#vvsvlogs

I'm sure this rip's been a long time coming for many - I know it has for me. I've had i love(d) you sitting in my drafts as far back as in March, but truthfully it's...daunting, to write about. Requested by two readers. Close to 200 thousand views on YouTube, and recently featured prominently in popular Clone Hero YouTuber Acai's "The Quality of SiIvaGunner" series. And the rip itself being an emotional gutpunch in a season filled with them, from a ripper who's already gutpunched me plenty with Wham! Into Dreams and The Paragoomba and the Wiggler. vvsvlogs, Vivi, I ask this with the most sincere gratitude possible - why must you do this to me?

Minecraft as a game has its emotional hooks in at least two generations of people - that much I think we're all aware of. A sandbox filled with endless possibilities, community, friends, individual stories of survival or of great creative endeavors, all wrapped in C418's hauntingly beautiful score, one I've discussed many times before with Fell From a High Place (Reprise), M-O-O-G City and Every Mob Wants To Rule My World. All of these rips are beautiful, yet they're all aiming to play with Minecraft's sound in some way - the former two rips are arrangement of its music with other games' instrumentation, and the latter rip is a melodyswap playing Everybody Wants To Rule The World. They all play on my senses in their own ways, they're all rightfully impressive - but nothing hits quite the same as Minecraft's own music, on its own terms. i love(d) you isn't aiming to impress or amaze - but it lands a full-on critical hit on one's heart through leveraging everything that's kept Subwoofer Lullaby alive for so many years.

I've talked plenty about my musical illiteracy, and so I hope it doesn't come as a surprise that I've never really listened to world-renowed singer Billie Eilish. She's been on the radio, I've heard Bad Guy, but it was never a name I gave much more thought beyond seeing her discussed online from time to time. You can imagine the absolute awe I was in when I clicked on i love(d) you when it first went up, already expecting an emotional hit due to the Minecraft song used, only to get goosebumps from Eilish's vocals alone. i love you is the penultimate song from Eilish's debut studio album, the very same that Bad Guy was featured on - yet compared to that track's bass-heavy, almost seductive energy, i love you feels remarkably personal, with little more than an acoustic guitar and piano accompanying the openly emotional vocal performance. It's sincere in a way I don't hear enough music be, as if a diary translated into song, much the same emotion that Because I Love You conveyed yet with even greater magnitude due to the vocals in play.

i love(d) you, uploaded for 2022's valentines day, wields both of these forms of love - the connections many of us have to one of the most impactful games ever made, and the unfiltered emotion of i love you - to create something unabashedly beautiful. Mashups aren't a novel concept, mashups are nothing new - yet one glance at the comments tells me that I'm not alone in finding this rip in particular to have struck an incredibly sensitive nerve. Because there's a beauty to Minecraft that I think many of us oft forget about. It's a game that we all cherish, yet also one that's very easy to have left behind: we have adult responsibilities, we have school, we have other, shorter, more concise games, we have social media, we have friends, we have blogs...the solemn beauty of playing the game itself is, for many viewers like myself, not much more than a memory, something that can feel ever so difficult to recreate without feeling as if something's wrong.

We...I'm...not a kid anymore.

There was nothing about i love(d) you's concept that necessitated it to be more than just the mashup. There rip had no need for visuals that'd help convey the edit like with Plantasia 2 or Luna, mi Amor, no need to tickle the funnybone like with SUNGORE or the hundreds of other YTPMV rips on the channel. Yet, halfway through the rip, to the tune of Eilish's soothingly reverberating vocals, the background begins to change, not to a bit, not to a reference nor easter egg...but to Minecraft. To where all of this attachment began - to a far-off view of the game's beautiful landscapes as the sun begins to rises. That digital world that looks different for every player, yet the same in everyone's hearts - that place that, no matter how many years pass, how long its been since we last played, we all love. Its impact different to everyone, yet the feeling unanimous. It drives home how well the mashup works not just as a mixture of two deeply emotional songs, but as music tied to a shared experience: all of our Minecraft worlds looked different, all of our personal lives look different, but we've all played the game, and we've all had affection for it.

Every moment I spend thinking about this rip aches in some way. It's been well past two years since it was first uploaded, yet it continues to follow me as the years go on, my mouse drawn to it any time it reappears in my recommendations. In being featured on 2024's Now That's What I Call Quality! 3, I think the team holds much the same sentiment - even as the months pass, i love(d) you is the kind of rip that'll never fall out of favor, never stop meaning things to people. And realizing that it was made by vvsvlogs, the very same vvsvlogs who's already made me far too emotionally vulnerable on here twice before, has only made it mean that extra bit more to me.

I'm not a kid anymore. I know that. But I'll always be grateful to SiIvaGunner, the people behind it, and those who follow it along with me, for being able to bring me back to that state of mind when I least expect it.

Hey, look - its close to the new year, its past midnight as I'm writing this, and I'm feeling sentimental. I know I could be putting more delicacy into my choices for these last days of the year, but please allow me to be be a bit vulnerable today.

I started making these posts seven months ago. A month later, I made the full commitment into making it a full-on BLOG-blog. That is, a blog to truly let me spill my heart over, beyond just writing one or five sentences per rip, to ensure none of my feelings get left on the drawing board. It was never something I did to catch a wave of fame, or to show off on a resume: top to bottom, this blog began as a distraction from work, and has turned into a full-scale love letter for a project that has helped shape me into the person I am today. Now, with *this* project, I've found motivation and confidence: I've had the opportunity to reignite my passion for writing, satiating my lust for analysis and discussion, and most crucially providing a thank-you to a group of creators that have always felt woefully underappreciated.

What I never really expected, was to have those same wishes returned back to me.

From the ask box, to the messages, to the Rippers' Commentary reblogs, to the discussions held in the SiIvaCord and on Discord DMs themselves, its those heartfelt words, that gratitude and joy, that keeps me driven to continue this blog until I'm all wrung dry. I've long considered myself terrible at maintaining connections, yet with each message I receive it feels as if I've made a new friend, their words of support and love never leaving my mind no matter how much time passes. It still feels like I'm somewhat of a shut-in, yet I've had the ability to talk to so many more incredible people in the back half of this year alone than I have for so much of my life before.

So, with all that sappy shit said - The Paragoomba and the Wiggler goes out to one of those people. It was only a few weeks ago this month that I covered vvsvlogs' prior work on Wham! Into Dreams, and just how much her singing truly resonated with me. As soon as that post was done, I just...felt a need to know, if she'd done any more singing work for the channel, and she was kind enough to point out her contribution to RIP² that I'd somehow completely missed. A rearrangement of an immensely simple but effective Season 1 rip, The Paragooma and the Wiggler is still a mashup of a Super Mario Bros. 3 theme and an Owl City song, yet now with a far more lively, dynamic instrumental thanks to 601billionlazer's arranging, and with vocals wholly redone by vvsvlogs, as mentioned before - and, indeed, just like Wham! Into Dreams, I connected with the rip almost immediately after listening to it. There's of course also new life injected into the non-vocal half of the song through the rearrangement, new sound effects added to punctuate lyrics, an ebb and flow maintained with the instrumentation alternating between the original chiptune sound and a plucky piano. With all that said, its an incredible rip top to bottom, showing just how talented of a singer vvsvlogs is above all else - I daresay the new vocals full-on crush the originals for me.

Yet, there's a reason I wanted to put that big sentimental introduction to this post in particular. Because back when I first discovered Wham! Into Dreams years ago, I may still have been a devoted fan, but I was a wallflower althesame: barely in the SiIvaCord, barely in discussions with anyone other than the occasional YouTube comment. It's only through all of the aforementioned outcomes of running this blog, the people I've met and the messages I've received, that I finally feel truly at home with this community - that I found the courage to reach out, talk to, and send my sincerest thanks directly to these incredible creators, with at least SOMETHING to show for it. vvsvlogs is just one of a dozen or two people I've gotten to talk to through doing this blog, and it never ceases to warm my heart - both finally getting to talk to people who've indirectly pulled me out of dark times through simply doing what they love, and through knowing I've been able to make so many of them smile from the words I'm putting onto this darn page on a daily basis.

Happy new year, SiIvaGunner team. To all of you in the team reading silently without accounts to reply with, I hope you know just how much I love you.

Ah, NiGHTS...its the one SEGA franchise that I feel like a lot of people have heard of, and a lot of people love from a distance, yet very few have actually played. And I don't blame them for it - unlike Sonic, Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, Monkey Ball or what have you, the coolness inherent to NiGHTS is specifically related to its weirdness. It's a set of three games that are almost intentionally alienating and strange, games where you need to truly sit with them for a longer while before that emotional connection is made. Yet it happened HARD with me only a few years ago - I now own all three games in the series and listen to the soundtracks regularly. And as a huge fan, it was an absolute delight to uncover SiIva's small-but-excellent handful of rips for the games - among them, Wham! Into Dreams.

Despite sitting above 100 contributions to the channel, vvsvlogs is a name that doesn't ring enough of a bell for me...though, looking at some of the stuff already in my playlists, I think its about time I began bringing more attention to her work. The NiGHTS games, beyond their theming of dreams and surrealism, have always had a big focus on happiness and connections - and by extension, to the holiday spirit. Dreams Dreams from NiGHTS into Dreams and its rearranged versions of Journey of Dreams really do hone in on that angle, these emotional yet happy songs celebrating the joys of human connection - and its one that vvsvlogs takes advantage of and celebrates with Wham! Into Dreams. And yeah, upon first seeing the rip title from the album release, I initially thought it'd be as simple as that - a simple well-done mashup between two very emotionally similar songs. Yet vvsvlogs takes a step further, putting the rip closer to rips like Sunday Morning and Everyday Goodbyes (SiIvaGunner Band Cover). Because the emotions of Wham! Into Dreams are amplified a hundredfold by it being a full-on cover of the original Last Christmas' vocals.

There's something very funny about receiving a request to cover a rip I've never heard of, literally ONE DAY before it gets played live at SiIvaGunner team's MAGFest Chipspace show. But, to both the submitter, and to vvsvlogs herself for playing the rip at her set - thank you SO much to introducing me to Mother, Father, TechnoMan. I am always, ALWAYS down to cover more Anamanaguchi music on here.

I haven't made my love for the aforementioned band much of a secret on here: while I am still pretty poorly versed in the music world as a whole, I have listened to the entire discography of Anamanaguchi, most known nowadauentire discography. after initially discovering them through Scott Pilgrim, and immediately fell in love with their sound. With Give Me the Fantasy, I was a bit more self-indulgent than usual and covered a mashup between their hit song Endless Fantasy and Pitbull, and more recently with 88811 I covered a rip I now call one of my all-time, most-underrated favorites. Now with a mashup, and a melody swap, it's time to shift into overdrive - Mother, Father, TechnoMan is a full-on mashup medley, with so many pieces that elevate an already incredible track into all-new levels of sheer hype. Hype that vvsvlog's set at Chipspace, MAGFest, only heightens.

Because even though I was merely watching the set streamed through Twitch, it was incredible clear to me just how much sheer energy and fun exuded from the entirety of vvsvlog's show at MAGFest. And really, it's Mother, Father, TechnoMan's part of it that best illustrates it, as seen at around 01:28:40 in the Twitch VOD. Right after she'd poured her heart out performing The Paragoomba and the Wiggler with live sing-along, the music fades, the visuals turn black, and she takes a few steps away from the mic, as if to end the set, met with claps from everyone in the crowd... And then, it plays: "MOTHER - FATHER - GENTLEMEN !!" - and immediately, vvsvlogs springs back to the microphone with absolutely infectious silly-mode energy. From absolutely HITTING a Fortnite dance in time with the opening Space Jam mashup that revs up the rip, to miming along with the lyrics to Last Resort, to the neverending bounce and energy present in general, it becomes just, abundantly clear to me how much vvsvlogs LOVES doing what she does.

It's not that I'm trying to review the Chipspace performance itself here - rather, I simply think it illustrates the magic of rips like Mother, Father, TechnoMan so perfectly. There's just a feeling of joy, a feeling of pure fun to be found in these rips, the ones that are just covered in so many layers of noise, the meme mashups like Memey Hell or Everybody's Special Course, or so many others. And Mother, Father, TechnoMan just channels that energy so expertly though its pingponging of lyrically-driven sources, all tweaked to fit the high-pitched emotion that defines Anamanaguchi's sound. Space Jam, Last Resort, a chorus introduced by Initial D Eurobeat before being overtaken by Linkin Park, which fucking HITS those high notes to a level I never thought would be possible...through it all, it feels as if these sources are all tied together through the power of raw excitement. Excitement that I feel every time I listen to it, and excitement that vvsvlogs is evidently well equipped to handle.

In closing, I love Mother, Father, TechnoMan, I love Anamanaguchi, I loved MAGFest 2024, and I do love SiIvaGunner...But, as a sleep-deprived yet adrenaline-fueled me wrote at 01:17:23 in the aforementioned Twitch stream's chat:

"@ siivacord i demand rips of [USA] expeditiously"