User:Broadside/sandbox:Sideways

< User:Broadside

Sideways (disambiguation)

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This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. If an internal link referred you to this page, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

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"He's Sideways! He's Sideways! You're Sideways! I'm Sideways! Are there any other Sidewayses I should know about?"

If you encounter a 'bot going by the name Sideways, do not trust him! Throughout the multiverse, the name is associated with cheats and liars. Most oftentimes, a Sideways's allegiances are to be questioned. Many of them claim to be helpful allies, but more often than not, they work for a greater evil. Some would assume Sideways to be cowardly, but their true strength oftentimes lies in their speed and their cunning. A quick getaway today can assure that greater machinations come to fruition tomorrow. Some Sidewayses are known to possess dimension-hopping capabilities, and tracking which Sideways is responsible for what in whatever universe can be a tad confusing. Some of them have claimed to travel to other universes to slaughter and impersonate their native counterpart, or that Sidewayses are cloned from one another to fulfill their roles in multiple parallel events. Sidewayses are true sowers of confusion, and even if one were able to see past all the lies, one would still be hard-pressed to make sense of the chaos that they leave in their wake.

Conceptual history

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The idea of Sideways being a dimensional traveler who's the same across his cross-continuity appearances has been built up over time, with fans and writers extrapolating wildly from loose connections between his earliest incarnations.

The original Sideways, a 2002 Robots in Disguise toy, was packaged with Axer, whose on-package bio was adapted near verbatim from his original Generation 1 Tech Spec, with new material implying he'd crossed dimensions via a black hole.<ref>Robots in Disguise Axer's package bio</ref> The online bio for Armada Sideways toy, released a few months later, similarly matched that of the Robots in Disguise character,<ref>Robots in Disguise Sideways's package bio</ref> with new material suggesting that his duplicity was the result of being pulled in two mental directions by his Mini-Cons<ref>Armada Sideways's online bio</ref>—an aspect ignored by both cartoons and comics, which simply portrayed him as a pure agent of Unicron. Fans reasoned that if Axer was a dimension-hopper, then Sideways must be too.

It was misinformation surrounding the 2004 Japan-only Robotmasters franchise that kicked this idea into overdrive. In Japan, the Sideways/Axer two-pack had been imported unchanged as a "USA Edition" release, while the Sideways from Armada (known in Japan as Legends of the Microns) was called "Double Face"—the Robotmasters Double Face toy was named, colored, and described in bio in homage to this character. This alone would not imply them to be the exact same individual, but at the time fans understood the Robotmasters story to be about Transformers converging from various time periods and dimensions, not unlike the contemporaneous Universe series—when in truth, it's only time travel taking place within the main Japanese continuity. Cementing this idea was a claim that the Robotmasters website had included a note declaring Double Face's first toy to be the earlier imported Robots in Disguise Sideways figure—a claim that, years later, would be found to be totally spurious, with no evidence of such a note ever having existed.

Sideways subsequently appeared in the 2005 Cybertron franchise, intended by Hasbro to be the same faction-swapping character from Armada (a fact cemented by supplemental material like Ask Vector Prime). This idea was dropped in Japan, where he was again given an entirely different new name, "Noisemaze", with the cartoon—which was created to be separate from Armada and Energon—treating him as a new character.

In the 2009 movie Revenge of the Fallen, a character called Sideways appeared, with absolutely nothing else connecting him to any prior Sidewayses. However, riffing on the by-then-common fandom perception of the character, 2011's The Allspark Almanac II cheekily presented an Animated "Land General Sideways" whose design combined aspects of the Armada, Cybertron and Revenge of the Fallen characters, explicitly described as hailing from another dimension and implied to go on to become Revenge of the Fallen Sideways. Hidden Ask Vector Prime text in the Almanac's 2015 compilation successor The Complete Allspark Almanac would go on to explicitly state that, while not all incarnations of Sideways are the same exact character, all prior incarnations of Sideways were dimensional travelers who had crossed between multiple universal clusters.

Of course, if all that seems confusing, it's nothing compared to the subsequent Facebook-based Ask Vector Prime feature. Helmed by Almanac author Jim Sorenson, the online column was for a time taken over by Sideways himself, sporting the Revenge of the Fallen character's design and a goofy, snarky personality similar to that of Cybertron Sideways. This Sideways claimed to have been the one behind pretty much every instance of the character seen in the past, as well as many, many other events and disasters across the multiverse—however, in a depiction that seems even more fitting in retrospect, he was a self-admitted liar who seemingly took delight in confusing and frustrating everyone.

Given the ambiguity that results from a mixture of retcons and unreliable narrators, and the potentially enormous user-unfriendliness of sticking strictly to the "canon" versions of the character, we have decided to present each continuity family's version(s) of Sideways on their own page. Whether you choose to think of them as being all the same character, or all strictly separate, is up to you.

{{#if:Sideways on his identity situation, Ask Sideways|
“ Everything you think you know about me was a lie told by me to confuse someone, or conjecture from someone who'd be in no position to know. So yeah, maybe I'm a fragment of Unicron, because maybe Planet X used to BE Unicron. And maybe I'm his avatar made manifest and untethered once he collapsed into a giant singularity. And maybe I'm from the Cybertronian Empire. And maybe I'm just an ordinary Autobot who went crazy from Powerlinxing to the wrong Mini-Cons. Maybe I'm all of those things, or none.

And you know what the best part is? You'll. Never. Know.

”
{{#if:Sideways on his identity situation, Ask Sideways|

—Sideways on his identity situation, Ask Sideways{{#if:|, {{{3}}}}}

}}

}}

Major Sidewayses

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Full list of Sidewayses

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Other things called "Sideways"

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Not to be confused with...

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Fiction

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Ask Vector Prime

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According to Vector Prime, the dimension-hopping Sidewayses of the multiverse included:

Vector Prime hoped this would clarify things, which was nice of him, if perhaps a little naive. Ask Vector Prime, The Complete AllSpark Almanac

References

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<references />

Sideways (AVP)

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"Waa waa that's a different Sideways? Wait until I post a Tarantulas pic as my profile, losers."

When you first meet the multiversal meddler known as Sideways, you might think him amusing, even charming... but do not be fooled! While his crass irreverence might project the image of a mere prankster, Sideways is an incredibly dangerous individual responsible for a cross-dimensional murder spree, capable of subduing and capturing members of the Thirteen and subverting the advanced technology of the Transcendent Technomorphs to his own ends. Even injuries that would outright kill another Transformer are not enough to bring Sideways down thanks to his Mini-Con partners. Be warned: do not believe a word this known liar says!

Fiction

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Ask Vector Prime

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According to Vector Prime, the dimension-hopping Sidewayses of the multiverse included a Sideways from the Viron cluster, who traveled to Aurex 802.23 Alpha, and made his way to "at least two or three other clusters" after that. Vector Prime hoped this would clarify things, which was nice of him, if perhaps a little naive. Ask Vector Prime, The Complete AllSpark Almanac

TransTech

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A Sideways that Andromeda identified as an Aurex version took part in Cybertron's Got Talent, where his double-Headmaster Combi-Micromaster companions gave him an edge. Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News, 2015/05/14

BOOM, headshot!

Sideways kidnapped Vector Prime and seized control of his ANN Q&A column and, after cheerily saying he's probably lying about everything, went on to claim:

He also thought your nerdy demands to classify minor trivia were lame and told you so on numerous occasions. And he insulted your mom. Yeah, you. Ask Sideways

Eventually, the TransTech tracked him down by detecting the questions you sent Sideways from your world. Their efforts to breach his fortress were stymied by an Absolute Terror Field, but then he fielded a question from Walky so painful his head literally exploded. That's for our mums, Sideways! However, his Mini-Con associate Rook then executed a Headmaster sequence with Sideways, and the combined body taunted the TransTechs before fleeing the universal stream via Dimensional Interfacer. Rook - Axiom Nexus News, 2015/07/08

Echoes and Fragments

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While at Maccadam's Old Oil House on a Primax reality's Cybertron, a Viron Sideways encountered the dimension-hopping Renegade Gong. Taking advantage of Gong's love for mischief, Sideways convinced Gong to have a contest to see who could cause the best changes in spacetime by tampering with the Omega Locks of both Cybertron and a Gargent reality's Gobotron—something that, unknown to Gong, would cause the destruction of the universe by Unicron and the deaths of both Sideways and Gong, something that the nihilistic Sideways welcomed. The alterations to the Primax reality caused chaotic changes as the historically crucial Unicron War was in progress, prompting the bartender to contact his brother Vec-Tor to stop the dimensional changes. Ultimately, Vec-Tor succeeded, leaving Sideways at the mercy of Gong, who was angry at having been manipulated. Echoes and Fragments

Notes

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  • Fitting the common fandom understanding of Sideways at the time of Ask Vector Prime's release, this Sideways is an amalgamation of all prior incarnations of the character.
    • He's identified as hailing from the Viron cluster, same as the first Sideways ever to appear.
    • His snarky, irreverent personality is based on Cybertron Sideways.
    • He's partnered with the Mini-Cons Rook and Crosswise, like Armada Sideways.
    • He's even depicted with the appearance of Revenge of the Fallen Sideways, who previously had only been connected to the idea of the "multiversal Sideways" by jokes and implications. (With the deliberately provocative tone of Ask Sideways, it's not hard to imagine that this was deliberately intended to troll the fans.)
  • Given both Sideways's dimension-hopping and his nature as a consummate liar, it's hard to know which of his appearances are meant to be the same character and which are meant to be distinct. There are hints, however; the initial list of Sidewayses given in The Complete AllSpark Almanac mentions a Sideways hailing from the Viron cluster, who traveled through both Aurex and "at least two or three other clusters". Similarly, the Sideways that appears in "Echoes and Fragments" is mentioned to hail from a Viron reality, and is written identically to the version of the character that appears in "Ask Sideways", implying that all the Ask Vector Prime appearances of Sideways are the serial dimension-hopper mentioned in The Complete AllSpark Almanac. (The one wrench is that the Sideways mentioned in Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News Reporter is identified as hailing from an Aurex reality... but given that as he was being written at the time, Armada Sideways was actually a "Viron Sideways" and not an "Aurex Sideways", it might be reasonable to chalk that one up to in-universe ambiguity.)

References

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<references />
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