get lucky!

welcome to puck luck fest 2026 — a HRPF magical realism prompt meme. any prompt or fic where the premise is 'hockey + some brand of magic' is welcome here. let your characters live in a world where wishes made on the stanley cup come true!

[puckluckfest]

Puck Luck Fest 2026 — a hrpf magical realism prompt meme!

let your characters live in a world where wishes made on the stanley cup come true! stick 'em in a time loop! make the hockey gods real, and have them really curse your characters! we are using the hrpf fandom's interpretation of magical realism for this fest, where most things about characters' lives are the same. except ... there's a truth curse, or soulbonds, or a wishbaby, or someone transforms into an animal, etc. fic with a more urban fantasy flavor (everything's the same except that werewolves or vampires or witches, etc. are real) is also totally welcome in this fest. basically — any prompt or fic where the premise is 'hockey + some brand of magic' is welcome here! you can get as high concept as you want and develop lore and rules for magic to tell your story. or you can also keep things lowkey, and let your characters be completely shocked to find out they live in a world where their captain gets de-aged after a bad game. the world's your oyster! what world you set your fic in is also your oyster!

ao3 collection  —  HERE!

faq  —  HERE!

rules  —  HERE!

Schedule 

Prompts & Sign-Ups Open: April 3, 2026

Prompts & Sign-Ups Close: May 8, 2026

Fics due: August 19, 2026

Fics go live: August 21, 2026

Authors revealed: August 24, 2026

[puckluckfest]

hi everyone! it looks like I forgot to open the fest's collection for work submissions when prompting closed, but that's been fixed. now you can submit your fills to the collection as soon as you feel they're ready! the collection doesn't go live until august 21st, so there's still plenty of time for everyone who (like me!) is just getting into things, but now if you finish a fic early you can submit it right away.

this year we saw a record number of prompts, so I'd also like to take this time to remind everyone that you can more easily search through them all for specific players, fandoms, ships, & even keywords from the body of the prompts via auto ao3's prompt scrape of the fest.

good luck & happy writing!

[puckluckfest]

hey! i don't know if that question's been asked yet (or if i haven't read the faq thoroughly enough) but can i still write/claim a prompt even if i don't sign up for the fest and/or give out a prompt myself? there's already plenty of great prompts and i'd love to just write more for the fandom !!

absolutely!!! this is partly addressed in the faq but I know it's a little confusing — ao3 defines signing up for a prompt fest as leaving a prompt. but you can 100% still participate in this fest without leaving a prompt, as long as you claim a prompt in the fest (even the free space prompt, which is the very first in the collection!) so that you can submit your finished fic to the collection by fulfilling it.

especially this year with the sheer number of prompts available before the sign-up period closes, I understand already feeling ready to lock in on your writing. good luck!!

[puckluckfest]

Puck Luck Fest 2026 — a hrpf magical realism prompt meme!

we are two weeks out from the end of our prompting & sign-up period, which will close on may 8th!! with the end of the regular season & the start of the first round behind us, there's no better time to add a little magic into your hrpf. that means there's no better time to check out all the amazing prompts people have already shared & see if you want to leave some prompts of your own! we are using the hrpf fandom's interpretation of magical realism for this fest, where most things about characters' lives are the same. except ... there's a truth curse, or soulbonds, or a wishbaby, or someone transforms into an animal, etc. fic with a more urban fantasy flavor (everything's the same except that werewolves or vampires or witches, etc. are real) is also totally welcome in this fest. basically — any prompt or fic where the premise is 'hockey + some brand of magic' is welcome here!

ao3 collection  —  HERE!

faq  —  HERE!

rules  —  HERE!

Schedule 

Prompts & Sign-Ups Close: May 8, 2026

Fics due: August 19, 2026

Fics go live: August 21, 2026

Authors revealed: August 24, 2026

[puckluckfest]

is there anyway when making the prompts that the tag the fandom spot be update to 0-2 so we can tag both Men's and Women's RPF? No worries if not!

unfortunately, once prompts have been left I can't make any edits to the prompt settings. I'll definitely be sure to keep this request in mind for next year!! and in the meantime, if you have a prompt you want to leave for either/both men's and women's hrpf, I would suggest leaving the fandom blank. you could also specify that you're open to either/both in the body of the prompt!!

[puckluckfest]

Is there a way to search through prompts?

unfortunately there isn't a way to do that natively on ao3, but i would like to thank the good people at @theresonly1u for introducing me to the concept of auto ao3's scraper. I'm not 100% sure how it works (I think that I, as the mod, have to re-run it semi-regularly? maybe? I'll look into that & keep on top of what I have to) but you can search for specific players, fandoms, ships, & even keywords from the body of the prompts there!

puckluck2026 ao3 prompt scraper

[puckluckfest]

Hi :D what's the vibe on fanart for the fest? Like some of the prompts look so delicious as inspiration for art, but also I get that that won't fulfill the wordcount requirements

hi!! this is technically a fic fest & not a general fanwork fest, but I'd still love to see some fanart if you're feeling inspired!

I think that so long as you put an equivalent amount of effort into any non-fic fanworks as it would take to fill that prompt with a fic, you should be good to go. even a 500 word fic takes time to plot and write and edit, so a ten minute warm-up sketch wouldn't feel like a fair equivalency to our minimum word count. just use your best judgement!

additionally, you could also find a writer to collaborate with, or try your hand at a shorter narrative accompaniment to your fanart! but as long as you post your fanwork to ao3 so it can be included in the fest collection & follow the other general rules of the fest, any fanwork would be more than welcome 💖

[puckluckfest]

Not really a question, but I absolutely love the graphic you’ve made for this fest!!! So so colourful and pretty!!!

I'm glad you enjoy it!! making the graphics for the fest is always a fun way for me to get hyped for it.

[puckluckfest]

there was actually a podfic in last year’s collection! I thought it was neat 👉👈

oh no! I can't believe I forgot — clearly this is a sign that I should celebrate prompts opening for this year's fest by reading through some of last year's works!!

if anyone else would like to take a look at last year's podfic offering, it's right here:

[puckluckfest]

I'm so excited for the fest! I was wondering if podfics of existing fics are allowed or if it's just for newly written fics?

I'm excited that you're excited! we've never had podfics of existing fics submitted to the fest before, but I think that as long as the fic follows the fest rules in terms of length & subject matter, and the original author allows podfic, then it'd be more than welcome.

[puckluckfest]

Is this event just for men's hockey, or is woho also included? I assume men's only because of the collection tag on ao3, but I wanted to check in case. Thank you!

it's for all hockey rpf! in past I believe it's been mostly men's hockey but I'd love to see prompts and fics for woho this year as well. the collection tag just affects how people who are searching for open collections on ao3 can find us, but I made sure to go in and add women's hrpf as well, so thank you for bringing this to my attention!

all that said, you can only select one fandom per prompt, so if you have a prompt you'd like to see filled for either men's or women's hrpf (or a m/f player pairing you want to prompt specifically for) I would leave the fandom blank. otherwise if you're just looking to prompt for women's hrpf, you can tag your prompt with women's hockey rpf and from there the dropdown options for characters and ships should align with what's been canonized on ao3.

[puckluckfest]

will puck luck fest be returning for 2026? :0

absolutely, yes!! I like to leave a little scheduling breathing room between puck luck and the dallas stars fic fest I also run. right now I'm looking to get the ball rolling here around when we did last year, in the second week of april — which means that sign-ups should open in a little less than three weeks!! so now's a great time to start cooking up ideas for fics or prompts.

[puckluckfest]

Puck Luck Fest 2025 — a hrpf magical realism prompt meme

authors are now live!! once again, thank you so much to everyone who participated in our second year in any way, shape, or form. you can find all of the amazing works in the collection right here!

I can't wait to do this all again next year, but in the meantime there's so many fun, new fics to enjoy. happy reading!!

[puckluckfest]

i didn’t quite manage to finish a fic in time to post it unfortunately

i know i won’t be able to add it to the collection now that it’s passed the deadline, but would it be okay to still fulfil the prompt?

absolutely!! even though the fest collection itself is closed for new fics, the people who originally left all of our unclaimed/unfulfilled prompts are still out there wanting to read a fic like their prompt. there is without a doubt still going to be an audience for any fics based on prompts from the fest even now that this year of the fest is (almost!) over!!

when I have personally posted a late prompt fill outside of the prompt fest it was for, I've included the original prompt in my fic description (& gifted the fic to the original prompter when they weren't anonymous), so that's definitely a route you can go down if you'd like to still link back/reference the fest.

good luck with the rest of your writing!!!

[puckluckfest]

Puck Luck Fest 2025 — a hrpf magical realism prompt meme

fics are now live!! thank you so much to everyone who participated either by writing fic or submitting prompts or helping authors on behind the scenes. I can't wait to read what everyone's written! you can find all of the amazing works in the collection right here.

remember that authors are going to be revealed on monday august 25, so there's still a little more fun in store for everyone.

happy reading!!

[puckluckfest]

hi puck luck mod! I thought it might be helpful to share this URL with you / fest participants for the future!

I can’t remember if there’s an easier way to do this through the ao3 interface, but if you plug your username into the below URL it will show you your works that are awaiting moderation in an unrevealed collection

archiveofourown (dot) org/users/[username]/collection_items?status=unreviewed_by_collection

(this is different from the regular Works in Collection page)

oh, this is super helpful! thank you so much for sharing!!

[puckluckfest]

I'm pretty sure I submitted mine right! It doesn't show up in my works or anything, but it says on the top of the page:

"Work was successfully posted. It should appear in work listings within the next few minutes. You have submitted your work to the moderated collection 'Puck Luck Fest 2025: a hockey rpf magical realism prompt meme'. It will not become a part of the collection until it has been approved by a moderator.

This work is part of an ongoing challenge and will be revealed soon!"

I've never done a challenge like this before so just want to make sure I submitted correctly! Thanks so much for running this event!

since the fest's collection is moderated, works that have just been submitted sit in a kind of limbo while waiting for collection approval, which might be part of why you couldn't see your fic! I just went in & approved the three fics that were waiting for me.

that said, because all of the fics in the collection are still unrevealed, your fic also won't show up on your page until fics go live tomorrow at noon CDT! if you want to make sure that all the formatting of your fic looks okay on AO3 before then, I recommend going onto your AO3 profile, clicking over to the 'claims' page, and from there checking the button to show your fulfilled claims. prompt fills that are fulfilled but still unrevealed will show up there even during the stretch of time when they won't show up on your actual AO3 page.

I hope this was helpful!! let me know if you have any more questions. I'm so excited that we could be your first prompt fest — I can't wait to read your fic tomorrow when everything goes live!!!