Author: UC Gargoyle

issue 10: tryhard is about the joy and challenge of choosing effort in a world that keeps offering the easy way out. we want pieces about inconvenience and community. about learning, showing up, and trying something again and again and again until it works. the beauty of a manual car. what do we lose when we use tools to replace processes? what can we gain when we insit on doing things anwyays? can we truly preserve old media (the deterioration of vhs tapes)? or must we adapt like the machines we are. is ther value in resisting efficienty? do any of you know about baumol’s cost disease? 

send all proposals or initial drafts to ucgargoyle@gmail.com by february 15th with “issue 10 proposal for section x, contributor’s name” as the subject line. include a sample paragraph (about 200 words) with your proposal. final drafts are due wednesday, february 25th eod. pieces can be anywhere from 1 to 1000 words. production nights will run march 5th from 5–9 in the JCR. 

some prompts, if you insist on trying a little harder than necessary:

uc: did you get into this school by lying and cheating in typical teen high school drama style or did you, genuinely, just try hard? do you cum in your pants when your prof acknowledges your hard work, mumbling a soft, “say it again.”? tell us about the embarrassing outfits you wore in your first year, just to try hard and make friends. hey, just pitch to us, nerd.

arts & culture: does creation require inconvenience? talk about the death/revival of physical media. what media personality are you trying hard to emulate? tell us about your journeys to the archives and libraries instead of reading Google AI overview slop. what parts of art-making or art-watching are you still doing the long way, on purpose? burn a cd, develop some film, draw up a zine, stitch something together. carry your heart on your sleeve and write chalantly about your hyperfixations!! 

politics: wtf is up w the gig economy?? you can have chipotle slop bowl …. but at what cost? organizing is perhaps the least gratifying thing ever, so why try? why go postering? why go canvassing? WHY??!! will your submission regurgitate the same substack discourse/video essay fodder or will you dare to have an original thought? lmk.

opinions: is deleting instagram worth the disconnect, is the estrangement of disconnect worth the reclamation of self? what strange old habits/rituals make you up? who are you willing to slow down for? can we still make time for tea ceremonies, dating outside of apps, rolling joints instead of buying pre-rolls? is convenience making us lazy and killing taste, or just our patience? developing photos or icloud storage, meal-prep or doordash? what gets lost when playlists replace records and mixtapes, when algorithms replace intimacy?

avant garg: reporting UC as tryhard patient zero; pitchlist filled in 5 months in advance. but aside from them… we love tryhards. passionate devotion is so rare these days. give us elaborate structures and high-flown language. give us ego, inflated. give us everything you’ve been keeping in because it’s “too much.” nothing is too much here. purple prose, ten-dollar-words. be extra, be loud.   

comics: Try your hardest. In the age of AI, give us what only you can make. show us the evolution of your style over time, all that  hard practice.  Make a Zine. Dip your hands in ink and pull something out of it.  The cleaning up sucks, but what’s life without a little inconvenience? 

stay greasy,

amareena saleh

communications editor

call for subs: wordplay 

flirting, sexting, innuendos, love letters, confessions, body language. issue 9: wordplay is about all the ways we communicate love and desire (or fail to). write about healthy and unhealthy communication, perpetual yearning, ghosting, misreads, the first (or worst) message you’ve sent someone on hinge. gives us a peek into the rehersed and rewritten messages in your notes app. 

send all proposals or initial drafts to ucgargoyle@gmail.com by january 30th at 5 p.m. with “issue 9 proposal for section x, contributor’s name” as the subject line. include a sample paragraph (about 200 words) with your proposal. final drafts are due february 4th at 11:59 p.m. pieces can be anywhere from 1 to 1000 words. production night will be february 12th at 5 p.m. 

as per usual for our annual sex and love issue, our nudes contest returns. hope we didn’t keep you on the edge for too long 😉 — our sex issue nudes contest returns! submissions can take the form of photos, illustrations, paintings, any visual medium really! all submissions will be published in the sex issue (print only!). please make sure to read over the full guidelines before participating

• YOU MUST BE 18 YEARS OLD OR OVER TO SUBMIT
• send your submissions to our email by eod of tuesday, february 3th with your name and age (these will remain private and emails will be deleted after publication). 
• nudity, partial nudity, or illusions to nudity are encouraged.
• pages containing the nudes contest are print-exclusive and won’t be published online. names or identifiable information will NOT be published alongside your submissions, however, we have no control over who picks up a copy and thus can’t guarantee anonymity after publication.
• the contest will be judged solely based on CREATIVITY; all your bodies are beautiful!!!
• you can email us to withdraw your submission at any point prior to publication.

winners will be contacted via email! first place gets a cash prize of $25; $15 and $10 will go to the second and third places respectively.

some prompts ( ͡ ° ͜ʖ ͡ °)

uc: give us a dramatic retelling of the freak nastiest place you’ve gotten down on all fours, in public, from the back (?), mouth agape, slobbering, sweating, getting stickier by the minute and hotter by the second, unidentifiable liquid lathered all over the already dirty ass floor…after all, diversity is our strength.

arts & culture: take smut seriously. or don’t! but read it closely. write about the craft of getting people hot with words alone. why is yearning often hotter than fucking? talk about the ambiguities of language that leave you in crisis. defend the fanfics and bodice rippers. what’s on your sex playlist? what’s your netflix n’ chill movie? edging but make it literary. 

politics: is there such a thing as sex without power? is that even worth aspiring to? emancipate me harder: what we get wrong about kink. why doesn’t gen z fuck (it’s prob bc of a lack of third spaces)?!?! algorithmic dating is where the erotic goes to die. the situationship/nonmonogamy industrial complex. have you ever wanted to fuck a character.ai chatbot and how morally grey did it make you feel?

opinions: why do we label desire: top/bottom, sub/dom? has kink lost its teeth? sexting, innuendos, love letters, body language—how do we communicate intention? does he call you ‘babe’? rice purity, body count—why do we quantify sex? dead dove: do not eat? do you send nudes? did you moan the wrong name? don’t panic, let’s explore the depths of human desire together. transcribe aftercare. thirst traps, yay or nay? sext us, seduce us, serenade us into surrender.

avant garg: poeticize the scrawls on bathroom walls you’ve been pushed up against. write about destructive dirty talk and the psyche. trace your lover’s script tattoo in the afterglow and document the sensation. have you ever fucked someone under a false identity or name, roleplay or otherwise? tell me more. what are your safe words? transcribe moaning using the international phonetic alphabet. 

comics: tell it to my heart! tell me i’m the only one! draw us valentine’s cards for that special someone. illustrate a diagram of the depths of your heart’s desires. make a comic about the things that are too hard to say out loud. draw us puns you need to see to understand.  GIVE US SHIP ART!!! 

stay greasy,

amareena saleh

communications editor

this is a call for subs and also a vengeance piece against google maps. issue 8: cartography wants your maps!! do you love them, hate them?? write about cities, toronto’s relationship to indigenous peoples, immigration and settling, borders and zoning, responsible travel and also pirates. obviously. 

send all proposals or initial drafts to ucgargoyle@gmail.com by january 16th at 5 p.m. with “issue 8 proposal for section x, contributor’s name” as the subject line. include a sample paragraph (about 200 words) with your proposal. final drafts are due january 21st at 11:59 p.m. pieces can be anywhere from 1 to 1000 words. production night will be january 29th at 5 p.m. show up with your sharpest pen (pls someone bring a fountain pen) and a bad sense of direction. 

we are also looking for front and back cover art!! pls send a pitch/sketch by the 16th at 5 pm!

some great prompts to map (hehe) your thoughts 

uc: we want the kind of map that would get you kicked out of a museum gift shop. give us your bootleg treasure chart, your “do not enter” coastline, your fake landmark that you swear is real. write from the perspective of a compass that hates you. show us the route to something you “lost” on purpose. if you’re lying, we’ll know. we have cartographic instincts.

arts & culture: write about places you know through art before you ever saw them. your pilgrimage to a concert venue, a gallery, a library, a movie theatre that raised you. how do stories, images, and sounds give somewhere a pulse? what fictional map lives rent free in your brain? when does art teach you a place, and when does it remind you you’re visiting?

politics: maps are not neutral and neither is toronto. write about the lines that decide everything: zoning, borders, transit deserts, property boundaries, neighbourhood “brands,” and the histories they hide. how do maps naturalize colonial claims, or erase indigenous presence? what does “ethical tourism” even mean under capitalism? who gets to move freely, and who gets policed for existing in space? bring us counter-mapping, refusal, and routes of resistance.

opinions: draw us a map of your life. what are the landmarks you orbit? map your inheritance: foods, rituals, languages, surnames, cities you carry like luggage. where did your family come from, and what does “belonging” feel like in your body? rant about airports, streetcars, detours, and the special hell of “arriving” but not being welcomed. is memory its own kind of geography?

avant garg: make cartography weird again. give us coordinates to a feeling. write a poem that reads like directions, then deliberately miss the turn. annotate a map like it’s your diary. pin significant locations and tell their stories, queer-the-map style. or refuse the whole assignment: submit a piece about getting lost and liking it.

comics: draw us the map to your heart, or your group chat’s favourite corner store, or the secret campus route that avoids everyone you’ve ever awkwardly waved at. label the real landmarks that matter: the best crying stairwell, the safest bench, the building that always feels like a loading screen.

stay greasy,

amareena saleh

communications editor 

issue 7 is BODYMOD. let us discuss the body as a site of obsession, discipline, performance, pain, and pleasure. 

what does it mean to make a body “better”? why do you (or why won’t you) make changes to yours? write about tattoos, piercings, hormones, cyborg fantasies, experiences in bodybuilding, or the upgrades you’d adapt if technology permitted so  [┐∵]┘

send all proposals or initial drafts to ucgargoyle@gmail.com by january 5th at 5 p.m. with “issue 5 proposal for section x, contributor’s name” as the subject line. include a sample paragraph (~200 words) with your proposal. final drafts are due january 7th (tighter turnaround! be prepared ) at 11:59 p.m. pieces can be anywhere from 1–1000 words. production night will be happening at 5 p.m. on january 15th, pull up inked, pierced, or spiritially altered (accessories encouraged).

prompts from our section editors (aftercare instructions): 
uc: are you chopped and also unc? did you ask for plastic surgery as a graduation gift? do your piercings/tattoos make professors scowl at the sight of you? does the middle aged couple on yorkville ask you to be their third because they thought the blue hair and baby bangs screamed “liberal who loves freaky sex”? ever shave your head bald? was it shiny? what was the caretaking routine on that like? did you have to massage the scalp so the stubble didn’t itch? we’re curious (genuinely) (if you don’t want to write for us can you please dm us) (reddit isn’t cutting it).

arts & culture: talk about bodies as art, as performance, as battleground, as the self (or not). what does it mean to upgrade yourself? is pilates just contemporary penance? tell us about the cyborg fantasy or biohacker pseudoscience or hormones as mythic revisionism. when does a fitness routine become a ritual? when does self-improvement become self-surveillance? write about extremes. what does the ideal body look like in your corner of the internet? what does it cost to maintain? what happens when it breaks?

politics: discuss cyborg selfhoods: how do wearable tech, implants, or biometric trackers blur the line between body and machine. how does the orientalist’s gaze manifest in the popularity of culture-based body-modifications? explore the politics of pain: what does it mean to choose pain (e.g., piercings, tattoos, decorative scarification) when some bodies face pain without choice? write a manifesto imagining post-human modifications that challenge current aesthetics and ethics.

opinions: what does it mean to you, to modify your body? how has your body changed over time? is discipline hot, or are we just scared of being seen as lazy? rank your tattoos in order of preference. did that post-relationship piercing hurt as much as the break-up? tell us about your 75-hard experience. are everything showers necessary? bush or no bush? what even IS the point of a body? what’s the point of yours?

avant garg: give us a tattoo & piercing tour. what’s the most pain you subjected yourself to in the name of bodymod? do you regret any perma-mods you’ve made? let’s talk about non-human bodies we find solace in… furries, mecha, celestial……

comics: given complete free rein, how would you customize your persona? how do you imagine yourself beyond the confines of your #basic human body? draw us some tattoo flashes! get weird with it. 

stay greasy,
amareena saleh
communications editor