The flag of Flag Wars
"Tumblr’s home for vexillology and heraldry polls and tournaments."
— The description of the blog.
Flag Wars
is an ongoing vexillology tournament blog on Tumblr dedicated to finding the best flags, coats of arms, and emblems. It features multiple vexillology and heraldry tournaments, as well as many bonus rounds that feature miscellaneous polls between flags. The first tournament began in February of 2023.
Tournaments hosted on Flag Wars:
- Flag Wars—A tournament to find the best flag. Won by the Laser Kiwi flag.
- Worst Flag Wars—A tournament to find the worst flag. Won by the flag of Brown County, Nebraska.
- People's Flag Wars—A tournament where people can submit flags they've designed to compete. Won by the flag of Litichovice, Czechia which was designed by Kryštof Huk.
- Heraldry and Emblem Wars—A tournament to find the best coat of arms or emblem. Won by the coat of arms of Mexico.
- Historical Flag Wars—A tournament to find the best flag of a historical country, movement or group as well as other flags that are not currently in use. Won by the flag of the Kingdom of Amber.
- People's Flag Wars 2—The second People's Flag Wars tournament. Won by Kairouan, Tunisia proposal which was designed by Gargari.
- Dragon Flag Wars—A tournament to find the best flag with a dragon on it. Won by the flag of Qing Dynasty.
- Salem-Verse Flag Wars —A tournament to find the best recolored variant of the flag of Salem, Oregon, using the color schemes of other flags. Won by the Lincoln, Nebraska recolor of Salem.
- Sunflower Flag Wars—A tournament to find the best flag with a sunflower on it. Won by Sunflower Achillean.
- Japanese Prefecture Flag Wars—A tournament to find the best Japanese prefecture flag. Won by Saga Prefecture.
- 2023 New Czech Flag Wars—A tournament to find the best new Czech flag of 2023. Won by Křečhoř, Czechia.
- 2023 New Flag Wars—A tournament to find the best new flag of 2023. Won by Křečhoř, Czechia.
- Bisexual Fusion Flag Wars—A tournament to find the best flag fused with the bisexual flag. Won by the bisexual version of South Ostrobothnia, Finland.
Tropes:
- April Fools' Day:
- A post was made on April Fools' Day of 2023 claiming that the Monsterfucker flag was the winner of the Pride Flag Wars, even though there hadn't even been a pride flag tournament.
- For April Fools' Day of 2024, many strange and absurd polls were made all day such as ones that use made up flags such as "Provo 2 vs. Provo 3", or other unusual polls like a "Fuck, Marry, Kill" poll between the Baltic state flags.
- Burning the Flag: After the transgender flag beat the American flag in a poll to decide which should be the flag of the United States, a post was made featuring a burning American flag to represent it no longer being the country's flag.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: There are a few battles in which one flag won by an incredibly huge margin. For instance, the flag of Barbieland beat the United States with 95.7 percent of the vote, and the transgender flag beat Florida with 94.9 percent of the vote.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The first tournament featured some minor differences from future polls.
- The prelims showed all the flags in one image with their names shown below. All future prelims would instead feature the flags as separate images.
- The first prelims showed the title of the tournament and the round/bracket number in the top of the poll. All future round would instead have this below the poll.
- The first competition had the poll titles follow the format of "X vs. Y". Most future polls would usually instead follow the format of "Which flag is better: X or Y?"
- Edutainment: While made to focus on fun polls, another purpose of the blog is to educate people about flags, many of which are obscure.
- Eye Beams: The most unique part of the flag is that the kiwi is shooting a green laser beam from its eyes.
- The Face of the Sun: Many flags that appeared in polls feature suns with faces on them, such as the flag of Argentina.
- Fictional Flag: Many of the flags in polls are fictional, proposed, or unofficial.
- The flag representing the Flag Wars features a blue kiwi in front of a white square with a white cross behind it over a blue field.
- The focus of the People's Flag Wars and the second People's Flag Wars is original flags submitted by anyone. While there are a few official flags in the competition, most are fictional.
- 420, Blaze It: On April 20 (4/20), there were multiple posts featuring the flag of Kanepi Parish, Estonia, as the flag features a marijuana leaf.
- Glowing Eyes: The kiwi's eyes are glowing green as it shoots out lasers.
- Jolly Roger: A flag attributed to Blackbeard appears in the Historical Flag Wars.
- Killer Rabbit: The flag features an adorable kiwi that would be assumed to be harmless. However, this kiwi is shown to be a major threat due to the lasers it shoots from its eyes.
- Mascot: The Laser Kiwi flag serves as the blog's mascot due to it winning the first Flag Wars tournament. The flag representing the blog features a kiwi based on the one on the Laser Kiwi flag.
- The Mothman: A version of the rainbow pride flag featuring Mothman that is sold by Flags For Good appears in a poll.
- No Swastikas: Fascist flags are banned from competing in any polls on the blog.
- Non-Indicative Name: The Plain Blue Banner and the other of the Eight Banners certainly aren’t plain as their names suggest, having very busy and complicated designs.
- Our Demons Are Different: The flag of Dlouhá Třebová has appeared multiple times in polls and features a black "devil in the form of a dragon".
- The Phoenix: Multiple flags in polls have contained phoenixes, including Phoenix, Arizona, San Francisco, and the SF Fog and Gold Flag.
- Precision F-Strike: The account generally contains little swearing, but one of the exceptions is when it referred to a flag that featured a thin blue line flag being pulled away by a hand to reveal a dog looking at a cross as "whatever the fuck this thing is".
- Shout-Out: There have been multiple references and promotions of the podcast Flagged for Content.
- Tagline: It’s description says that it is "Tumblr’s home for vexillology and heraldry polls and tournaments."
- Take That!: Some polls are made to be clearly biased towards a certain flag as an intentional insult. For instance, there are Take Thats towards the United States and Florida by putting them up against the transgender flag, polls that they would obviously lose on Tumblr.
- Queer Colors: Many pride flags have been in polls. The lesbian flag reached the finals in the first tournament.
