Flame Fatales 2024, hosted by Frame Fatales, is running from August 18, 2024, to August 25, 2024, on Twitch and you can check out the upcoming runs here.
You can also donate to the Malala Fund, this event’s charity, here.
It is Tuesday night. I have laundry to do, an interview to work on transcribing from FINAL FANTASY VII Rebirth Orchestra World Tour, and yet I cannot tear myself away from watching as much Flame Fatales as possible on Twitch while they raise money for Malala Fund. If you’re not familiar with Flame Fatales, then what you need to know is this is one of two events put on every year by Frame Fatales: a community of women and femmes who love speedrunning video games, raising money for charity, and gaming in general. Frame Fatales welcome cisgender, trans, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming individuals, and all you have to do is DM their Instagram account or email them to join.
I’ve been catching Flame Fatales (and Frost Fatales, their wintertime event) since 2019, and I always find myself setting aside everything else I have to do that week to see as much as possible of it. While Flame Fatales does come under the larger GamesDoneQuick (for which I covered AGDQ 2020 in person) umbrella, these Fatales events feel like a bunch of friends got together, decided to do some genuine good in the world, and host some of the best speedrunners in the world while occasionally letting absolute chaos reign inside the studio in the process. It’s like the best possible real-life version of Kidsongs.
All of the speedrunners, donation hosts, commentators (or ‘couch’), and volunteers for Flame Fatales come from the people the Frame Fatales community represents. And I wasn’t joking about the high quality of the runs. If you’ve got 12 minutes, check out this run from Tuesday night by Zoreowo, as they play through the Valve-classic Portal BACKWARDS with dizzying speed and skill and while also doing their own commentary alongside their couch:
You cannot watch that run and tell me that it wouldn’t fit right in on the Awesome/Summer Games Done Quick stage. I caught it live Tuesday night, and I just couldn’t look away. And you know what? Every single run, no matter the title or genre, is like that.
In between the runs (which you can check out the whole week’s schedule for here), there are the in-studio antics. Every morning, Flame Fatales opens up with the latest installment of Screen Savers – a speedrunner-centric take of The Office, with the slogan “your time matters!” – plays. This scripted serial skit is earnest in its humor while it also does not take itself too seriously. Whether it’s Swiftalu’s joyous obsession with cats, Kungfufruitcup’s grizzled “I’ve been working here too long” attitude, or Rubiehart’s hilarious take on being a boss, these morning skits are simply fun to watch and really set the Frame Fatales events apart from the larger AGDQ and SGDQ events as a scrappy, indie event all of their own. This sense of fun persists all throughout the day during The Chomp (where they recap the day before and talk about the upcoming day’s runs), the prize segments (anytime Corvimae appears, I know that I am guaranteed to be falling over laughing), or the random other studio segments and interviews that are occasionally interspersed in.
For all this crazy fun and high-end speedrunning, Frame Fatales successfully demands to be taken seriously as they raise money for charity. This year’s Flame Fatales charity is the Malala Fund, an international, non-profit that advocates for girls’ education. You can (and should!) read more about them on their official website, but the Malala Fund invests money in everything from supporting Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education for young women in Pakistan to creating safe learning spaces for girls in northern Nigeria. And this year, Frame Fatales got the Malala, the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner who co-founded Malala Fund alongside her father, to sit down for an interview with frozenflygone to open the event up:
Take the time to watch that interview and the questions frozenflygone asks, as you won’t regret it.
As of me writing this article, Flame Fatales has raised $38,542 USD for the Malala Fund so far. That’s a lot of money that will do a lot of good in this world. And you know what? Flame Fatales is not even half-over yet.
There are still runs for Sonic CD Restored (run by FawkesRocks), Sonic Origins (SnowballSMB), and Sonic R (Risuruuu) today. If you’re free tonight, then there is a bonus game for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (goodgortho) and an expert guitar showcase in Rock Band 3 (dijonketchup) to watch. And as we head into the weekend, you can catch runs of a Fresh Hops kazio run by frozenflygone, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (Master Collection) by Kialee, and Super Mario Odyssey by CheeseJay to close the event out. The run that I am personally looking forward to the most is to see Corvimae run Pokémon Alpha Sapphire with Sanjan and Swiftalu on the couch on Thursday afternoon. This is because I know that will be a blast to watch as these three riff off of each other (especially since Corvimae and Swiftalu have been incredibly funny and entertaining when on camera together/separately in the past) while also showing off all of three’s deep knowledge of the Pokémon franchise and speedrun strategies.
In other words, there is literally something for everyone to watch during Flame Fatales. And if donating for women’s education is not a good enough reason to watch, then how about possibly winning some awesome prizes?
Every day of Flame Fatales, there are various prizes that you can win for donating. For a minimum donation of $5, you can be entered to win something incredibly cool like a Sleepy Kirby Perler (donated by gretaicevixen) on Day four. On Day three, a minimum donation of $50 earns you an entry to win a papercrafted doghouse from Silent Hill by Sky Burkson. And if you donate $200 cumulatively over the entire Flame Fatales event, you can win a bundle of Fire Emblem’s Edelgard Axe, a Nintendo Switch, and a copy of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, all donated by Cute Monster Props. Just look at the axe you can win:
If you tune into Awesome Games Done Quick and Summer Games Done Quick, then you should definitely take the time and catch a run or two (or three!) of Flame Fatales. And you should definitely donate some money to the Malala Fund through the GDQ website and go buy some of the official event merch through The Yetee, who donates a portion of the merchandise’s proceeds to the Malala Fund as well. When you donate, be sure to select an incentive. These incentives do everything from make the speedrun harder for a particular game to naming a character or even picking which ending to achieve. They are a fun way to influence the event itself, and they give minigoals throughout for donators to watch.
The event runs from 12:30 PM Eastern to roughly 12:30 AM Eastern every day through Saturday night, and they replay most of the day’s events overnight as well. And any runs you miss are put up fairly quickly on the GamesDoneQuick YouTube channel.
If you’ve made it this far, and you’re somehow STILL not convinced that Frame Fatales deserves your time and your charity dollars, then let me present you with this run of Waluigi’s Taco Stand from Frozen Fatales 2023’s event.
While Char_bunny and jenneticist were racing to see who could complete the game first, there was simultaneously a donation bid war going to determine what ingredients (ranging from eyeballs to bully horns and hot sauce) the two runners were then going to build their tacos with live on camera to eat afterwards. Oh, and they are both dressed like Waluigi in the ROM-hack game because a pre-run donation incentive was met. And finally, as you watch this, just keep in mind that Char_bunny does not like spicy food. I cannot think of anything that so perfectly encapsulates the humor, friendship, craziness, and quality speedrunning that Frame Fatales puts into every single one of their events than this video below:
Take the time to tune in during the rest of this week to Flame Fatales. And go donate to the Malala Fund while you’re at it. You won’t regret it. Trust me.
Flame Fatales 2024, hosted by Frame Fatales, is running from August 18, 2024, to August 24, 2024, on Twitch and you can check out the upcoming runs here.
What is your favorite run from Flame Fatales 2024? What are you looking forward to seeing?
Let us know in the comments below!
