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There are so many High School AUs that it's not even funny.

It's the easiest, though. Gotta admit that.

This can overlap with some of the others but one of my favorite AU variants is the "Choice Change" or "Butterfly Effect".

What would happen if a character made different choices than in canon, and how would it affect them and those around them?

For example, one of my favorite characters is Jonathan Crane/The Scarecrow from the Batman universe. He is psychopath and a lot of his current villainy can be credited to his past. A lot of it can also be determined by the choices he made. Normal TL;DR backstory is he was bullied in childhood, took out some of his enemies, became a professor of psychology with a minor in chemistry, fired a gun in class, got fired, became the Scarecrow.

Now, let's say Crane chose not to fire the gun. This is often the thing that drives him into villainy because he has no job or prospects, and is forced to turn to his other talents (chemistry) and his obsession (fear) to create income. He utilizes them to become a hitman, generates money needed for schemes, and then furthers his own goals.

With this choice, he still has a job, he is still very messed up from his childhood, but also he isn't desperate and looking for a way to make money off his urges to terrify. He may still even be making a variant of his fear serum. But as a professor, and still a respected man of science, maybe he can a) profit off his fear serum, b) find a way society can use it legally, and c) he can still get some of his kicks if he plays his cards right.

So now he creates this drug that patients with phobias take. Combined with therapy, they can, in small doses, face what terrifies them and overcomes it. Let's say it's a hit. Now the conflict comes with Crane trying to maintain control over his work to keep it out of the wrong hands.

But someone at the university wants to weaponize his fear drug. Crane isn't selling, so they try to take it by force. He finds out and beats them to the punch to take them out first. Crane then realizes others will want to do the same. And maybe, he decides if this s**t's going to be weaponized, it can be weaponized against those who deserve it.

And now, simply because he chose not to fire a gun in class, he didn't become a villain. He became a hero.

He still has his issues, still has the same personality, still has selfish motives and even a scary costume, but that little change completely flipped where he stands on the scale.

And it makes for a great AU.

I'll be honest, I'd never read an AU until last year. It was sort of a high-school AU, but the main characters from the universe were the teachers, not the students. I actually really enjoyed it!

I've considered dabbling with an AU, but the closest I've come so far is writing canon-divergent stories after a certain point in the progression of a TV show/movie series/game.