#flag stuff

⏜𓂂𝄞　 　︵‿　SYYREN FLAG

Syyrens are different than Sirens cuz instead of being half human and half bird / fish 、 Syyrens are half human and half doll with water powers and melodic voices 、yes Syyrens can breathe underwater 。

long post maybe but i just want to explain my process before revealing my design proposal!

i dont usually venture into a lot of flag design related things but as a nb lesbian myself and as someone who cares a lot about color and design, ive always had a few gripes, well more than a few, with the “commonly accepted” nb lesbian flag (the pink and yellow one aka the “pink lemonade” design). 

for instance, it’s always been kind of hard to parse the difference between the extremely light pastel hues and the way the colors just kind of blend together without any clear placement. another peeve i have with this iteration is that the colors themselves aren’t as representative of the nb spectrum as they could've been - i know it’s weird to say that pink is always The Go To “feminine” color and of course pink is in no way a girl/feminine exclusive color, but when paired with lighter, more pastel tones, the “pink lemonade” flag has to me always seemed more orientated towards feminine nb lesbians than all nb lesbians as a whole if you get what i’m saying. 

ideally i’ve always figured that a nonbinary lesbian flag should try to strike a nice balance between both flags, incorporating elements of both in an equal way where an element of one is not dominating the presence of the other - i’m in no ways the first to think this, i’ve seen a metric ton of nb lesbian flag proposals where both the lesbian and nonbinary flag are made into one. but more often than not, it can come off as just putting the colors together and that’s really the extent of it.

it’s also incredibly important to mention that the creator/s of the “pink lemonade” nb lesbian flag have, from the accounts of those involved with them, done a lot of things to hurt a lot of people. i’m not going to get into specifics of what they’ve done both out of respect for those affected by the situation and to spare you the details that i don’t feel comfortable covering as someone not affected by their behavior directly, but suffice it to say if you do go looking for information about the creator/s of this design you will find accounts of the affected individuals recounting their experiences with them. be aware that this situation involves a lot of potentially triggering material on the creators behalf.

in the conclusion of the warning document, those affected have also stated that given everything the creators have done, that they wish for the pink lemonade flag and other flags made by them to not be used or circulated, as even if indirectly, it gives positive attention to those behind it. for that reason i feel it’s important to offer up an alternative design if only to get the current one to stop being perpetuated as The nonbinary lesbian flag given the toxic behavior its creator/s have exhibited, and in its place bring something that represents the nb lesbian community in a way not associated with their actions.

so to keep track here’s what my goals for my design of the nb lesbian flag have been:

removing any resemblance to the pink lemonade flag

designing the flag in such a way where it retains elements of both the lesbian and nb flags, but not so much as to where it’s ‘too derivative’ for lack of a better wording of either, making it something more subtle yet distinct

inclusivity of the nb experience, not just in variety of colors but in meanings behind the stripes and acknowledgement for all kinds of nb lesbians (xenogenders, transfems and transmascs etc)

making the colors of the flag go together and work in harmony with each other while also ensuring that each color is readable and that the color placement doesn’t blend into itself

with all that being said, after a few weeks of brainstorming and a few cases of trial and error, i finally drafted a design that really personally struck with me and after fine tuning it a little bit, here’s the design i came up with! introducing my proposal for the nonbinary lesbian flag, or as i’ve come to call it - the magma flag!

now you may be asking why i’ve dubbed this one the magma flag, and well to put it simply it’s because you can draw a cool little volcano with its colors (i know it’s technically called lava if it comes OUT of a volcano but sh. shUT UP let me have this it’s cool) and also because the colors have a warm, inviting feel to them!

what i’ve done here is keep the overall recognizable structure of the lesbian flag, specifically the sunset orange white and purple popularized by emily gwen, but added some aspects of the nb flag, like the prominence of the color yellow and deep royal purple and black, making it noticeably a mixture of the two while balancing the colors together in a way that flows nicely, but in a discernible way.

here’s the meaning behind each stripe! i put a lot of thought and meaning into these, and i made an effort to make sure that each one meant something significant to the community.

and finally, here’s some more saturated and muted alternative versions as well as simplified renditions of those in the style of the 5-stripe simplified sunset lesbian flag!

there’s no need to ask for my permission if you ever want to include this flag in any edits, icons or art, or any other forms of work - you have my full go ahead to do so! this flag is meant to represent the nb lesbian community as a whole after all. if you do end up using this flag there’s no need to tag me or anything - credit is appreciated but not mandatory if u catch my drift!

Here's it's symbolism, and these are lovely, but also most of these are updated. The use of blue, white, and red, was originally just to pattern it after the United States, because the Philippines was inspired by their revolution, and also got free of Spanish Colonialism due to American Colonialism. Anyway, the new color symbolism is important, because the red side goes up during times of war, which is neat, and unique to the Philippine flag. It's supposed to represent having to put bravery over peace.

Might catch some shit for this one, but here we go boys and girls.

Before I get into the actual opinion, first I want to say that it really bugs me how the exact colours and orientation of most pride flags changes almost constantly. Seriously, google any pride flag, a lot of the time you’ll look at like four different flags.

Now, the actual thing I’m talking about here, Pride flags look really lazy.

I’m not 100% sure the history of a lot of these,. But as far as I know, the first flag of the bunch was the good old rainbow flag.

Now, this one I like. The rainbow has a lot of history with LGBT people. one part that I find particularly touching is the song “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” sung by Judy Garland. The song resonated with LGBT people at the time because the lyrics talking of somewhere better, where hope is alive, exists, albeit just pout of reach.

There are issues with it, as with every flag. If you print it wrong, or use the wrong colours, it can come off very garish, or some of the colours can clash. There’s also the “meaning” behind every stripe. I don’t know them by heart, but it’s like passion, nature, and magic for some reason. You know, things that aren’t tied particularly closely with anything about being LGBT.

But, it’s a good flag.

Then comes this guy.

The bisexual flag. Sticking with horizontal stripes? Okay sure. There aren’t all that many nice looking designs you can do with flags. Kind of seems like it’s aping the rainbow a bit, but it could just be a happy accident.

Maybe it’s because I’m bi-ased (funny pun), but I like this one. It’s a bit simple and minimal. A little sparse. But the pink and blue, with the purple in between, represents bisexual attraction pretty well. Officially, the pink means same-gender attraction, blue meaning opposite-gender attraction, and the purple representing bisexuals’ attraction to both. You could also say it’s guys girls and all, whatever floats your funky boat.

The gay man flag looks something like this:

 As I mentioned before, there are a bunch of variations. Different colours, sometimes it’s upside down. What’s it supposed to look like? Fuck if I know. Wikipedia didn’t include any variant in their pride flags article. How nice of them.

And here are the horizontal stripes again. What do they mean? I have absolutely no clue. Maybe blue for boys? But then what’s the green for? Unlike the bi flag, the colours don’t seem to clearly represent any particular attraction. And unlike the LGBT Rainbow it’s not (to my knowledge) any kind of historically gay symbol. It’s just... a stripy flag?

I’m sure buy now you can see where I’m going with this, but I’m going to keep hammering the point.

Lesbian flag?

Damn straight, it’s just some stripes. What do they mean? 

Well, this is the 5 stripe version remake of the 7 stripe version that someone made that probably just ripped off the version that was the Lipstick lesbian flag with the kiss-mark taken off. The lipstick lesbian one had all pink shades to represent the feminine aspect of being a lipstick lesbian.

Anyway... The Trans flag, huh?

Yep, more bars going left to right. The last three (Gay, lesbian, Trans) are even 5 stripes with the middle one being white. What’s up with that?

Okay, the Trans one... I get it. blue and pink for male and female. probably. Not sure how the transition fits in exactly, but at least it looks nice. Honestly, probably by personal favourite looking of the flags.

Even the other Identities are at it.

Ace flag?

Bunch of stripes. The grey probably is meant to represent no attraction (although it seems to perpetuate the idea that not having sex makes you boring... oops.)

The Pan, Omni and Poly flags are even all just the bi flag with the purple bit replaced with a colour that looks 10X worse.

Replacing the purple also took out the actual meaning of the bi flag, replacing it with random garbage that looks bad

Anyway, TL;DR, just having horizontal stripes.is boring. and honestly, we deserve (and can do) better.