2020-10-12 8:51:28 ¶ ●

saw a post about elias’s financial situation, felt like outlining my own headcanons.

basically, i think he is comfortably upper class. not obscenely, flashily wealthy, but the kind of wealthy that a poor or middle-class person could feasibly imagine themselves becoming.

his actually salary is probably not all that impressive, but i like to imagine he’s held onto some assets throughout the years. the biggest thing is that i like to imagine he’s held onto the house he lived in as jonah magnus when he moved the institute to london; it’s been attached to the institute itself as a perk for the head. whoever runs the institute gets this lovely old victorian-era townhouse as well, which means they don’t have to worry about rent (how property taxes and utilities work in england i have no idea, don’t even ask), which of course is very helpful in a big city with a high cost of living.

but still, even without that, life is expensive, you know? he eats well, he has nice clothes - not slick, haut couture, but nice. a little old-fashioned, maybe, a little plain. he doesn’t see the point in throwing something out if it goes out of style or gets a little worn. the more he looks like a stuffy, harmless academic bureaucrat, the better, right?

(as an aside, i do like to imagine him being a bit more of a peacock in his private life. at home by himself, on the rare dates he can coax out of peter, etc… you can simply pry fancy fem elias out of my cold, dead, queer little hands)

so he has his house, he has his clothes. he doesn’t have to worry about money. he has a budget because he likes budgeting, but he could easily meet all of his basic needs without really worrying about it. he can go out and enjoy things on occasion, movies and plays and symphonies and whatnot. he can buy old, rare books and antique furniture.

i like the idea of jonah not really caring too much about physical existence. he has his pleasures and he does like to indulge from time to time - what, after all, is the point of immortality if you’re not enjoying yourself? - but it’s not a focus. he’s a very cerebral person, and he has a unique relationship to his body on top of that, considering that for him, living in a body is more like buying a car than anything else.

even when he’s in prison, he isn’t too put out, because his plans are going along just fine. it’s not enjoyable, and i’m sure that given his druthers he would go for some nice wine and a pleasant home-cooked meal in the townhouse he’s kept up for the last 200 years to his own exact personal preferences, but he can give that up without too much of a fuss. it is, after all, just stuff.