BoredAf

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