By: Gabrielle McLaren
Desperate times call for desperate measures, but ‘desperate’ doesn’t even begin to describe the hellish downward spiral that happens once you haul yourself over the midterm hump and plummet into exams. Luckily, Burnaby Mountain is the Canadian equivalent of Mount Olympus, and this SFU-specific pantheon of deities is ready to help.
Crapicus
The Token Evil God
Crapicus is the alter-ego of Athodin. Where one is the god of knowledge and wisdom, this piece of shit is the god of fake news, unreliable sources, and misinformation your prof propagated. He appears with the head of a cow, though he is a shapeshifting trickster god that can be hard to find. He is heavily adorned with bracelets of fool’s gold that Athodin has welded to his skin in order to identify him. His hobbies include editing Wikipedia pages and killing all the links to useful articles you can find on the library’s website. If you need to push away shitty sources or stop your stupid brain from coming up with filth, you can pray to Athodin who will beat his brother’s ass and protect you. If you need to attract some bullshit to reach your word count, leave a plate of animal feces on your open windowsill.
Cafeia
Goddess of Energy, Motivation, and Focus
With the blessing of the mighty goddess shining down on you, your 2:00 a.m. cup of coffee will wake you up and sharpen your focus instead of just turning you into a hot mess constantly jumping off the walls and laughing hysterically about poor-quality memes. Call on Cafeia during the daytime, and she will also make sure that your friendly barista gets your order just right. Her symbol is an owl, whose nocturnal habits and intensely focused eyes represent the effect her blessing has on students. They are also the animals who pull her chariot, which she rides across the sky at night to throw down fucks onto the homes of her followers, or anybody else who has run out of fucks to give.
Kronosa
Goddess of Time
Kronosa is one of the most powerful goddesses on campus, and she is the goddess of time. If her followers are struggling to finish up their term papers, she will lengthen the night for them. If non-believers are pulling all-nighters, she will turn that ten-minute Facebook break they promised themselves they deserved into a two hour excursus that will bring them to the medical mystery side of YouTube. May she have mercy upon your soul.
Her blessing is the difference between having one alarm in the morning, and sleeping through your 13 alarms and still showing up half-an-hour late. To stay on the goddess’ good side, you’ll want to keep your iPhone’s calendar up to date.
Demeterus
God of Bounty
His magical item of choice is a piece of well-worn Tupperware, containing the exact meal you’re craving whenever you open it. Whenever you have a good meal, throw a spoonful of it out the nearest window or offer a bite to a friend. Demeterus in turn will always make sure that you have the study snacks you need to maintain your focus, strength, motivation, and blood sugar to survive that term paper that you actually don’t know why you’re writing because this class ALSO has a final exam so fuck fuck fuck this is how I die.
Venusa
Goddess of Self-Love
Venusa will whisper kind things into your ears throughout the day to help you keep your chin up. Her slogans include your personal value is not determined by your academic success, you are more important than any essay ever will be, and please take a drink of water and stay hydrated. Venusa will bake homemade cookies and leave them on your doorstep, sharpen all your crayons so you can break out the adult colouring books, and brew you the perfect cup of tea. You don’t have to pray or believe in her to attract her blessing since she thinks everyone deserves to be happy and taken care of, but you can thank her by giving someone a compliment in a restroom or by watching someone’s stuff in the library while they go to pee.
Allopo
Protector of Professor Moods
Allopo is the twin brother of Venusa; the pair of them are fathered by Athodin and the water nymph who lives in the AQ reflecting pond. While his sister’s job is to make sure that you are happy and taken care of, Allopo makes sure that your professors and TAs are in a good mood when they grade the fruits of your labour. Even a Nobel-Peace-Prize-worthy lab report is going to flunk if your professor wants the world to burn along with his ex-wife Judy and her new husband Mike who thinks he’s so cool because he’s a lawyer with a condo in Florida. Allopo’s symbol is a red pen: leave one under your pillow or slip them in your professor’s bag during a break to attract this deity’s blessing.
Yahoogle
God of Research
A little-known fact about the Bennett Library is that it actually has a hundred floors — the top floors are simply inaccessible to mere mortals because it is the home of the gods. Legend says that it is a beautiful place, where there is seating aplenty, it never smells weird, and nobody has drawn penises on any services.
One day, the god Yahoogle disturbed the peace and was cast down by the other gods. In penance, he wanders the lower floors of the library — helping the librarians keep the shelves organized, picking up the trash shitty people leave on the tables, fixing the broken computers, helping students work out their theses, or finding the perfect book that will accelerate their research. To summon Yahoogle and his help, stand in the library, close your eyes, and spin in a circle three times whispering ‘holy shit I’m fucking screwed, holy shit I’m fucking screwed, holy shit I’m fucking screwed.’
Athodin
God of Wisdom and Knowledge
Athodin is the father of all Burnabian gods. Legend has it that every tear shed by a student contains a drop of that student’s knowledge and life source. One day, a group project was such a tragic trainwreck that a god was born from the collective pool of tears formed on the floor of their study room. If you need help remembering a lecture, filling the gaps in your patchy-ass notes, or coming up with an intelligent thesis, Athodin is your deity. Summon his wisdom and blessing by laying your textbooks in a circle and standing in the middle screaming information like: THE MITOCHONDRIA IS THE POWERHOUSE OF THE CELL, JELLYFISH EAT AND POO FROM THEIR MOUTHS, or a number of other fun facts.
