As my inaugural post, I want to put my reference for Damianos & Conri up front and center! I'll be adding all the fun details below the cut if you're curious about their story. If you don't want spoilers and just want to read about them as I post, then you check out Lab Rat!
I plan on having a heavy focus on petplay, dehumanization, and our poor rat fighting against his happy ending with everything he's got in him! It'll be fun, I hope.
I ALMOST FORGOT... Dami's entire name is a big stupid joke and I think I'm VERY funny. "To tame" for his first name and then the second is from wolfsbane. So, "to tame and destroy the wolf" and his floret's name used to be Wulf (and is NOW "wolf king").
Damianos Lycoctinum || 2nd Bloom || he/him
Age: ~175 years old
Height: ~15 ft (4.6 m)
Damianos is a naive, impulsive, and easily distracted young bloom more or less drifting through the galaxy alongside his two teachers until he ends up meeting (then) OCNI researcher Louisa Wulf. From there, he has a lot of growing up to do in a short amount of time to prove he's capable of caring for his beloved feral Terran.
The plant he's uplifted from is a predatory species native to a very distant planet within the Milky Way. It's blooms release a tantalizing sweet scent ("It's like vanilla on steroids!") to draw in prey, which is then captured by the sticky sap on its bristled vines. This trait is one Damianos carries into his life as an Affini.
He's a very clingy, cuddly guy, and (in his opinion) the best place for Conri to be is inside his chest cavity, cuddling his core.
Relatedly, Damianos (like many Affini) has a pretty strong prey drive he channels into smothering wonderfully adorable little sophonts!
Damianos's preliminary research while approaching Terran space showed that Terrans have very strong associations with these fuzzy xenos called "cats." He decided that, clearly, taking a familiar and beloved shape would better facilitate bonding behavior. So, Damianos decided to create a shape somewhere between man and cat for maximum cuddle potential and familiarity! There could never be any issues with this choice... Don't worry about the teeth! It's fine!
Phytotoxin Effects: A tingling or burning sensation where it contacts the body (even when injected or inhaled), often causes erratic heart palpitations, muscle paralysis, and profound euphoria. ("It makes my little petal's heart skip a beat~")
Conri Lycoctinum (nee Louisa Wulf) || 1st floret - 2nd iteration || he/him (with a splash of it/its)
Age: 28-ish
Height: 5'7" (1.7 m)
As Dr. Louisa Wulf.... Conri is a bit rough around the edges, as it goes. When we first meet him, he's brooding, paranoid, aggressive, downright murderous, and all together a pretty horrible person prone to lashing out at the drop of a hat. A lifetime of abuse for (then undiagnosed) autism, self-loathing due to dysphoria, and being trapped in a floating tin can in the void of space with people who hate you does unspeakable things to one's psyche. And, at least at the start, Conri sees no reason to improve himself for people he feels "deserve" to suffer his ire.
Even after recovery from his lifetime in the Accord, Conri is pretty avoidant and asocial as far as florets go. He loathes surprise touch, rarely speaks to strangers, and is generally content being alone with Damianos and their horde of rats. Which, frankly, is fine with Damianos. Conri does, of course, get a lot of socialization time (against his will), and Damianos is sure to keep on eye on Conri's interpersonal relationships to make sure his needs are met. He's just sort of grumpy by default.
Modifications: Post implantation, Conri gets a fully customized phytotech body and is digitized via overgrowth (against his knowledge & will but that hardly matters for a floret). He has a vomeralnasal organ, an animalistic body, and generally improved physicality from before. At least, enough to make fun prey for his Affini's games...
Iteration? Think of it as Conri's personal "bloom count" for each body he's inhabited. Damianos plans to essentially craft a bespoke art piece of a body for his floret each time he blooms and transfer Conri to it. What happened to the first iteration? Well, it maybe got a little smashed up by a certain over-enthusiastic Affini. Don't, uh, don't worry about it... Conri would rate it a "10/10 experience, would do again"
Overgrowth: Conri's haustorum overgrowth is entirely benign and intentional. It serves as an additional erogenous zone and the closure for his collar. The flower at his nape is visually based on the Hydrangea and Edelweiss flowers, representing "Gratitude for being understood, Frigidity and Heartlessness" and "Courage and Devotion" respectively. Both of which are meant to symbolize Conri himself, as well as his feelings towards his Master.
Xenodrugs: As far as it goes, Conri loathes Class-A's, but has become very partial to L's and P's for fun. He is, however, on quite the cocktail of E's, D's, and F's for his health.
