To be honest, I don't see the point of the whole "tentacles instead of legs" thing. Why not just make her an industrial-sized Norwegian girl with ordinary legs? What do the tentacles add to the story, apart from satisfying your fetish?
And, just so you know I'm not judging you: One of my sexual fantasies is being headless. (There's something strangely empowering about the thought of being so in control of myself and of my own body that not even losing my head can stop me!)
But despite that, animal people tend to fall right into the uncanny valley for me. Whether anthro or half-and-half, they just creep me out in the same way that headlessness creeps other people out. So there needs to be a reason to justify the gimmick for people who don't share the fetish.
In Stephanie's case, maybe you could lampshade that. Make part her character arc. Go in totally the opposite direction you did with Kala. Give her a partner who is secretly grossed out by her tentacles but he's trying to be polite, not let it show, not upset her or let her suspect how he feels.
Maybe he was shown a head and shoulders photo of her when he's assigned as her partner, and thinks she's just a gorgeous Norwegian girl. So it's quite a shock to see that she's a ... a horrible, slimy thing from the waist down. He wants to keep looking away from her tentacles but knows that might seem rude, but if he forces him to look at them, it would seem like he's staring at them which is equally rude.
Maybe he even tries to look up about krakens online, and finds that MGE entry. That'll really freak him out!
Meanwhile how does she Stephanie feel about this? Does she suspect how he feels? Is she used to it, resigned to it being inevitable? Has she lost lots of partners over time, because they couldn't get used to her tentacles? (If she mentions this to him it could make him even more uncomfortable.)
Or is she new to both the PPC and to our world, and surprised and puzzled that people could feel that way about her? Or maybe it works both ways and she's secretly grossed out at the thought of humans walking on two solid legs like ... like some kind of deformed featherless bird with a kraken's upper half!
Over time, the partners slowly get to know each other. Slowly, very slowly, without even realising it, her partner finds himself thinking about about her tentacles less and less. (If Stephanie ever had any problem about legs, she'll get used to them a lot quicker just because so many people in HQ have them.)
But, just as everything looks as if everything's going sommthly, Stephanie comes across something her partner wrote after he first met her, or overhears some old gossip about something he once told a friend about he.
She doesn't know that his feelings are changing (not surprising, since neither does he, yet) and she's shocked to find that he feels this way, especially since she thought she liked him. She wonders how long their partnership is going to last, and whether it would be best for both of them if she asks the flowers for a new partner.
But then, on a mission, the DORKS breaks, causing them to revert to their normal forms. The warrior!Sue spots the kraken and attacks. But Stephanie's partner reacts instantly and saves her life by grabbing a couple of tentacles and pulling her to safety! Even after the fight is over, he's just concerned that he might have hurt her by pulling too hard. They're bot surprised that he wasn't bothered by touching her tentacles at all!
When their mission's finally over, they head back through the portal, one of her tentacles wrapped gently around his arm ans if it's the most natural thing in the world for both of them. Even if they never become lovers like Valon and Kala, at least they new feel comfortable in each other's company.
(Yeah, yeah, I know, as it stands, it's not the greatest of story arcs. In fact it's just one tired old cliche after another. But it's a starting point. Right?)