I feel like I am entering what later will be defined as a new phase in my art: The Dage Tiddies Phase. Probably have entered it already...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
[image ID: a fully coloured digital drawing of Nie Mingjue from The Untamed/MDZS in a modern au setting, showing him to his hips. He wearing pants while his torso is naked and covered in dark red lipstick marks. One of his arms is raised as he is currently wiping at another lipstick mark on his cheek, smearing it across his skin. He is looking at the viewer. His hair is pulled up into a messy ponytail. He has a sidecut and both of his arms are covered in tattoos made of different geometric patterns. End ID.]
472 notes
·
View notes
Nie Mingjue thoughts due to previous reblog.
It feels like so many people forget how young Nie Mingjue was. He was only old 6 years older than Nie Huaisang.
Which makes Nie Mingjue, Chifeng-Zun, who’s a well established leader in combat, all of 23/24 years old at the start of the Sunshot Campaign, and barely/maybe not even 30 at his death.
It’s so easy to see him as being of an equal age to the other sect leaders of the time - Wen Rouhan, Jin Guangshan, Jiang Fengmian, Lan Qiren (standing in for Qingheng-Jun) when he’s basically the same age their kids.
He probably around the same age as Wen Xu. He’s only 3 or so years older than Lan Xichen, about 2 or 3 older than Jiang Yanli.
In his early 20’s he had also been a sect leader for nearly a decade.
NMJ has such a rigid view of things and of right and wrong. Childishly simple seems an unfair way of putting it, but he was a child when he had to lead.
He was 14 when Wen Rouhan, the chief cultivator had killed his father. He was left with a leaderless sect and little brother (nhs) who was about 8.
He’s tall for his age and strong. He knows he has to lead now. His childhood is over. He needs to be strong and decisive. He trains hard (he knows what this means for him, what it has meant for all the Nie sect leaders), he makes decisions and doesn’t back down (no weakness will be attached to Qinghe Nie because of him and his youth)
Qinghe Nie keeps in place in 5 great sects, despite its barely teenage leader.
There is nothing in his life apart from training, to be strong enough to protect his sect and his brother, and to finally avenge his father.
Perhaps there had been hope once that after it was done, after Wen Rouhan was gone, he could stop pushing so hard. After all he doesn’t want to leave his brother all alone too soon.
But the sunshot campaign happens. He’s betrayed, but told he hasn’t been, told he needs to put it aside. He sees cultivators from his sect die in front of him, unable to protect them, is tortured and unable to escape. He never gets to have his vengeance against Wen Rouhan in person.
Then the conflict is over.
Years of fighting, of pushing himself, of all that has happened to him, means there is no peace in victory.
He doesn't know how to come home. He's built for war, and can’t believe that another enemy won’t appear.
His health declines, physical he’s mostly fine, but he’s angry all the time, expecting attack, always alert to danger. It feels like there are enemies watching him everywhere. He can’t relax even for a moment. He’s tired, but he can’t rest. He’s exhausted, afraid (although he’d never say that aloud) and all comes out as anger. He shouts at Huaisang, pushes him to train harder, his own fear that he will no longer be able to protect driving a wedge between them.
Huaisang doesn’t seem to care, still acts like a spoilt child. And Mingjue breaks some of his fans, some of his books and paintings.
He knows he’s gone too far, but he doesn’t know how to stop. The only relief is that he didn’t harm Huaisang. He knows too that it will only get worse until he’s a danger to all those around him.
Lan Xichen offers a solution, not a cure, but a reprieve, a chance to buy him a few more years in which to get his brother ready to lead.
It’s not to be.
He doesn’t know why the music stops working as it should. It all sounds the same to him.
He endures it the best he can, until he can’t.
—
So yeah, many Nmj feels
89 notes
·
View notes
The incredible urge to only draw this man in crop tops from now on. Whoops.
[image ID: a fully coloured digital drawing of Nie Mingjue from The Untamed/MDZS in a modern au setting. He is dressed in shorts and a shirt that has the word bongos written in bold letters across the chest. His arms are tattooed with geometric patterns. His bare belly is chubby and hairy. The sides of his head are cut short and the rest of his hair is pulled up into a messy bun. He is smirking and looking with one raised eyebrow off to the side as if he was looking at someone. End ID.]
281 notes
·
View notes