#wheel able

Anniversaries, anniversaries...how they come, how they go. This week in particular is a pretty special anniversary, not just for the release of hit game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but for the release of ME: My birthday!

It's surreal how vividly I still remember when I wrote Your Silent Reality for my last birthday, covering a SiIvaGunner rip that's sat with me long since I first heard it due to the emotional ties I have to the material it utilizes. I began this entire blog as a way to give me writing practice, and I'd like to think I've grown a fair bit as a writer in the time since; but nevertheless, even a year and a half since the blog's begun, my emotional attachment to Season 2 of SiIvaGunner remains as firm as ever. The channel's output has grown to be more impressive than ever before, and last year's Season 7 in particular has had me in a chokehold with rips like Beautiful Dreamer (late but- happy birthday Minindo!) and The Paragoomba and the Wiggler...and yet, I will always keep coming back to the rips of that second season, to the rips that defined my ride-or-die fixation to the channel, and to the season that more than any other gave me feelings for things I didn't even know I was capable of caring so deeply about. Indeed, in direct contrast to last year's birthday rip, Radical Halation was the kind of gift I never knew I needed, yet one I will never stop treasuring.

Way back when I covered the rip Eterna's Cocoon, I wrote about how special it is to me to know that rippers on the team will continue to champion the works which have long since faded from public consciousness. Sure, SiIvaGunner leverages then-current events for comedy a fair number of times; a previous post on the blog's covered one such example in Lagplane, and one of the channel's most revered events back on Your Best Nightmario only came about as a result of a viral meme from that same timeframe. Yet just as often - if not moreso - the channel operates within its own bubble of time, with no care in the world for relevance or target audiences, a team making rips in huge part just for their own enjoyment. Take, for instance, the 1999 SquareSoft JRPG Chrono Cross; a game that, six years before its remaster in 2022, still existed as nary but a memory to many. Nevertheless, it was a memory treasured by two rippers in particular, a duo who had already impressed me time and time again throughout the channel's first two years. Be it Sog-Gee Ambiance, voiceless, Kass' Theme, or their previous collaborative work on 28 Saves Later, wheel able's stellar touch for arrangement and wolfman1405's unbelievable talents as a jazz performer are both some of the absolute highlights across the channel's early run. When the time came for one of the most important anniversaries relevant to the SiIvaGunner channel, the two took the opportunity to also honor a forgotten classic they both cherished – and in doing so, Radical Halation ironically became one of the first times I ever engaged with Chrono Cross. With the game's anniversary also just two days away, and the rip lying so close to my heart, I see no better time than to reciprocate that passion all these years later.

The sheer quality of Radical Halation should be made evident just a few seconds into listening; this is, as Wolfman1405 in particular specializes in, a ground-up cover and performance of the original Radical Dreamers ~ Unstolen Jewel theme from Chrono Cross. The original theme already had a shockingly acoustic sound to it for its era, really plucking at the emotions just a few chords in; that emotional rawness in the track may well have been the core reason why it was chosen to celebrate this anniversary in particular. Indeed, the anniversary I alluded to beforehand as being one of the channel's most crucial is that of the very song the rip title alludes to, the song that sits at the very emotional core of SiIvaGunner's entire being: Snow Halation from Love Live. I wrote back on Waluigi Pinball (Beta Mix) that the Grand Dad meme is like the beating heart of SiIvaGunner's creative spirit, being the core that created the entire channel; by that same logic, I feel as if Snow Halation is like SiIvaGunner's *emotional* core, its "soul" for lack of a better term. Grand Dad may be the spark that sets new rippers into action even all these years later, but Snow Halation was the first thing that people got EMOTIONALLY attached to on SiIvaGunner – it was the core behind its first story arc of SiIvaGunner: Rebooted, it continues to effectively serve as the "protagonist" to the Christmas Comeback Crisis storyline – and its use throughout the channel continues to feel like a reminder of that same attachment, the one that the channel has to all of us. It's an openly sappy, almost overbearing song, yet one that represents so much about the love of remixing and rearranging that SiIvaGunner continues to focus on all these years later.

You take that emotionally-charged melody, put it in the hands of two stellar arrangers, and inject it into an arrangement of an emotional melody the soundscape of which said aforementioned rippers already appear to hold a close attachment to, and the end result is exactly what Radical Halation shows us. Throughout 2016, throughout the entirety of Season 1 of SiIvaGunner, we as the audience had gone on such an emotional rollercoaster regarding out attachment to the channel, its creatives, and its memes, with Snow Halation at the very center of it all; with the channel returned just in time for the holidays, it also happened to return just in time for Snow Halation's anniversary on December 22nd, ever so coincidentally aligned with the time upon which we were all wholly, earnestly in love with everything the song had come to represent. Many months before Season 3 and beyond would begin feeding irony into the discussion of appreciation for these melodies, right as the Christmas Comeback Crisis was just kicking into gear, and just long enough after the channel's return had occurred to make us truly accept that it was back, Radical Halation's release window struck gold in a way only truly comparable to the rips of the Season 1 finale a la Tupac's Empty House and THANK YOU FOR RIPPING.

I'm of course not aiming to frame Radical Halation as just being "the right thing at the right time"; beyond that emotional attachment, the simple fact of the matter still remains that its a hauntingly beautiful arrangement, even close to 8 years later. Radical Dreamers ~ Unstolen Jewel's beauty sinks in just from the acoustic guitar lead-in, and is only emphasized by the time the rip's true "twist" sets in, of its lead melody being that of a Snow Halation arrangement played on violin. The two halves form an incredible, inseperable whole; not confined by the restrictions of a mashup, the hand-made nature of this arrangement means that both the guitar and violin segments are free to fill in for one another, to emphasize the sounds of Radical Dreamers ~ Unstolen Jewel or the melody of Snow Halation to different degrees on a moment-to-moment basis. I particularly love the section after the Snow Halation melody first plays - at around 0:47, the violin seamlessly leaves the Snow Halation melody and instead takes cues from the source track, yet never stops feeling as if its all from the same arrangement, even upon returning to Snow Halation at 01:10. The rip throughout has the same feeling as the best and most carefully-constructed mashups of today a la Eazystep or Maroonbound whilst in reality being a completely new arrangement and performance.

The visuals of the rip are of course just the cherry on top of it all. Viewers are made immediately aware that the rip is going to be something special not just through its audio, but from the cold-open visuals of pitch blackness fading into a view of the ocean from underneath the surface, the logo fading in just as the melody's played its first few notes. These visuals only change once Snow Halation is first quoted in the audio, changing from the undersea depths to the view of a beachside in winter, a quite literal mash-up of Chrono Cross' dreamy seasides and the snow-covered comfort of Snow Halation. None of this visual detail is particularly "necessary", it's not here to further a punchline; rather, in the spirit of rips like i love(d) you, the visuals serve to punctuate the emotional core of the rip. Visuals in any rip are a surprise, an often-time momentous occasion, and Radical Halation combines that knowledge with its purpose of celebrating Snow Halation's first-ever anniversary celebration on the SiIvaGunner channel to create a rip that, even with no ties to Chrono Cross at the time of watching, I just KNEW would be special back in 2016 just three seconds in.

All these years later, and a rip as special, profound and heartfelt as Radical Halation still manages to feel...forgotten about, in many ways, sitting at less than 25K views as of writing. In that sense, Chrono Cross may have been a more apt game to use for this tribute than its rippers initially thought; all these years later, despite its clear emotional core, the passion that went into it and the release of its remaster, the game remains a jewel swept away by the tides of the industry. We're soon nearing nine whole years of the SiIvaGunner channel's run, and with every day I run this blog I'm made all the more aware of how many gems just like Radical Halation continue to slip by the cracks, how much joy and love the channel's team crams into so much of its output despite never having any sort of guarantee that its audience will reciprocate that love.

But, even all those years ago, Radical Halation did reach me. And even so many years before the idea of this blog was even a consideration, before I was knee-deep in thought about the channel's existence and the people involved in its upkeep...I knew that I wanted to thank its creators. I knew that it was a rip that could only have been made out of outpouring love; love for a game years old, love for a channel that was still standing shakily, love for a leitmotif and its impact on an audience...and most of all, the love of creating and performing music outright.

I'm going to be as upfront as I can be in today's post. I'm European.

I really don't have a good enough image of the impact of the 9/11 attacks on America, how it affected everyone involved, how its continued to haunt the nation since. I had a hard time picking which rip would even be apt for a day like this one, if it'd be better to just skip it altogether. Althesame, 9/11 was a full-on tragedy, and making light of tragedies of any kind is always a very touchy subject - One SiIvaGunner unfortunately dabbled in during its first year active. In hindsight, its absolutely no wonder that the "9/11 event" on Season 1 of SiIvaGunner was met with such immense backlash as to be cancelled midway through. To date, its likely the most hostile the fanbase has ever been toward the channel and the people behind it. SiIvaGunner's early years, as lighthearted, joyous, and oft emotional as they oft were, are still coated with a thin film of edgy, insensitive and downright hostile flavor of comedy. I'm at least glad that 9/11 day was one project the team knew to denounce, and its alternatives for the Seasons that followed the first have all been filled with the kind of joy I always associated SiIva with.

There was a different kind of sadness that hung over Season 1's 9/11 day in the fallout, however - not every rip made during the event really had hostile or insensitive intent. After the event's official cancellation, the entire day's rips were deleted from the channel, catching a group of genuinely excellent rips in the crossfire. Of these, I'm sure there's none more iconic to the channel than Stickerbrush State of Mind. It took until Season 3 for it to get reuploaded to the YouTube channel, but its lived in the hearts of all SiIva album listeners since it was first saved through the Volume 7: Part mm2wood release in 2016.

Stickerbush Symphony (sorry - that's the official spelling!) is already one of the most hauntingly beautiful tracks within VGM, and both it and its remix in Super Smash Bros. Brawl have been community favorites since Season 1. Stickerbrush State of Mind follows a similar track to what I described in Noonsummer Madness - it mashes this laid-back, calming piece of music with a piece of hip-hop music that would otherwise not quite fit into the meme language SiIvaGunner otherwise speaks. Empire State of Mind by JAY-Z has only been featured on the channel two or three times since this rip debuted it - and both of those instances were almost definitely inspired by the impact this initial time had on the channel's audience.

Though likely clouded by a lot of nostalgia, its long been my opinion that SiIva was at its most engaging during Season 2 and Season 3, due to how expertly rips and lore were woven together. Those who followed the channel live as it was uploading in 2017 will know exactly what I mean - almost every rip with a new joke gathered heaps of speculation over its importance to the lore, the profile picture and banners of the channel were always changing to reflect possible story events unfolding behind closed doors, and it just never ceased to surprise.

I don't think there's any better encapsulation of this excitement, this complete immersion into the state of the channel, than Become as Gadget. In the middle of the ongoing story of the Christmas Comeback Crisis, seemingly out of complete nowhere - the supposed villain of the story and at-that-time manager of the channel was dethroned by a bizarro version of famed cartoon character Inspector Gadget. And like a switch had been flipped, suddenly every single rip uploaded was an Inspector Gadget joke. This is what we'd usually call "Takeovers", but this one was different. There was no special anniversary being celebrated. After a day had passed, the takeover kept going. Two days. Three. Suddenly the description of the channel changed. The profile picture, banner. The Twitter account. Everything was being consumed by this demonic interpretation of Inspector Gadget as based on Mike Matei's all-time classic "Minecraft with Gadget". And in the midst of all this, Become as Gadget is uploaded.

And like, it's all still a joke, especially now looking back, right? Its a silly, basic punchline, mashing up super dramatic, emotional music, with a source as absurd and unserious as Minecraft with Gadget. But the emotions were at an ALL TIME HIGH for the channel when this was happening - I URGE you to check out the comments on this rip in particular to see what I'm talking about. Despite being six years old, there are comments as recent as this year still writing at length about how much this event, and this rip, hit them. At a point where the lore-to-rip engagement was at an alltime high, this 10-day stretch of nothing but Inspector Gadget felt haunting, like a curse placed upon the channel we all used to love so much.

This rip. 28 Saves Later. With every Halloween that comes and goes on SiIvaGunner, every year going for something new, fresh, and oft immensely high quality - ESPECIALLY this year with Season 7 - I still return back to 28 Saves Later. I can't even remember how I found it, back in 2016 I could honestly not have cared less about Resident Evil and promptly skimmed past it in my feed. When I eventually did find it, it was still at a pretty meager view count - yet it's been climbing, slowly rising toward that juicy 100K. 28 Saves Later is, amidst a sea of excellent horror media tributes the SiIvaGunner channel has put out, the absolute best of the Spooktacular Halloween Horrors.

Classic survival horror games such as the original Resident Evil series are memorable for many reasons, yet what always seems to stick with players most is that sense of pure...relief, attained upon reaching a Save Room. Away from the horrors, the zombies, the monsters, the demons, the Lickers and Hunters and heads of crimson or pyramid, you always have this one little chamber to return to. 28 Saves Later is, in the most simple terms, a tribute to that feeling - the feeling of being safe from the horror, yet knowing you'll have to go out there again to face the truth. It builds upon itself so masterfully, with an imposing percussion slowly building in volume, more instruments being added to the calming lead melody all emphasizing danger lurking in the shadows...althewhile using samples from Silent Hill 2, several numbered Resident Evil games, and music from the zombie post-apocalypse film 28 Days Later, one entirely about that wish to find shelter from the horrors of the world.

In the midst of all the silly shit that regularly occurs on SiIvaGunner, I think it's really important to note just how bizarre of a time the beginning of Season 2 was - mainly, because we still didn't quite know what it was building to. The channel was supposed to have ended, yet with no fanfare whatsoever, here it was back uploading rips just as usual, but with a new emphasis on the then-relevant Halloween season. As silly as it may sound, there definitely was a sort of fear-of-the-unknown lingering as we were left in limbo between the channel ending and continuing - as Chaze would later confirm, the plan WAS to have the channel actually end after the Halloween and Christmas events. And rips like 28 Saves Later, rips of such absurdly high quality yet drenched in such uncertainty, only aided in that feeling - yet created an absolutely palpable sense of atmosphere for the time.

The last post made me nostalgic for Season 1’s ending, so fuck it, here’s another rip from back then - the File Select Fusion Collab, a rip with close to 20 creators involved. What a “Fusion Collab” entails has changed quite a fair bit over the years, as the collaborations have grown larger in size with each year. Nowadays, they now tend to focus on individual artists rendering a specific track in their own style across a longer video, such as with Season 2’s Wood Man Fusion Collab. But with Season 1, the meaning was a lot more nebulous - they were almost all made under the direction of toonlink (otherwise goes by “tunedlink” and “toonlinkirl”), and were made more in the style of YTPMVs, having a base song to build off of with an everchanging barrage of styles and sources intermingling at once.

These were released every now and then over the course of Season 1 and were always appreciated, yet today’s choice in particular stands out among them. Being released during what was effectively presented as the ending of the channel, it has a unique kind of emotional baggage to it, it leans into celebrating the entire legacy of the channel and all of its inside jokes. The full-circle moment of getting Joel Vinesauce himself to narrate a section in the middle of the track was perfect - the person whose joke got the entire channel started, now gets invited to formally close it out, with a speech still very much rooted in that niche joke culture SiIva itself thrives in. And it just keeps going in that direction - the rip builds in a congratulatory, yet bittersweet way to truly signal that the channel is about to end, a giant thank-you letter to the entire community that had been fostered over the channel’s small 9-month lifespan.

Admist the chaos of the channel, there are some rips that just stick in my mind as perfect homework music.

I’d seen wheel able’s name show up plenty of times over the course of the channel’s life, but I honestly didn’t really make an attempt at drawing a line between the kinds of rips they’d make. I was then very surprised to learn they’re behind a lot of my all-timers when it comes to chill tunes, usually delivering fantastic rips built upon or inspired by Donkey Kong Country. This here’s a pretty blatant example of that, but its exactly what you’d want out of it. Its David Wise’s music as composed for Snake Pass (a lovely little game, by the by!), redone in the style of his old Donkey Kong Country songs like Aquatic Ambiance. The result manages to sound widely different yet all so familiar at the same time. Homey, I guess you could call it.