i said i was gonna talk about why salem is more distinctly drawn to more eccentric personalities so here i am. i’ve probably talked about this before somewhere but couldn’t find anything in my headcanon tag. anyway…
so what’s important to understand with salem is that they are acutely aware of the emptiness inside themself. it’s a constant ache. they’re completely unable to experience a full range of emotions & are forced to live a sort of blank slate existence. when contemplating their existence & lack of humanity & human qualities, their stoicism is what they find most fault within themself.
their primary goal in life at this point is to become human & be able to feel in ways they haven’t been able to since their death. because of their feeling of inadequacy regarding their lack of passion & emotion, those who display a lot of it are seen as an unconscious ideal. the more passionate & expressive someone is, the more salem wants to be around them.
salem is also prone to studying the behavior of humans around them, even outside of those they consider ideal. this is due to their desire to blend in as seamlessly as possible. they desperately want to keep the truth about them a secret. so in order to conceal their oddities, they study & mimic the behavior of humans around them. their artificial human behavior isn’t enough to dissuade their belief that they’re defective, but they do deem it important to do so their peers don’t suspect something is wrong with them.
that being said, their desire to study humans around them makes them even more drawn to passionate people. the more polar opposite someone is to them, the more fascinated & captivated they are with them. great passion & great expressiveness is innately beautiful to them. because it’s everything salem is not & everything they want to be.