ForestBoard

NOTE: This is OOC and not IC.

!DISCLAMER! Jutsa was made back in 2015, and keep in mind I was only 16 at the time with very little experience in mapmaking and a more idealistic, simplistic, and self-discovering view of the world at the time, so many of these primordial flags are like looking at children's drawings. Very cute... but also quite potentially cringe.

Without further ado: The gallery!

Era 1: The Early Symbological Era

Flag Screenshot 1: The Beginnings

Flag was originally meant to symbolize things I quite liked. It quickly developed into the second flag, though, which tried to give a slightly less obviously-human view of the world. (I already set out this would be an alien world at the time.)

Flag Screenshot 2: The End of the Beginning

Changed "creativity" out for "liberty", made the symbols a bit different. Still obviously bad though, despite the cute intentions. This flag, along with the first, actually lasted a fair while, since it was my first and I didn't really question it much after the revisions.

Flag Screenshot 3: The Revision

So, I wasn't quite happy with the last version, so I remade it! I still obviously hadn't gotten into my head the plethora of reasons why this is bad as a national flag, but I wanted to put words describing my beliefs onto a map. (Actually, Sensibility was really thrown in mainly as a "balance" option, although I suppose as a symbol representing environmental protection and integrity it worked out well.)

Era 2: The Late Symbological Era

Flag Screenshot 4: The Flagification

So as you can see, this almost resembles a flag. The imagery has been simplified, albeit doubled (I needed something to put in the middle. The flag's main colours also symbologically echo the prior symbols (again, I loved - still love - colour). I later put an extra bar to the left of the flag to essentially cover all of the "states" of Jutsa that existed in the new map I made for it (which were also relatively bad, but considerably better than the actual flags). This strip actually lead into the next screenshot.

Flag Screenshot 5: The Simplification

So here you see the bar featuring several squares representing states (I did not want to use stars; too Earthly). I also drastically simplified the symbols even further so they were merely a shape along with the "secondary" colour. As you can see, I've somehow managed to decrease the number of colours - although, now there's also dark grey, silver, and still black outline. Neither this nor the previous flag lasted terribly long.

Flag Screenshot 6: The Recoloring

This flag I was actually content with for a comparatively long time. It's a bit heavy - mainly with the sheer amount of colors (I didn't like the grey; too uncolorful) and symbols (particularly with the states and regions markers). Still Lots of borders, still lots of symbology, and now more colours; but I was happy with it. Sadly, Forum 7 mostly seemed to disagree.

Flag Screenshot 7: Aliens!

Ah, yes, this was when I finally went ahead and decided that I wanted to instead embody my alien-based characters on the flag. This was in large part because my in-game population was reaching a rather big number, and I began to consider Jutsa less and less as a country and more as a world, with the states and regions represented by the squares and diamonds becoming nations and continents - and also featuring pretty colours (though less of them!). This flag actually did not last too long, simply because, interesting as the eye shape might be, I wasn't too sure how I felt about it representing Jutsa. This lead into the next era of flagmaking:

Era 3: The Formative Era

Flag Screenshot 8: Zouveland

So this flag wasn't made for Jutsa at all. See, at the time I made several of these flags, I had already also made a plethora of other really bad flags (which I may tack onto this factbook as well, even though most aren't quite as bad, some are still pretty gnarly) - and I couldn't keep up with my puppets, which died. I decided I liked Zouveland's flag the most (still agree with that, too; Zouveland has an interesting history of its own), plus it already featured eight little "stars" on it - perfect for the regions! As such, I took it for Jutsa, but soon began to revisit the idea I had for my previous flag.

Flag Screenshot 9: The Variegated Revenge of the Symbological Era

Yup! So this was after several, rapid adjustments, and ended up being one of my longest-lasting flags (at the time)! I decided to re-add the alien-eye-representation thing, but with a different, more symmetrical and more symbolic take. Of course, I also felt bad leaving behind all of my pretty colours - almost guilty! So sure enough, I added them all back, along with the original symbological shapes as miniature flags - a throwback to the early days. With this, I was quite happy! (Again much to much of Forum 7's disagreement hehe) But, of course, as you can tell by my current flag, this would eventually come to pass as well - but not entirely.

Flag Screenshot 10: The Borders Destroyed

Having revisited some flag discussions (probably Forum 7 flag rating games again), I finally realized that black borders on everything was a really bad idea! That's actually the largest difference between this and the previous flag, aside from the expansion of the "wings" to cover the full middle. Of course, I didn't want to throw out the "wing" shape entirely, so I also added neat little lightning rods on the sides. Originally I was going to add alien vine-like things to it, but even I had to draw the line of complexity there. This flag also lasted a surprising amount of time.

Era 4: The Pixelated Modern Era

Disclaimer: So this "era" really only has two flags, but because I made so many variant flags, and also had this one, substantially different flag for most of that time - in fact, quite possibly 3 years (I can't remember) - I think it's safe to give this its own "era".

Screenshot 11: The Second Simplification

This flag was a revamp from the last one. I had a lot of help from Forum 7 and flag-making youtube videos - largely thanks to Artifexian (great channel, please check it out). I finally got it in my head that more complexity does not mean more epicness, despite my inner urge to resist the advice that "less is more". It pained me to rip the bandaid and drain my flag of its dozen colours to four, but it was worth it. Of course, it still had complexity. I wanted to fill in the empty space, and I still wasn't sure how much I wanted to part with my old symbols, so I remade them in little orbs. Of course, there being eight orbs, I also created new (and recreated a couple old) symbols to mean something else. I don't remember what they mean, of course - and I wouldn't be too surprised if a couple just looked "neat".

Screenshot 12: The Pride of Jutsa

Forum 7 continued to help me, and I finally turned my quad-colour to a tri-color. They're still bright, of course - I loved the colours that I had, however, and I felt they had a deeper, more real-life-based meaning to them (even if this was supposed to be alian). I still did not feel comfortable getting rid of the orbs, but I agreed - the symbolism was distracting. I did, however, remember the 8-continents thing I had going on with prior flags, and so turned each orb's symbol into little "snow flake" of sorts, representing eight free worlds encased in wealth binded together through integrity. This was the flag I was most happy with for a long time, and it remained my flag for... maybe 3 years? 4? I can't remember, honestly... but it was a really long time.

Screenshot 12.1: Octoberfest

So I also decided I wanted holiday-themed variants for my flags! This one's for Halloween, and also wound up being my Season 2 flag (in part because my computer died right when I was going to change it back and right as Season 2 came out... :))

Screenshot 12.2: Winterfest

Wanted to make it look like it was a bow-tied present. :3

Screenshot 12.3: Winter Period

Also wanted one for January... I was starting to like the idea of monthly flags (which I was also in the process of doing for my minecraft skin before I settled on September).

Screenshot 12.4: Return of the Love

Guess a heart snuck its way into Jutsa's flag again after all. :') (Although canonically this is a traumatizing prank because the Pink Hats/Coats were "oppressive socialists" that ruined Jutsa's economy, but I digress.)

Screenshot 12.5: March of the Jutsae

I'm aware St. Patrick's Day is kind of a US thing, but I liked how green it looked and besides I think Forest had a green-thing going on. (I mean. It's Forest. Greenery is kind of important there.)

Era 5: The Post-Vector Modern Era

Screenshot 13: The Rebirth

So, becoming cartographer of Forest entailed learning Inkscape. Since I applied in... June 2021, I believe? Maybe May. Anyhow, since I applied, I figured I ought to get used to the program. I also realized how nice everything was... and then looked at the flag I had for so many years. I realized it was time for a change. I also wanted something less obnoxiously bright, and so I remade Jutsa as displayed here! That said, this flag did not last terribly long...

Screenshot 13b: The Alternative

I contemplated changing to this, actually! It was essentially what I used for Zouveland (a DIFFERENT flag of Zouveland... like I said, it had a long history. This was back when it was a state of intergalactic phage viruses working for a Star Wars themed region The Ragerian Imperium was associated with). I decided, though I kind of liked the shape, it was too big a shape change for me to feel comfortable with. That said, the two stars would've theoretically made more sense given my Forest nation's split between the north and south.

Screenshot 14: Green Capitalizm

Maybe it was the fact that I couldn't get the original colour scheme to feel right. Maybe it was because I decided to make major policy changes to Jutsa (again) that made it more capitalist. Maybe I felt my last flag was getting stale. Maybe it was just hot and I wanted a less heat-inducing flag. Regardless of which (I think it was all of the above), I ended up trying out hue/saturation modifications to the flag, and ended up liking this one a lot. It felt a lot less warm and friendly, but felt a lot more fitting to Jutsa's increasing greed. In addition, it was much easier on the eyes (speaking of, I made the triangle under the eye smaller). This lasted most of the summer of 2021.

Screenshot 14b: Octoberfest 2.0

Hey it had a neat color scheme so I'm sharing it here. :p

Screenshot 14.5: The One that Never Was

I actually did like this, but it didn't feel right for Jutsa. Regardless, this was at a time where I was starting to feel like Jutsa's color pallet was too cold, and not quite representative enough. I tried merging the color pallet with the last one (hence the blue). I also took some advice from the flag rating contest thing Einswenn hosted around the time, which mentioned that a) the purple was not particularly good and b) the orbs were a bit much. I also thought the triangles would help fill out a bit more while helping decorate telegrams a bit nicer. This flag, however, never came to be.

Screenshot 15: The Color Complex

I could not get my flag to feel right. Removing the orbs was less painful than I thought it would be, once I readjusted the size of the flag relative to its central piece. I decided that I really wanted my maroon back, but I also really liked the foresty teal that I had with the capitalizt variant, and I wasn't about to part with gold. I realized that this was the color pallet I wanted, but something still felt a little off... and I could not put my finger on it. I went on Forest's discord to ask what folks thought, and AstroVulpes helped me extensively in picking out more complementary colours that were easier on the eyes. I think I am quite happy with this variant! (Originally the maroon and teal were switched, which does help the inner eye piece contrast a bit more, but a) this feels a lot less off/wrong-nostalgia-y given my last pixel-based one and b) this one has potential for cooler sash design imo). This flag has been in effect since September 22nd, 2021 - the same day I created this factbook. Keep in mind, this flag is also likely to change as I eternally struggle with discontentedness railing against and occasionally siding with other players pointing out how it really could stand significant improvement.

That's all of my flags to date. I hope you've enjoyed. :)

(Reserve spoiler for future flags*)