Webcomic / Dogs of Future Past

"Who's a good doggy?"

Dogs of Future Past is a fan comic of Undertale by LynxGriffin.

After the monsters have settled down to the surface world, Frisk decides to retrieve Flowey from Underground, to have someone who understands what it was like to reset the world multiple times to talk to. Sharing experiences with one another, they discover hints that there was a monster out there that neither of them ever met or directly heard of, but the Amalgams provide them enough hints to confront Sans about one Dr. W.D. Gaster, who wiped himself almost completely out of the timeline. Flowey's curiosity for unknown experiences and Frisk's trademark Determination and desire to help others prompt them to come up with a plan to travel back in time without resetting, by using the save file of an Amalgam, in order to confront Dr. Gaster and prevent his self-destructive act. But things don't work out quite as expected...

The comic is now finished and available in its entirety at LynxGriffin's Tumblr, with a .pdf file available to download regrouping the main comic, prologues, epilogues, side stories and bonuses.

Compare Paper Trail, a fan-comic of Undertale-spin off Deltarune, also made by Lynx.

This webcomic assumes that you are familiar with Undertale and that you have knowledge of all its endings and plot twists. There won't be any spoiler tags for things that you should already know from the game. If you haven't completed the game yet and plan on doing so, we recommend that you leave this page right now.

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Provides Examples Of:

• Adaptation Deviation: Papyrus, Sans, Undyne, Alphys and most of the other monsters were alive at the time Asriel was a baby. This means that they were familiar with Chara and what humans looked like, contradicting what Sans said about his brother never having seen a human before and the fact that most monsters didn't recognize Frisk as a human when they first encountered them.
• Ambiguous Gender: Frisk's gender is still undefined in this comic, but unlike some fanworks, not much attention is brought to it.
• Amicable Exes: Toriel and Asgore. They know they can count on each other, and Toriel immediately calls him to take care of Flowey when Asriel's consciousness has left his vessel. They are not coming back together, but they still care for each other.
• And I Must Scream: The fate of everyone stuck between time and space, as they are alone and haunted by their regrets forever.
• The Cameo: Younger versions of many monsters appear back in the past, including baby Asriel!
• Canon Character All Along: A copy of Greatest Dog turns out to be the Annoying Dog. Also counts as My Future Self and Me since both Greatest Dog (via Endogeny) and the Annoying Dog have existed side by side.
• Chekhov's Gun: The Legendary Artifact.
• Chekhov's Skill: At the start of the story, Flowey is learning how to use his mouth to hold a pen and write. This comes in handy when he attempts to tell past!Sans to "STOP GASTER".
• Commonality Connection: Frisk and Flowey bond over their Resurrective Immortality and ability to cause Groundhog Day Loops as it is something that nobody else is able to understand. This is better emphasized in the prologue where Frisk explains it is the reason why they want Flowey to come with them.
  Frisk: It's just... you're the only other one. Who knows what it was like. I just...wanted someone to talk to about it. And I thought you might want that, too.
• The Corrupter: A low-key version, but Flowey acts as one to Frisk. He isn't really interested in saving Gaster: he just want to experience something new, despite the fact that his idea could go very wrong. In the end, when Frisk gets cold feet, it is Flowey who forces their hand by making them stab Endogeny to extract Greatest Dog's soul from them.
• Death Glare: Toriel gives the mother of all glares to Alphys, for enabling Frisk's plan and putting them in a coma.
• Demonic Possession: With Frisk's soul being loaded inside another body in another space and another time, their body becomes lifeless... that is, until they suddenly wake up. Except it isn't them, but Chara instead, who, to their own surprise, is able to take control of Frisk's body now that the original host is gone.
• Didn't Think This Through: Flowey's plan to use one of the soul of an amalgam is very clever. However, neither Flowey nor Frisk really thought of the consequences of their actions, resulting in their bodies being rendered lifeless in the present, both of them getting stuck inside Greatest Dog's body (who is, incidentally, unable to talk), Chara hijacking Frisk's body, and a lot of mayhem both in the past and in the present.
  • In a rather more comedic note, Undyne tries to suplex Endogeny, who's destabilizing and melting because of Greatest Dog's absence. She ends up trapped under Endogeny until Frisk gives the amalgamate Greatest Dog's soul back.
• Dramatic Unmask: The River Person takes off their hood, revealing that their face is a Gaster Blaster, confirming them as the sole surviving test subject of Gaster's experiments.
• Driven to Suicide: While the wording is somewhat ambiguous, it is implied in the bonus story Truth Or Dare to be the reason why Frisk climbed Mt. Ebott: to "disappear" after they were abandoned by their parents at the rehab institution for accidentally killing another kid.
• Earn Your Happy Ending:
  • The main characters, after a lot of hardship, are able to save Gaster, who otherwise would have been stuck in a state of non-existence forever, along with everyone else who shared his fate. Chara is finally offered the rest they so longed for, with what remained of them on Earth, their consciousness, finally being able to move on. Greatest Dog goes back to Endogeny, making it whole again, and though the amalgams remain what they are, they are surrounded by their families and loved ones. Flowey's secret is out, and although it pains them greatly, Toriel and Asgore accept that he isn't Asriel anymore, and they are able to say their final goodbyes to their son, allowing Flowey to move on in his new existence. Finally, the Greatest Dog of the past acquires god-like powers and ends up becoming the Annoying Dog itself.
  • For an extra bit of sweetness, the bonus story Flowey's Birthday has Flowey finally turning back into Asriel and is able to feel again with the help of Dr. Gaster fixing the determination extractor. To say that Asgore and Toriel are overjoyed would be quite an understatement.
• Eldritch Location: The place outside of reality that Dr. Gaster and some of his test subjects ended up.
• Empty Shell: After loading a save file to the past, Frisk's body seems to be in a coma, and Flowey's become a normal, regular flower.
• Face-Revealing Turn: When Sans hears that Frisk has woken up from their coma, he goes to see them, only for them to turn around to reveal Chara's wide-open, red eyes.
• Fate Worse than Death:
  • Chara lays in no uncertain terms that their current existence is exactly that:
  Chara: Heehee... You think being stuck as a flower is awful? Try being fertilizer.
  • The fate shared by everyone stuck between time and space.
  • While they came to be accustomed to their new existence, the amalgams aren't exactly thrilled by what they have become, and judging by Greatest Dog's reaction, they would like nothing more than to free their souls from their current situation.
• Freak Lab Accident: The same Core accident that wiped Dr. Gaster out of the timeline also imbued his scientist colleague, Sans, with awareness of the different timelines, among other implied hypersensory abilities.
• I Just Want to Be Free: A major plot point and the driving reason of many characters:
  • Judging by Greatest Dog's immediate reaction after his soul is separated from Endogeny, this was his greatest wish. It can be stipulated that all monsters stuck inside amalgams share the same desire to free their souls.
  • Chara, despite everything, only has one wish: to be able to move on from the hell which became their existence. When Frisk tells them that it is actually possible, they are overcome with pure, unadulterated joy and relief.
  • Gaster's wish to free all monsters from the underground led him to get trapped in an unreachable (by any normal means) place, on top of being completely erased from existence. More than that, he is also a prisoner of himself, as he is guilt-ridden by his past failures and the results of his experiences which doomed many of his test subjects, leading him to believe that he doesn't deserve to be saved. Greatest Dog, Flowey, and Frisk prove him wrong.
• Language Barrier: Only other dog monsters can understand the Greatest Dog's barking, which hampers Frisk's plans to find Gaster.
• Lethal Chef: It seems that Papyrus still hasn't really learned how to cook after all these years, with him making a spaghetti cake (noodles, sauce, garlic and all) coated in strawberry frosting for Flowey's birthday, causing the latter to turn green and nearly vomit.
• Lock-and-Load Montage: Parodied with Asgore, who does the montage with gardening supplies in preparation to care for Flowey's body while his mind was off in the past with Frisk.
• Manipulative Bastard: Just because Flowey has decided to turn a new leaf, no pun intended, doesn't mean that his personality has changed for the better — well, much. He pokes just the right buttons in both Frisk and Alphys to get them participate in saving Dr. Gaster through his ethically dubious plan, simply because he's curious of what would happen. He's not entirely indifferent about the trouble that he ends up causing, however.
• Meaningful Echo: Greatest Dog's description of the artifact is later repeated by Frisk as they retrieve Gaster and the other trapped souls.
• Meaningful Name: The Greatest Dog's name has nothing to do with size, massive as he was with his animated armour suit — he just happens to be the greatest dog to ever have lived in more ways than one.
• Meanwhile, in the Future…: The comic skips between past and present, giving an impression of time passing in both of them. However, based on the narrative segments set in the past, it seems like a longer time passes for Frisk and company than it does for those left in the present.
• Mental Time Travel: To avoid a reset, Frisk can't travel back in time in their own body, instead sharing the one whose save file they are using. This means that their comatose body is left back in the present, to the considerable distress of their friends and family.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Straight from comatose Frisk and wilting Flowey — to Asgore, the Gardener-Rambo◊.
  • Sans prank calls Frisk with one of his characteristic puns◊, in a sweet big brotherly moment. Then Flowey and Frisk's conversation leads to them deducing the existence of Gaster, and the next shot of Sans is him having a panic attack◊.
• Morality Chain: Frisk is Flowey's chain. Without Frisk, Flowey is quick to resort to violent options, and would have killed Past!Undyne were it not for Frisk reigning him in.
• My Greatest Failure: Like in the game, Alphys is wrecked by what happened to the amalgams. Flowey plays on her sense of guilt and desire to have a second chance to convince her to go with their plan.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Frisk, after they accidentally killed another kid in the past.
• Mythology Gag: Papyrus' reaction upon seeing Flowey turning back to Asriel was him thinking that the amount of soul power would involve more lasers and rainbow wings, which is basically Hyperdeath Asriel's schtick in the game.
• Never My Fault: Flowey is immediately on the defensive when Frisk points out that everything that happened was Flowey's idea, and that he is mainly responsible for their situation.
• Oh, Crap!: Sans has a big one when he realizes he can't smack Chara around. As Chara astutely points out, Sans was trying to do something to their soul, but since they lack a soul, Sans's ability is completely ineffective.
• One-Winged Angel: Frisk in possession of the soul of the Greatest Dog develops an adult, androgynous body, a wild mane of fur-like hair, fangs, dark stripes on their face, and thorny clawed forearms.
• Parental Abandonment: Frisk was revealed to be subjected to this in the supplementary story Truth Or Dare after they were sent to a youth rehabilitation institution for a year by their parents after accidentally killing another kid, only for them to lie about picking Frisk up once their time was over and abandoning them.
  Frisk: But nobody came.
• Playing with Fire: Asgore's magic of choice, which he uses to defend himself when he is suddenly attacked by Chara while trying to save Flowey's flower from harm.
• Precision F-Strike: Burgerpants lets out a "hell" when he discovers the rather bizarre spectacle happening in Toriel's backyard.
• Really 700 Years Old: Played for Laughs in the bonus story Flowey's Birthday, where Flowey's cake is decorated with a long line of 9-shaped candles by none other than Sans, since he has no idea how old Flowey is. Possibly counts as a shoutout to Photoshop Flowey's LV of 9999.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: LOREM IPSUM DOCET. Gaster traps all three protagonists and forces them to confront what haunt them the most, probing their minds to find out their deepest fears and regrets and use these against them.
  • For Greatest Dog, Gaster blames him for the fate of the other souls with whom he shares Endogeny's body.
  Gaster: "Was your life truly worth their eternal torment? You think it fair to escape that, when they cannot? No saving such a bad dog. A bad dog. A bad dog. A bad dog."
  • For Asriel, lifetime upon lifetime of worst memories make it easy for Gaster to break him, but the act that haunts Asriel the most is the first time he "killed". That is, the time he took Chara's soul inside of him following the latter's suicide.
  Gaster: "Foolish prince. You learned this lesson long ago, and still never took it to heart. You killed to try and bring peace, but it brought you nothing but ruin. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them all. It's kill or be killed. Kill them all".
  • For Frisk, we discover that Frisk suffered from rejection and hurt someone in the past, badly, leading Frisk to be institutionalized. When they were able to leave the institute, nobody came. The incident itself is not described in details, but it reduces Frisk to tears, and the trauma is what made them climb the mountain in the first place.
  Gaster: "You thought you could escape it if you ran to the mountain, but you cannot escape yourself. Is this why you remain so determined to use your power to make everything right? It's useless. No amount of goodness, kindness or selflessness will truly erase harm already done. Nothing can turn back time."
  Frisk's inner thoughts: "I waited for them. But nobody came. But nobody came. But nobody came."
• Reluctant Mad Scientist: Dr. Gaster kept pushing on his experiments in spite of the deaths and disappearances of his test subjects, because he felt that it was his duty to complete his research to give meaning to their sacrifices.
• Sarcasm-Blind: Papyrus, being Papyrus, doesn't seem to realize Flowey being unimpressed with his birthday gift(a keyboard).
  Flowey: Real fun, Papyrus.
  Papyrus: Wowie! I knew you'd love it!
• Sharing a Body: Due to soul-sharing hijinks, Frisk, Flowey, and the Greatest Dog end up sharing the plucky canine's body after traveling back in time.
• Shout-Out: During the scene where Alphys offers food to the amalgamates in exchange for explaining where the Memoryheads came from, one of the items is a bag of Chaaaps.
• The Sociopath: Both Flowey and Chara are textbook examples, due to being devoid of their souls. Flowey in particular displays very quickly all traits in the first chapters: he manipulates Frisk into following his plan, he comes up with said plan only because he is looking for new things to stimulate himself, is incapable of feeling love and, therefore, lacks empathy, allowing him to force Frisk to stab Endogeny repeatedly. He is not going through the plan to save Gaster, but just to satisfy his ego. Being in the same body as Frisk and Greatest Dog's souls effectively rein him in, as the souls' proximity allows him to feel empathy again.
• Something Only They Would Say: Even though Toriel(and the others) were initially skeptical of Sans' claims that Frisk is being controlled by someone else, Chara, who was controlling Frisk asking her for chocolate immediately clues her in that Sans might be right after all.
• Stunned Silence: Two happen in quick succession, the first one when Frisk releases Gaster and his followers from the artifact, and the second one when Mettaton and his band arrive unexpectedly only to find everyone assembled in a wrecked and on-fire garden.
• These Hands Have Killed: Frisk reveals in the bonus story Truth Or Dare that they accidentally killed another kid by the name of Jacob Bunker, who was the child of Frisk's parents' business partners, after he tried attacking them for ratting him out on his (almost literal) Kick the Dog behavior to his parents. Frisk ended up hitting him in the head with a rock, causing him to fall off a playset, breaking his neck.
• That Man Is Dead: Flowey has accepted his new form, and by the end of the comic he tells his parents that Asriel is no more, and that they must accept him as his new self from now on. Subverted in the epilogue, in which Flowey finally gets reverted to Asriel after Doctor Gaster manages to fix the determination extractor and used the willingly donated souls of humans.
• Time Stands Still: Going back to Frisk's body in the present, which assumes its god-mode form as both monster and human souls come back inside of it, has the unexpected side effect of completely freezing time.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Just like in-game, Chara loves chocolate, which gives their identity away when they crave for some and asks Toriel for it while controlling Frisk's body.
• Troll: Chara messes with Sans's head a lot when they get the opportunity to act again.
• Voices Are Mental: A variant. Timedog's face changes depending on who's controlling their body. When Greatest Dog is in control, their eyes are open and their tongue is sticking out, like a stereotypical friendly dog's. When Flowey's in control, their face is styled like his signature Nightmare Face. And when Frisk is in control, their eyes are constantly shut, much like Frisk's.
• You Are What You Hate: Gaster loathes 'cheaters' to the point where he refuses to be helped by the trio when they come to rescue him...because they remind him of his own actions, for which he stranded himself and several innocent test subjects in the nightmarish realm beyond time and space, and he doesn't think that he is deserving of any mercy.

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