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the full schedule for summer games done quick 2025, benefitting doctors without borders, was just posted! it looks like the finale this year will be deltarune!

games done quick is an organization that hosts charity events showcasing video games played with top-level skill. speedruns, challenge runs, randomizers, and knocking people's socks off by playing video games wrong for some fantastic causes. to date, GDQ has raised tens of MILLIONS of dollars (USD) for charity.

there are a bunch of great video game-themed prizes to win. summer games done quick raises money for a group called doctors without borders.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) cares for people affected by conflict, disease outbreaks, natural and human-made disasters, and exclusion from health care in more than 70 countries.

from the doctors without borders website. money raised watching video games goes directly towards saving lives all over the world. SGDQ is their top fundraiser!

this is a really fun way to do a TON of good. summer games done quick 2025 will be held july 6 through july 13, with awesome stuff happening 24 hours a day, both in person in minneapolis and streaming online. literally 24/7!

in addition to the two main events of awesome games done quick (in the winter!) and summer games done quick (in the summer!) games done quick also has awesome programming alongside other smaller charity events year-round! if you like video games, check them out!

games done quick kicks ass! who else is fucking hype for SGDQ!!! which runs are you looking forward to?

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I think I’m in love with you.

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new ghost face skin!!

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Day 3

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was the return of the gotdamn 1930s dust bowl in chigao on your bingo list this year cause it sure as hell wasn’t on mine - a fellow chicagoan

every hundred years...........welcome back The Dust Bowl of 1930

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the entire mangadex purge and the discussion around piracy and copyright just reminded me of a quote: "culture shouldn't exist only for those who can afford it"

wish I had something more profound to say, but the entire thing just sucks and it's just the flailing of companies pulling back the leash of their property, even and especially at the cost of their own face

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The duality of my DBD killer mains

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@bramblepatch that is a really great question and there's actually a cool answer! Chicago has a robust public art program that has invested in the weirdest shit possible. And that's the point!

So Chicago has a lot of extremely normal sculptures- lots of historical figures, Lincoln, Goethe, this extremely shiny Alexander Hamilton...

And then there's some... other stuff, and it's mostly Pablo Picasso's fault.

So up until the late 50s/early 60s, most of the public art in Chicago was just... y'know, what we think of as public art. But in '63, the folks at the Chicago Civic Center wanted something new and fresh, and so they commissioned Pablo Picasso to do... well, really whatever he wanted. So he made this thing and ended up donating the design to the city. And the city was STOKED because this was Pablo Picasso we're talking about here, and so they started doing things like having all these press events and displaying the maquette without copyright notice and long story short, they accidentally turned it into the public domain... and they kinda leaned into that! it's public art, after all!

Naturally, art critics hated it, so that only made the city lean in more! Let's push boundaries! Let's go weird and abstract! Let's experiment and do things that other cities aren't doing! The push to collect and house contemporary art in the city also got a boost from the foundation of the Museum of Contemporary Art in 1967 and the development of the Art Institute's modern collection.

Then the 1968 Democratic National Convention happened and the statue got even MORE famous because of the pig. Jerry Rubin, Phil Ochs, and the other Yippies held a press conference where they nominated a pig named Pigasus for president of the United States right before the DNC kicked off. They held this at the Picasso statue, and then they were arrested for disorderly conduct. Yes, the pig was also arrested. The pictures and controversy surrounding everything about that convention shoved the Picasso into the spotlight on an even grander national scale, and it really became a striking emblem of the city.

So all this attention to a piece of art that made people really question what public art should and could be really pushed a lot of dialogue and decisions about art that the city continued to accept and commission. After the Picasso came Flamingo in '74:

Four Seasons, also in '74:

(less abstract but still VERY modern for civic art in what was the 2nd largest city in the country at the time)

Miro's Chicago in '79:

Monument with Standing Beast in '84:

And so on and so forth. This period of heavy investiture in large, public works of modern art helped cement Chicago as a place where contemporary art could thrive in public spaces- and we haven't really stopped! From Cloud Gate (the Bean) to Agora to a lot of neat, thought-provoking pieces scattered around the city. It's something I think is really cool, even if it did get us the nightmare that is Crown Fountain.

And if you want to read more about it, here's some more resources:

This guide is outdated, it's from the Rahm Emmanuel administration, but it has a lot of good pictures and locations for things. It also correctly uses the Sears Tower's name.

A couple of great blogs detailing and cataloguing Chicago's public art scene.

The Public Art Archive isn't Chicago-specific, but it has lots of collections to look at from cities all over the place!

A fascinating look at lost pieces of Chicago's public art- sadly, that now includes Monument with Standing Beast, since Google bought the Thompson Center and tore it down. (The Thompson Center had over 150 pieces of public art, an amazing collection... that's all in some state warehouse now. Hopefully it comes back or is displayed somewhere else that's public, since I'm not sure how much access we'll have to the Thompson Center once Alphabet moves in.)

Anyways I think public art is cool as hell thank you for reading this whole thing!

[dogencool]

Never mind I went up against Whitney and every single one of her Stomps flinched me. I wish my file had been wiped now

Just got the scare of my life from DeSmuMe seemingly wiping a save file of a really solid Nuzlocke I had going but thankfully everything seems fine after restarting my computer

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Just got the scare of my life from DeSmuMe seemingly wiping a save file of a really solid Nuzlocke I had going but thankfully everything seems fine after restarting my computer

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*pulls up to Sonic Drive-In* HEY *honks la cucuracha horn* YO DOES KNUCKLES WORK HERE

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"How are these characters so strong?"

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Everything's 50% OFF on my Ko-Fi this week!

If you're interested, hop in my inbox on Ko-Fi or Tumblr! I'll make a more thorough post this evening but please feel free to ask any questions you might have in the meantime!

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Its so well made its perfect