The tale of the Rose Quartz flags

The first time I heard about the existence of the Rose Quartz flag, it was because I follow Steven Universe's Facebook page and they were offering a giveaway.

Seeing that it was also up for pre-sale, I opted NOT to enter because, well, I'm fortunate enough to be able to buy most things I want, and as a collector of SU merch, I might as well just purchase it and not take the chance away from someone else. Let some other person be lucky.

And then people on the Internet started saying they were receiving free flags in the mail unexpectedly. I assumed that they were sweepstakes winners, but no; they had no recognition of the sweepstakes.

Just...random flags they hadn't been expecting, with a letter.

After some time, it became clear that these packages were originating from iam8bit, the company that made the Steven Universe Soundtrack's vinyl album set. Customers who bought the set were receiving a surprise follow-up Crystal Gems battle flag.

From that point, I assumed it must be randomly selected SU vinyl purchasers, but then I saw this.

Okay hold up. I preordered the vinyl too, and didn't get a flag.

(Man, that was a lot of waiting from that preorder too, because of the pressing error that caused the vinyl company to push the release back, requiring them to send these cute gift certificates to people in case they ordered them for a holiday gift.)

Anyway, I didn't start to feel left out until I saw that vinyl preorder customers were all getting them and I didn't. In general I NEVER expect something for nothing, and since the item was still available to me through ordinary purchase, I couldn't really be mad. But still! How come I was excluded?

Out of all the SU fans to not be included in something like this, I thought it was super weird that I'd missed out. Frankly, I'm an effusive, prolific, ridiculous superfan. I tweeted about the vinyl when it came in (and the company even answered me). I collect all the merch--toys, linens, books and comics, kitchen items, you name it. I'm the Top Contributor of SU merch on Amazon. I've cosplayed as several characters. Learned most of the songs on ukulele. Duplicate the recipes. Analyze the characters. Create fanart out the wazoo and make music videos.

But no Rose Quartz flag for me.

:persevere: :persevere: :persevere:

I received my purchased flag some time after the wave of surprise flags seemed to be over. It appeared indistinguishable from those I'd seen online--I'd been worried I wouldn't get the cute letter that comes with it, but I did.

I saw some folks online suggesting that vinyl customers who'd not received flags should customer service, so I did, while specifying that I didn't really expect them to send me one but wanted to let them know if all vinyl customers were supposed to get one, I'd been overlooked. They responded apologizing and saying nothing could be done because the flags had all gone out, but I could get a discount on my next purchase. Oh well.

So!! I figured it was fine that I got a flag my own way, and decided to just be content with that.

But then...another identical one showed up.

The culprit:

A forwarding label.

I have moved since my vinyl preorder. But I had done what you were supposed to do; I called and had my address updated when I moved in September, and received my vinyl collection at the correct new address. Looks like they went from the original ordering list, not the updated records. D'oh!

And that's the story of how I came to have two Rose Quartz flags.

This is now a Rose Quartz appreciation post, featuring all my Rose Quartz stuff.

Not sure what to do with them yet. For right now I'm clipping them up with my plushies.