User talk:Sabrblade/sandbox

Discussion over a discarded Sideways proposal

Oh hell no, we're not doing this. This is a massive, hand-wringing over-correction that, quite frankly, is making up stuff in the exact same way as the original Robotmasters thing. Escargon (talk) 08:52, 23 November 2022 (EST)

Agreed. Consigning *all* discussion of Sideways's dimension hopping to a dedicated Sideways (AVP) page is ridiculous obfuscation of something that, while it may have been the result of misinterpretation and miscommunication, has been part of the text for almost 10 years at this point — and has been for 12, if you count the deliberate hinting of Animated Sideways. --Riptide (talk) 13:48, 23 November 2022 (EST)

I’m in favor, having all of that info on one tidy page feels like by far most the cleanest and most reader friendly way to do it. It’s true that there’s almost 10 years of fiction with this interpretation but that fiction is largely niche and self contained in a way that really suits having its own page. It feels like less of an obfuscation than having important information on an out of place half-article on a disambiguation page and honestly seems worth it just to have that actually function as a disambiguation page. Rgby (talk) 17:41, 24 November 2022 (EST)

In no universe is this stuff “self-contained,” the AVP stuff is absolutely a continuation of what was started by the Almanacs and it’s insane to pretend otherwise. As for “obfuscation,” that’s literally all this does; pretend that the multiversal Sideways stuff is unconnected to the others when they are the only reason it exists in the first place, even if it was the result of misunderstanding. Escargon (talk) 17:55, 24 November 2022 (EST)

Saying it’s insane to treat the Almanac, which would go on to literally have AVP in it, as related to AVP feels rather silly and I said *largely* self contained anyway. I personally think the reader-friendliness of this proposal outweighs any obfuscation, but I’m not really available to debate this at the moment and just wanted to get an argument in favor up on the board. Rgby (talk) 18:38, 24 November 2022 (EST)

It is absolutely not more reader friendly to make an article that outright makes up information. Escargon (talk) 19:30, 24 November 2022 (EST)

Gag page?

In the concept's present state I am afraid I have to agree with Escargon and Broadside. That said, this pitch did inspire me with an adjacent idea for a gimmick page leaning into Sideways's schtick that might house a couple of his more continuity-agnostic appearances more cleanly without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. See this sandbox for details. --AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 02:21, 24 November 2022 (EST)

I;m not convinced; all this stuff would already be on the Armada Sideways page but in more detail. Escargon (talk) 05:33, 24 November 2022 (EST)

We are better off with the Sideways ourobouros many years behind us. Now that Derik's falsehoods have been exposed and removed, let's just leave it be. The current article goes into impenetrably excessive detail, because the whole point of Sideways is that he never does anything important but he has these deeds described about him in a non-story retro-narrative like The Silmarillion, where attempting to accurately summarize it all in wiki format somehow winds up even longer and less engaging. I sincerely believe the only way to make a reader-friendly summary of all the layers of author-intentist retconnist handwaving would be with color-coded bulletpoints. Writing an even longer essay explanation of "X said Y but actually meant Z" is not going to make a meaningful difference, except perhaps to make it worse. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 09:05, 24 November 2022 (EST)

This. Let everything about this fucking lay in the past. Leave it alone. Let it die. --M Sipher (talk) 18:11, 24 November 2022 (EST)

For once it seems I get to be on the side of "what? No way Jose". It may be post-facto material from another author based on a fandom misinterpretation, but it's all canon innit? The way things are is fine. That said, the idea of an "(ambiguation)" article is extremely funny to me, and does bring a different kind of utility to the table in collating most of that AVP material (which is very tied up in itself, obviously). So I could probably be swayed. —The Wadapan (talk) 11:14, 24 November 2022 (EST)

For whatever it's worth, and it's probably not much since it's only memory, but there's one bit of Robotmasters ephemera that I vaguely remember about Sideways, which was a chart that I believe held a RID link, but I've not been able to turn it up. Haven't brought it up before now since again, it's only memory, but if anyone knows what I'm talking about, by all means, please share. Escargon (talk) 09:25, 24 November 2022 (EST)

I feel like I would have seen something like that back then if it had been made known about, since I used to regularly peruse the Takara website despite not knowing any Japanese back then. But sadly I've no recollection of such a chart; just this one. Though, funnily enough, if such a chart did exist, the most it would do is kick off the original idea I had before going down this rabbit hole: To simply merge the RM Sideways page into the RID Sideways page since such a chart would have made RID Sideways a Car Robots character. But that's the most that the chart would affect since Robotmasters still didn't have any multi-universal travel, just time travel. Only seven individuals came through the Blastizone, and our double-faced biker boy wasn't one of them. --Sabrblade (talk) 12:02, 24 November 2022 (EST)

I think all of this feels like overcomplicating things for any casual user. My pitch would be that we keep the current disambig page broadly as it is, with the intro and conceptual history, and make a separate Sideways (AVP) page specifically for Jim's dimension-hopping serial liar. --Riptide (talk) 12:38, 24 November 2022 (EST)

I thought that was what this proposal was doing? Which in any case, I’m opposed to.Escargon (talk) 12:48, 24 November 2022 (EST)

I'm in favor of Riptide's idea about distancing Sideways AVP as mush as possible from the others, having AVP sideways on his own page doesn't erase what was established by AVP... ok it's not what the wiki are usually doing in case for constants multiversal characters... but since all of this singular entity sideways was a huge lie in the first place... why should we keep it, Fun pub themselves nullified their own idea to have singular entity in fiction around the time AVP was a thing. -MahXyme/MahXymal (talk) 18:38, 24 November 2022 (EST)

One: he’s specifically not a multiversity singularity there, it is the result of multiple incarnations being dimensional travelers. Two: it is not a “lie” if there is ACTUAL FICTION that has it happen, even if it is based on misunderstandings. Making a separate page is an incredibly unhelpful to understanding the actual history. Escargon (talk) 18:42, 24 November 2022 (EST)

Then let's put all AVP lore into Animated Sideways' page if making another one to keep track of that can't make it, after all it is that which propelled the AVP lore. Which is "niche" on his own that took inspiration from another more "niche" source, manwhile the ACTUAL FICTION never made explicit that he/they were all dimensional travelers. -MahXyme/MahXymal (talk) 19:12, 24 November 2022 (EST)

It’s fairly obvious the actual fiction I’m referring to is the AVP stuff that does make it explicit. As for any argument about nicheness, I I really don’t think that matters in a case like this. Escargon (talk) 19:25, 24 November 2022 (EST)

New idea

I guess what this really boils down to is that, to at least both me and AzimuthAcolyte, the Sideways of Ask Sideways being on UT Sideways's page just feels wrong. But it also feels wrong to put him on any other specific Sideways article since his whole thing is that we're not supposed to know which Sideways he really is. He's an amalgamation of aspects from multiple Sidewayses (Cybertron-based personality, ROTF-based design, Armada-based "Combi-Headmaster" compatibility), but also a deliberately-ambiguous one. He's a bold-faced liar and a troll who claims to be several Sidewayses and nothing he says can actually be trusted or taken seriously. He was literally made to screw with us and our system. He is the Anti-Wiki Sideways. Yet, we gotta cover him somehow, but putting him on the Armada, RID, RM, Animated, or ROTF pages just feels completely wrong.

And the one from Echoes and Fragments is basically the same character. While Gong suspects he's from Viron, he responds with just "I admit nothing," and is referred to multiple times by the story's narration as a Decepticon, when RID Sideways was an Autobot. While he's also said to be a motorcycle when Ask Sideways Sideways uses the ROTF Audi body, the ANN Editor mentioned Cy-Kill's motorcycle altmode as a point of similarity between him and Ask Sideways Sideways (playing further into the latter's amalgamated ambiguity).

So now, I have a new proposal: What if we were to have BOTH a "Sideways (disambiguation)" page written like a normal disambiguation article (similar to the rather basic one I've currently got written up here in my sandbox)... AND a separate "Sideways (ambiguation)" page written like both the currently-published disambig page and the one written up in Vagdra's sandbox, which would BOTH explain this whole mess AND cover the AVP Sidewayses? We could even draw direct attention to the "(ambiguation)" page by including it in the "Major Sidewayses" section of the "(disambiguation)" page. The word "infamy" could also link directly to it. And if that's not enough, there could even be a unique "[Disambiguation | Ambiguation]" suite at the top of the two pages to draw even more attention to it. --Sabrblade (talk) 20:28, 24 November 2022 (EST)

I really, really think all this is overthinking things. --Riptide (talk) 20:40, 24 November 2022 (EST)

Here's my proposal. Keep the current disambig mostly the same, and just split off the bits about Jim's dimension hopping robot Deadpool. --Riptide (talk) 21:31, 24 November 2022 (EST)

I could get behind this. --Sabrblade (talk) 21:32, 24 November 2022 (EST)

Yeah this works. --AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 21:36, 24 November 2022 (EST)

I don't like the idea of splitting it off entirely at all because again it comes back to the fact that he's not written to be a separate character at all; he's written to be essentially the Cybertron version of the character with elements of the other Sideways' from the (misinformed) perspective that was held in 2015 by everyone. I think leaving him on the Armada Sideways page is the best we're gonna get aside from a full-on merge, which I doubt will ever happen now. Escargon (talk) 21:49, 24 November 2022 (EST)

Actually, hold on a second. The Andromeda Facebook page just outright says the TransTech recorded him as coming in from an "Aurex stream." So the AVP one has an origin:

"Sideways, a well-traveled being from the Aurex cluster with a Combi-Micromaster double Headmaster, has some unique options to him, and he hasn’t hesitated to use these in the past. It’ll be interesting to see what creative transformations he has in store for us tonight." Escargon (talk) 22:06, 24 November 2022 (EST)