#simultaneously this extremely rash impulsive guy and also veryyy obstinate and paranoid. it's weird. idk how else to explain it.

[indooroutdoorboyfriend]

some misha lore i suppose sooo. yea. keep scrollin. 👍

been considering how insaneee his neuroticism is lately. it TRULY runs deep, it's absurd. every waking moment he is overwhelmed with this fear that he is going to commit some sort of unforgivable sin. or just, like, fuck up tremendously in general. misha is this oddball anxiety-sufferer where—instead of being a meek people-pleaser, like me—he is pretty aggressive about it. which i think makes it harder for him to view this as suffering; a commissar is supposed to be proud and uptight and scrupulous, that's sort of their whole thing.

if he were a soft little guy (he WAS, at one point, but let's ignore that) THEN he'd be a failure. he sees nothing wrong with holding himself to the highest possible standards, even if any sane person would tell him they're unattainable. in misha's mind, perfection is ABSOLUTELY attainable—he's simply not good enough yet. he just needs to work harder and become stronger. his ambition and perfectionism kinda go hand-in-hand; he wouldn't be goal-driven whatsoever if he weren't petrified of failure. so he definitely isn't doing what he's doing "for the imperium!!", though he'll probably tell you he is (that's the Correct answer, after all). he just wants to be entirely clean, entirely pure, stripped of any and all imperfection. he NEEDS to be useful. he NEEDS to do well.

in a way i think this makes him a bit more similar to heinrix lol (i will never not be comparing the two, i'm afraid). neither of them really have identities beyond being Useful Tools. both of them are constantly worried about screwing up and being disposed of—or, even worse, abandoned by everyone.

it's just that, in misha's case, he already HAS fucked up TREMENDOUSLY. and his primary concern is preventing anyone from figuring this out. so while he's trying to project this image of a Cool, Steely, Stoic Commissar™ that mask tends to slip quite a bit. so now he's not only worried about fulfilling his commissarial duties, and going above-and-beyond THAT, but also trying to prevent his greatest fuck-up being exposed to the world. the stress is eating him alive and it is fairly obvious to anyone with any amount of perception skill lol. he is incredibly self-serving in this way—more like a beast trying to do anything it takes to survive. kinda like how a drowning human will apparently push and shove and clamber over someone trying to rescue them, without any concern for THEIR wellbeing, just because their brain is absolutely freaking out over drowning??

he WILL try to kill idira (multiple times!) because she is a telepath and diviner (and also mutants = icky) and absolutely totally knows exactly what he's done and she IS going to rat on him and he WILL have his failures laid out before the entire galaxy. he WILL immediately jump to conclusions whenever you're speaking, no matter how friendly or neutral you're trying to be. he WILL perceive everyone as a potential enemy.

misha isn't under some illusion where he thinks he comes across well or anything. he knows that he's awkward and jittery. he knows his Cool and Collected persona isn't very convincing, to those who care to Lewk at all. but the alternative (in his eyes, anyway) is revealing himself to be an emotional chaotic mess of a man who can't do anything besides whimper and sob violently and plead for a swift death. which would obviously be far more embarrassing.

his Vibe comes across like...a rescue dog with a bite history, which keeps getting returned to the shelter because of its consistently poor behaviour? and it just keeps growing worse and worse over time due to all this stress? but it just isn't able to Be Normal long enough to stay adopted?? basically what i'm saying is, the 40k universe is NOT a no-kill shelter and misha's euthanasia date is in three hours (and he KNOWS somehow and is freaking out) lol.