Teacher/Student
| Tropes and genres | |
|---|---|
| Related tropes/genres | Mentor Fic, High School AU, College AU, Age Difference |
| See also | Underage, Forbidden Love |
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| Related articles on Fanlore. | |
Teacher/Student is a trope that describes the forbidden love of a teacher and their student, usually either in a high school or college setting. The trope usually includes age difference, and is disliked among anti-shippers because of the power imbalance and possible sexualization of teenagers in the relationship.
Teacher/Student Relationships in Canon
- Netflix original drama Riverdale featured a romance between Archie Andrews and his teacher, Geraldine Grundy.
- Shoujo manga Faster Than A Kiss paired protagonist schoolgirl Fumino Kaji and her fiancé, and teacher, Kazuma Ojiro.
- Meiko Akizuki and Professor Namura from Marmalade Boy start dating in secret when he's still a university student and she's in junior high. Then he graduates and becomes her teacher in her first year of senior high.
- Byleth, the player character of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, is a 21-year-old teacher whose students are generally 16-18 years old. Several years after the start of the game, the player has the option to have Byleth marry one of his or her former students, with Edeleth being a popular ship.
Student/Teacher Relationship in Fandom
Canon Students and Teachers
Some works are set in the canonverse, and pair characters who are teachers with their students. This is particularly common in Harry Potter fandom where the majority of characters are either students or teachers at Hogwarts. Popular pairings include:
- Snarry (Snape x Harry) from Harry Potter
- Snape/Hermione from Harry Potter
- Kakashi x Sasuke from Naruto
- Kakashi x Sakura from Naruto
Student/Teacher AUs
Other works use AU settings, often High School AU or College AU, and cast one character from the pairing as a teacher, and the other half of the pairing as their student. As of August 2025, over 4000 AO3 works used the Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher tag. The most represented fandoms in the tag were:
- Bangtan Boys
- MCU (especially Tony Stark/Peter Parker)
- Star Wars (especially Reylo)
- Attack on Titan
- My Hero Academia
Example Fanworks
All stats as of September 2022:
- Young girl, get out of my mind by SilentRain91, an epic The 100 Clexa AU (2016, 153k words with 124k hits and 5k kudos)
- The universe says so by SilentRain91, a Supergirl Kara/Lena AU (2017, 78k words, 106k hits and 4k kudos)
- Baby, It's Just Biology by Polkadotdotdot (2018, Reylo, A/B/O, 112k words, 145k hits, 4k kudos)
- Someone Will Remember Us by starsthatburn, Once Upon a Time, Regina Mills/Emma Swan (2019, 117k words, 80k hits and 4k kudos)
- MFA (Most Fuckable Ass)
- Destiny by Xoxerothepoet, a Skunk Fu fic
| Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples. |
Archives & Links
- Teacher-Student Relationship works on Ao3
- AU Student/Teacher works on Ao3