Therefore Elias Bouchard, head of the Magnus Institute, London, cannot cook. He never bothered. Having grown up a Victorian Gentleman ™ he considers it to be beneath him.
He has however reached the point where he knows that it’s embarrassing that he doesn’t know how to turn on a stove. (Peter has made fun of him relentlessly). He still refuses to learn, but refuses to be mocked.
And so, the performance begins.
“I’ve seen Elias cook.”
“Did you? Or have you just seen him plate things?”
“But…we’ve cooked together!”
“Really? Or was he standing by the sink, washing one vegetable for over an hour while you did all the work?”
Personally, I think Peter’s the one who’d be confused by a stove. Elias is a very self-sufficient, adaptable man who is happy doing menial work like paperwork. I don’t think cooking is going to be beneath him. I don’t think he’s that vain (actually, I think he’s the opposite of vain; this is a man who was happy being seen as the bumbling, but well-meaning boss for years and a ‘waste of a suit’). Peter, meanwhile, is a lazy little rich boy who sits in his captains cabin all day and has his food delivered to him by his first mate. I can’t really see him cooking when he canonically has food delivered to him 99% of the time, much less being any good at it.
I don’t think Peter would try to hide his inability to cook though. He doesn’t need to know how to work a stove; that’s for peasants people who don’t have enough money to hire personal cooks.
So Peter had two sisters that moved away before Peter could learn their names or know much of anything about them other than that they were a disappointment.
Since they moved of their own volition rather than being sent away like Peter’s other siblings, it can be inferred they reached adulthood/an age old enough to leave home while Peter was still a child.
His other siblings -
Aaron and
Judith - may have been removed from the home when they were still children as a result of this failure, because they weren’t going to waste their time on children that were going down the same path as the two sisters.
Ironic that he talks about his mother not being a cruel woman while also describing the fear and isolation his siblings would have gone through from being uprooted, and also openly admitting his childhood was abusive enough that he and his siblings would have been taken by child protective services.
‘For children that age’ makes them sound very young when they were sent away. Peter was probably an ‘only child’ from a reasonably young age.
He says their mother stopped conceiving because her husband drifted away, but it seems unlikely that was the only reason, since they definitely weren’t together out of love. I imagine she was getting too old to conceive more children by the point her husband drifted/withered away or just didn’t want to deal with marriage/the associated intimacy anymore.
The Lukas’ only marry to propagate the family line, but it seems like some Lukas’, like Peter’s father, aren’t cut out for that kind of cold, loveless marriage. I also get the impression that propagating the family line is considered a family obligation, which doesn’t surprise me because this is very common in cults, which the Lukas’ clearly are. It seems to be an obligation Peter avoided since he spilled his entire life story and never mentioned children, and considering how much he hates connection/intimacy, I imagine he made a deliberate effort to avoid it (kind of hard to push someone into an arranged marriage if they’re out at sea!).
(I also like the idea that part of it is because he’s gay, but tbh that’s very hc territory and I imagine Peter just isn’t interested in people in a romantic/intimate fashion.)
Very surprising she’s still alive, especially considering the frequency of funerals in the Lukas family.
All things considered (his mom being alive, Peter still being a child when his two older sisters left home, growing up with television, and barely having known Jonah as James Wright despite the Lukas’ connection with him and the Institute), I think 44 for Peter makes sense. Which would make his mom 84 in my hc.
Therefore Elias Bouchard, head of the Magnus Institute, London, cannot cook. He never bothered. Having grown up a Victorian Gentleman ™ he considers it to be beneath him.
He has however reached the point where he knows that it’s embarrassing that he doesn’t know how to turn on a stove. (Peter has made fun of him relentlessly). He still refuses to learn, but refuses to be mocked.
And so, the performance begins.
“I’ve seen Elias cook.”
“Did you? Or have you just seen him plate things?”
“But…we’ve cooked together!”
“Really? Or was he standing by the sink, washing one vegetable for over an hour while you did all the work?”
Personally, I think Peter’s the one who’d be confused by a stove. Elias is a very self-sufficient, adaptable man who is happy doing menial work like paperwork. I don’t think cooking is going to be beneath him. I don’t think he’s that vain (actually, I think he’s the opposite of vain; this is a man who was happy being seen as the bumbling, but well-meaning boss for years and a ‘waste of a suit’). Peter, meanwhile, is a lazy little rich boy who sits in his captains cabin all day and has his food delivered to him by his first mate. I can’t really see him cooking when he canonically has food delivered to him 99% of the time, much less being any good at it.
I don’t think Peter would try to hide his inability to cook though. He doesn’t need to know how to work a stove; that’s for peasants people who don’t have enough money to hire personal cooks.
elias also has the magical power to learn anything he wants at any time and turned towards beholding because of his relentles thirst for forbidden/esoteric knowledge
i find it hard to believe that this is a man who would be incappable of feeding himself and go to these kinds of lengths to hide a skill he could magically implant into his own head whenever he wanted
and even with no beholding powers elias is characterized by a thirst for knowledge, if there was a skill he wanted to have he would relentlessly work toward attaining it
peter never learning to cook and never bothering to try 100% fits with his extremely canon incompetent effete richboy upbringing tho
