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𝖌𝖊𝖓𝖊𝖗𝖆𝖑
───── ⋆₊ ♱ ─────
𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄 𓆩𓆪
benson colter ˞ ben; benny
there's a quiet weight to the name “benson colter.” something rooted and steady, like an old fencepost left half-swallowed by kudzu somewhere off a back road. you don’t hear a name like that and expect bright cities or polished shoes. it's the kind of name that comes from places where the air clings to your ribs and the nights are louder than the days—where the trucks rust too fast and the stories stay longer than the people.
the first name, benson, is straightforward enough. it wears like old denim; its not flashy, and not something anyone would name a baby hoping for magazine covers or clean-cut futures. “benson” sounds like someone who could've been named after a man who never left town. a father or a grandfather who drank his coffee black, who only bought boots from one store and never trusted out-of-state plates. the name means “son of ben,” but benson has never mentioned if he knew the ben he came from. if he did, he doesn’t carry it like a legacy—there’s no pride or reverence in it. the name is more like a hand-me-down; he never quite outgrew it. functional, but not personal.
still, the name sticks. people tend to say the whole thing (benson, not ben) unless they're close, reckless, or both. ben is reserved, mostly used by people who think they've earned the right, even if they haven't. ben will give you an eyebrow quirk and a scoff. benny is rare, a slip of the tongue or a memory caught in someone else’s mouth. it's something you hear from old friends with bad boundaries or people trying to get a rise out of him. the kind of name said during a cigarette break, or after a long silence. no one calls him benny and expects him to smile.
colter—now that's different. there's something older in that name, something landlocked and heavy. “colter” doesn't belong in a mall or on a resume. it belongs on deeds and gravestones; it has roots in dirt and ash, in hard winters and lost harvests.
it is derived from “cúl tir,” loosely meaning black lands. literal, physical black—earth scorched, tilled, trampled; fertile in that strange way places become after they've been used up. the kind of land you only farm because you have to, not because you want to.
benson never explains this, never corrects pronunciation, and never offers up the etymology. but you can see it in him if you know what to look for. he's a man shaped by the place he came from, even if he doesn't say its name anymore—even if that place doesn't want him back.
𝐀𝐆𝐄 𓆩𓆪
thirty-seven ˞ 06/17/19xx
southern louisiana, usa
benon was born on june seventeenth, in the thick, slow-simmering heat of a louisiana summer; the kind of heat that settles deep in your chest, clings to your skin, and makes the air taste like metal. the river swelled the week he was born, and the power went out in half the parish. people still talk about the storms that rolled through that summer, all heat lightning, and thunder with no rain until it came down in sheets. that’s the kind of place that made him—wet, rough, and used to things not working right the first time.
he doesn’t say his age unless he has to fill it in on some clipboard, and even then, it’s more of an obligation than ownership. thirty-seven sits strangely on him. in certain lights—when he’s quiet, when his guard isn’t up, and you see the certain boyish glint in his eyes when he knows he’s cornered someone in a game of cards—he looks younger, as if the years haven’t caught up with him just yet. but more often than not, his age shows in the weathered edges: the lines beneath his eyes, the tightness in his shoulders, and the calluses that speak more about the life he’s lived than any number could.
he’s old enough to have seen too much and young enough that some still think they can tell him how to live—thirty-seven isn’t middle-aged, but it’s far from green. it’s almost transitional, like there’s just enough road behind him to be bitter about it, and just enough ahead to know better. time es, and benson lets it—quietly, with his teeth grit.
𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑 𓆩𓆪
masculine ˞ he/him/his
benson moves through the world in a way that reads masculine before he ever opens his mouth. it's not in that puffed-chest, billboard kind of way—his masculinity isn't loud. it's not curated, and it doesn’t beg for approval; but rather, it sits in the square set of his shoulders, the quiet strength in his hands, the gravel in his voice when he's just woken up and hasn't ed to be careful with it yet.
he's the kind of man who doesn't need to explain himself often. there's something settled in how he occupies space—not arrogant, not cold, but solid. he wears his masculinity like an old coat: not something to show off, but something that's kept him warm through worse nights.
he's not a man who talks about gender or expression, and he probably wouldn’t know where to start. if you asked him, he'd shrug and say “i'm just me.” or, if you've caught him on a particularly bad day, he'd most likely look at you like you're either crazy, or an idiot.
his masculinity isn't perfect. it's worn and lived-in, shaped by the people around him and the things he’s had to survive. some days, it runs sharp-edged—when he feels backed into a corner, when he's holding too much inside. other times, it softens in strange places.
he's not afraid of violence, but he doesn't revel in it either. there's nothing performative about the strength he carries. if he hits, it's because he means to. if he defends, it’s because he has to.
he doesn't correct people when they call him “sir,” but he doesn’t light up about it either. it feels more like a mockery of his age, if anything. the rare compliments on his appearance—“handsome,” “strong,” “manly”—tend to slide right off him. they’re not insults, but they're not praise either, just words. he's more likely to how someone looked at him than what they said.
𝖆𝖕𝖕𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖆𝖓𝖈𝖊
───── ⋆₊ ♱ ─────
Kyle Gallner in The enger, 2023.
benson stands at five-nine, with the sort of frame that looks wirier than he really is—lean, yes, but built solid. you don't realize how strong he is until his hand closes around your arm, or until you see him lift something heavier than he has any business moving without a grunt. one hundred and fifty-four pounds, most of it tension: coiled in his shoulders, his forearms, in the tight clench of his jaw when something was on his mind. he holds himself like someone who's been backed into too many corners and made it out anyway.
his hair is scrappy, medium brown, usually a little too long around the ears, and always looking like he ran his hands through it too many times instead of bothering with a comb. there's a certain disheveled consistency to it, like a person who hasn't forgotten how to take care of himself, just doesn't always see the point. sometimes, when the lights are right, you catch the faintest amber tone in it, like the sun tried to burn something gold into him and gave up halfway through. he has the kind of pale, gray-blue eyes that sit low, half-lidded most of the time, framed by lashes darker and fuller than you'd expect. his eyes watch more than they speak.
his face carries sharpness—not necessarily handsome in a conventional way, but defined. his nose is slightly crooked from an old break he never got fixed. his expressions shift fast, in small ways: a twitch at the corner of his lip, the way one brow lifts just slightly before he calls someone out.
stubble clings to his jaw like an afterthought; never enough to count as a real beard, but always there. you get the sense it's less about style and more about routine, or the lack of it. he looks like he sleeps in his clothes more often than not.
benson’s skin is fair in the way that stays pink when it burns, then fades into the same pale again. it catches the cold easily, and the sun, and the raw edge of dry motel air. his hands are rough, broad-palmed and long-fingered, with nails that look chewed or broken—evidence of nervous energy he never bothers to voice. there’s a restlessness to his physicality, but it’s buried deep. he sits with his legs spread, arms loose but aware, spine crooked in the way of someone who's been sleeping in cars or on bad mattresses for longer than they want to it.
he dresses in layers: old jackets, flannel shirts with sleeves rolled up, faded jeans gone soft at the knees; he prefers clothes that don’t draw attention. his boots are scuffed to hell and back. he wears a belt not to make a statement, but because he’s had to run before, and it's best if things stay in place when you do.
underneath those layers, it's usually cut-off tees, the sleeves hacked off with a pocketknife sometime back and never sewn shut. they bear the cracked logos of metal bands—some well-known, some no one else in the room's ever heard of—and they hang just loose enough on his frame to catch the air when he walks. there are holes along the hem, a cigarette burn or two, the collar pulled and stretched from years of being yanked over his head. sometimes it's old graphic tees, strange and mismatched: one from a state fair in texas, another with a blood-red wolf howling at a moon too bright to look real. he doesn't seem to notice what they say half the time. or maybe he does, and that's exactly the point.
he smells like smoke some times and old motel soap the other. occasionally, there's something warmer beneath that—something like sweat, engine oil, a hint of whiskey; earthy, not clean.
𝖕𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖔𝖓𝖆𝖑𝖎𝖙𝖞
───── ⋆₊ ♱ ─────
benson is the kind of person who sets people on edge without knowing exactly why. something about the way he moves: deliberate, slow but never aimless. the way he looks at you, like he’s trying to pin down the shape of your intentions before you speak.
there’s a charm to him, if you’re not on the wrong end of it—an edge-of-a-knife charisma that makes it hard to tell if he’s about to compliment you or cut you open. he's got that dry, easy voice, the kind that drifts off like smoke from a truck stop cigarette, and when he uses your name mid-sentence, it feels like a test; a way to measure whether you're listening, or lying.
he's loyal in the way a wildfire is loyal to dry brush: once he’s attached, he burns bright, dangerous, and all-consuming. he’ll stand by someone long after he should’ve walked away, but the same unpredictable nature that makes him loyal also makes him volatile.
his moods swing sharp—cold one minute, grinning the next—and it doesn’t take much to set off that hair-trigger temper. especially if he thinks someone’s being dishonest, or trying to hide behind the polite scripts of everyday life. he can’t stand that. he wants people to say what they mean, even if it’s cruel.
𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖘 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖙𝖍𝖆𝖙
───── ⋆₊ ♱ ─────
𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄𝐒 𓆩𓆪
the ritual of smoking. old cars; both fixing and driving them. fishing, occasionally. straight black coffee: the only way he can drink it.
he clings to the familiar, the tactile. things that smell like grease or smoke or saltwater. the process matters more than the result—starting the engine, lighting the match, casting the line.
𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄𝐒 𓆩𓆪
shopping malls & consumerism. cowardice disguised as politeness. has a complicated relationship with authority. being told how to feel. crowded places. insincerity. unnecessary small talk.
the modern world wears on him, all noise and performance. he can’t stand falseness, in any form. when someone tries to package something ugly in nice words, he either shuts down or lashes out. most of what he avoids is loud or controlling.
𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐒 𓆩𓆪
loyal to a fault. unpredictable. charismatic, in a broken-glass kind of way. emotionally volatile. a dreamer; unrealistic.
he’s intense in ways that don’t always make sense. hard to predict, harder to hold onto. when he’s calm, he draws people in. when he isn’t, they don’t know whether to stay or run. he believes in things he can’t explain, and sometimes that’s dangerous.
𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐁𝐔𝐓𝐄𝐒 𓆩𓆪
physically imposing. dry humored.
disillusioned.
his body walks into the room before he does, and his patience never quite makes it through the door. there’s a sharpness to his humor that cuts close to the truth.
𝐈𝐃𝐈𝐎𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐄𝐒 𓆩𓆪
wipes his hands & mouth obsessively after violence. smokes with the filter between his front teeth. talks to road signs and billboards. uses people’s names mid-conversation (a lot).
he carries little rituals like armor. post-violence cleanup is automatic now, not even something he s. he treats inanimate objects like they’re listening, and people like they need reminding of who they are.
𝐇𝐀𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐒 𓆩𓆪
carries the same jacket everywhere. talks to people like he’s interrogating them—even when he’s being polite. refuses to let anyone walk behind him. casually manhandles others.
𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒 𓆩𓆪
sleight of hand. lying on the spot.
innate sense of direction
𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐒 𓆩𓆪
skilled with weapons & hunting.
adaptable to most things.
𝖑𝖎𝖋𝖊𝖘𝖙𝖞𝖑𝖊
───── ⋆₊ ♱ ─────
benson lives in a weatherworn house that sits close enough to the shoreline for salt to cling to the windows. it’s the kind of place where storms come fast and loud, and everything smells like sea rot and old iron. the island isn’t big—not even close—and the kind of quiet it keeps feels older than god. a port town, if you can even call it that, where boats still matter more than the internet and most people can name every family that’s buried in the local cemetery.
he lives with his grandmother, beth, a chain-smoking woman with a steel spine. the house is cluttered, warm in a way that’s lived-in rather than cozy. stacked newspapers, doilies that haven’t moved in years, a thousand cigarette butts in chipped mugs that used to hold coffee. benson keeps the kitchen clean enough for their liking and the bathroom stocked. he knows which of ma’s pills need to be taken with food and which ones make her nauseous.
the works at one of the island’s only retail shops—a place that sells everything and nothing: bait, cigarettes, t-shirts with seagulls on them, rotating racks of sunglasses no one ever buys. it’s a job, not a calling. benson clocks in, stacks boxes, stares at the ocean through a dusty front window and smokes on his break. most of the regulars know better than to talk to him unless they have to. he doesn’t wear a name tag–or, more like refuses to put the effort in to put one on.
his car is a 1970s chrysler, pale yellow and built like a dying star—big, loud, and somehow still moving. he keeps it running with the kind of mechanical instinct that feels like magic. people on the island hear it coming before they see it. sometimes he'll drive just to drive, ferrying himself across roads he's memorized, windows down, whatever obscure music he's managed to mixtape turned low enough to think over.
he doesn't go out much; he doesn't have the energy for it, half the time. when he's not working, he's at home—cooking for ma, patching up a hole in the roof with duct tape and curses, fixing a porch step that's rotted through. if not home or work, then he's most likely at church, side by side with beth like the dutiful grandson he's been since he was twelve.
benson doesn't talk about wanting more. maybe he did once, but now the days slow and sticky and the island keeps him like a secret.
𝖗𝖊𝖑𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓𝖘𝖍𝖎𝖕𝖘
───── ⋆₊ ♱ ─────
𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘 𓆩𓆪
bethany gilmore. 75 years old.
maternal grandmother. alive.
he's lived with her since he was twelve, since things went bad, no one else was left, and he was shipped off to some american port island in the middle of nowhere. she's a bigger woman with thinning white hair, thick glasses, and a smoker's laugh that rattles like loose screws in a drawer. he often calls her some variation of ma, though no one's sure why. she's sharp-tongued, smokes too much, and curses like someone who knows exactly how little time she's got left.
but she loves him—fully, ferociously—and he loves her back in the only way he knows how: by keeping her medicine stocked, fixing the step she almost fell on, lighting her cigarette before she asks. he gets her up in the morning and helps her to bed at night. he does all the grocery runs, carries her on the bad days. sometimes, when her legs ache too much or the fog rolls in too heavy, he sits with her, watching reruns with the volume too loud.
she's the one person he doesn't argue with—not seriously. she raised him on tough love and menthols, and he tends to her now like he owes her a debt that can't ever really be paid back. they don't say “i love you,” but there's love in how she nags at him to go out more and how he cuts her meat for her without being asked. at the end of the day, she's the only person who's never left him, and he'd set fire to the whole island before letting something happen to her.
𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𓆩𓆪
harlen kittredge. mid-60s
working relationship. alive.
harlen's in his sixties, heavyset with a comb-over and hands that look too clean for someone who runs the only real general store on the island. he only ever hired benson because he saw him fight a man over a pack of smokes and decided that kind of loyalty had to be good for something. their working relationship has always been strained; harlen doesn't like the way benson talks to customers—too blunt, too cold—but he knows benson gets things done, and that he'll show up even when hungover or bleeding. they play cards on slow days, talk shit about tourists, and pretend not to like each other.
despite their bouts of calm, they argue often—sometimes loud enough for people outside the store to hear. but harlen's never fired him, and benson's never quit. there’s something resembling mutual respect there. benson knows harlen thinks he’s a ticking time bomb; he might not be wrong.
still, when harlen's truck broke down last winter, benson fixed it before sunrise without charging a thing. they never talked about it.
𝖓𝖔𝖙𝖊𝖘
───── ⋆₊ ♱ ─────
𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐒 𓆩𓆪
𝗍𝖾𝗆𝗉𝗅𝖺𝗍𝖾：𝕸𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐲𝐫
𝗉𝗁𝗈𝗍𝗈𝗌：polaroid picture frames
𝐃𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐋𝐒 𓆩𓆪
𝖿𝖺𝖼𝖾𝖼𝗅𝖺𝗂𝗆： Kyle Gallner, 2023
𝗉𝗅𝖺𝗒𝗅𝗂𝗌𝗍：the rot in your flesh
𝐄𝐗𝐓𝐑𝐀 𓆩𓆪
𝗉𝖺𝗂𝗋𝗂𝗇𝗀𝗌：bxg, bxb.
𝗀𝖾𝗇𝗋𝖾𝗌：horror, thriller, psychological.
𝗍𝗂𝗆𝖾 𝗉𝖾𝗋𝗂𝗈𝖽𝗌：1990s, 2000s, 2010s.
𝖺𝗏𝖺𝗂𝗅𝖺𝖻𝗂𝗅𝗂𝗍𝗒：currently open.
𓆩𓆪
℧ 𝖳𝖠𝖦𝖲 ℧
Comments (5)
feature worthy!
oh you're so sweet ! ! !
Reply to: 𓆩𓆪
🤍! open to rp anytime!
w fc
kyle gallner is a work of art