So was rewatching Othertale: Before the Hack (part 1) a few days ago and posting about it, which you can find here, and i was taking notes as i did.
You can also find the link to my analysis of the [caring] animation here, and my analysis of the [experiment] animation here and here.
And happy 9th birthday to both Othertale, and Color Sans!
“Undyne, or Ivory, comes from an AU called Othertale. She can play piano and has a nice sense of music, but can’t sing. She’s much weaker than her Undertale counterpart.
In this AU, Sans never existed (aside from a mysterious sock in the house that Undyne and Papyrus eventually move in to.)
And instead, Undyne—an orphaned street kid blind in one eye with her red hair in a braid—starts looking after an even younger orphaned kid named Papyrus from bullies and thieves. Before eventually, the two decide to stick together as siblings.
Due to being more focused on looking after and raising Papyrus, Undyne does not have any goals to join the Royal Guard or free the Underground or capture any humans.
She cares more about her little brother than anything, and even uses piano skills to eventually become something of a celebrity for the Underground while Papyrus goes on to become a math teacher.
Othertale Undyne grows up in a universe where Sans doesn’t exist, Papyrus is her younger adoptive brother, and she had to work to keep herself and her brother alive.
Using her skills in piano playing to perform concerts, she earns enough to get herself and her brother off the streets.
She seems to take this very seriously, such as being nervous and not sleeping, staying up all night practicing. Especially since she’s become so well know that even King Asgore and Gerson Head of the Royal Guard would be there.
Neither she nor Papyrus have plans to join the Royal Guard, so Gerson is still the captain of the Royal Guard.
Neither Papyrus nor Undyne have any official training, although Undyne and the Royal Scientist Alphys are still love interests—with Alpyhs being Papyrus’ Undernet friend, and appearing to have a celebrity crush on Undyne—even giving her a gift for her big concert.
Because the six human souls also don’t exist in Othertale, breaking the barrier isn’t possible. Mettaton operates more like a living weapon than a star, and the amalgamates don’t exist either. Although Flowey still does.
In the present day of Othertale, many monsters have mysteriously been going missing; with the King himself having to speak on the issue.
It is unclear if Undyne is any concerned about this, given how she readily goes on walks alone with Alphys and was eager to explore an abandoned sentry station that showed up out of nowhere when she heard someone calling her name from it.
One day, however, Undyne is lured into the Void through a sentry station; she hears someone calling her name but no one else can hear it. She decides to immediately go exploring because she wants to have fun. She is rather pushy when Alphys is too scared to go in and explore, but ultimately doesn’t force the other woman to go in.
But inside she is confronted by Gaster and Sans/Color!Sans. She doesn’t understand what’s going on, but is knocked out by a magic fueled punch by Color that transfers some of Color’s “soul power” into her, which opened Undyne’s “blind eye.”
Ivory is not afraid to defend herself; not hesitant at all to summon one of her spears and point it at Gaster when he advances on her, warning him to stay back or else she will hurt him. Although she only does this when he attempts to make a move towards her.
She seems very very nervous about her concert, and she doesn’t seem to have been ready for the level of attention and popularity her skills brought her.
Due to her magic eye that Color unlocked, she seems able to immediately tell if there’s danger nearby; like a warning, perhaps from Color himself. She seems to trust her instincts a lot, immediately ditching her big concert and audience to follow her gut and run straight into danger.
When she finds Alphys injured, she’s furious and fiercely protective; demanding to know who did it in a low growling tone.
Once making sure Alphys is okay, her immediate concern after is her brother and his safety. But rather than immediately running off and abandoning Alphys, she expresses this to her—and after getting reassurance that the other woman is okay and understands, she gives Alphys a tight hug before running off after Papyrus.
As soon as she finds and protects Papyrus, she orders her brother to run and get help while she fights off against the other monster attacking him on her own.
She’s able to shortcut a lot like Sans is able to now. Her eye glows like Sans’ did, only yellow this time. Her fish ears/gills pin back when she’s scared.
When she gains her second form, her hair is chopped off to what appears to be about ear length. Her spears are stronger and longer, and she has her own Gaster Blasters.
She dresses like an Underfell Undyne in this form—and she wears a heart shaped golden necklace with the letter “f” on it.
We don’t know where she got it, what it means, who it came from—but it was said to be a gift from someone.”
^ the images I am referring to. (All art by superyoumna.)
This part is in reference to the [experiment] short, and the brother & sister comic.
Before Gaster jumped into the Core and Sans was forgotten in the Void to create Othertale, back when the universe was still Undertale—this universe seems to subscribe to the idea that both Sans and Undyne’s magical eyes were due to experiments by Dr. Gaster.
Sans says that Dr. Gaster made a mistake when giving him his eye, that it made Sans’ body extremely unstable and fragile—and possibly more, although Sans doesn’t seem to hold it against Gaster even when Gaster holds it against himself.
Sans reassures Undyne that Gaster won’t make that same mistake with her, but when the experiment finally works and Undyne is able to see from her fake eye, Gaster immediately tells Sans to remove the soul energy or it would damage Undyne’s body.
Undyne during this flashback seems to be around 5, while Papyrus is at most 1-2, and Sans seems to be in his late teens to early 20s. When Sans is pulled into the Void and the world is rewritten to forget Sans and make Othertale, Ivory’s eye is blind again and later needs to be reactivated by Color transferring his soul energy back to her.
All a part of Color and Shade’s plan to empower Ivory with knowledge and power so she can fight against the impending threat, since Color and Shade cannot leave the Void without the risk of dying.
Despite how Ivory and Shade’s meeting in Othertale’s Void is confronting and wary, in the past, child Undyne seemed to find comfort in Gaster and trusted him a lot—such as wanting him to share in her happiness, being worried about him when he leaves in frustration, and saying that the lab is spooky without him around.
As a child after Sans is forgotten, however, it appears little Ivory met little Sage sometime after an event just referred to as “the explosion.” And ever since then, Sage only ever sought Ivory out whenever the other children would steal from and bully him—and Ivory would beat up the bullies for him and get his stuff back.
One day, while searching for a rubix cube in the garbage dumps, a frantic and crying Sage runs up to Ivory to tell her that the others kids stole his toy car.
Ivory notes that he only ever comes to her when he needs protection. Sage immediately apologizes for this, but Ivory quickly corrects herself as that wasn’t what she meant—this is the moment where Ivory proposes that Sage stick with her instead of surviving on his own.
Sage is reluctant to accept because even though they are friends, they are still strangers. In answer to this, Ivory gives Sage her rubix cube and loudly states that they are neither friends nor strangers—instead they are siblings.
Sage immediately gets excited by this idea, and the two proudly and loudly declare that they are siblings—and Sage promises to always look up to her and support her as his big sister and as the “great Papyrus!”
