This is my first Art Fight attack of 2026, and is also the most personal comic I have drawn to someone yet (as of September 2026). It is a loving, sincere comic celebrating my actual digital relationship that I have with Rodney (@motivated_simp).
It goes back to the Homestead comic roots of 2024, except it’s actually genuinely vulnerable this time and not putting any fictional characters or friendship jokes in the middle. It is a literal, genuine love letter towards a sensitive, wonderful man from the Philippines.
Mark, who now has sideburns, because his design changed with me this year after I started masculinizing hormone therapy with testosterone, who is also shown as the “boss” of Homestead throughout multiple comics of this series, actually looks at Rodney’s human self insert and tells him “I love you”.
And this isn’t even the most heartwarming part about this personal revolution of a comic, a bigger one is the fact that I attached an actual screenshot of me and Rodney actually starting our relationship for real.
If you look closely, it happens with the most autistic message exchange history has ever seen:
I kinda had this crush on you this whole time and that’s why I was perfectly fine with what we were doing but I know you’re like the most open guy ever so I can’t really bring myself to keep this hiding, tbh I’ve only hid it because i know now we both hate the distance
Rodney
Fuck you I legit was gonna say “if you wanna date me go ahead I kinda am not interested in chasing people irl these days lol”
YEAH I AM STAYING
it’s gonna kinda suck being so far away but YKW WHY NOT
Just fair warning I am
Not romantic at ALL
you seem like the guy who is into yk people who are like gentle and kinda cheesy and I’m not that I’ll legit look at you in the eyes and say “hey wanna smash” and my love language is bringing you trinkets and doodling retarded stuff and making time for you
So if you’re into that then YEAH GO AHEAD
Me
mshakinh rn did you just say yeah
Rodney
Yeah
Grinning rn like real wide
Me
June 14, 2026 – Homestead
A confession that didn’t happen dramatically like in movies, a casual exchange that led to late night calls, longing, physical letters, and real feelings between people who are continents apart.
Something else worth mentioning about this comic is how I actually drew my human self insert on Art Fight for the first time, just to visualise me and Rodney together inside my living room.
Yes, this version of me has sideburns because this is my HRT masculinizing goal. I want to be a chubby guy with sideburns and cartoonishly thicc brows. Only got the chubby part so far, sideburns and block brows are under construction right now in September 2026.
Drawing all of this on an Art Fight attack was the most vulnerable thing I have drawn all all year for 2026 yet. It’s braver than any helium or special interest-related comic that scared me as a kid, braver than any winged accordion shanty.
It’s an actual love confession for an INDIVIDUAL. One that exists, one that makes me happy, one that breathes. One that thinks for himself. Rodney is a REAL HUMAN BEING. And this art is made for HIM.
Whether anything happens between us in the future (unlikely from how I see it) or not, this won’t cease to be one of the most brave artistic gestures I’ve ever publicly done online.
It’s a manifestation of love. And love sealed in an artwork won’t die.
And another fun fact after all this interesting and touching lore about me and Rodney:
Blackjack, my accordion, is also included in the drawing. He is drawn BLUSHING. Wanna know why? It’s because he was my actual wingman for rizzing Rodney. I practiced the piano key melody of the Phantom of The Opera main theme (one of Rodney’s favorite songs ever) on Blackjack and it REALLY affected Rodney emotionally – contributing to us actually falling for each other!
Rodney’s revenge
Of course, Rodney LOVED what I drew for him. He GIGGLED irl and smiled when he saw it, appreciated all the details and easter eggs, and when commenting on it on Artfight he said “i can ABSOLUTELY tell you were smiling while drawing this”, which is something NOBODY has told me about any work of art before.
He made a comic that absolutely OBLITERATED ME EMOTIONALLY. And I am not exaggerating in the SLIGHTEST when saying this.
He used the truest form I have depicted for myself in art, Markodion (AKA Sideburned Accordion Man’s Final Form), who is a literal humanoid accordion with accordion feelings and accordion anatomy in the comic. It’s the most ME version of me that exists in drawings yet (as of 2026), a literal 80s-neon colored accordion thing.
Interacting with his self insert wearing his “wannabe Phantom of the Opera historian” fit, which was HIS truest form.
You HAVE TO SEE IT though because my words won’t do it justice, and then I will continue my ramble. Behold, Rodney’s Box of Music:
The comic depicts something inconspicuous at first. Two men who love each other.
But at a closer glance, this is a human seeing a sentient machine. A being that is not supposed to exist. An actual neon-colored accordion cryptid that glows in the dark.
Instead of running away from the unusual entity, Rodney gets closer to it.
He understands this entity. He sees inside its eyes.
He kisses it.
He does something no other human being did to this entity.
This accordion isn’t separate from Mark (my persona) AKA the Sideburned Accordion Man, and in fact, it’s the truest part of his self that there is.
And instead of running away from it, Rodney is the only person who is wholly willing to embrace the man, the whole of him.
Including the weird part. The nonhuman part. The TRUE Part.
This is why he included that little middle panel showing the human Sideburned Accordion Man, it’s because THIS IS WHAT HE FUCKING MEANT. He meant that he fucking KNOWS the accordion is WHO THE SIDEBURNED ACCORDION MAN IS.
This what stopped me DEAD IN MY TRACKS when I saw it and couldn’t stop looking at it when I was at work.
It’s because I am really the accordion. I am THAT accordion. And I constantly feel like an accordion between humans ALL MY LIFE, longing to have someone hold my hand and not just watch me or say that what I do is cool or reduce me or try to change my form, but to sit with me. To exist WITH me. To REALLY let me show my colors, like how a peacock opens its tail.
Rodney contributes MASSIVELY to this, he is perhaps the closest I have felt to being truly, wholly accepted, despite our ups and downs. He IS that person, and I just keep forgetting it sometimes because of the logistical issues of being in different timezones and really far away and living different lives.
He is PROOF that people like him who will accept me fully and stand with me are REAL, and these comics SHOW IT.
And I saved this part last:
The lines of his comic are actually something that I wrote to HIM in our first physical letter.
You have such a strong capacity to love the world that you are expressing it outwards by loving the outcasts.
This line from my letter hit him like a BRICK and he felt so emotional about it that he made it the whole theme and reality of his comic, which is simultaneously an accurate description of our relationship.
In a way, indirectly or directly, I am an outcast. I’ve been made to feel like I won’t belong anywhere without simplifying myself or changing myself or translating myself in some way, and Rodney LOVES the outcast that is ME.
He took my own expression of love and RETURNED IT in the form of a comic, thus completing the love loop that I started by posting my comic.
This concludes this post that somehow has the most lore about me and Rodney ever to exist.