Clarence Bateman

Bateman (by most crewmembers)

**Clarence Arcturus Bateman** is the First Mate of the Phœnix, and has been such since its inception. He is well-known for his dry, occasionally cryptic sense of humour, prodigious height, and healthy appreciation of heavy artillery. His main duty aboard the ship is to monitor the other members of the crew, making sure they do their work properly, and man the cannons alongside the other weapons expert, Henrique Machado.

Clarence's playlist can be found here.

## Appearance

Clarence is notably extremely tall, standing a full head above many other crewmembers and two inches over the second-tallest member of the crew, Poemä Morrisey. He is strongly built and of northern Mediterranean heritage, with detailed tattoos (described below) spanning most of his torso and arms (put there by Cessair North). He has long, lank black hair tied back in a ponytail, and has weatherbeaten, tanned skin. His face is angular, with a strong jaw, prominent cheekbones, and an occasional five o'clock shadow he attempts to keep trimmed. He has a long, hooked nose, heavy dark eyebrows, and an elusive sideways grin. There is a solitary birthmark on the right side of his neck, usually hidden by his coat collar.

Clarence's right arm is covered in a full sleeve of tattoos dedicated to the crew, with different elements representing different crewmembers. His left bicep is ringed with detailed, rusted chains, also tattooed. On the left side of his chest, directly above his heart, he has an anchor. Across his chest and shoulders there is an extensive series of swallows indicating the number of nautical miles he has sailed—six prominently, accompanied by dozens of smaller ones in the backdrop. In total, he has forty swallow tattoos of a variety of shapes, styles, and sizes. All of Clarence's tattoos were done by Cessair.

There is a nautical star on the back of his neck. Previously, it had been contained within an eye insignia, but its corners have since been tattooed over, turning it into a compass instead.

As to clothes, Clarence is usually seen wearing a worn, full-length grey overcoat, threadbare off-white shirt, and loose dark brown pants, as well as heavy black boots. He wears one small gold earring stamped with the words "THE PHŒNIX" (although its status as real gold is disputable). In cold weather, he occasionally sports hand-knitted articles of clothing (usually scarves or sweaters), which he makes himself.

In certain AUs, he bears a long scar that stretches from his hairline to his chin on the left side of his face.

## Personality

Clarence is generally serious and irritable, focused on the things that would be the best for the crew. His intimidating presence coupled with passive-aggressive semi-threats generally keeps the other members in check, although many years of sailing experience has given him keen sense of his subordinates' boundaries, and never pushes a member past what they could feasibly tolerate. When not on duty, he enjoys telling stories about past adventures (most of which are evidently untrue) and cracking sarcastic jokes, often at the expense of other people.

Despite being a pirate whose main occupation is killing people, Clarence has shown reluctance to inflict direct and personal physical injury on others (seen notably in his origin fic, in which he pushes his first victims into a well rather than draw blood from them). In order to draw energy from those he gives to the Entities, he instead sinks whole opposing ships using the cannons he fires so that he never sees them die. The reason for this is currently unknown.

## Relationships

In the past, Clarence was romantically involved with his childhood friend and the Phœnix's ex-captain Dorian Harris before the latter's departure from the crew. Currently, he is not in any romantic relationships, although he is very aware of how many of the crewmembers feel towards him, and makes no effort to spurn their advances, occasionally even playfully encouraging them. He states that he would not be averse to relationships should the other person ask him first.

He and Clancy Blake have been known to "make out", which Clancy denies vehemently.

Despite all their playful banter and frequent betting habits, Clarence is scared of Joshua, although he suppresses this nearly completely. The reason for this is unknown, as well as whether or not Joshua is aware of this sentiment.

## Powers

* **Delayed Aging:** Clarence became an avatar at the age of 30, and physically has aged only about two years, despite actually being almost a dozen years older. It is unknown if he will continue to age.
* **Feeding the Buried:** The way in which Clarence gives to his entity, the Buried, is by bringing down ships at sea. Those still on those ships find the ocean acting unusually upon them, while at the same time not drowning them—they sink to the ocean floor hundreds of kilometers down without losing consciousness, whereupon they die from the pressure damage.
* **Breathless Wonder:** For an unknown reason, Clarence does not need to breathe or intake oxygen in any way to live. He does out of habit, although crewmembers joke about his insides being full of nothing but solid dirt.
	+ Unbeknownst to many of them, they are. Augustin, Henrique, and Poe are aware of this, as they have accompanied him to the occasional bar brawl and witnessed sand streaming from his nose and mouth when wounded.
* **Weight of the World:** Clarence is able to alter his mass at his own will, while not changing his outer appearance. Said mass can range from a normal weight at his height (approximately 290 lbs) to eight times that (approximately 2320 lbs, enough to crush straight through a standard household floor).
* **Under Pressure:** He is also able to extend this effect to other people, in a modified way. When he uses this ability on a human, gravity increases on their body, and the ground underneath them changes composition in order to drag them downwards beneath the ground upon which they stand, resulting in their death by suffocation. This is another method in which he claims victims, more often seen in the cruise-ship era of the crew. He has remarked that he finds it amusing.

## In other AUs

Clarence features as a major character in various AUs, and a minor character in almost all others. The AUs featuring him most prominently are:

* Cyborg
* Viking
* Reawakened
* Prince
* Star Wars

## Trivia

* Clarence enjoys knitting in his spare time.
* In several AUs (usually ones in which he has no powers, such as Modern), he requires forearm crutches to walk, as his body is unable to support his height and weight. This also applies in the post-apocalypse world he and the crew find themselves in after the events of The Magnus Archives.
* He drinks copious amounts of alcohol, not out of trauma but simply because there is usually more alcohol than water on board. Nevertheless, the other crewmembers complain about this (with good reason).
	+ Clarence becomes noticeably kinder while drunk, although this is shown only rarely, as he has an absurdly high alcohol tolerance.
* He bathes only when he has to, but takes relatively good care of his teeth and facial hair.
* In the Mermaid Crew AU, his mermaid design was based off of leatherback sea turtles.
* While Dorian was captain, Clarence was usually in charge of hiring new crewmembers, as Dorian was more interested in writing letters than maintaining the ship. Most of the original crew was first approached by Clarence.
	+ He has admitted he feels responsible for Gall's avatar transformation because of this, but does not regret it, remarking that the other options would have been worse.
* Clarence has unintentionally created a Leitner by dropping a notebook off the ship.
	+ Said Leitner is an antique ledger book designed for keeping track of cargo ships, entirely blank and in the possession of the Magnus Institute prior to the events of Season 5. Its pages are warped and crinkled, as though it had been soaked through with seawater. Anyone who opens it feels compelled to begin flipping through the pages to see if there is anything written within. The longer the reader reads, the harder they must work to breathe, and before reaching the last page their lungs will have totally filled with saltwater, causing a slow and painful death.
* Clarence does not remember his middle name.
* He is aware of how to play a variety of card games with great prowess, but tends to mash the rules together in a horrible (but amusing) conglomeration instead, to the consternation of his fellow crewmembers.