something something quality

SiIvaGunner is a youtube channel that uploads "high quality video game rips", which is to say, edits of video game music. They operate under a bait and switch effect, so you'll click on what looks like a song from Undertale only to discover the melody has
been swapped out for a Queen song. Stuff like that. It's a funny prank on the surface, but once you get past that it becomes a really good mashup channel? They're really good at running jokes; you'll find a lot of Meet the Flintstones or Snow Halation going through their uploads, on top of like a bajillion other songs. And like, some of these get layered. It gets. Really stupid.

SiIvaGunner for the most part is real memey, but don't let that fool you. They're skilled at the craft, and just as capable of putting out genuinely emotional music as well. Like, it's seriously impressive just how much range this channel has.

In case the music on it's own isn't enough to keep you coming back, SiIvaGunner is constantly running channel events and the like where for a while the uploads will be themed. For example, there's Bootleg Day
where all the rips were related to bootleg games, the Spore 16th Anniversary event where they uploaded rips of the Spore franchise, or the Harlem Shakeover, where Ajit Pai took over the channel and posted nothing but Harlem Shake mashups for an entire week and a half.

For that last one Ajit also took over their twitter and was made a bunch of in-character tweets, which is the kind of thing SiIva loves to do, injecting a lot of personality into what would otherwise be a list of themed uploads. They do a lot of character and story stuff as well, there's almost always something going on storywise. Like, in February 2025 Stingy from LazyTown took over the channel and was claiming
sources as "mine" for the month until being booted, before forcibly returning later because the month of June belongs to him.

SiIvaGunner is really cool. I think they're cool.

The King for Another
Day Tournament

Here's how the tournament would have gone if I got to choose all the votes.

I have this spreadsheet for my hypothetical KFAD do-over! In this hypothetical, I'm doing the whole tournament myself, like all the votes, the arrangements, the balancing and even rigging the starting seed so the contestants I like do well. It goes without saying that that's a way overambitious idea, but like, that's why it's a spreadsheet instead of half a youtube playlist. Go look at it if you're interested!

The Hypothetical KFAD Spreadsheet

The King for Another Day Tournament was an event SiIvaGunner held in late 2019 where 32 contestants competed in a bracket style competition for the chance to take over the channel for a day. Each competitor represented a type of music from a different origin or genre, and during the tournament they had arrangements uploaded to promote their sources. Over the course of about a month people would vote on each matchup until a winner was declared. King for Another Day was a sequel to the original King for a Day tournament, which was a smaller version of the same concept that happened a year earlier. It was a lot more memey than its successor and pretty clearly built on smash hype. KFAD2 takes this kinda unserious event and turns it into a really well executed celebration of music as a whole, and even though it only lasted for a month, before I was even around to experience it, I can't stop thinking about it.

Anyway. Below is a list of all the contestants, in order of how much I like them, and a bunch of words about them. Go nuts.

(Keep in mind this whole section is WIP as all hell)

Daft Punk ft. Pharrell | Original placement: 5th

Daft Punk win in my book mostly because of taste. I'm fond of electronic and what I've had described to me as "repetitive" music, so they're very up my alley. I like the inclusion of Pharrell as source of variety, giving them access to some music outside of their niche as well as Despicable Me because why not I guess, and they made a healthy use of him during their run. As much as I would have loved for them to make the finals, I think 5th place is a fair placement. MissingNo and especially K are expected losses, and I don't think there was a wild card overpowered rip they could have pulled out to pull through. Maybe if they'd been on the other side of the bracket. Oh well. I do think their first loss to DJ Professor K is fitting, given how similar their sounds are minus K's sample heavy style.

Nico Nico | Original placement: 20th

Nico Nico, I think, is the closest to a YTP rep the tournament has. There's Robotnik and Jack & Elmo, but they're both limited to YTPs featuring themselves. Terebi-chan claims a way broader chunk of the YTP space, that is MADs and sources popular on Nico Nico. I really enjoy the messy and abrasive YTP tone Terebi-chan brings to the tournament, but the language barrier really doesn't help her very middling performance. Like, she lost to Johnny Bravo? Huh? I guess it makes sense, but it sucks to see. KFAD has actually gotten me into Nico Nico a bit! It's been fun exploring that area of the internet, a lot of what I find is from like 2008 which is when the site itself was at its peak. Nico Nico definitely wasn't likely to get far, but I definitely think she deserved to.

DJ Professor K | Original placement: 1st

Given the demographic of who was voting in KFAD, it makes a lot of sense that DJ Professor K won. Like, if there's anything SiIvaGunner fans love, it's video game music and mashups. Hideki Naganuma has a really sample heavy style of music and being able to pull from any Sega game is, frankly, a ridiculously good source. Of course this was gonna happen. Also notable is his immediate loss in KFAD1, being eliminated before his first arrangement, so the tragic backstory certainly helped. The win is deserved, though, the Naganuma style is just really versatile and really really good. This is not a hot take by any means.

Rhythm Masters | Original placement: 7th

Rhythm game music is a guilty pleasure of mine. I love my obnoxious loud dubstep and my fast as hell electronic stuff, and even that description leaves out a lot of what's a really loose genre. So having Rhythm Masters as highly placed as they are feels hard to justify, they kinda ride on the genre with not much more. But I think they're cool and that's all that counts. And the KFAD voters seem to agree, like they cracked the top 8 which is impressive and unexpected? The most notable thing about their run I think is in the first round when they lost to Jack & Elmo by 20 votes, which I think mostly came down to being at the start of the tournament before either were established.