#vexillography

[pananananananananananananananana]

Illinois released all of the rejected applicants for the new state flag design contest, and I love so many of these that I have to share them lol.

[factual-entropy]

[flags-n-shit]

massachusetts just released their three finalists for a new state flag, and boy howdy do i have some thoughts

this one pisses me off. this is the most boring flag i’ve ever seen. like i know it’s a mayflower and the six pointed star is for mass being the sixth state and it’s got the state colours and by every metric it WORKS but frankly? i don’t care. it’s just so boring and basic and i feel like very little thought went into it. massachusetts deserves better

strictly speaking this one is also fine? like there’s nothing wrong with it. i personally don’t like flags that are straight up just a drawing of a landscape, and something about the squiggly lines pisses me off, but that’s just me. objectively speaking, this is an okay design.

this is my favorite out of the bunch. the turkey feathers are an important symbol to the indigenous peoples of the region, and there are six of them because massachusetts is the sixth state. i just really like the way this one looks. i kind of wish it had the state colours (blue and yellow), but it has the harvard colours which is the next best thing. honestly no complaints about this one

so yeah, these are all Okay but i would prefer the red one by a mile

side note, i was Shocked by how many AI submissions were allowed. there were like zero regulations for this contest. there’s a powerpoint online with all the submissions and it’s baffling how much AI got accepted. some of it even made it past the first round or two, which is wild. glad the finalists all seem to be human-made tho

[drinksss]

more country flags as beasts

[hazelmeerkat]

[sapphicsundial]

Zine I made last year to celebrate the start of black history month and also world vexillology day

[cunt-force-therapy]

Reddit can be GREAT sometimes

[thatssomegoodart]

decided to make flags for the little bee & bird war that's been going on outside my house for like 7 weeks

bug posts on tumblr tend to blow up, i swear if this post gets popular and fanart is made of the factions & stuff 😭. I am not opposed to getting drawn as a skrunkly little war photographer cat though lol.

OBSERVATION NOTES:

context: i live on the left side of a duplex; the right side will be referred to as "DN" (duplex neighbor), the neighbor by the right duplex / my right neighbor will be referred to as "RN", and the left neighbor will be referred to as "LN"

The crows HAVE killed a starling already (i unfortunately watched and heard that happen), and the crows dive bombed a tree causing mourning doves and sparrows to scatter (this was an hour after the previously mentioned starling incident). This happened across the street.

The sparrows sometimes fight the starlings, but not often (probably due to the size difference). Usually in the backyard.

The starlings bully the sparrows at any given moment and seem to avoid the crows. They are seemingly running a food monopoly. Shoutout to the starling that mimics the calls of geese and a red tailed hawk screech.

The robins, ravens, and hawks do not play any visible part in the war rn, probably because they're rare around here.

The sparrows seem to take advantage of the distracted bees and swoop and eat them.

The mourning doves seem to not play any part and are overall peaceful from what i've witnessed, although i've rarely heard distressed calls from them and i assume its the crows doing the attacking.

Eggs have been knocked out of the dove nests between my house and RN's house.

There was a rabbit nest mass casualty event yesterday, had to rescue an injured baby bunny and hand it over to a rehab center.

The carpenter bee colonies are mainly fighting one another

The bumbleebee and leafcutter bee colonies occasionally get dragged into the mess

The mining bees actively engage any carpenter bee and anything that looks like carpenter bee adjacent ON SIGHT (i've watched bumblebees catch strays from the mining bees)

Do not know what part the great black digger wasps (Sphex pensylvanicus) play, i've only seen them today, so either A) there is a colony of them that got disturbed by the mining bees or B) they're here to feed on the wild Bishop's Lace around the area

I noped tf inside when i saw the wasp.

The sweat bees have not seemed to engage in the war, they just come and go

While trying to get my cat in the house today (she was hiding in a bush located in RN's garden space between the duplex and their house), I had to step over a small bush, and i got approached by an angry leafcutter bee. They have approached me numerous times and i have no clue why, involuntary acting as a startled deer usually seems to make them disinterested.

There were three colonies of carpenter bees, but "#2", as i named them, the colony that also nested in our house alongside #1, are seemingly gone. #3 seems to nest in LN's roof.

I presume the leafcutter and bumblebee colonies are allies because i have not observed them fighting each other