Tw: manipulation mentions, Deceit

Deceit shows up in Can Lying Be Good and, at the end, he shuts Logan up, taunts Virgil and gives Roman sarcastic 'compliments'.

And, while he's trying to convince Thomas and the others that lying can be good -- especially considering the self-preservation aspect -- he doesn't exactly do it in the best way.

Deceit comes back in Selfishness vs Selflessness. He doesn't even include Logan until he needs him as a witness, and then benches him, silencing him once again. With Virgil, he pushes his buttons -- specifically about his name and hints at what else he could be keeping from everyone. He uses his backhanded compliments against Roman, manipulating him into favouring him.

Again, his goal is to show everyone that lying isn't inherently bad. It's only bad if you use it for bad. However, this 'lesson' is tied into the wedding-callback situation so his main goal at that moment is trying to influence Roman, the judge, convince or 'sentence' Thomas to go to the callback.

In Selfishness vs Selflessness: Redux, Deceit hands Patton and Roman a button to shush Logan. When they did, he took his place, being much more skilled in his impersonation; instead of just stealing Logan's voice, he uses it as his own. Virgil isn't here so there's no one for him to taunt.

By the end, he finally gets his point across. Unfortunately, the only two willing to listen were Patton and Thomas. But that is more than enough.

I am inclined to believe that was his goal all along. In each of the videos he's appeared in, Deceit never went directly for Patton. He silenced Logan, went after Virgil, and used Roman. He even mocked Thomas at some points. Yet, Patton was almost always left unscathed save for a remark here or there.

Why would he go after convincing Patton to listen to him, specifically?

Well .. Patton holds a lot of influence over Thomas. Maybe more than the others, rivalled only by Virgil, maybe, except that Virgil can be reasoned with. Patton is a bit more difficult, by having a wavering opinion. Despite this, he is the one who calls a lot of the final shots.

For example, in the beginning of Making Some Changes, everyone is in agreement until Virgil shows up. Then Patton is swayed to his side. Once he is with Virgil, Thomas is also swayed to that side. Logan and Roman immediately react, jumping to fight Virgil's influence. Once Roman gives Thomas the realization they can shapeshift, Patton is all in with the idea and so is Thomas.

- Beautiful sound design! The music really goes off this time and I’m living for it

- I live for the animation more tho. Seriously, there’s so much in this video that makes it seem like a full movie production! I feel like I usually have to pay money to see this kind of effort and detail for the visuals it’s insane

- Frogger is acknowledged. I’m glad those games from my youth weren’t a fever dream

- character development. Both in Thomas as a person and all his sides. They’re all growing up and facing difficulties!

- in the same vein, character interactions. Sander sides is very character driven series but it usually defaults being to characters vs the problem, with the character vs characters coming from how to solve the problem. This is much more natural character vs character interaction, where people are just disagreeing and butting heads because of personality differences. The story here isn’t just driven because Thomas is having a problem, Thomas is having a problem because the sides are disagreeing about something.

- Minor spoiler, we see deciet again. I’m in love with this development. Won’t say anything more about it though.

- I mentioned the amazing music in the background but I should mention Thomas sings again. I love it.

- the humor is great. Dad jokes of course but also word play

- very informative! I love nuggets of learning things in entertainment. It’s neat! It also shows another output of effort and love Thomas and his friends put into the video! Teach me thinnngggsssss

- as with a lot of the Sides content, it’s very relatable to what people deal with. Once again Thomas blows it out of the ballpark by acknowledging and dissecting very real and very confusing dilemmas we all have. I applaud that skill the most tbh. Remus’ debut, Is There Healthy Distractions?, and this video show how much of strong suit Thomas and Joan have in displaying real hard things to swallow and understand in a very digestible way. All without watering down any element of it.

Logan: *sighs* you haven’t had plain water in over 36 hours, your sleep schedule is non-existent, and you barely eat a meal a day