only steers & queers in texas

welcome to not a cow 2026 — the fourth year of this dallas stars fic fest! a lot has changed since last season, but the sheer amount of love the boys have for each other has not! if at any point you have been moved to inspiration by that love, now is your time to shine.

[notacowfest]

Welcome to Not a Cow 2026 — the fourth year of this Dallas Stars fic fest!

A lot has changed since last season, but the sheer amount of love the boys have for each other has not! If at any point you have been moved to inspiration by that love, now is your time to shine. Has something from the Olympics or Olympic break break left you picturing the fic of your dreams? Did a plot pop into your head after seeing some of the fun socials content we've gotten this season? Are you simply always compelled by Victory Green? This is the space to share that with the rest of us!

We'd absolutely love to see love for everything from the team's biggest ships to the ones you'll have to originate the tags for. Let's have some fun with it! Go wild!

ao3 collection  —  HERE!

faq  —  HERE!

rules  —  HERE!

Schedule 

Prompts & Sign-Ups Open: February 20, 2026

Prompts & Sign-Ups Close: March 20, 2026

Fics due: June 17, 2026

Fics go live: June 19, 2026

Authors revealed: June 22, 2026

[notacowfest]

not a cow fest 2026 — an update on our deadline!

happy june, everyone! there's a little over two weeks left until fics are due to go live on june 19th. however, because last year's rolling deadlines were such a great way to allow more people to participate in the fest, that deadline won't be the only one to look forward to this summer!

everyone who's been hard at work on their fics and prompt fills can still see that hard work shared when originally planned. as long as you get your fic submitted to the collection prior to 12pm central on friday, june 19th, it will be part of this first drop of the fest. following this first deadline, there will be three additional deadlines for fic drops for the fest. a lot of the fun of participating in a fic fest is the anticipation of sharing and reading new fic on the day of fic & author reveals — so now we all have even more to look forward to this off-season!

new upcoming schedule:

Fics due: June 17, 2026 July 22, 2026 August 19, 2026 September 16, 2026

Fics go live: June 19, 2026 July 24, 2026 August 21, 2026 September 18, 2026

Authors revealed: June 22, 2026 July 27, 2026 August 24, 2026 September 21, 2026

[notacowfest]

i was extremely ambitious with this one so i wouldn't mind doing rolling deadlines again this year lol

I'm in the same boat, anon! one of these years I will remember that the calendar plays tricks and fics actually go live super soon after everything gets rolling.

I'll hold off on setting rolling deadline dates in stone for a little bit in case there's a strong opposition to doing them, but the structure will likely follow last year's, where fics are due and go live and get revealed around the same time every month until the preseason begins in earnest — so, roughly the third week of june, july, august, and september.

[notacowfest]

one month notice: fics go live june 19th!

hey everyone!! i just wanted to drop a quick reminder that the end of the fest is in one month — so there's still plenty time to keep working on your fics or to start something new. also, you can still claim a prompt & participate in the fest even if you missed the initial sign-up period!

fics will stay unposted & unrevealed until they go live, so whenever you're done and satisfied with a fic you can go ahead and post it to the collection! even if you're still tweaking or working through minor updates and edits, you can post it to the collection so it'll be ready to go when fics go live on june 19th. as always, please feel free to reach out here if you have any further questions about the fest, or need help with something while we're in the home stretch. i hope everyone's having fun!!

ao3 collection  —  HERE!

faq  —  HERE!

rules  —  HERE!

Schedule 

Fics due: June 17, 2026

Fics go live: June 19, 2026

Authors revealed: June 22, 2026

[notacowfest]

there is now one hour left to leave prompts & sign up!

[notacowfest]

sign-ups are scheduled to close tonight at midnight CDT! however, I have personally been swamped this month and understand that it might be the case for some of the rest of y'all as well, so if there's interest, I'm happy to keep sign-ups open through the rest of the weekend. no matter when sign-ups close, we already have plenty of great prompts to take a look at! happy writing, everyone 💚

would you like to see the sign-up period extended through midnight on sunday?

yes!

no!

Voting ended onMar 21

[notacowfest]

extending the sign-up period won the poll, so everyone's got a couple more days to sign-up and leave prompts!

[notacowfest]

sign-ups are scheduled to close tonight at midnight CDT! however, I have personally been swamped this month and understand that it might be the case for some of the rest of y'all as well, so if there's interest, I'm happy to keep sign-ups open through the rest of the weekend. no matter when sign-ups close, we already have plenty of great prompts to take a look at! happy writing, everyone 💚

would you like to see the sign-up period extended through midnight on sunday?

yes!

no!

Voting ended onMar 21

[notacowfest]

sign-ups are closing soon!

sign-ups are scheduled to close next friday March 20th at midnight CDT — if you've been thinking about participating in the fest but haven't gotten around to signing up yet, now's the perfect time to check it out. there are already plenty of amazing prompts to take a look at if you want some inspiration, but we'd love to see even MORE prompts if you have some ideas of your own! as a reminder — you don't need to claim a prompt to participate in the fest! and if you want to leave some prompts but aren't sure if you'll be able to write for a the fest, that's also perfectly fine! with the olympics, trade deadline, & this lovely point streak the team's on, i'm sure everyone's got some ideas for stars fic they'd like to see in the world right now. drop a prompt about it! write a fic about it!! come hang out!!!

ao3 collection  —  HERE!

faq  —  HERE!

rules  —  HERE!

Schedule 

Prompts & Sign-Ups Close: March 20, 2026

Fics due: June 17, 2026

Fics go live: June 19, 2026

Authors revealed: June 22, 2026

[notacowfest]

hiya, ao3 tells me that the collection doesn't accept prompts right now </3

hi! I logged into a backup ao3 account (so one that isn't the maintainer and isn't already signed up) and the option to sign-up and leave prompts still showed up for me. but sometimes if you've previously left prompts, ao3 makes it harder to find where to add more beyond your initial sign-up, which could be the problem you're having :(

if you've already left a prompt, you can navigate over to the 'my prompts' tab on the side, and at the top of that page there should be an 'add a prompt' button that will let you add up to 50 prompts.

if that solution doesn't work for you, or that's not the problem you're facing, let me know & I can continue to workshop!!

[notacowfest]

we are officially in the Not A Cow Fest off-season, which means it's time to come together & figure out how to occupy ourselves until the next iteration of the fest opens for prompts in 2026!

technically ... the 'no horse in this race' option won the original poll. but the runner-up was 'more than one of these,' so now we all get to narrow our focus together! the poll below pairs event ideas from the original poll into sets of two; whichever set wins out will be what we can all look forward to in the coming months!

which events would you like to see?

big bang/mini bang & fanwork exchange/gift fest

fanwork exchange/gift fest & seasonal mini prompt challenges

seasonal mini prompt challenges & a bingo card fanwork event

a bingo card fanwork event & big bang/mini bang

big bang/mini bang & seasonal mini prompt challenges

fanwork exchange/gift fest & a bingo card fanwork event

Voting ended onSep 29, 2025

[notacowfest]

not a cow fest 2025 — author reveals!

once again, I want to thank everyone who participated this year, either by writing fic or submitting prompts or helping authors out behind the scenes or reading & interacting with fic during each drop! this year's fest was a little different, but we got so many wonderful fics from it.

the collection will remain open for new submissions, so if you would still like to participate via prompt fills, you absolutely can. I'm going to be periodically checking the collection for new works but if you want to shoot me a message here on tumblr telling me when you've just submitted a new fic, please feel free to do so!!

coming soon: a follow up poll to our 'what to do in the not a cow fest off-season' poll! keep an eye out for that💚

[notacowfest]

not a cow fest 2025 — the last batch of fics is live!

with our last official fic drop, I want to thank everyone who participated this year, either by writing fic or submitting prompts or helping authors out behind the scenes or reading & interacting with fic during each drop! we stretched things out this year & have so many great fics to show for it. you can check out our new fics & all the fics from previous drops right here!!

our last author reveal will be on monday september 22, so there's still a last little but of fun in store for everyone.

also … as in years past, the collection will be remaining open for submissions of prompt fills up until prompting opens for next year's fest. I will periodically check the collection for new works, but if you want to shoot me a message here on tumblr telling me when you've just submitted a new fic, please feel free to do so!!

in the meantime, the 'what to do in the not a cow fest off-season' poll closes tomorrow; looking at the results now, there will likely be a follow up poll coming soon!

to wrap things up: thanks so much to everyone who participated in this year’s not a cow in any way, and be sure to watch this space 💚

[notacowfest]

with the official end of this year's not a cow fest being nearly upon us, I was wondering how the not a cow community would feel about doing something in our not a cow off-season (which spans most of the actual hockey season) to keep our little corner of the stars hrpf spirit alive & thriving. I had a couple ideas and wanted to put a poll out to everyone for a temperature check! I am also more than open to other ideas or people weighing in in the tags or our askbox.

& in the meantime — reminder that the last drop of fics for not a cow this year is coming up on friday, september 19! so, poll aside, there's still time to participate in the original fest 💚

are you interested in any of the following:

a dallas stars big bang/mini bang 💚

a fanwork exchange/gift fest 💚

seasonal mini prompt challenges around holidays (halloween, nye, valentine's) 💚

some sort of bingo card fanwork event 💚

no extra events for me please 💚

more than one of these sounds fun 💚

I have an idea you didn't list & will send it in an ask 💚

no horse in this race / show me the results 💚

Voting ended onSep 21, 2025

[notacowfest]

not a cow fest 2025 — one week left!

we are now just one week out from the soft deadline for our last fic drop! that means there's still a week to keep working on your fics or to start something new. you can even still claim a prompt! with a minimum word count of just 500 words, there's plenty of room for some bite-size not a cow fics if you're hit with a sudden burst of last-minute inspiration. happy writing!

remaining schedule:

Fics due: September 17, 2025

Fics go live: September 19, 2025

Authors revealed: September 22, 2025

[notacowfest]

authors of our penultimate round of fics have been revealed! you can find them here along with last month's fics. happy reading!!

[notacowfest]

our penultimate round of fics are live! you can find them here along with fics from our last drops. happy reading!!

[notacowfest]

hello hello that first try did not work! I just thought some people might like a reminder that the next drop is coming up, because I checked the calendar today and realized it was closer than I thought! so shout out to everyone in the same boat!

yes, thank you for the reminder!! I'd just readied a week-out reminder for friday but a little extra time always helps. the next drop of fics will be next friday, august 22, so: reminder to get your fics in by then if you would like to be part of our penultimate fic drop!!