a gentle night app.

[mekhanikos]

CHARACTER
Name Leo Valdez
Canon Riordan mythos
Age 16
Birthright Jewel Opal
Dreams made flesh He would ask for another vial of the Physician's Cure, a potion that can bring back the dead. It is off-limits in their world, and he doubts they can manage to make it twice without the gods finding out. However, it's incredibly useful as demigods have a tendency to die...
Canon point The end of The Hidden Oracle, after Leo and Calypso return to Camp Half-Blood after traveling around the world on Festus.
Canon Powers

general demigod powers & abilities:
- superhuman strength and agility: he has had no formal fighting education but is still good at it, stronger and better than a normal human (though less so than some other demigods, say, Jason or Percy)
- superhuman durability: can survive things that would kill regular mortals
- superhuman reflexes: faster than a regular human

specific demigod powers & abilities:
- technokinesis: the ability to manipulate, create and change machinery in incredible ways (such as building a working helicopter out of pipe cleaners), communicate with them, understand their language, operate any vehicle, sense flaws or faults in metal by touch, identify machine types by touch, and sense traps and disarm them remotely
- pyrokinesis: the ability to generate, control and withstand fire; he can create fireballs, fire bolts, and hot flames up to creating walls of flame, superheated (white-hot) fire, and stand his ground against a goddess of ice. he's immune to fire and has thermal vision as he's able to sense flames and heat. sometimes, when his control is shakier, he starts smoking or heats up.

other abilities:
- intellect: Leo has a genius-level intellect and can solve three-dimensional and different mathematical and mechanical problems in his head
- trilingual: in Spanish, English and Greek
- morse code: taught by his mother
- cooking: due to a lot of practice, Leo is an excellent cook

Jewel consideration: as his starting Jewel is Opal, there are no changes in his abilities or how they are used, but in the future if he gets a darker Jewel of rank, it could boost his technokinesis even further, and especially affect his pyrokinesis in potentially dangerous ways.

Personality

The way Leo's own best friend describes him upon first meeting him is "a Latino Santa's elf", and a very hyperactive one at that — and he isn't wrong to think so. Perhaps the most noticeable characteristic of Leo Valdez is his impish grin, the energy that he exudes at every moment, the way he seems like he's about to commit some act of mischief you won't be able to stop. Leo is the very picture of energetic, even more so than is usual for demigods, constantly moving, fidgeting or tinkering with something. This energy can be both a good and a bad thing: it is contagious, something that makes him the guy to rely on to keep everyone in good spirits... but in worse situations, his inability to keep still (or keep quiet, for that matter) can be even dangerous. As he is very spontaneous, he sometimes does or says things without thinking, and often these things land him and his friends in trouble.

Leo is very talkative, easy-going and funny, always making jokes and sarcastic quips, whether it is to his friends (but am I worth, like, two Franks, three Franks?) or his enemies ("Who is it?" Leo called. "Valdez!" Wolf Head bellowed. "Valdez who?") — it is his primary method of communication, like he has been programmed to make fun of everything, or respond with sarcasm to every obstacle thrown in his way. However, despite his outgoing personality, he doesn't make friends easily. A part of that is his heritage: he admits to being a lot like his father Hephaestus in that he finds machines easier to understand than people. Another part is that his brand of personality is not the easiest to handle: it sometimes comes across as immature, as his jokes may not always be the funniest or timed the best, or the people around him don't understand his particular brand of humor.

Another part that ties into this is what we could call his fatal flaw: his insecurity. Leo's childhood wasn't a particularly bright one: he lost his mother in a fire, his aunt was never kind to him, and he ran away from several foster homes, spending a lot of time feeling alone and unwanted. And even after making friends with Jason and Piper, after the two start dating, he feels like the third wheel... and eventually the seventh wheel, when the whole crew of the prophecy is together. All this adds to him feeling like an outcast, like he is useless compared to the impressive demigods he travels with. However, instead of expressing any negative feelings outright, he covers them up with jokes and humor. That isn't to say Leo is never angry, or hurt, but rather that instead of showing others how he feels, he simply keeps on joking and laughing and hides whatever negative emotions he feels.

Perhaps because of the guilt he used to feel over the death of his mother, believing that he had caused her to die with his pyrokinesis, Leo tends to avoid his problems by running away from them, either by simply not talking about them, such as when he refused to talk about Calypso to anyone but Hazel, who had to drag the story out of him, or by quite literally running away from his foster homes. His motto is "keep moving", showing an attitude that believes the idea that if you just move forward and don't stop to think about how much something hurts, you can avoid the pain.

As Leo doesn't have many close friends, he cares about those he does have with all his heart. When you are his friend, he is endlessly loyal, willing to go to great lengths to protect his friends, such as revealing his pyrokinesis after years and years of hiding it to save Jason and Piper, and of course, his ultimate sacrifice of effectively committing suicide by blowing up Gaea. This also shows another side to him: his incredible mental fortitude and bravery. It takes a lot to be able to know you are about to die, to actively plan for it, never telling your closest friends what you are planning on doing so that they can't stop you... but Leo does all of this.

This also showcases his determination. When he's decided on something, whether it is fixing a mechanic dragon no one else has been able to even catch, or finding his way back to a cursed island where no man can go twice, he will do it. He won't let anything stop him: not his friends, not his enemies, not the world itself. Despite his tendency to avoid his problems, Leo isn't a quitter: no matter how tough something is, no matter what he needs to do to achieve it, if he's set his heart on it... it's going to happen.

Of course, this is helped by his intelligence. Leo is seriously smart, actual genius levels, able to solve complex problems in his head, in the middle of a battle. He can keep a cool head enough to throw sarcastic insults at his enemies, all the while working on an Archimedes' sphere or a defense mechanism to help defeat a goddess. This shows he can also be serious and dedicated when he wants to: when working on his projects, when focusing on solving a problem, Leo gives it his all. During his time on the Argo II, he works on the ship constantly as he rebuilds Festus in secret, a feat that requires a lot of concentration, patience and hard work. It is this dedication that makes him someone to rely on, enough so that he is the head councelor of the Hephaestus Cabin, as well as the captain of Argo II.

Finally, though one might think Leo is a very go-with-the-flow kind of guy, and with his mischievous side that pulls pranks on others and makes fun of everything, wouldn't care much about morals... one would be wrong. Leo has very deep-set morals about what is right and what is wrong, on the most fundamental level — so while he might make fun of his friend for turning into an iguana, or while he might want to leave a tough battle for others to deal with, he is never tempted or swayed by Gaea or her forces: when he realizes that it was Gaea who killed his mother, that seals the deal. It is personal to him, something that is inherently wrong and he could never, ever forgive it.

History wiki link.