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The Bear Blog Carnival

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A monthly carnival on Bear Blog, where a host picks a theme and the community writes responses. Originally run by Cris, now continuing on the Grizzly Gazette.

Table Of Contents

How It Works

At each month's beginning, a host announces their theme. Participants write posts on their sites in response. You don't have to be on Bear Blog, but it's encouraged!

When you publish yours, send a link to the host so they can see it.

As submissions arrive, the host collates them. Anyone can read through and discover new blogs. If you'd like to host a future month, contact the carnival organizers!

Carnival List

Below is a running list of all Bear Blog Carnival editions, organized by year. Each entry links to the host's roundup post where you can explore the submissions.

2026

2026

2025

2025

Host Interviews

Each month, if the hosts have the capacity, I ask them the following five questions about their theme. I love learning about what goes into picking a prompt!

  1. What made you want to host a month?
  2. How did you land on your theme?
  3. Did you worry the theme might be too broad or too narrow?
  4. What was your favorite part of hosting?
  5. Would you host again, and if so, what would you want to explore next?

Listed below are their responses, and what month and year they hosted.

Dec 2025: Xaya

Dec 2025: Xaya

In Dec 2025, Xaya hosted 'Lavender Media That Made You Feel Things'.

Q1: What made you want to host a month? How did you land on your theme?

From my Advent calendar out takes and art log post: (the carnival was part of the 2025 grizzly gazette advent calendar)

I had some strong feelings about Kpop Demon Hunters for months [about the queer elements]. So I was wondering if other people had similar feelings and critique for their beloved shows and movies that had queer undertones. Winther [a fellow bear blogger] suggested it be a carnival thing, and here we are. The original title was "Queer media that made you feel things". But I didn't want unwanted or negative attention on people's posts list if they didn't post queer things, or weren't feeling safe, so I decided to replace queer with lavender. While it does signify more of the lesbian part of being queer, I did intend it to be for anyone, and was happy to get some submissions from diverse people. Also, it's a great colour.

Q2: Did you worry the theme might be too broad or too narrow?

When I first proposed it, some people weren't able to see what the prompt really meant, especially if they weren't queer. I meant for the prompt to be for everyone, including non-queer people's experiences on queer media, but it kinda made it all the more confusing. It did fear it might be too vague, but fortunately I was able to clear some initial confusion in the grizzly gazette's discord server before I posted the host post.

Q3: What was your favourite part of hosting?

Besides getting posts about your prompt, it was the doodles I got to make along the way haha. I was even more excited since it was a December post, and I wanted to make it as Christmas-y as I could with the snow css, and the Christmas doodle alongside the lavender TV screen that you can see here on the host post. I had some more doodles planned for another post I wanted to publish for the carnival, but I ended up not having time for it, maybe one of these days I will get around to it.

But the thing that is the most exciting were really getting posts and seeing how people interpret your prompt, it's really fun. This is the most basic answer for this kind of question, but that's what makes the carnival special to me. I get to read stuff on my favourite topic because I prompted it... that's so wild and magical. I ended up getting some recommendations to some movies and discovered some more parts of my identity and the people close to me through those posts.

Q4: Would you host again, and if so, what would you want to explore next?

I would! I just need to find some time outside of university and work stuff, which I'm really bad at.

I threw out some ideas in the discord server to see if something resonates, I've been leaning towards asking people about the one small science thing that interests them or guides them in some way, doesn't have to be hard science, even an everyday thing that is so mundane, but you keep thinking about a lot. I'm not sure how to pose it well, and carnival topics are supposed to be simple prompts, so I'm not sure yet.

Either that, or I'm thinking about asking people to just post incomplete drafts that they've been working on for a long time without shame, to be in company with all the other incomplete, or less fleshed out posts, with a short preamble to why they weren't able to finish it if they wish. Would be a great excuse for me to just put out some drafts that I will not post normally, I'm guessing other people have something similar as well. I'm not so sure about this either, so I'm just gonna wait until something in it makes sense, or someone on the gazette or bear blog seems interested.

Thank you for following my long-winded rants, I didn't expect to have so much to say. Do check out more of the carnival on bear blog.

Credits

Thanks to Moose for a few suggestions!

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