:]

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Before Semo came, Hana and Duri’s friend was Dingyo. She was the third friend in the trio. She had a good dynamic going with her and Hana’s interactions and her constant conflict with Duri.

When Semo came into the picture, he pushed Dingyo out of her position and took it.

Suddenly, she was genuinely being left out. Before, Duri would reluctantly let her come along even if he hated it because they needed her. But after, they didn’t need her anymore because they had Semo.

I think it was a wasted opportunity, really. Hana had a lot of potential with Dingyo, and so did Duri...

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So like, if you just look at them, you’ll already see Limo constantly going crazy over wanting to get to his son. And it’s rather easy to interpret this as a one-sided emotional dependency, because Semo always seems calm.

But... It is mutual!

Semo’s entire identity is so often simplified to “Limo’s adoptive son”, even by Semo himself.

In the first season, when Limo was still a villain, he never once mentioned Semo, not even when he got arrested. But the first important thing we learn about Semo (bcs before the revelation, he was kinda just a rude kid who lived with the twins now) is that he is Limo’s son.

And even outside of the narrative showing him this way, Semo also only ever thinks of Limo in all arcs focused on him. S.03, s14... He never got a character development arc focused on him that wasn’t centered around his need to save his father.

He constantly uses his prosthetic hand for all the cool, important stuff. It’s made by Limo too. There is such a deep, unsettling intimacy in “owing” someone part of your body, and Semo doesn’t seem to mind at all.

That’s the thing, I think.

Their obsession shows up in different ways, but it’s mutual.

Limo’s is active, crazy, intense and overwhelming. Semo is all he ever thinks about after s08 when he came into the tobot team—yet, he has his own arcs about his life, before and after Semo.

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Semo’s obsession is also intense, but it’s quiet. It’s complete and utter devotion to his guardian. It’s his savior complex being multiplied 100× whenever Limo is in danger, and him getting defensive whenever anyone suggests Limo might be the danger. He has friendships and conflict with his friends, but in the end, it leads back to the man who practically gave him a second birth.

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My theory is that before HoD, Limo was made aware of how obsessive and codependent his relationship with Semo was, so he made active efforts to break their patterns and ended up putting a wall between them instead, and that’s why they’re Like That in HoD.

Some things I noticed:

Doc never asked to be Semo’s only tobot. He’s not possessive. He just wants to be Semo’s tobot.

Doc is insistent. He knows what he wants, even when everyone else is pushing back, and he only actually backs down after Semo himself hesitates.

Semo and Doc are the only duo out of the TritanTrio-RescueCrew partnerships that stayed in casual, regular contact with eachother.

DocSem lost to SemZ because in the end, Semo will always choose to not change things too much, and he will always choose his loved ones (Z) over what is best for him (being with Doc).

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The main reason why I love them as a toxic relationship is because physically, Semo definitely has the upper hand, but the psychological/emotional power dynamic renders that meaningless, because Semo barely ever uses his physical strength against anyone who isn’t a direct danger.

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First, Semo is forced to live with the Chas since his dad is in prison and he seemingly has nowhere else to go. He has no friends, no family, nothing.

After he gets told the truth about Diluk, the twins seem to become his first ever friends.

So, of course, with Semo’s tendency to not really stand up for himself and being rather desperate for the people he loves, this is a problem, because Hana and Duri automatically gain the upper hand in the emotional power dynamic.

They (mainly Duri. It’s always Duri) easily push Semo in whatever direction they want. Even without explicit coercion, they shrink him down into submission, and he doesn’t fight back because these are his only friends, and if he loses them, he has nothing.

BUT! Do not let this make you forget the fact that they DO outright force Semo into doing what they want sometimes, most notably in that scene when Dingyo was trying to call Semo and Duri actively pressured him to hang up and straight up did it himself when Semo hesitated.

And that’s their early seasons relationship. Pretty inequal.

It’s only around s08-s09 that they became more equal, but not really any healthier.

Hana and Duri were both too cowardly to approach Semo after their fight, but they constantly worried and thought about it.

When they saw him practice his joint attack with Ogong, they immediately backed out of apologizing. They say something like “It’s like they don’t need us anymore”, but they are specifically focusing on trying to talk to Semo in that scene, so it came across as “Semo doesn’t need us anymore” to me. And they end up leaving. And the issue gets resolved later when they help Semo and Ogong and Semo forgives them immediately.

(That also reminds me, early seasons!Semo seems to have shown a few signs of codependency with the twins, such as never being able to set boundaries, barely going anywhere without them, and getting extremely overprotective and aggressive when they get all depressed in s09 before he knew it was because of the lullaby.)

In the later seasons, the unhealthy aspects of their relationship is amplified.

The twins pick fights with Semo the most out of all Semo’s friends. It’s always either Hana arguing and getting mad while Duri awkwardly and kinda pathetically tries to mediate, or Duri gets pissy at Semo and Hana just insults him in that sibling way.

And the thing is... none of them ever actually comfort eachother. It’s a constant loop of fighting whenever things get serious, then marinating in that grudge for a while before the messy apologies start and Semo ends up returning to that "big brother" role and trying to console them.

And along with the constant fighting and arguments, the twins are also always the first ones to give up or turn on Semo, like in s14 (that was a major point of development for nearly all of Semo’s relationship, ofc I bring it up all the time lol) or s1p1.

And yet, despite it all, they keep returning to eachother and letting the cycle continue again and again, until the rest of HoD where their relationship barely got any focus, pushed to the side for the development of the new characters to fit.

They’re something more than “bestfriends”, but not quite brothers, and not quite romantic.

And that’s it!

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Here, you have Semo on a green background, which, while being the color of Z’s powers, is also a color Ogong very often wears.

Meanwhile, Ogong is on a blue background, which is a color that Semo occasionally uses for accessories or tiny details with his design.

And then, we see Semo’s Z-key light up with almost the same exact shade of blue that Ogong’s background is. And on the other end, Ogong’s tokey shines the specific bright green glow of Semo’s background.

I know the whole point is that they’re doing a joint attack, but it’s very cute, as if they’re trading a piece of themselves to the other...

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They have lots of narrative parallels, some more subtle and some more blatant, but you have to actually read into that to get the appeal, because if you take their relationship at face value, you won’t find anything.

Canon barely lets them interact, and only allows them to have an actual relationship if it’s in a group scene where they can switch to another duo or group quickly.

Compare this with SemHan, who get so much attention from the fandom because... Look at their relationship, their interactions, their physical touch. (Specifically SemHan bcs you have to kinda read too deep into their dynamic to see the HanSem perspective)

Look at DingSem, which is... well, DingSem. The most heavily implied ship out of the entire cast.

Look at GongDul, who barely had a relationship prior to s15 other than arguing, friendly insults, and regular friendship here and there, but after s15, they were suddenly the closest, most loyal friends to eachother ever. So the fandom, of course, latches onto them.

And hey, look at LimSem’s codependency and insanity about eachother, and how a huge chunk of the fandom ships them because of how much their relationship is shown and focused on,

That’s the thing.