another thing about elias is that people keep twisting themselves into knots to explain why he absolutely was a mediocre looking balding middle manager and love and light to everyone’s headcanons but personally if i had asenath waite body hopping powers i simply would go for conventionally attractive hosts because why wouldn’t you??? beauty is a social construct alright and most people would prefer to be on top of the social ladder. do you think jonah wasn’t carefully picking replacement bodies based on a number of social factors. what i do actually like instead is the headcanon that his original form was not particularly handsome. at all. and that’s because this is the description of count magnus in the m. r. james short story he (and mag 23) is named after
The portrait of this Magnus de la Gardie was one of the best in the house, and Mr. Wraxall studied it with no little interest after his day’s work. He gives no detailed description of it, but I gather that the face impressed him rather by its power than by its beauty or goodness; in fact, he writes that Count Magnus was an almost phenomenally ugly man.