Squiggle Lectozoon

Overview
Squiggle is a doorworm, a small alien species. He relies on symbiosis to live, and therefore attaches to a much larger host, or simply coils round a limb. His current host is Selia.

Species
A plethora of information on the doorworm species may be found in this image,, including very interesting features which I shall further explain. And the benefits to both host and doorworm thanks to the symbiotic relationship.

Squiggle's body is long and thin, like a worm or a snake. Doorworms coil things like a snake, but their bodies are physically worm-like. They can slither or squirm for their transportation. Their eyes have wide pupils, and thin irises. These eyeballs actually hover above the head, held loosely in the desired position with magnetism. The eyes communicate back and forth with the brain via radio waves. These eyes are stored in the cheeks during sleep, making Squiggle's cheeks puff out. They lack eyelids, instead Squiggle squeezes them for squinting, or flattens the tops, to convey emotion expressions.

His skin is smooth and squishy to the touch, like a worm or a slug, but it's usually dry. He's capable of secreting slime for lubrication purposes, to escape or to squeeze into places. A stinger unsheathes from the end of his tail: black, rigid, thin and conic. This is used to establish symbiotic link into the host's skin, and sometimes for injecting toxin into foes. Doorworms exhale helium instead of carbon dioxide, making their voices very squeaky.

Symbiotic relationship
Doorworms require a symbiotic relationship with a larger animal or animan to survive. They stick their stinger though the skin to access the bloodstream, much like a needle. Through this link, they draw nutrients from the host's blood, what they require to live. Doorworms require several hours of being connected to their host each day for optimum feeding, though they do not require it all in one sitting. For the rest of the day, they coil around a limb with their stinger retracted into the tail harmlessly. They may even leave the host's body, though they do not prefer to. Doorworms can survive for several days away from the host if necessary, but they become progressively weaker.

In return for the nutrients, doorworms inject hormones into the host's bloodstream. Doorworms are capable of producing many different hormones inside their bodies, they are skinny little hormone factories. Examples include adrenaline, relaxants, sedatives, growth hormone, estrogen, testosterone, aphrodisiacs, and ecstasy hormone. These can be injected on request, by choice of the doorworm. They also do some things by default to their host's body: improve overall health of digestive, immune, circulatory, and endocrine systems. Their only undesirable effect is loss of appetite for meat, which gradually turns the host into a vegetarian, thus suiting the doorworm's needs in the nutrients it attains from the bloodstream.

Doorworms are also helpful in physical ways, they are thankful to their hosts and wish to return the favour, most of them enjoy being helpful. The most common and simple way is using their tail, head, or coils of their body, to grab things, acting as an extra limb for the host. This is where the doorworm gets its name: opening doors when the host's hands are full. Providing company and amusement is also a great boon. Some hosts and doorworms have found further things they enjoy together.

Individual - Squiggle
Squiggle has alternating thick stripes of purple and orange on his segmented body, and orange irises around his thick pupils. Squiggle's body is 1.5 to 3 feet long, and 1 inch thick.

Squiggle is a cute and friendly doorworm by default. However, his hobby is doing impressions and impersonations. He enjoys acting, taking on roles, sometimes goofy. Examples include: Terribly British doorworm, assassin doorworm, legal doorworm, and badass doorworm.

Another hobby is singing chiptunes. His squeaky voice allows him to do this perfectly. Favourites: Take flight, Party mix, Gamer, Playful, Chaotic, Strife, Peaceful

Nicknames: Squig, Squiggy, Wiggle Worm, and whatever the hell Austin comes up with that day.

History
"Lectozoon" arrived on Earth when an meteoroid collided roughly with his home planet, the moon, and ricocheted off. The meteorite landed in an area infested with Night Terrors. Requiring a host to survive, Lectozoon had no choice but to attach to a Night Terror. Spending weeks with the monsters made the doorworm feral and violent as he adjusted to his surroundings. It was only after his Night Terror host was killed by Selia that he began to adjust to civilization, or what's left of it after The Virus.

Living with Selia, the two have established a happy relationship. Selia has renamed the doorworm from his Lunarian name "Lectozoon", to something cuter and easier, "Squiggle".

Credit where credit is due
The doorworm species is © SuperTrainStationH, while the art and this character (adult link) is my own design. I've extrapolated on SuperTrainStaionH's design to fill in blanks and preferences where necessary.

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