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hahanoiwont · 6 years

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Virgil, lying, and “change”

I was looking through pre-AA vids for a longer reference post I’m making, and I noticed that during Making Some Changes, Virgil has some interesting things to say about change as it relates to him. First of all, Virgil verbally expresses at least 14 times that he doesn’t want to be changed (meta under readmore):

Various grimaces/scoffing/cringes: 5

“No. I am not playing this game.”

“I’m comfortable just the way I am. And besides--Thomas, this isn’t gonna do anyth-” (cut off by being transformed into Talyn)

“Change me back, now!”

“Noooo [hisses]”

(speaking loudly, enunciating) “I am not okay with this.”

T: “This is all incredibly amusing, but...” V (leaning forward): “Yes, but?”

“Stop doing this.”

T: “I don’t think you switching around is helping.” V: “Of course it’s not, Thomas.”

“There’s no use, Thomas.”

“I don’t have to look like anyone to make sense.”

“I’m getting real sick of this.”

“And then there’s change you can control, but shouldn’t. Like changing me.” (immediately changed into Talyn)

“Great. Well, can you use a little bit of that control to change me back now?”

“No! You take turns changing me into different friends today and expect me to open up to all of you? Fat chance! Except you, Patton. You didn’t do that, you’re cool.” (Patton turns him into Talyn) “NOT AGAIN!”

Now, some of these lines have a lot of interesting implications. Virgil states outright that he doesn’t want to change, that he doesn’t want to appear different. This could be because looking like the others gives him a sense of belonging, it could be that being changed against his will is upsetting for bodily autonomy reasons, or, in a subtle theme that’s existed throughout the series, it could be because he perceives himself to be telling the truth, always.

Until the lying video, I hadn’t made particular note of it, but Virgil sees himself as honest almost all of the time. In the Negative Thinking vid, his immediate assumption when Logan disagrees with him is that Logan is against him personally/is just carrying on the pattern of disagreeing with whatever he has to say without listening and realizing he’s right. It never even occurs to Virgil that he might not be right, and once it does, he quickly loses steam and takes steps to leave the situation, presumably to brood over it until he can decide what’s the truth. Once his point of view might not be The Only Truth, he steps back to reassess. Most importantly, he stops making general statements of what he assumes to be fact (they hate you) and starts using concrete details he knows to be objectively true (you forgot the song) and dramatic phrasing that can be interpreted as true or false according to where you set your goals (you fucked up). He begins using qualifying statements and talking around himself to leave open the possibility that he’s wrong (ie not lying even if he turns out to be wrong on a point) without abandoning his position itself. Aggressive behavior and body language pretty much pick up the slack to keep him firmly hostile, but the things he’s saying aren’t in and of themselves untrue either way.

The only thing Virgil does all series, as far as I can tell, that deliberately misrepresents the truth is how he interacts as a threatening presence. By his own admission, this is to keep the others on their toes, and after his acceptance he only takes on that persona when he needs to “kick in.” So either he understands that persona to be part of his job or he uses it to draw attention to his concerns because it’s effective. Either way, it may or may not be part of his true personality, which is the closest he gets to deliberately “lying” in the 24 vids we have so far.

Which brings us back to presentation. Virgil is vehemently against being turned into other people, even though it’s acknowledged several times that appearing as Thomas’s friends doesn’t change who they are or what they represent. Still, Virgil insists on staying the same. One would assume Virgil would be happy to be something other that what he is for a while, given his questionable self-worth, but something about it is uncomfortable to him. I propose that it’s because his presentation* to the others is being changed: once he no longer looks how he naturally does, he’s lying. He’s deeply aware of his image (see his dedication to the scary dude theme even though it turns out he’s a soft boi at heart), and once it’s been changed, one of the appearances must be false. He tells Thomas several times that the practice of the sides appearing to be his friends is fake or not good enough; it’s not true that they’re his friends and Virgil is allergic to faking it.

Virgil also implies that his nature shouldn’t be changed. Interesting for two reasons: he doesn’t want other people to force him into being something other than Anxiety, even though being Anxiety can be difficult; and does that mean Thomas could at least try to change Virgil’s nature? That sounds painful as all hell, if so. Otherwise, would it just be like when a person tries to change another person, and it would suck? Food for thought.

Anyway, lying. Virgil certainly seems to hate it. Why Virgil behaves this way is hard to say without more information. Deceit seemed to honestly expect a warm welcome from him, and he notably didn’t tell anyone else Deceit was playing Patton, even though he figured it out as early as 4 minutes into the video; it’s hard to say whether a history between them would support Virgil’s insistence on constant truth or not. It could also be completely separate from Deceit. Maybe he just has no reason to lie. Maybe he’s afraid of being wrong and looking stupid. There are a lot of available explanations that we can’t really choose from yet. But what we do know is: Virgil understands himself to be telling the truth apparently all the time, even if he later realizes he was wrong about something; and he doesn’t want his self-presentation changed.

*If you like the dark sides/Virgil looking more monstrous naturally and adopting a more human facsimile most of the time, that is also a great explanation for why Virgil doesn’t want to be changed. What if someone changes him back to his default state? What if his illusion being messed with screws something up? Even his insistence on not lying makes sense if he already has one big lie to stress about! I think that would be fun to explore :D

My other meta:

The sides’ unique powers

Sleeping headcanons

My fanfiction:

concept: superhero au

concept: Virgil is terrible/probably the best at helping people

Space (All I Think About is You and Me)

#virgil sanders #deceit sanders #sanders sides #sanders sides meta #someone come by my inbox and talk to me man i have Theories

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nprinterns · 7 years

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Lawrence Wu

1. Internship position: How I Built This

2. Hometown/university: New York University

3. Favorite DC spot: Meridian Hill Park cause its got some real #vibes#. Also, anywhere that serves soft serve ice cream – I am not afraid to double-fist two cones.

4. Favorite NPR show, blog or podcast: Love me some CodeSwitch especially this episode on A Letter From Young Asian-Americans To Their Families About Black Lives Matter (definitely hit me with the feels). And TED Radio Hour cause ya gotta stay educated especially once you’ve graduated from school.

5. No. 1 song you’re jamming to right now: SEE YOU AGAIN BY TYLER FLOWER BOY CREATOR

6. Coolest thing you’ve done while at NPR: Was an extra for an NPR Music Video that featured a punk puppet band (I think it was punk puppet??).

7. Top #NPRLife moment(s):

1: That one day Guy Raz said I had good style.

2: Met Kat Chow from CodeSwitch and can now die peacefully.

3. CHANCE THE RAPPER.

4. CHANCE THE RAPPER.

5. CHANCE THE RAPPER.

8. If you could have @NPR tweet the entirety of one document/work, what would it be? NEVER GIVE UP. Every finals that I passed in college was because of this.

9. Who is your dream Tiny Desk artist? TYLER FLOWER BOY CREATOR

10. What’s next for you? Staying on for a bit more with How I Built This, but who knows! Either way, continuing to follow my pursuit in multimedia storytelling for POC and misrepresented groups.

11. Advice for future interns? Live consciously, think critically, speak clearly. Don’t let what you believe in and care for go to the wayside just because you’re in a new environment and surrounded by new people. Be you and stay you. Feel free to reach out on social media: @lawrencioguapo.

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