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Hi morf I hope you enjoyed this :D! Though I didn’t hit all of your points, I did my best to do your prompt justice.

This is a bit outside of my normal art stuff but I love road trips myself so. While things like coming up with adult(ish) designs and all the background stuff posed quite the challenge, I’m glad to have had the chance to take it on.

Here are a couple additional images–all the panels together, preliminary designs for the group circa mid 2010s, and an itinerary map of their trip, including some extra locations that I would route them through:

Finally, I could probably write a book on "things I missed and why", so for completion’s sake, if there’s anything glaring you’d like me to add (for anywhere) I’d be happy to do a couple extra panels !

lmk if you have any questions about any of this. I’ve got plenty of notes and details on the whole thing but I didn’t want to blab on here forever.!

Odd's View of Romance

Odd is an artist who comes from a family of artists. And when we meet his parents they are quite sweet together and clearly have a very romantic relationship. All this to say that Odd has a very idealistic romanticised view of romance which was probably inadvertently created by his parents and reinforced by much artistic media focused on romance.

He is in search of his one true love. He believes in this concept of soulmates, in love at first sight, in being the perfect pair, made for each other, right from the get go. It is a very unrealistic view of romance.

But this idealistic view of romance is what he holds in high regard and as something very desireable. All of this reinforced by an amatonormative society which treats romance as something everyone wants and as the only way to achieve true happiness in life.

Odd's Dating Life

But if he's aromantic why does he get all these crushes on girls and dates so many of them? Well... does he actually have crushes on them?

I believe Odd experiences sexual attraction. Many of the girls he dates are either because of "love at first sight" (sexual attraction) or because he hasn't tried with this one and she's pretty so maybe she's the one. His sexual attraction causes him to pay attention to a girl and then he overlays that with this idealised vision of romance; he creates a fantasy in his head of her. A fantasy of the ideal love story in which he and this girl are the main characters.

Then he dates her and he gets caught up in the euphoria of scoring a date, of this romantic fantasy coming true and maybe some NRE (new relationship energy) too. Within days the fantasy is broken. He never experiences this head over heels love he dreams of and the relationship never meets his fantasy. Sexual attraction will only take you so far in a romantic relationship.

I would even say that him dating two girls at once without telling them shows that on some level he doesn't quite fully understand the feelings of the girls he is dating. He is shown to normally be pretty empathetic and emotionally intelligent with his two exceptions to this being taking jokes too far and... dating.

I'm aware his flaws also get him broken up with but he also never seems to feel too bad about it afterwards, at least not in a losing someone you care about way. It hurts his self esteem. And he's always quick to move on to the next crush.

But What About Sam?

Sam is the only one he seems to actually have a long term crush on, exhibiting the same blushing and awkwardness that the other characters do around their crushes.

Well, aromanticism is a spectrum. He could be demiromantic or greyromantic or Sam could just be the one exception to his aromanticism.

But also, we don't really have a confirmation of his feelings for her being completely romantic. We know he is attracted to her and that they are good friends. It could be that he is experiencing a different third type of attraction that doesn't fall neatly into the platonic or romantic category. Something anybody can feel but is usually especially notable for aromantic people who don't normally experience romantic feelings. Which also means that sometimes aromantic people can mix this up with a romantic crush. It could be that Odd has some different sort of feelings for Sam that are hard to place in normative terms.

And if we take CLE as canon, with the lottery and rose situation, he is much more concerned about his financial dilemma than he is about winning Sam over and seems to lose interest in her afterwards. Perhaps the feelings he had for her were fleeting.

Odd and The Lyoko Gang

Odd really loves his friends. Time and time again he always puts his friends above his romances. Even Sam. And while this is something that alloromantic people can do, this is something that can be part of the aromantic experience.

The whole gang is very close because of the trauma and the big shared secret. But Ulrich and Yumi especially care about each other as do Aelita and Jeremie, and we never see Odd have this with anyone except Sam. But even then it is not to the same extent, though, this is impacted by the circumstances; not being at the same school and her not being in on the secret. But, for example, we do see Ulrich put his feelings for Yumi over the mission when he triggers a return to the past to get the lottery numbers for Yumi's parents to try keep her from moving back to Japan. We never see Odd put his feelings for someone over the mission.

When Sam moves away but comes back for an inter-school skateboard tournament, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for Odd and Sam to hang out with each other. They're likely not going to be able to see each other again, at least not for the rest of the school year (though I don't know how school works in France). And Ulrich and Yumi have skipped a mission before; Ulrich because of his father and Yumi because of school (can't remember if anyone else does). But when Odd learns that there is a mission going on, he leaves for it without a second thought. Because it's not just about the mission, it's also about his friends. And Sam doesn't understand why he would do that for them. Though she doesn't know about Xana and Lyoko, it does reflect the lived experience of aromantic people who put their friendships over their romantic relationships. It's something that amatonormative society finds confusing.

There is also the situation with Brynja. This is the one and only time that he breaks the secrecy outside of an emergency. This is in part because Brynja was a toxic girlfriend who was trying to get Odd to choose between her and his friends, but also because she was viewing his friends in such a meaningless way. They didn't matter to her. And Odd couldn't accept that. He felt like he had to defend his friends, to show her what they mean to him, and this was the only way he could think to do so.

This is later in the show and the Lyoko gang has formed a really close bond by this point. And Odd can't view a romantic relationship without it being relational to his friendship with the Lyoko gang anymore. They are a part of his future and have become part of his idealised romantic fantasy. And in the end, despite her manipulations, he chooses his friends over her.

(Also, tangent, the Lyoko gang saying it's us or her about Brynja felt so polyamorous when I watched it haha)

Another point in this category is Odd saying that it would be idiotic to die for (romantic) love followed by him nearly dying for Aelita later in the same episode. And he has risked his life many times for all of the Lyoko gang. One example being when Yumi is being targeted by a satellite laser and Odd chooses to keep running with her. They do also do the same for him.

And like I said, it's not that alloromantic people can't do this, it's just that amatonormativity teaches us not to and it's more common for aromantic people, even those who aren't aware they're aromantic, to put friendships over romance.

Bonus: Odd's Relationship With Masculinity

I also feel like Odd's got an idealised version of masculinity in his head which is connected to his idealised version of romance, his idealised heterosexual romance. His idealised version of masculinity seems to involve being a suave ladies man combined with his vision of being a male artist. With his only in-family role model for this being his father. And the countless common conceptions of male artists. And he prides himself on his masculinity and being defensive over his body not fitting his ideal masculinity; svelte not scrawny.

Despite this I would say he is gender non-conforming. Especially for the early 2000s. (Though I don't know if this is different in a French cultural context). He likes to wear purple and pink and also wears a crop top. There is also at least two instances of him admiring women in a way that is also a bit odd (pun intended) for boys in the early 2000s. Example being when he says Susan from the Fantastic Four is really cool. He seems to have a feminine side that he doesn't fully indulge in.

But he still focuses on this idealised masculinity that seems closely connected to his idealised romance and how attractive he comes across to girls.

I do wonder, that if he were to realise typical heterosexual romance wasn't for him, if he would become even more gender non-conforming. Especially in an artistic way where he feels he has the freedom to explore all sorts of fashion combinations, free from the expectations of his idealised vision of masculinity.

He definitely didn't mind being in Yumi's body when they switched body's, no discomfort of any kind despite Yumi definitely being shown to experience discomfort. In fact, he had fun exploring fashion and playing at being the girl in a typical heterosexual dynamic.

In Conclusion

I believe that Odd Della Robbia makes so much more sense when framed through an aromantic lens. It would explain some aspects of why he is the way that he is. Explain some aspects of his relationships with girls, his relationship with himself and his relationship with his friends. It would explain why dating is an exception to his emotional intelligence and why he seems to never get a crush on any of the girls he dates.