#and then he looks over at Leo and just sees big ol' dragon wings sticking out of his soul

[aroaceleovaldez]

I’m a bit nervous about sending an ask, but the curiosity has won me over, hope this isn’t too many questions

You said you headcannon Leo Valdez as dragon kin so I was wondering, do you think he has shifts often, if at all? If so, does he generally have some types of shifts more often or is it more balanced? And do the other campers and the seven know? If they do, did he tell them or did they piece it together on their own? If he told them, did he have to explain a lot or were they kind of just like “okay” and didn’t question it a lot? Like they just accepted it and didn’t want to overstep or something is what I mean

I think maybe I’m overthinking this, I really hope I’m not asking too many questions or anything

It's no worries at all! Asks/questions are always welcome!

I think his most usual shifts would be teeth/scales, but they're a lot more subtle so he either doesn't notice them as much or can ignore them. Those ones are probably semi-regular for him but again, more subtle most of the time (most of the time... every once in awhile he gets hit with a stronger maw shift and he's just sitting there gnashing his teeth at the air for like an hour cause his mouth feels weird until it goes away). Maybe also horns.

Less common ones for him but ones he'd notice more are probably wings, tail, and talons. Talons i mostly just think would be funny for him cause he has his habit of tapping his fingers as a stim. Him getting tripped up from the phantom talons while trying to stim, being confused for a minute about why his fingers aren't touching the table and he just ends up tapping out morse code into the air a couple inches above his desk instead. Wings and tail would probably just be pretty standard phantom limbs - they're just there and he's aware of them and maybe able to move them a bit. I imagine he'd eventually try to make some 'kin gear to help with those shifts specifically just so his brain stops error 404ing when his dragon limbs pass through solid objects despite his brain thinking they should be able to tangibly interact.

I don't think Leo would know what otherkin/alterhuman is when he first meets the Argo II crew, and probably wouldn't get the opportunity to learn about it for awhile. He doesn't really have the vocabulary to explain how he's feeling - just that he Is A Dragon. The rest of the crew probably also doesn't know what otherkin/alterhuman is either so they don't have an explanation for him, but, yknow, demigod life is already so goddamn weird, if Leo says he's a dragon that's not the most abnormal thing they've heard that week and they'll just take his word for it and accept it. And Jason probably understands the feeling re: being a wolf therian, even though he doesn't have the vocabulary to explain it either, so there's at least some solidarity there.

Earlier on I think Leo would just crack a lot of jokes about being a dragon, not particularly explaining how he feels about it to the others but just kind of putting the concept out there. He might try to explain it if the topic comes up but, as mentioned before, just struggle too much to try and find the words for it (the adhd/dyslexia/autism wording problems do not help there). I do like to think though that, due to their Hades/Pluto kid soul powers, Nico and Hazel would actually be able to pick up on spiritual-origin otherkin/therians/etc if they focused on it - Nico in particular, probably a lot more passively - and be able to kind of see phantom limbs/shifts sometimes (cause goodness knows how souls/spirit stuff works in the Riordanverse and I can have my self-indulgent silly alterhuman worldbuilding hcs if i want to - also at least partially inspired by some journal posts i've read of people mentioning people/animals/automatic doors picking up on their phantom limbs and being able to track the movement and stuff. if any demigod would be able to do that it's gonna be the kids with literal soul/phantom powers). I just find the concept amusing of Leo trying to explain this extremely metaphysical experience and Nico's just off to the side like "Oh yeah no, your soul is a dragon. Like, very literally. Dunno how that happened but good for you. btw why do you have ghost wings sometimes?" And Leo's grateful for someone helping him explain it but also isn't sure how he should react to statement. Eventually though one of the crew stumbles across alterhuman stuff - probably Leo or Annabeth, most likely accidentally through looking into daemonism stuff (you know they both read His Dark Materials) - and they put two and two together and finally have a means to explain it and Leo could not be more relieved (though he still doesn't know how to feel about Nico's soul comments).

I love rotating alterhuman demigods in my brain