Stuyvesant’s Freakshow

Stuyvesant is undoubtedly one of the most diverse places in terms of courses, teachers, and clubs. What trumps all else, though, are the students and their respective roles in the school’s society. Take any high school in the country and you’ll find your popular kids, your goths, your plain out weirdos. But at Stuyvesant, these trends run deeper. Nerds of various degrees run rampant, marking respective territories and romping the school grounds in their own ways. Some are perhaps too wild to be confined to creatures of reality. Join us as we investigate Stuyvesant’s incredible and all-too-unique students and study their breeds and behaviors.

Non-Nerds

Jocks (werewolves)

This common breed of animal is often seen prowling the school late after the end of classes. Their stomps can be heard all across the fifth floor, where a multitude of werewolves congregate for a chance to enter the weightlifting room. They often leave it smelling like rotten halal food, their signature scent. It is not only their scent that sets them apart from other creatures, but their tendency to howl loudly at anyone who insults their sport. However, it is clear that their bark is much worse than their bite as they are often limping down the stairs due to frequent injuries caused by their proclivity to butting heads and chasing squirrels. That does not stop them from attending games and practices anyway (no matter how many times they lose), which is perhaps why Stuyvesant is full of creatures wearing casts and neck braces.

#badboys #peglegs4eva

Rich party kids (pixies/vampires)

The pixies flutter about Stuyvesant, radiating an aura of perfection. It seems as if they can do no wrong. Their parties are undeniably the best. Their teachers love them even when they are late to class. They look put-together, even on two hours of sleep. Their secret to flawless skin, hair, clothes and grades? A fat stack of dollar bills, and a healthy heaping of pixie magic.

#privileged #wheredotheygethismoney #sus

Kids who show up to class twice a week (ghosts/Bigfoot?)

You think you know them, but you don’t. Not truly. They appear once in a blue moon, only to be gone for weeks at a time. A rare sighting in the wild. You may think you saw them in the sixth floor bar, but no one will believe you anyway. It is best to stay silent. After all, you don’t want to get on their bad side.

#excused absence

Dance kids (cultists)

This species is especially prevalent throughout Stuyvesant. When the bell rings and the sun begins to set, these creatures come out of hiding. Some of them sneak out with their treacherous glow sticks, others with their perilous strings. While their dance may seem innocuous at first, trusted sources say that when the clock strikes 5:00 p.m. and all of the other students leave, they gather in a circle and begin their sinister ritual to summon the spirit of Peter Stuyvesant. As soon as their ritual commences, Stuyvesant’s Pegleg can be heard echoing around the hallways. When they are not summoning long dead ghosts, the cultists enjoy turning off the lights and raising their glow sticks to the sky as an offering to the Dance Entities.

#coolkids #music #spinnyglowsticks

Nerds

SciOly Nerds (organ harvesters/Frankenstein)

You can tell when a student at Stuyvesant is an organ harvester/Frankenstein when they start malfunctioning in the middle of class and decide to go off on a tangent about prions and centripetal force. After school, they are often seen in classrooms listening to lectures about how to properly dissect living animals. Though they pretend to be interested, sources say that they’ve perfected the art of sleeping with their eyes open. They also go on frequent trips to their competitions, where they meet other organ harvesters and discuss the best ways to use formaldehyde to preserve their projects. Their motivations are the most mysterious of all, as they do not get paid or praised for staying after school to do more school. Many believe that this creature may benefit from a brief stint to the asylum but alas, it is too difficult to drag them away from the bench they are napping on.

#verynerd #buildingbridges

Robotics/CS (Computer Science) Nerds (robots)

This particular breed is plentiful in the school, often found congregated in the CSDojo or in the Robotics Lab. CS nerds have their brain gears cranking in ways that even they don’t understand. On rare occasions, they’re well-oiled, and all you hear is their fingernails rapidly clicking away at keyboards. More often, though, CS nerds barely get by, and you can hear their silent screams of agony as they pound the keys, the metal wrenching in their skulls. Their fates are notorious, and several have been warned from following that path. Their speech is often limited to: their very own language consisting of incoherent mumbling or highly specific and intelligent tech terms that they can only use to converse with each other.

#probablyalsolikesmath #terminator #whatisagithub

Theater Nerds (banshees)

While they have evolved to seek their natural habitat, LaGuardia High School, the banshees roam the halls of Stuy, screeching and hollering melodies. When they pass, the glass display cases, overflowing with tokens of our signature Stuyvesant overachievement, rattle in D sharp. The banshees are typically docile, energetic, and friendly, but their earsplitting wails have often disturbed the peaceful interperiod routine of many students and disrupted the last minute study session of many crammers. Despite their lack of awareness, their excess of volume is mostly harmless and they tend to stick to themselves, relegating their noisiness to a corner of the theater, shattering the linoleum with their falsettos.

#stc #singinginthehallway #laguardiarejects

Spec Nerds (hmm)

In the hierarchy of nerds, the Spec Nerds reign supreme. These mysterious creatures are often on the prowl for fishy happenings, saucy interviews, and fresh meat. Their abode of choice is room 615E, where Spec Class takes place. Unspeakable horrors that really should not be put to paper occur (how ironic), and their faculty advisor suffers through it all. Did you attend that event eight days ago? Perfect, your experience will be thoroughly documented with this handy-dandy voice recording app. You have thoughts on that controversial statement? Never fear, your newspaper is here for you to vent to. Admiring those words, or these columns, or that artwork? Right, those are what the Spec Nerds spend hours and hours exhausting themselves over. Perhaps they inform the student body, but really, at what cost…?

#goat #blesslayout #nemo #specsy

As you can see, Stuyvesant is defined not only by its academics, but also by its magnificent and arguably beastly students. A quick glance around your classroom can reveal a whole zoo of creatures, nerds or not. Each group has settled into its own domain at the school, and the rich diversity in the congregations of students offers ample opportunities to immerse yourself in research and perhaps discover something new…