All of this made me giggle helplessly.

yessssssss this was my primary goal. MY SECONDARY GOAL, AS YOU CAN SEE, WAS PANNING-FOR-GOLD FIC.

HIGH SCHOOL AU! OMG IF I COULD WRITE THAT I WOULD.

who would Cendred be, that is the question.

Pottery teacher?

he would totally be the misunderstood arts/pottery teacher who went to teacher's college with the naive ambition of fostering ~creativity~ in misunderstood teenagers [i'm trying not to channel will schuester but it is haaard]. needless to say, he was quite dismayed to find that most of his kids just skipped class to smoke pot.

and morgause teaches phys-ed and rolls her eyes at his frowny faces as he lovingly and painstakingly drafts his lesson plans in the teacher's lounge. occasionally, she thwacks him on the head and tells him to man the hell up.

Yes! Can Morgana be the head of the Debate Club? and Merlin can be the kind of distracted student at the back of the class who's naturally good at math, and was in Cendred's class, but ditched it one day and just never came back. Cendred wonders where he went, every time he takes roll, and finally one day calls Merlin's home out in the ghetto to try to track him down. Merlin's mother says she suggested Merlin join French class instead, and is confused as to why he did not tell his king teacher this, and why he didn't fill out the proper paperwork.

Yes she can.

and Cendred is genuinely concerned about his students' academic progress and sets up a PTA meeting with Hunith (Balinor dodges it like a bullet, if he's still in the picture).

And can Arthur be the dumb jock who is actually really fucking brilliant but doesn't want anyone to know because it would make him uncool?

I approve of this fic that we are not actually writing

and may we continue to not actually write it, for always.

Arthur is totally the jock, quickly fliffing through his color coded French flashcards in his sports locker before every practice. French class is where he meets Merlin, btw, that kid who can't pronounce the back-of-the-throat 'r'

Balinor...did not dodge the bullet.

amen.

Balinor is very grumpy throughout this meeting but he's in between jobs at the moment so Hunith has him on a tight leash.

Arthur and Merlin are stuck together in some ridiculous group presentation for French class and Arthur is secretly worried that Merlin will make them both fail but he tries to act all blase about it until it cannot be helped and Merlin's awful pronounciation really grates on his nerves. Merlin is, in fact, pretty good with the writing and the grammar; his oral skill are just total shit [my brain did not just go there]. They can never decide on meeting times and Arthur's a bit of a pronounciation snob and Merlin's a bit sick of it really. So he lets Arthur do all the work and cuts class to feed the ducklings with Gwen--who's like two grades ahead and doesn't need to go to class anyway--and they botch up the presentation anyhow.

In the mean time, we need someone to play the exasperated!French teacher who's really big on teambuilding and keeps making the kids who don't get along work together. repeatedly. I vote Gaius. or ~LeDragon~ idk.

Cendred continues to re-examine his teaching approach and figure out how to entice Merlin into coming back to his class.

So, yeah, Merlin and Gwen kind of French!fail during the presentation, and Arthur is standing there the entire time with a hand over his eyes. The two aren't very concerned, because they're off in their own little worlds. But when Merlin finds out he got a C on a progress report, anger bubbles within. He literallly roars, and then babbles in french at the teacher, who is suitably impressed and weirded out. Merlin get's a referral, but also the poor grade is reversed.

Cendred looks like Merlin's dead/at the conference dad.

Important elements to stick in:
-there is a school dance.
-Lancelot writes well-meaning editorials to the school paper.
-A new girl sits next to Morgana in chemistry, asks her how she sleeps at night, and then gives her presents. Morgana is somehow not creeped out, and instead fantasizes about running away with her.

...and then the high school au becomes kind of creepy like Glee.

[good news. the highschool au we are not writing is still viable post ep1--then again, being au, i don't really think it matters...]

merlin totally tries to dodge the school-dance bullet but his mom makes him go because she wants him to have normal high school experiences.

lancelot asks gwen to go with him. she shuts him down twice. gives in the third time.

cendred is a chaperone.

is that a Balinor is dead joke? because I think it should be.

it definitely was.

...then i definitely need to not be on this thread at 3 a.m.