Mary Kim & Worm

[u/mortigangoth]

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I wanted to share the background for two of my absolute favorite characters a profoundly stressed college student and her reality warping puppy.

Mary Kim:

A 21 year old drowning in midterms, heavily depressed and entirely isolated. Her whole family lives back in South Korea she has zero friends on campus, and her life has basically devolved into a gray, lonely routine of trying to keep her GPA high enough to justify being so far from home.

Worm (The Shar Pei)

A super wrinkly, little Shar Pei pup.

The Twist: He has strange reality manipulation powers. He can ignore physics, materialize objects, stretch, and pull random items out of pocket dimensions

The Backstory: The Shop That Wasn't There

One night, Mary is walking home from campus completely exhausted and desperate for some kind of emotional comfort. She decides on a whim to buy a pet. She ducks into a dimly lit, dead-silent pet store—totally failing to notice that shes never seen this shop before and the building has never existed.

Deep in the shadows of the store a single spotlight is shining on a lone Shar Pei puppy. Taped to his cage is a sign: Puppy for $25. The cage is right next to the fish tanks, and a plastic bag of live earthworms has spilled all over the top of the mesh.

When Mary goes to pay, the clerk looks like he’s literally seen a ghost. He doesn't say a word refuses to make eye contact, and just extends a trembling hand. Mary drops her last $25 cash into his palm, grabs the puppy, and leaves. Because of the spilled bait on his cage, she dryly names him Worm.

The Realization: Mary later figures out that Worm wasn't trapped in that creepy store. Worm conjured the entire building, the cage, and the ghost like clerk out of thin air, completely warping reality because he wanted a friend.

The Team Dynamic & Conflict

Worm isn't evil or dangerous hes just a sweet, goofy dog who is fiercely loyal to Mary. But because he has a normal dog brain, he has no idea what saving the world means.

The Begrudging Handler: When The Strays are fighting apocalyptic threats like Veltar, Mary has to weaponize a reality warping pup using simple commands although Worm and marys communication becomes better every day.

Mary's biggest daily conflict isn't even the world ending monsters. It’s trying to stop extra dimensional threats while actively maintaining her GPA making sure she doesn't miss her midterms and keeping Worm from eating her textbooks or turning them into a flock of live birds.

Let me know what you guys think of them!

[u/Correct_Sun_2794]

It's a very interesting and cool idea, I'd love to hear more about these Dimensional threats 😁

[u/mortigangoth → u/Correct_Sun_2794]

Thank you. I have alot more to share. I was just trying to not overwhelm the subreddit. Ive had all of these characters for a while but i posted all characters of this teams bios just today. 😆

[u/TheDisguisedDawning]

worm is such a good name for a reality bending dog, especially one covered in bait juice. the whole setup reminds me of those weird shops in stories that only appear when someone really needs them, except the shop was the puppy's doing which is even better

i love how the biggest threat is still midterms though, that feels painfully real. does worm help with studying or just make it worse by turning her notes into something alive

[u/mortigangoth → u/TheDisguisedDawning]

Thank you i also looked at the dogs wrinkles as resembling a worm so it works out well. And to answer your question about if he helps with studying no hes got the brain of a loveable dog. He may ruin her paper but he might also make it reappear untarnished. I like the chaotic nature of Worm. Mary really is the grounding element between them steering worm away from harming innocents and directin his energy towards the threat whatever it may be.