me - althesame, I love admiring it from a distance, just seeing how much passion and endearment is formed within these creators' communities.

And I immediately felt many of those feelings when hearing Shiny Smily TALE for the first time!! Shiny Smily Story has such a wonderful sound to it already, a vibe at once danceable and comforting - "Future Bass", I believe its typically called? - which turns the once-dramatic feel of SAVE The World into something far more pure-hearted in its arrangement here. Its as if all of those emotions still present from SAVE The World are spun into something far sweeter, spun like a legend of something exciting ahead, but with happiness and joy at the forefront. Without too much experience in listening to the original Shiny Smily Story, its hard to assess "accurately" how impressive of an effort this is, but what I DO know is of Ellie53's prowess in ripping - I was practically forced to during the great Raftmageddon incident of April 1st 2024. But even these jokier rafts rides, ones like Raft Ride at Freddy's and TiK ToK, on the clock, but the Raft Ride don't stop, no, show how good she is at merging two songs to such seamless (if, here, comedic) effect. Indeed, I can pick up on a lot of subtler touches done here to make the arrangement work, Shiny Smily TALE utilizes the various ebb-and-flowing sections of intensity and noise within the Shiny Smily Story theme, to punctuate the progression of SAVE The World where it best fits. For instance using a calmer section for the Hopes and Dreams leitmotif, only for it to build in excitement as it progresses, like the very song itself is pulling itself out of isolation and loneliness...allllmost commenting on Asriel's own struggles in Undertale?

Okay, okay, I won't quite go there - but the theme of community and love is one I do want to wrap things up with, adding one last little anecdote. Because it extends beyond the confines of just this rip, extending as far back as 2020, with Sarvéproductions' SAVE the Virtual World. Yes - the inverse joke of Shiny Smily TALE, Shiny Smily Story and SAVE The World, was made four years ago by another long-time excellent ripper: Sarvéproductions, the one behind Bloody Freddy and many more on the channel, across his many years of contributing. It's an equally lovely rip in its own way (likely more, for those attached to HoloLive!), but its the sentiment that Shiny Smily TALE shows that really makes it land for me - that Ellie53 wanted to pay tribute to HoloLive, and at once was able to make it as much of a tribute to a fellow long-time channel contributor, to a partner-in-crime on the channel! It's not a new thing to occur on the channel of course, rips like old town ribbon race and Green Panty Zone (Sequenced Ver​.​) were made in tribute to specific rips or specific rippers respesctively, but I love how interpersonal this exchange between Ellie53 and Sarvéproductions feels in particular, how well it all fits with the feel of HoloLive and VTuber communities in general - and of course, I love how genuinely fantastic Shiny Smily TALE sounds on top of it all.