Aelita "acquire two boyfriends through the power of friendship and also trauma bonding" Schaffer, Jeremie "i might be bisexual but i got a job so im not really worried about that rn" Belpois and William "highest body count in the group" Dunbar everybody
Pages from today, first drawings of Ulrich and Odd 😼 more of the P!willumi au and s5 au mini comic! Also some William explorations (i have a hc that on lyoko there's not exactly light/dark since it's all code so when i draw their lyoko forms i center the eye shine where the pupil is supposed to be! Kind of a doll like look yk?)
I swear I'll draw Jeremie another time I can't get his hair right 🥀
William was a bit reckless, yes, but they were all reckless (with the possible exception of Yumi, ok). Odd’s strategy consists in being reckless. Aelita was reckless plenty of times. And Ulrich -- let’s not even start with Urich.
William might have acted stupidly but it was his first time on Lyoko. He wasn’t told about the monsters he’d find there and especially not about the monster that could possess him. He didn’t know how dangerous XANA was. I mean, sure, he remembered a few things -- but his memories were dreams, and so mostly incomplete and hazy and didn’t convey the feeling of urgency and danger he actually lived. Did the gang tell him about the monsters, about the attacks, about the danger? No they didn’t.
And the first time he was virtualised... well, no one else was there but Aelita. He was untrained. His first times on Lyoko should have been pure training, and assisting on missions when the whole gang was there. It shouldn’t have been at a time when something really important was at hand, and when he and Aelita were defenseless. When he hadn’t actually seen first hand what XANA was capable of.
And also... everything was so easy on Lyoko for him! They told him “this is dangerous” and the dude just offed several monsters in one go, without a scratch, without breaking a sweat.
So yeah, he made a mistake, but he was uninformed and untrained.
People seem to forget that Aelita was possessed too, and no one blames her.
People seem to forget, too, that all Lyoko Warriors committed mistakes, some of them were extremely dire (I mean Jeremy almost killed Aelita with his Marabounta, for instance), and some of them happened even though they knew Lyoko.
They also forget that William wasn’t such a hothead. When XANA attacked with zombies, his reaction was mature and thoughtful. He was thoughtful during the bomb attack as well. It just so happened that he was in a freaking video game. All the Warriors were thrilled by the funny video game at first, too. Until XANA attacked. And William never really saw a XANA attack.
And my final point is that... they all forgot the dire consequences this possession had on William. Several scenes suggest that it was actually torture for him. At the end, he is motivated by revenge -- which proves that this experience was traumatising for him; you don’t want revenge without trauma. His grades and his relationship with his parents and his reputation at school were all jeopardised by his double. William has lost several months in his life and now he has to work harder to fix the mistakes his double made -- mistakes that have a very real impact on his life.
So, yeah, William made mistakes, he isn’t perfect. But the Lyoko Warriors also committed mistakes, and there were reasons why William committed them, and they had a terrible impact on him. The Lyoko Warriors blaming him for everything that happened seemed so unfair to me, and honestly, it was the worst part of Season 4 for me. It tainted the final episodes when they just told him, ‘nah. we don’t trust you. you’re not one of us. you don’t belong with us.’
Willita s4 redesigns + post canon interaction + hc that while in Lyoko, William continued to physically age like everyone else
Also also in order of rekindling, Aelita (never held a grudge), Jeremie, Yumi/Odd/Ulrich (they all come around at about the same time but I fw willumi friendship deeply so Yumi is first)
I bring ‘Mike Wheeler isn’t straight but he doesn’t have feelings for Will because he only loves El.’ opinion To the stranger Things fandom that the Mileven shippers and Byler shippers dislike.
THE ULTIMATE EIGHT!! (Aka the Futuristic Four/Five + The Hope Kids)
After 3 days i FINALLY finished their designs 😭😭😭 there's technically 2 aus for this group, one being where they meet as kids and all live in the same time period (normal ages) and this one where the story is in college and they don't live in the same times,, at first😼
AU rant below ↓↓↓
Let's say they all live in the same year (2041 yes i know some of theme live in the 50's/60's/2000's/2010's but im not doing allat) and two alternate universes. Wilbur, Hiro, Penny, Violet and Riley live in one while Mei, Camilo and Miguel live in the other. Superhero's and Magic, etc etc
Wilbur attends SFIT while Hiro is a TA. During a project gone wrong (a redo of the dimensional portal project from Krei Tech, with Hiro guiding the project while Wilbur assists) something particularly strange happens, a hole in the universe is created due to the main power sources being a Time Machine and the previous tools used to make the first portals. This holes starts creating vortex's across time and space, one of which sucks up the two, while other vortex's suck up people both in their universe (Penny, Riley and Violet) and out (Mei, Miguel and Camilo).
All eight end up in San Fransokyo and decide to work together to try and get back to their original universes. Over time bonds are formed and they become a really good team (both as people and as heroes). Some romances form as well.
A while later though they find out that they can't exactly return home per-say, not the ones they're used to. Things are more complicated than that.
When the collide happened, a hole in space and time was created and they fell in. There's no particular reason these specific people fell in, it's just dumb luck. Anyways, the universe doesn't usually need help when it breaks, either because it can fix itself or someone is there to do it (Wilbur has experience with this). So while they were trying to figure out how to get home, the universe was healing itself by combining every area in wither universe that the hole had damaged into one new universe, minimizing damage and making the clean up job easier.
For a better explanation, imagine you've dropped a glass cup and now your floor is covered in painful glass shards. The first thing most people do is pick up the largest pieces and throw them away to minimize potential harm. Then they have to sweep the rest of it, and over time the little grains will be sweeper away too, eventually being clean again.
The mending/cleaning process was already halfway done so now they had to choose whether to undo it and return to their original lives,,, or keep moving forward together and protect their new reality. Keep in mind, though the worst of the hole has been fixed, there's still rips across time and even space that could put people in danger, and those rips could get better is someone doesn't help.
Knowing these 8, is it any surprise they chose the latter?
★ EDIT FROM JUNE 2ND 2026: ok i swapped Tip with Camilo because i wanna stick to the Disney theme + i really don't wanna explain where Oh is or learn to draw the boov 😭
★ EDIT FROM JULY 6TH 2026: gave Wilbur, Riley, Miguel and Mei new outfits, hated the old ones and Mei's just looked cluttered 🥀
I don't have a clever caption for this one but it's more Platonic* Willumi AU (he's gonna devirtualize her in 2 seconds)
OK SO, 1. Platonic* is alluding to William ignoring his feelings for Yumi because he's not looking for a relationship here, hence the asterisk. It's not entirely platonic but they're nothing more than best friends 🔥
final round + s4 would go way differently and i already mentioned that even in a universe where William isn't in the love triangle he'd still be taken over by X.A.N.A.
How? I feel like in this AU Yumi would've felt way better about introducing him to the rest of the Warriors (before he even finds out) and the bonds formed in EVO (yes we all know it's mid but i got good character interactions out of it so im using them) would happen much MUCH earlier. The show even has scenes of William bonding with Aelita + Jeremy and is shown to get along with them very well. I think that even before becoming a warrior William would develop the same protectiveness over Aelita like the rest of the group so by final round, instead of him getting too fired up in Lyoko, I'd imagine he'd actually try to shield Aelita and get taken himself
The drawing is supposed to portray a reinterpretation of Yumi's line "i knew we shouldn't have let you into the group" (not word for word but we all know it shhh). Here it would be because despite being closer with him, she 1. Wanted to keep a normal connection without the stress of family or Lyoko and 2. Wanted him to be safe from X.A.N.A. and was for the moment proven right when on his first mission (to sector 5 no less and just him + Aelita) X.A.N.A. took William away from them
Additionally this also lets me cook up some Willita on the side because on top of their friendship, Aelita defending him after he was unpossessed and their bond shown in EVO, now he's basically taken her place as XANA's (I'm not typing then full thing every time) puppet
If i could rewrite code lyoko (and i aint doing all of that) id rewrite william and yumis relationship to be completely platonic from the beginning
Also ⬆️ pic above is: William and Yumi walking to class and chatting, Them playing some horror game idk what tho. You pick, and William questioning/reassuring Yumi on the phone during a XANA attack (atp he knows she goes off and does weird things but leaves it be for the most part)
ANYWHO
the love triangle (square if we include Sissi) is genuinely so annoying and id like more boy/girl friendships that are not related to romance in any type of way. Plus i genuinely think it would be a neat character arc for the three (Yumi, Ulrich and William)
Yumi - one of her main problems in the show is trying to balance lyoko stuff with her civilian life (mainly her family and later William), and earlier in his appearances William states he's not one to pry into folks business which i think Yumi would appreciate. I think she needs someone unconnected to lyoko to just chill with but not need to live with, aka a friend. She has friends ofc but ykwim. Anywho as lyoko stuff gets more dangerous/time consuming William can have her back by providing an alibi or whatever (that time he locked himself in their photo development room while she went to deal with lyoko crap) but obviously he'd eventually get worried/suspicious. Lalala i don't feel like elaborating on plot lines we already have but tldr Yumi has to figure out if she wants to bring her friend into the danger of being a Warrior or keep him in the dark and arguably more danger
Ulrich - cutting to the chase, we all know Ulrich has a bad habit of getting jealous of Yumi with other people despite actively trying not to confess to her (ngl I'm still confused on why he doesn't but whateverrrr) and on his end i genuinely think he would develop a bit from a one sided rivalry. If William is actually just a friend then his little speech's to Ulrich about Yumi would hit harder for Ulrich AND kinda force him to do some thinking about their relationship. Off the top of my head William has said to Ulrich 1. He's not first place in the race for her heart and 2. If you don't hurry up and tell her, someone else is gonna swoop in (not in these exact words but you get it). Obviously these scenes would change if William didn't have feelings for her dialogue wise but it would also be Ulrich's hint to get a move on. Yumis her own person and if she doesn't want to wait for him he's gonna have to keep up
William - tbh the whole reason i would rewrite his relationship with Yumi is because it would 1. Nix the creepy stuff on his part (and i mean, i can keep that stuff cuz character flaws are integral and pave the way to character development) and 2. Flesh him out a bit. He mentions that love makes him crazy and that he was kicked from his previous school for leaving love letters everywhere. I think a neat piece of development this could lead to is William attempting to avoid romance in general at Kadic to avoid something like that happening again, self betterment and such. Plus if he doesn't have a crush on Yumi, it would be more interesting if he actively ignored his feelings for her because he doesn't want to make the same mistakes. Ofc he can still slip up but now he'd have the integrity to know he needs to do better. Additionally he's shown to be mostly reasonable as a character so i think doing this (blocking out his crush on Yumi pipeline) would also allow his performance on lyoko to end a little better (i still see him getting possessed tho). If he's more level headed then when getting cornered by the scyphazoa (?) he'd probably listen to Jeremie due to his plan of being a better person and try running away. But we all know the scyphozoa is persistent and at the end of the day, William is still a rookie
That's all i have to offer on this lol, I'm a new fan so lemme know if i got smth wrong or whatever
