The ace flag was literally among the most collaborative effects to make a community symbol, I’ve at least personally ever seen, and used all the existing asexual symbolism that came before it. (The flag itself was made in 2010. )
The biggest icons of that time were largely a shades of grey gradient which drives me up the wall when people think asexuality has to be an absolute. (Or just make up complete bs that can be easily fact checked) Also given how threaded internet forums work and how google searches the internet it’s all really easy to check and even sometimes learn new stuff.
For example here’s a super cool thing about it I never heard in my 7 years of being here what feels like 24/7/365. It is believed purple was added by AVEN in 2001 as a secondary color to that prism based diversity symbolism. Specially choosing the amethyst crystal shade for it’s relationship to the Greek story that mentions a nymph named Amethyst (or Amethystas). In it, Dionysus was hitting on her and she wasn’t into it so Artemis helped protect the nymph by turning her into white quartz. Dionysus then showed he made a mistake and poured wine over the amethyst stone, staining it purple.
Here’s some art from a different version of the story where Dio was less hitting on her, and more accidentally on purpose annoyed with her and risked a mortals life via the threat of tiger. And then Dio cries wine in remorse turning the stone purple.
As you can see above a white to purple gradient. Whatever the original version of the story the heart of it is: Artemis saved someone from harm and the person who caused the harm realized their grave mistake.
Some even take the story further, saying that in ancient Greece, wine goblets were carved out of Amethyst to protect royalty from getting too drunk and making fools of themselves in the same way Dionysus had before them.
Which not only makes my pagan heart happy to know forever now know the ace shade of purple has Artemis meaning, but also that shade of purple meant that people were reminded to ‘not make the mistakes of the past and make fools of ourselves that harm people who aren’t interested.’