Question on grammar points expressing similarity

Hello everyone! I recently learned a few new grammar points and I am getting a little bit confused because there are so many grammar points expressing similarity.

One of the easier ones I encountered is そう/そうに/な. I believe そう is used at the end of a sentence whereas そうに+verb and そうな+ noun. And then came two more similar grammar points よう/ように/な and also みたい/みたいに/な. My question is what are the differences between these 3 grammar points? When should I use which?

And then few days ago, I came across these grammar points which even complicate things further.
They are とみえる and にみえる。What are the differences between all these grammar points? All i know that all of them express similarities. Even harder to understand is that にみえる can be used this way too (のよう/みたい)・にみえる.

To me, all these grammar points means similarity but can someone explain to me how they differ in terms of nuance or usage and how is (のよう/みたい)・にみえる different from にみえる because if I think in terms of each grammar point, it means 2x of look like since みたい and にみえる means look like.

Thanks in advance!

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@jinhuit95 Thank you for your questions! This thread is a great place to start and was written by one of our team members, @mrnoone. Please let us know if you have any further questions. Cheers!

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I saw someone give a comprehensive breakdown on these a while ago here: Link

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