#eg_9371

You may notice it's been a while since the last post, as it was with the post before it, and so on. Truth be told, the switch to weekly posting came with its own set of issues for my flow of work; mainly, that I've gotten too damn ambitious in my writing for some of these posts. I'm incredibly happy with the end results of a lot of them and feel more confident in being able to wholeheartedly recommend reading any of my post-hiatus posts than I do a majority of my pre-hiatus posts...but it also means that I'm met with self-induced hurdles on how and what to write about. I can't just cover a rip that I just find funny and neat; It has to be historical, it has to be magnificent, it has to have immaculate pathos, has to tie into the SiIvaGunner spirit or whatever else I find myself waxing on about...

No, you know what? Screw it. I'm behind on my posts anyway. We're doing a simple goodie today. Writing the same day it's posted, of a rip I just keep returning to for a good laugh, with no strings attached. Old-school style. Slope Dude.

Back on Lagplane, I mused a bit about the novelty of memes that leave us almost as quickly as they arrive, the consequences of the intensely rapid meme economy born from modern social media. It was a lot of waffling to justify writing about a flamboyant Andrew Tate impersonator, but it's hardly as if these trend-based jokes are a new occurrence on SiIva. I'm reminded of how 2016 saw a handful of rips poking fun at then-notorious online figure Keemstar, for instance – but perhaps stranger than these, are when jokes on SiIva crop up without any recent relevancy, are incredibly prominent for the length of a season or so, and then fade away just as suddenly as they appeared. Unlike Stuck Inside of FEEL SO FINE STUCK INSIDE fame, unlike the Mad Mew Mew Becoming Uncanny rips, unlike so many other jokes on the channel...the appearance of Game Dude on SiIvaGunner throughout Season 4 felt as if it came out of nowhere, made even stranger by just how limited its presence felt. We got a handful of rips, a bunch of appearances in medley rips, a cameo in a lore video, and then the tune was out just as quickly as it had entered. No relevancy, no big explosive tie to the themes or intent of Season 4 Episodes 1 or 2 in particular; just a silly theme with a handful of rippers who decided to play around with it.

Part of me wonders, akin to rips like old town ribbon race, just how much of the appeal of the joke here becomes lost without whollistic knowledge of its lore. The tale of Game Dude is one of the internet's many bizarre sidequests, long overdue for a YouTube video essay a la HBomberGuy's body of work to truly bring it all to light, yet for now still remaining obscure enough to only be spread in whispers between those who know. It was the kind of thing I myself was given the "privilege" of uncovering on my own terms after first watching a Game Grumps episode built entirely on indirectly mocking him and growing all-too-curious about what he's up to; one of many Angry Video Nerd Clones trying and failing ever so badly at being funny playing bad video games, Game Dude's last legacy online would be to be known as the guy who fled his home state when called to court over stalking his ex-girlfriend. It gives the imagery of a bumbling, somewhat pathetic figure, someone who tried and failed to find online fame through poor mimicry and wound up unable to take proper responsibility for themselves. Like the aforementioned Lagplane, it adds just that extra aura to the theme song attached to the character, the original intro to his theme songs; once a song with the levity focused on the games and show now feels as if its mocking the very person making the videos themselves. Indeed, few things are as certain as life, death, and the Nostalgia Critic effect.

All that is to say, that I get a lot of amusement from the Game Dude theme, and of all its handful of rips focusing exclusively on it I think eg_9371 hit the nail right on the head with Slope Dude. There's no gimmicks, twists or turns; its as simple as a melodyswap/arrangement rip can be, an Outertale or Jesus of the Underground that trades in the pathos and nostalgia for a complete commitment to the silliness of the bit. Slope from Super Mario RPG, like much of the game's soundtrack, already has such a bombastically silly tone to it; the buildup to the main melody finally kicking in at 0:14 in particular sells the joke so much harder, a marching band drum roll all to introduce the fucking Game Dude theme. The instrumentation feels absolutely perfect for the tune and is matched equally as perfectly by the context said tune appears in in the game, running after Booster up a slope midway through the game. The hummability of the melody, the context of Game Dude's situation and the silliness of the sound means the jokes write themselves; as one commenter says, "He is the Game Dude // He is so rude // He flees the country // when his court date is due".

Hey, so, SiIva Team - what the fuck is the deal with the goat?

Like, SiIvaGunner hasn't exactly been a stranger to creepy rips, particularly during its early years. On *** EVERYTHING IS FINE ***, for instance, I talked about the legendary horror that rips of the game "Barbie Horse Adventures: Blue Ribbon Race" have instilled into the audience thanks to just one rip back in Season 1, and we of course have Netyasha Roozi's excellent annual PlayStation Console BIOS rips of every Halloween, such as Play In MissingNo's Station. Yet, for as ominous and spooky as these rips are, I at least feel like I sort of GET them. Even four years on from its debut on the channel, I still don't know what the hell to make of "the standing goat".

Beginning with a rip of Cave Story's Mimiga Town theme back in Season 4 Episode 2, the confusion was immediately apparent - the 10 second video featured in the rip is from a moderately-popular Instagram post describing the goat statue's creepiness factor, and the song used is an arrangement of Pissy Pamper by Young Nudy and Playboi Carti - to my knowledge, with zero actual relation to one another. And sure, Mimigas in Cave Story are fuzzy little guys in an ominous world, that kind of befits the standing goat video - but the thing was, after this video's explosion in confusing reception, the goat just KEPT showing up. He would be recreated in different per-game artstyles like Deltarune and Ace Attorney, yet never properly...explained?

Yet, most bizarre of all, it seems as if for a small while the channel was playing at some sort of culmination to all of its buildup. During DJ Professor K's one-day takeover, an otherwise inconspicuous rip had the message "He is coming." hidden in its description - only for said rip to be followed up by Game Over/Password - Altered Beast, an arrangement of Pissy Pamper that effectively jumpscares you with the goat's presence by the end of it. The message hidden in its description? "He is here. Run.". And this Altered Beast rip was also part of an already-existing pattern with rips featuring the goat: "Memory", "Mysterious Crash", "Good Night", "Game Over" - several rips utilizing the creature seemed to explicitly be hinting at something far more ominous than what the video alone lets on.

Which brings us to the first true descent into this madness, one that stood out like nothing else quite did during Season 6's Halloween event: He is Back. In an event otherwise characterized by its lighthearted use of David S. Pumpkins, in-universe contextualized as little more than a fun halloween party, there's something yet more unsettling about the goat we've all been wondering about, reappearing in a rip that feels flat-out dangerous in atmosphere. The messages from the video description continue, this time saying - "Look behind you. I said, look behind you." - as if there's someone we aren't aware of attempting to save us from whatever this...creature is trying to achieve on the channel. Althewhile, the Pissy Pamper audio instrumental added on top makes what's otherwise primarily garbled noise from P.T.'s radio stations turn into a...surprisingly listenable, sort of glitch-hop-like banger?

The video end by leaving us with more questions than answers, as the video abruptly cuts to an error screen with the words "HE IS HERE" repeating over and over in many languages. And since He is Back's upload, we've...barely seen the goat anywhere. There's been yet one more possible development to his story, during Season 7's "The Cult of Proto" event, yet his fate and relevance to the channel remains as mysterious as it did many years ago.

For all that has and hasn't happened in the later Seasons of SiIvaGunner, I truly do love that mysteries like this still linger within the channel's mythos. And yeah, deep down I do know that these goat videos aren't meant to be amounting to anything bigger - they're just a silly, bizarre in-joke that's gradually taken on more and more creepy undertones. But there is something genuinely fun about that progression even having happened in the first place, isn't there? The goat could've easily just been left as one of many wacky out-of-nowhere jokes that Season 4s episodes debuted, yet he's been quietly sticking around, used by a small handful of rippers who seemingly have more in stock for the little guy than one would first think.

Alright, look, at this point I do try to avoid posting too many Undertale/Deltarune rips on this blog. With this post I think we're getting close to...20 or so rips of the game, or rips featuring its music prominently, covered on this blog. Yet Jesus of the Underground is the kind of rip that truly cannot be ignored - one of the most extensive rips ever made for the game, uploaded on its seventh birthday, after eight years straight of being featured on SiIvaGunner. Jesus of the Underground is the most perfect tribute to a game like Undertale that one could ever ask for.

It's easy to say that Undertale's popularity in being ripped on SiIvaGunner was purely a timing thing - SiIvaGunner started in January 2016, just a few months after Undertale's release in late 2015, still riding high on the sheer hype of tracks like Megalovania and Hopes and Dreams. And yeah, it may have started out that way, but I don't think launch hype would carry the game past six hundred rips made for it. In truth, I feel like Undertale's music spawned a sort of community of its own, for just how unique yet immediately appealing it is - its easily identifiable as video game music, yet with just enough parts in its percussion and backing played with real instruments, to remind those not wholly invested in the world of VGM that its music is more than just a series of bleeps and bloops. Pair that sound with Toby Fox's love for leitmotifs, distinct samples, and excellent sound design on the whole, and you've got a soundscape that almost defines the game's legacy more than the game itself. A lot of this is just me speculating, but its undeniable that the game's music has remained just as relevant to Undertale discussion as the game itself - it's not an aspect that ever feels like its taking a back seat, even despite just how globally popular the game itself has become.

And that feeling of, music remaining wholly appreciated despite its explosion in quality, was always the impression I got from the band that Jesus of the Underground is also paying tribute to - Green Day. I am, to reiterate a talking point I've made many times before, not in any way in touch with the music world, yet I've always admired Green Day in particular from a distance, in how their album American Idiot managed to become an absolute smash hit despite never feeling like they surrendered to pandering. On top of that, the album wasn't just "popular", but critically acclaimed, and even as time passed its popularity never felt like it drew the band any real negative or spiteful ire. Jesus of Suburbia, in particular, does not feel like it was made to tally up as many plays on a radio station as possible - it's akin to a whole storyline playing out over nine minutes of rock music, with peaks and valleys althroughout, yet it remains loved by music enthusiasts and everyday listeners alike. Much like Toby Fox with Undertale, Green Day filled American Idiot with their raw, almost-unfiltered feelings, and were able to strike a cord with so many people the world over despite evidently being made for a particularly niche audience: because the soul of their craft simply shone through.

Jesus of the Underground, in all its nine-minute glory, almost feels like as much of a labor of love as the two sources its pulling from - an expression of passion toward the art of ripping Undertale itself. Despite being such a long rip, it shows no signs of cut corners, no signs that eg_9371 was ever *not* making this out of love for the game. Or at the very least, no signs that he wasn't making it out of a love of ripping - it's clearly inspired by prior made and equally excellent Jesus Of Tazmily, a rip arranging Jesus of Suburbia within the soundscape of MOTHER 3 instead. Undertale itself wears its influences from the MOTHER series proudly on its sleeve, which makes it all the more fitting to think that it was an ambitious MOTHER 3 rip that inspired eg_9371 to roll his sleeves up and attempt doing the same for Undertale.

It remains hauntingly authentic in arrangement style to the original Hopes and Dreams and its instruments throughout, althewhile seamlessly changing in BPM and time signature just the same as Jesus of Suburbia does, without ever missing a beat. Meanwhile, small touches of quality ripping remain present throughout - Flowey's theme echoing throughout parts of the track's second act is such a great touch that I never would've thought would add so much to the arrangement alone. And setting aside all of the meta analysis and speculation on Undertale's popularity, American Idiot's merits, and just how much effort eg_9371 keeps putting into his rips, the instrumentation simply fits Green Day like a glove - Hopes and Dreams' guitar samples and the bright, hopeful sparkle of the main melody synth simply wraps everything together more seamlessly than one could've ever imagined.

Its hard for me to overstate just how funny of a way Season 7 opened, and how perfectly it distilled the essence of SiIvaGunner down to just two weeks time. The Season premiered on the first day of February after a month's break of uploads for the duration of January, and it was with this premiere - Super Sonic Racing - Sonic R - that the season was labeled as "the year of Grand Dad". We'd finally reached the Season celebrating the funny number! The year was declared a celebration of SiIva's legacy, of its most stories memes and jokes from every season, and throughout the years they would definitely deliver on that promise.

Yet barely two weeks after the premiere, we suddenly had the rug pulled from under our feet. From February 13th to February 16th, the celebration was no longer of SiIvaGunner, or of Grand Dad. Now, the celebration was of hit electro-Forró band Os Barões da Pisadinha, and their immediately recognizable style of music.

I've talked about the takeover before in Rainbow Baroad, but these guys are BIGLY popular in Brazil, despite or perhaps even because so much of their music all sounds so similar. There's an infectiously fun sound to their electro-Forró style, and the SiIva team already began messing around with it midway through Season 6. Much like rips of Slider such as yesterday's WA-HOO DISCO, a key part of the fun with these rips is just how unified the style of music becomes when arranged in this distinct instrumentation. With Rainbow Baroad, the song already had a sort of laid-back, chill vibe to it that fit Os Barões' tropical sound like a glove. Funny Senator sits on the complete opposite end: Forró music is perhaps as far removed from Metal Gear Rising's style of music as you could possibly get, and yet that total disconnect ends up creating a super fun tune!

The rearranging already sells the joke perfectly, but the original vocals being added on top of this far sillier instrumental, trying so hard to remain epic whilst still being overruled by the pure vibes of those steel drums...The visual it creates as a joke is just far too good for me to ignore. Its like a final battle taking place on a sunny-day public beach, or like an intense game of beachside volleyball between Raiden and Armstrong finally reaching its conclusion.

Hot off the heels of yesterday's celebration, I felt it only right to follow it up with yet more celebration. Wheras SING A SONG ABOUT HOPES AND DREAMS was part of a celebration of SiIvaGunner as a whole, today we're looking at a somewhat different celebration: the premiere of Season 6, Bramble Blast Collab, is an enchantingly unique collab even amidst the channel's long history of doing them.

Kickstarted by our good friend tunedlink back in Season 1, collabs like the File Select Fusion Collab were initially labelled as just that - "fusion" collabs, a carryover from the Kirbtunes remix project they were imitating. These proved to be immensely popular and loved by the community, and so the "fusion collab" branding stuck around, eventually morphing into a whole new, more clearly-segmented form of collaborative projects. I'm yet to cover any of these on the blog, but Season 7's Shop Fusion Collab is an excellent example of these collabs - each segment lovingly crafted by teams of rippers with visuals to match. In comparison, the old style of fusion collab may seem a bit messy, a bit unfocused and noisy. But amidst that noise, these have always been able to serve as incredible celebrations of so many parts of SiIvaGunner all at once.

While File Select Fusion Collab served to celebrate the good times had across Season 1, looking back upon all of its events and memes in a sentimental way, Bramble Blast Collab has always felt more...mixed, in its messaging. It has old memes, of course, be it Space Jam, Soulja Boy, or the introductory clip of Chad Warden's holy ghost, but...its filled to the brim with so much more, sources from the channel's recent history like Big Time Rush, Yankin' and Astronaut in the Ocean, amidst sources that are basically never seen on the channel such as Baldi's Basics and Smiling Friends. Its all delivered at a pace that's insanely fast even for the standard of these kinds of collabs - the result is a noise collage not just of SiIvaGunner's history, but of its possible future - the jokes we're yet to hear the full potential of, mixed in with small snippets of our old memories.

Althesame, it carries a slight sense of melancholy to it buried underneath all those funny memes: The track its built on *is* Bramble Blast, after all, one of the most emotionally poignant pieces of retro VGM out there. After rummaging around a zillion sources for most of the rip, the four-minute mark feels as if the song is breaking free of itself with the core melody re-emerging at full force, gradually built up by the increased prominence of the backing melody from the three-minute mark. Season 6, even as early as this, had the feeling of sorrow sort of engrained in it from the announcement of GilvaSunner - the original channel SiIvaGunner is made in tribute of - officially shutting down later that year. The fallout of which wouldn't quite be understood until I've won, but at what cost, but even as far back as the Season's premiere it was as if we were all gearing up for the inevitable.

I'll admit, even as far back as Halloween 2016, that I was never really a huge fan of The 8-Bit Beast's Haunted House meme. It has interesting history, certainly, it's part of an in-joke in the chiptune community that I'll never truly know the full extent of due to not being part of it...but as an actual song used in rips, it's entire point is basically to just be a non-Sonic. And so, I'm often left unimpressed by all the spins taken on this particular melody, even though it keeps showing up halloween after halloween, and is intricately tied to Wood Man in the lore.

All that is to say, that Maroon 5 more like Maroon 8 hehehehehehe really caught me off guard with how funny I found it when it was submitted to me just last week. It's yet another one of eg_9371's crazy ventures of just running with an idea no matter how bizarre or difficult it sounds, and doing it in the most high-effort way possible (The Secret Forest of Bones sticks out as a notable example). It's a mix of Maroon 5's Moves Like Jagger with the lead melody of Haunted House - and though the repetitive main melody remains, the progression that Moves Like Jagger would otherwise have in its backing and lead instruments still remain. It gives an otherwise really repetitive meme an actual sense of progression, althewhile still sounding so authentically like the original Maroon 5 song with all its instruments along for the ride. Adam Levine-posting has long been a staple of the channel thanks to channel creator Chaze the Chat's obsession with his band, and it's always fun to see rips like this that take two long-running jokes and attempts to combine them for the first time.

Its always so interesting to me whenever I hear a joke on SiIva completely out of my circle - and even MORE interesting when its something I'm able to fully vibe with regardless.

Yeah, full disclaimer, I'm really not familiar with 2:23AM, the track used for the joke of todays rip, nor the context its oft used in. To my knowledge its a piece of royalty-free music used by some pretty big-name VTubers in their livestreams as pause or waiting music due to its laid-back vibe. Its not the kind of song that strikes you as being royalty-free in the same way Kevin MacLeod's library is, yet its sound is indistinct enough as to be easily associated with any of the streamers that currently use it.

Again, though, even without all of that background - kris gaming is just a damn good arrangement! It follows on the original song's first few notes sounding near the exact same as Deltarune's Don't Forget, and it gives the rip a kind of emotional warmth alongside its original lo-fi relaxing feel. Its kind of surprising just how many feelings come attached to UT/DR's various melodies and how well they carry through into all sorts of arrangements, especially given just how long the SiIva channel has been ripping the two games. Even seven years later we're finding new ways to arrange Toby Fox's music, in ways that are sounding so good they may as well be official.

He's back again - the channel's most frequent contributor, eg_9371. Its still really nuts to me how one ripper not only sits above one thousand contributed works, but did so without cutting any corners - eg_9371 is not someone who throws shit at the wall and sees what sticks, but someone who tackles any possible challenge with his all just to see if its possible. A surprisingly high amount of the channel's best rips in recent memory have all been from him, and he deserves all the credit he can get.