Talk:Sideways (disambiguation)

See here for a very sensible (I reckon) suggestion as to organising Sidewayses in a post-Complete Almanac world. I might work up a sandbox or two. Jalaguy (talk) 08:48, 13 May 2015 (EDT)

I strongly disagree with that suggestion, and I will fight it to the death. --ItsWalky (talk) 10:28, 13 May 2015 (EDT)

Well, the alternative, I guess, is merging the ROTF and Kre-O characters onto Sideways (RID)? As far as I can tell, the list of Sidewayses from the Almanac is:

• ROTF Junior Novel -> Armada comic
• RID -> Armada cartoon + elsewhere
• ROTF game -> Vok nebula -> Hero Mashers/Construct-Bots/etc.
• Aligned -> Angry Birds -> ROTF game
• Kre-O manga -> IDW movieverse -> Robotmasters

So those two are definitely tangled in with all the others. Jalaguy (talk) 10:42, 13 May 2015 (EDT)

I mostly don't see why it helps to split RID Sideways from Armada cartoon Sideways. Like, why this tiny stub of an article that says "oh hey go look over here for the rest of what he did"? That seems like the opposite of helpful and userfriendly, to split up a guy just because... I'm not sure why. Also, both the ROTF guys would be on the same page. They're both Sidewayses from Tyran, same as there can be more than one Shockwave from Primax. We wouldn't split that up normally, I'm not sure why we'd split that up here. --ItsWalky (talk) 11:09, 13 May 2015 (EDT)

There also, like, aren't any specific ancillary merchandise versions of Sideways? No Hero Masher or Construct-Bot or Bot Shot that I remember. There was an RPM, but that was definitely ROTF Sideways, and the Super Collection Figure was just the Armada guy. --Monzo (talk) 12:51, 13 May 2015 (EDT)

For what it's worth, I think Jalaguy's proposal is probably the most sensible way to do it, as well as the easiest to understand for casual fans - it emphasizes his actions within each continuity family, and de-emphasizes the "he's actually a bunch of guys crossing over with each other" thing, while still having it there. Plus, it avoids having Armada Sideways being split between the RID and ROTF pages. We can "track" the known incarnations of Sideways on his disambiguation page. Riptide (talk) 14:28, 13 May 2015 (EDT)

Agreed with Riptide. There's not enough seperation between any Sidewayses in the above list to consider them worthy of seperate pages. There is one thing I have to add, though- they're basically confirmed enough to have a single page, but because of the RID episode we can't un-disambiguate the page name. What do we call it instead? Since Sideways (RID)... definitely does not disambiguate when the episode is from RID15. Sky Shadow (talk) 14:22, 14 May 2015 (EDT)

Sideways: Folie à Deux OR: In Which We Burn

See as how we're having arguments again over Bug Bite/Burn Out and whether or not "same basic concept" is enough to keep characters on the same page, I really think we need to revisit this. It is ridiculous to me that we have all the Sideways split out when A: there's fiction explicitly linking them (which neither Bug Bite, Burn Out, or Lift Ticket and so on have) and B: there is fiction where we see the movie guy work to become the Armada guy and so on. If we're really going to connect loosely related characters on one page then frankly there's no reason why we shouldn't when this character has explicit links; "people's complaints" is not a good enough excuse anymore. Escargon (talk) 20:28, 28 July 2022 (EDT)

I refuse to recognise the legitimacy of any proposal that proposes making ROTF Sideways - a character who was never conceived as having anything to do with any prior Sideways, who shares no traits with other Sidewayses, and only has any connections to the others in hyperobscure fanwank - just a subset of a larger Sideways page. It is patently ridiculous. --Riptide (talk) 20:49, 28 July 2022 (EDT)

The first point means nothing, things have been retconned all the time with characters and we reflect that on their pages, the only reason why we keep these guys separate is because over a decade ago people got mad at something that's said (in English! not in a cipher font!) in a mass release guidebook. Half the original people who objected aren't even around anymore! Escargon (talk) 21:38, 28 July 2022 (EDT)

Forget it. Escargon (talk) 20:48, 29 July 2022 (EDT)

Disentangling this Gordian Knot

Seven days ago, I suggested a proposal on our Discord server that sent me down a path of research that, I believe, has led me to discover a paradigm-shifting truth about Sideways. In this proposal, I brought up the fact that, on this Wiki are numerous mentions of certain publicity materials claiming that RobotMasters Double Face is considered by Takara to be the same character as Robots in Disguise 2001 Sideways. More specifically, the original claim on ATT was "when Takara was showing off Robotmaster pics, they included some fun stuff like 'character first appeared' notices. Doubleface's had him first appearing in Car Robots, not Micron Legend." A follow-up post clarified that this was "Takara's website's note of Doubleface's 1st appearance". While the validity of this claim was initially questioned by Doug Dlin, it was later brought it up again several times on the talk page for Sideways, in which folks took this claim to mean that Takara had considered the Hasbro-released RID'01 Sideways toy to be the first appearance of RobotMasters Double Face, and therefore the same character. Thus, my proposal was that we simply merge the "Sideways (RM)" article into the "Sideways (RID)" article, seeing as we have all the G1 counterpart versions of the RID'01-original characters (including the Hasbro-made ones who did not originally exist in Car Robots) on the RID'01 characters' pages. So if Takara considered the RID'01 Sideways toy to be a Car Robots character, then he would be a JG1 character in Japan just like any of the Car Robots-original characters. And with his being the first appearance of the already JG1 character of RobotMasters Double Face, it would only make sense for those two pages to be merged.

While this proposal was initially met with support by several users, there was one voice of opposition that caught my attention: Monzo. Since the original claim came from Derik, Monzo informed me that Derik was a rather unreliable narrator back in the day. This got me to do some digging into this matter before bringing it up here to be formally discussed on the Wiki proper. Since the Takara RobotMasters site has been long dead since 2008 (and the Internet Archive's WayBack Machine initially didn't seem to show anything useful on Double Face's archived toy page), I decided to look for other sources, like old Japanese magazine scans or Japanese Wikipedia. For the former, all I could find were these table scraps that bore no helpful information, while the latter did have something interesting. According to Japanese Wikipedia, RobotMasters Double Face is "a different person" from the Japanese Armada Sideways/Double Face. Back then, it was believed that RID'01 Sideways was the same guy as Armada Sideways, based on their Hasbro toy bios sharing a lot of the same text, nearly verbatim. With the claim of the RobotMasters and RID'01 toys being the same character, that seemed to also solidify a connection between the Armada and RobotMasters versions, so it's interesting to see Japanese Wikipedia just outright say otherwise. But of course, even in Japanese, Wikipedia is still Wikipedia, so I had to keep digging.

I looked into as much of the Takara RobotMasters website as the Internet Archive had, well, archived. To my delight, it had a whole lot! But since Double Face's toy page was a bust, I looked into each of the other toys' pages. Using a Flash emulator, I was able to see what the surviving .swf files on each page looked like. I even discovered that each of these pages has hidden text descriptions for each toy found below the Flash file on each page. And what did I find after combing through all of these toy pages and then the entirety of this site's archived content? Well, there was zero sign of any "character first appeared" notices that were mentioned in Derik's original claim. Each Flash file contained the toys' name, tech specs, bio (the same as their on-package bios), and interactive buttons that showed the toys' different modes and weapon gimmicks. To the right of the Flash file was an illustration of the toy's box art, and to the left of that below the Flash file was a smaller image (now defunct) that linked each page back to the Lineup page. To the left of this smaller image was each of the hidden text descriptions, all of which primarily described the toys as toys, not as characters. The only descriptions that made any mention of what series the characters originated from were those for Beast Convoy, Lio Convoy, and Skywarp & Thundercracker. The descriptions for Smokesniper and Gigant Bomb did mention that their toys were from G2, but not the two of them as characters. And the ones for Star Saber, Victory Leo, and Victory Saber mentioned that they hail from a place called Planet Victory, but nothing more, fiction-wise.

And what did the text description on Double Face's page say? The exact same thing that was also written on Road Rocket's page: " Transforms from robot to sportbike! The first in the Robot Masters series with a built-in flash gimmick!! Press the button and the weapon will light up!! Suggested retail price: ¥1,029 (tax included)" (translation courtesy of DeepL). Nothing about him personally. For that, we have to look directly at his toy bio, his on-package story text (both of which were translated by Hydra back in the day), and his appearances in RobotMasters fiction. His bio notes that he is quiet, sinister, and handles negociations, with his motto noting he likes to mess with people. The story text (the same also found on Road Rocket's packaging) basically summarizes the events of the seventh online comic, which shows that he is also treacherous and mysterious. But you know what is missing from all of this? Anything to support Derik's original claim that RobotMasters Double Face was the same person as RID'01 Sideways.

I immediately rescinded my proposal to merge the two articles, and realized the aforementioned truth about Sideways/Double Face: His RobotMasters version was never a dimension-hopper. Meaning, prior to the creation of the Animated character, Sideways was never a dimension-hopper! The belief that he was stemmed not just from the belief that the RID'01, Armada, and RobotMasters dudes were all the same guy, but also from an early impression that RobotMasters itself was a multiversal event similar to the Universe War. But, a closer inspection of the RobotMasters fiction and this relation chart (English translation by Hydra), there was only time travel in RobotMasters, no dimensional travel (save for the sole anomalous instance of Galaxy Convoy inexplicably showing up in the final 3D diorama comic, in promotion of his Hybrid Style toy, but which lacked any explanation and had no sign of the Blastizone in its events). The only characters who came through the Blastizone to 2004 Earth were Beast Convoy, Beast Megatron, Psycho-Orb, Star Saber, Victory Leo, Gigant Bomb (and Smokesniper?), and Lio Convoy. Characters like Wrecker Hook and Double Face had nothing to indicate that they were dimension-hoppers (the former of which was suspected to be due to this having been back before Takara cleared up the whole Car Robots mess). By all appearances, Double Face was just native to the world of RobotMasters, and JG1 as a whole.

Even if it had been true that the RobotMasters toy and the RID toy were the same character in Takara's eyes, that still would have only applied for the JG1/Car Robots/RobotMasters side of things. There was still no direct connection to make the Japanese Armada character the same guy. Sure, the RobotMasters toy bio referenced the Japanese names of Armada Sideways's Mini-Cons, "Shadow" and "Bright", but there was nothing more explicit than that, which feels more like an Easter egg kind of reference. While there was the "mysteriousness" alluded to his toy bio and story text, with nearly two decades of hindsight now behind us, it becomes clear that that mysteriousness was all surface-level; nothing ever came out of it. Tsushima may have hinted at the possibility of there being more to him, but he didn't DO anything with it. In the long run, Double Face's mysteriousness wound up having all the substance of Mysterior. No traces of any Unicronian-affiliation, no signs of any otherworldliness, no indication of Double Face being anything more than just a 21st-century JG1 native.

And frankly, it is awfully convenient that, only two months after the RobotMasters toy's release, along came Derik with a claim that, essentially, turned that toy into the precise missing link needed to connect it to the RID'01 and Armada toys in such a way that ALSO played right into the very same kind of headcanon ideas that Derik liked to have back then: In the very same ATT post that he made this claim, he also tried to use it to connect the Car Robots Super Spychangers story to the Universe War, speaking as if the two were deliberately written to tie into each other. And even on our own talk page for The One, he tried to connect the Primeval Dawn depiction of the Vok with the Alternity, speaking again as if the two were always meant to relate to one another. And then there's Monzo's statements on Discord about Derik thinking Blaster calling the EDC the "stars on Mars" in FFOD was instead in reference to the S.T.A.R.S. organization. And Grum pointed out on Discord that Derik tried to claim that IDW2 was the result of IDW1 Springer rewriting history via time travel. Needless to say, Derik had quite the reputation of being rather full of it. And coupled with a complete lack of any proper evidence to support it, his claim of RID'01 Sideways being RobotMasters Double Face should no longer be given any consideration.

Therefore, with there having never been any real connection between the RobotMasters and RID'01 versions of Sideways, that also weakens any ties between the RobotMasters and Armada versions. What remains out of all is the realization that Sideways was never supposed to be the universe-hopping headache that he was made out to be. The RID'01 and Armada bios were worded very similarly, but without Derik misleading us about RobotMasters toy, there was no real proof of any dimension-hopping going on (not like the more directly implicit reference in RID'01 Axer's toy bio that pegged him as a dimensionally-displaced G1 Axer). Armada Sideways was popular at the time, so it seems Takara just capitalized on that popularity by making a G1 version of the character in RobotMasters; simple as that. But Derik's unsourced claim led everyone to believe that Sideways was a multiversal mischief maker, and things like Animated Sideways and AVP Sideways were both born out of this belief. As a result, ROTF Sideways has also become entangled in this mess, when it is obvious that he was never supposed to be. And now it is left to us to clean up this mess of madness that was never supposed to have been a thing in the first place. --Sabrblade (talk) 23:56, 11 October 2022 (EDT)

I mean, this is a "too little, too late" situation. We can't really do any "dis-entangling" because there is official material connecting them. It wasn't just AVP who latched onto it, either; David Willis' unapproved "Crankshafts" story featured another thing connecting them. And I question us calling the connection between "Robotmasters" and "Armada" Sideways tenuous when it's a whole series around dimensional travel; we can pick up on an implication, it's stupid for us to pretend like there's nothing there. At most, the best we can do now is make a note about how a misunderstanding made it so that Sideways became the way he is. Escargon (talk) 07:56, 12 October 2022 (EDT)

Sabrblade makes the point that this isn't "a whole series around dimensional travel". That said, I'm lowkey sceptical about that assertion, when it requires "oh, but that bit at the end where Galaxy Convoy shows up doesn't count". Ultimately, it's a crossover series for fan favourites; if they wanted it to be Legend of the Micron Sideways showing up, they could've just done that, and I'm not entirely convinced the resulting material would have been significantly different as a result. However, I do think the nature of the "Shadow and Bright" reference in Robotmasters Double Face's bio is a convincing basis for the idea that he's just an homage to the Armada character, rather than literally the same guy.

What I'll admit confuses me is the existence of a separate (JG1) Robots in Disguise Sideways in the first place; I'm right in saying his only existence from a Japanese perspective is the USA edition toy? Which would've just been sold in unchanged packaging, by default? Everything about Robotmasters Double Face screams "Armada homage", not "actually a new body for that one random toy we imported which is itself just a separate Armada homage". It definitely sounds like Derik was, as usual, full of it.

Meanwhile, from a western perspective, Axer's bio is absolutely written to imply he's a dimension-hopper, but Sideways' is a verbatim lift of his previous Armada bio in otherwise exactly the same way, just short of saying "by the way he also went into a black hole". Were verbatim bios common, in Universe and Robots in Disguise? (Which, from a toyline-only-characters perspective, have always seemed to me to have a very blurry distinction.)

I don't know, I'm speaking basically out of curiosity here, because from my perspective it seems like there is zero unambiguous evidence to confirm any of these Sideways were intended to be literally the same guy as any other Sideways, and similarly zero evidence to say any of them definitely weren't; it's definitely true that on the basis of spurious evidence, the wiki snowballed any vague implications into Hard Fax about authorial intent and canon, so there'll have to be a hefty note to that effect. Thankfully, it seems like the solution of strictly separating the Sideways pages was intended to sidestep all of this, a decision that holds up in the face of these new findings, so I agree with Jenny. The only headache over the schema that I see is how the IDW2 appearances of Armada Sideways are on the Robotmasters page—like, I know why, what I'm saying is that if you're looking for two Sideways who definitely aren't the same guy, there's one! —The Wadapan (talk) 09:20, 12 October 2022 (EDT)

Sounds like a big addition to circular reporting to me. Plus, as has been said, the genie's out of the bottle. BattleBlade (talk) 09:25, 12 October 2022 (EDT)