Leo Valdez

[Name]: Mai
[Age]: 15
[Contacts]:
♦ DWEmail: maiya.pokemon@gmail.com
♦ AIM: Lonely Aura
♦ Plurk: LonelyAura
[Timezone]: UTC-8 (California)
[Other Characters]: None!


[Name]: Leo Valdez
[Canon]: Heroes of Olympus
[Age]: 15
[Gender]: Male
[Canon Point]: End of Mark of Athena, when Percy and Annabeth fall into Tartarus and he believes it is his fault.

[History]: Right here!

[Personality]:

Leo Valdez is hot and fast. Sadly for him, I mean this in the most literal sense. Let’s start at the beginning, though, and show what most other people see.

He’s a trickster. It’s pretty obvious from the devilish smile, quick fingers and that glint in his eye. His actions match his looks, in the sense that Leo loves to make jokes, make fun of people, and pull pranks. Turn your back on him for a second, and the computer might start blurting out silly phrases, the lights might start blinking in morse code, there could be a mini pyrotechnics show--anything flies. He can be a little rough on people, but he draws the line at physical contact, usually resorting to his sarcasm to stop bullies...or bully people.

Leo isn’t a natural bully, and he doesn’t take joy from mocking people weaker than him. He does, however, use it as a defense. When he feels threatened, he prefers to take the offensive against someone, digging into anything he can. He did this to Frank, his uneasy friend and the boyfriend of Hazel--someone he had a serious crush on. Not to mention Frank was a shapeshifter who could morph into any animal he wanted. Whenever given the chance, he would dig into Frank’s attributes--his weight, actions, the way he did certain tasks... “Yes, Frank, that is how everyone solves Chinese Handcuffs. By turning into an iguana.”

Now, where does that defense stem from? For one, Leo’s mother died when he was eight due to an accident he caused--in self defense--, and he only got over the fact a few months before his current canon point. With that, he needed something serious to cover up any pain, any feeling of threat, and his nature already tended towards being a trickster. That said, Leo has the tendency to wallow in self pity if people let him, and since he usually doesn’t let on that he’s wallowing, he gets to keep doing it. It’s not a very nice part of him, but it exists.

Leo has issues relating to people, and insecurity. It most likely comes from a mix of his father--Hephaestus, the god of smithing who always preferred his machines to people--and his past. Being convinced he was cursed on top of going from foster home to foster home in a span of seven years couldn’t have been easy for Leo. Combined with a diagnosis of dyslexia and ADHD, it’s surprising that he managed as well as he did.

And manage well, he did. Leo is upbeat and good-natured, and he does like to make what friends he has happy and is loyal to them. He’s just gotten out of a branch of his life where he opened up to no one about his life, and while he’s still insecure, it helps that much more with making connections. All in all, he can be a pretty happy kid when circumstances allow.

Now that we’ve built that base, let’s get back to the opening statement: hot and fast.

Leo is very, very ADHD. He typically can’t sit still unless he’s completely engrossed in something, and his mouth is typically two feet ahead of his brain. Also, he’s spontaneous, and has low impulse control at times. See this paragraph:

"On stern quarterdeck, Leo rushed around looking like a madman, checking his gauges and wrestling levers. Most helmsmen would've been satisfied with a pilot's wheel or tiller. Leo had also installed a keyboard, monitor, aviation controls from a Learjet, a dubstep soundboard, and motion-control sensors from a Nintendo Wii. He could turn the ship by pulling on the throttle, fire weapons by sampling an album, or raise sails by shaking his Wii controllers really fast. Even by demigod standards, Leo was seriously ADHD.”

While very bouncy, Leo can be serious when the situation calls for it. Anger can bring it on as well, but he has a nasty temper that goes with it.

That said, let’s move onto the hot part. Leo’s mind is very, very fast. When he thinks too fast or gets too excited, he literally starts bursting into flame. With his immunity to fire, it’s not a problem for him, but it does tend to be a problem for nearby objects... like an ice bridge he’s supposed to be crossing, for example. Along with that, he has a bit of a temper that tends to be triggered when people put him down.

Last but not least, he flirts. A lot. Typically with girls who are far, far out of his league. It’s a curse, you see, that he is attracted to any smart, cold-hearted girl. He knows they love him, really, but they’re too proud to admit it, which makes it all the better--

Hah, right. Leo is very much a hopeless romantic.


[Abilities / Strengths & Weaknesses]: Leo is a Greek demigod, meaning he has the inclination to be soldier-like, though it is only honed with training he has not had. For the most part, he has good reflexes.

- ADHD: Most demigods have the inability to keep still, and according to the author, their ADHD allows them to constantly analyze their surroundings. Like most demigods, Leo is easily distracted. Unlike them, his ADHD is worse than usual--meaning it is a real, severe case of ADHD.

-Leo can control fire, and is immune to it and extreme heat--he slept in a fireplace once or twice as a baby. He can shoot flames out of his hands and control its strength and temperature. Along with this, he tends to catch on fire when he gets particularly emotional, or when thinking about something really hard.

-It should be known that he can sustain a low-temperature flame on his body for an indefinite amount of time, but when he tries to put power into it, it will drain him.

-Dyslexia: “His brain is hardwired for ancient Greek.” Meaning he can read Greek decently, while he has trouble with written modern languages.

-Speaks and reads (if not perfectly) English, Spanish, Greek, and Morse Code. Along with that, he can interpret certain mechanical noises.

-As a son of Hephaestus, he has an aptitude for anything mechanical. Repairing, building, using--it comes automatically. Leo has built helicopters out of pipe cleaners, made a boat that uses a wii remote as a controller, and so on.

-Another ability that his type of demigod has is being able to understand and manipulate certain metals and locks. I.e. he can turn the spinners in a safe, or sense a weakness in a metal chain.

-Can innately operate any machine he comes across, given enough time.

-Can likely steal, as he’s been through many foster homes and schools.

-He can make simple meals! Go him!


Weaknesses?

-No combat training whatsoever. He’s not a fighter, and will be pwned at hand-to-hand.

-He hates the cold. Really, really hates the cold. He fares just fine, but is generally miserable.

-When he gets agitated or emotional, Leo bursts into flames. His first kiss is going to be really awkward, huh?

[Limited Powers]: Is it alright if I keep his machine-operating ability intact? It doesn’t necessarily mean he has the tools to do it.

Also, canonically Leo has a toolbelt that can summon most tools smaller than a basketball, though if he summons anything complicated, he has a “cooldown” period. I will extend that to no electronics, gasoline, and will judge other things case-by-case.

[Other Important Facts]:

[Samples]:
♦ Thread:
Nico di Angelo and Leo!

Akabayashi and Leo!
♦ Post:

[Leo’s been having trouble concentrating on any one thing for the past few hours, other than finding his friends and trying to figure out what god has screwed with him again. Then he’d been ordered to stop goddamn moving, so he’d sat down and opened the journal up. It didn’t take long to figure out how exactly to work it, which leads to the following voice.]

Friends, shipmates, pirate-wannabes, let it be known that Leo McShizzle is in the house! [People will quickly learn that this is normal for him. Silly jokester, that’s him! If they could see him now, they’d see a manic grin that suggests he’s thinking of how to best set their pants on fire.]

If any of you need something fixed on the ship, drop me a note and we can work something out. If you’re a lady looking for a piece of me, we can totally work something out! [Implied eyebrow waggle. With that, that’s the end of the voice message.]

Who: Leo Valdez and Sebastian Carter
When: Sixth grade >8D
What: Leo's the new kid, Sebastian's been bullied. Leo to the rescue?
Warnings: Course language, bullying?
-
It was one of those schools.

Leo hadn't known what those schools were like until his mom died. In Houston? His school was kind of rough, but it was small, and he liked learning from his mom more anyway. He didn't have to put so much attention into the people, into fitting in, because he'd been there since the beginning. He had friends he'd invited to his birthday parties, and in return he'd go to theirs. All happy.

It wasn't like that anymore. Now, Leo had to pay attention to the people, because that's what kept him safe. If he got in with the right crowd, they wouldn't screw with him. Yeah, that meant bullies. That meant mean people, people who could take your head off. Leo had to get in right with them, smile and crack jokes and put up with the BS so he'd be safe. Anonymous in a good way.

These weren't those sorts of people, though. The school was kind of on the whitewashed side--not totally, but Leo didn't see many other hispanic or black kids. They weren't like his last school, either. When Leo raised his voice to (gasp) argue with the teacher? Everyone looked at him like he'd tried to shoot the guy or something.

Yeah, not one of those schools. Leo probably didn't help the situation in that math class by screwing with the projector when the teacher was answering a question (as usual, he ended up in the front and next to the teacher after he took one look at Leo's smile) to make have static in certain parts of the screen. Maybe into the shape of a smily-face with "x"s for eyes and stuff. Yup. Not a rough school.

It was weird having foster parents who actually could send him to an uppity school. It didn't really make much difference, and Leo was still bouncy in class, but still. It also meant he had a bunch of foster siblings though. And his foster parents had their own kids. Yeah, kind of really weird.

Leo grinned as he followed some of the other guys out to recess on his third day. They didn't let people go to recess as long here as they did at his last school.