Intro Post for Clint
[Cis-male, he/him] Welcome to Aurora Bay, [CLINT BENNET]! I couldn’t help but notice you look an awful lot like [GARRETT HEDLUND]. You must be the [THIRTY SEVEN] year old [SCUBA CLUB BOAT DRIVER]. Word is you’re [HARD WORKING] but can also be a bit [ABRASIVE] and your favorite song is [GLITTER AND GOLD BY BARNES COURTNEY]. I also heard you’ll be staying in [OCEAN CREST APARTMENTS].
Full Name: Clint James Bennet
Age: 37
DOB: June 10th 1987 (Gemini)
Parents: James Bennet (Father) Joanna Michaelson (Estranged Mother)
Siblings: Michael Bennet (Older Brother)
Hair color: Dirty Blond
Eye color: Blue
Height: 6'3"
Piercings& Tattoos: None
Sexuality: Bi-Sexual
Occupation: Scuba Club Boat Driver
History under the cut (Triggers: Childhood Physical Abuse, Drug Abuse)
Triggers: Childhood Physical Abuse, Drug use Clint grew up in Houma Louisiana out in what was considered the sticks. Having an abusive father and an absent mother, he and his brother preferred to spend his time out in the wilderness, enjoying the company of gators, raccoons, and whatever other wildlife he shared he space with over that of his family and his father's drunken rage. When he was 10, his older brother of 16 ran off to escape his father’s abuse, leaving Clint to take it all on himself, it didn’t take long before his father gave him a blow to the head at 13 that resulted in him losing most of his hearing. While it was a hard adjustment to make, Clint was able to adapt by learning lipreading and sign language through his school. At 15 a few DCF calls by his teacher resulted in Clint being removed from his home and his father’s abuse. A double edged sword, while he was saved from the physical and psychological violence he was also removed from the only sense of normalcy he knew and was instead shifted from foster home to foster home, having no real connection to any extended family nor the families he was homed with found themselves with a difficult teen. He tried to get away on several occasions, becoming a frequent flyer and a regular face in the town jail to wait to be picked up by the social workers and returned back to whatever foster facility or family they placed him in. In his late teens he started to experiment with drugs, introduced to him through other teens in the system.
After leaving the foster system and setting out on his own with some aid from social services, he was able to get his own place but found more difficulty in dealing with the trauma and the effects it had on his mental health, resulting in him spiraling into drugs more. He took whatever jobs he could locally to make enough money to keep a roof over his head and to get his next high, in just a couple years he had gained the reputation of being a junkie and began using more manipulative tactics to get what he wanted, what he thought he needed. As his reputation spread and he became more desperate, he found himself behind bars by the time he was 25 and forced into an in patient rehab center before he could be put on parole. Already having a bad relationship with the systems that be, he found rehab difficult and actively fought against it until he met one of the volunteers, an older Jamaican lady, that helped turn him around and start dealing with his problems. At 28 he was released from rehab and at 30 from his parole though being out on the same streets that had fueled his addiction, he found himself craving again. He convinced his social worker to help him get away, move as far from Southern Louisiana and it's influences as he could, bringing him to Southern California. Again he worked odd jobs, kept himself busy, he wasn't one to go to therapy, having a difficult time talking about the things he went through and the guilt he carries from his time using. Once he was feeling more settled he even got a dog from the local animal shelter, a border Collie named Luna. It was through a reference of a coworker at a bar he bounced at when he was 34 that he made the move to Aurora Bay to help the local scuba club, captaining the boat for their excursions which he had been enjoying for the past 2 years.
1 Year Absence
Year three, Clint's past came to bite him in the ass once again in the form of an old warrant from Georgia. Something as small as a DUI from years ago turned into a failure to appear in court, this mixed with his past record had Clint finding himself locked up for a year. In the process he sold his home at Fisher's Cove as well as his boat to cover fees he had owed as well as keeping a little money in his pocket. An advocacy group was kind enough to foster Luna for his time behind bars, returning her on his release. After getting out, he found himself returning to Aurora Bay, starting from rock bottom again he felt this was the best place he could stand a chance to get back on his feet again. With little money to his name, he rented the cheapest apartment he could manage at the Ocean Crest Apartments and reapplied to the scuba club which luckily accepted him back, he has goals to rebuild the life he once had here, and to train Luna back up again who had forgotten much of her training during her time away from him. Personality: Clint is really hard around the edges at first meeting, he's sarcastic and likes to joke but has little patience for people he feels are bullshitting or putting on a facade, he'll try to break that facade down, many times by pissing them off or trying to get under their skin. He respects people more if they're straight with him. After he's warmed up he's much more mellow, though still sarcastic. He's a fish out of the water in this community, despite living within the community for the past 2 years, he's mainly kept to himself, living in a small bungalow in Fishers Cove. Recently he's started to try integrating more with the locals, but finds it difficult. Luna follows him everywhere he goes and is a social butterfly. He enjoys going out with her on his small fishing boat on his time off
Headcanons:
Clint has a tendency to keep people at arms length when it comes to serious topics especially about himself
Clint has a THICK southern Louisiana accent. The only time you won’t see the accent in the dialogue is when he’s signing.
He masks a lot with sarcasm and humor, a coping mechanism he learned from his childhood. At times, especially if Clint is feeling anxious or unsure how the other will react, it’ll be hard to get a straight answer from him
Clint is not completely deaf, he is Hard of Hearing (HoH) and can hear pitches of peoples voices and sounds past a certain decibel, if someone is talking softly, he won’t be able to detect their voice, but if he does hear someone talking he’ll normally turn his attention to them in order to read their lips
Reading lips is not an exact science and requires Clint to do a lot of guess work using context clues. Sometimes he’ll mess up or need to ask for clarification if he’s unable to fill in the blanks himself.
If someone is speaking to him, he needs to look directly at them in order to understand them if he doesn’t have his hearing aids in.
If Clint gets drunk, he has a harder time understanding what other people are saying even if he focuses hard on their lips, usually in those situations he just gets quiet, if he's REALLY drunk, he'll just make shit up.
Clint does have a hearing aid, but he only wears it when he’s working as a preference (He doesn't like how they feel in his ears, nor does he like the noise as it can overwhelm him).
For those that Clint cares about, he’s extremely loyal to them and protective. He would do anything for the happiness and safety of those he loves.
Though Clint isn’t super educated, not being able to achieve a high school diploma, he’s very witty, has great street smarts, and is quick on his feet, adapting quickly to changes in situations and coming up with plans to overcome challenges. Many people’s first impressions of him are that he’s aloof and messy in the head, which he doesn’t mind people thinking, but he spends a lot of time observing his surroundings and the people in it.
