It felt like a constant battle to survive.

“What is wrong with you?! Why can’t you do anything right?!” my mom would shout at me, towering over my person. She’d often get physical too as if that would fix the problem.

Throughout my childhood, I tried to match her pace when she demanded something. Whether to apologize for defending myself against her accusations, breathing the wrong way in her space, or simply forgetting to handle an instruction exactly as she ordered.

I felt like a puppet on strings, or no… a windup doll, a living imitation of pretty plastic adorned in jewels and if it moved the wrong way, people would see its cracks and look at it with contempt and scorn.

My dad was a good person. I have many fond memories with him whenever my mom wasn’t involved. He made me laugh and kept my life from being a complete nightmare, but when given the chance to leave behind our dancing charade, I knew I’d take the path out. Turns out I didn’t have to lift a finger because my parents left on their own accord.

I was seventeen. I remember coming home from school that day with my backpack full of books and how I found my belongings sitting on the porch in stacked boxes. The house had already become vacant before I arrived.

Maybe I was never a good child or a son worthy of having proud parents, but whether that was true or not, I was now all alone in the world. No family member would take in a disowned child on the brink of graduation. All they would see when they looked at me was a delinquent being served what was long overdue.

I managed to avoid the orphanage too. I found a decent job for a few years to save enough money for a cheap apartment, though at first I lived on scraps in the streets.

Admittedly, I resented my parents. This was likely another attempt to teach me a lesson presented by my narcissistic mother and my dear old dad could never quite turn down her requests.

Now where am I? I’m twenty eight years old living in a slightly better apartment with an associates degree in engineering. I’m still unsure how I managed all this on my own, but on a list of things I’m blessed to have in this world, I’m just glad I made it this far.

The only thing I look forward to the most was writing my stories on the weekend. I’ve enjoyed story telling ever since I read many wonderful web novels growing up on the web. I wanted to create a cool, powerful hero or heroine that suddenly had everything to gain from an unexpected chance. I wanted my characters to be everything that I was never in this life. I wanted them to go farther than I have ever reached, to see new wonders that can never be explored or touched by an average man or woman. In short, I wanted them to be my escape in moments I craved for comfort.

Five years ago, I published my first web novel. It was a Chinese action novella about a young man born in the slums. He was abandoned at a young age much like myself and we shared similar burdens of loss. Growing up poor, he struggled to find his way in the world until given an unexpected chance at revenge against those that wronged him in his past life.

I was so happy with this story. My whole life I thought that I was a beaten down nobody without any talents, but when given a chance to put a pen on paper my real potential shone the brightest. The hero from "I was born a poor man in my next life," reflected how my life never quite felt like my own. The way I was constantly shut down for having an opinion to the point I barely spoke to anyone. How little I shared about myself with those around me in fear of their constant disapproval. I was a living ghost in the form of a human being, a walking shadow that moved at the expense of others.

Despite my story doing well, my passion for it dwindled after my parents called me for the first time since they left. I don’t even know how they got my number, but least to say, our talk wasn’t pleasant.

When my urge to write returned, I began my second story.

“The Water God and his Silver Dragoness” was also a reflection of my life, but contained less emphasis on revenge and introduced an ongoing romance that insinuated my search for happiness.

Never did I imagine my second novel would run on for this long, or succeed to this extent. ToonbyteMe.com even agreed to release a dating game between my female protagonist Calisaya and her contracts with the seven gods. The harem was invented for Calisaya to reclaim her kingdom, but everyone knew the plot wasn’t that thick.

With the unfinished novel becoming over 200,106 words long, it’s safe to say, I’m at a loss on how to finish the story. The comments were becoming less frequent as well.

-[Why am I still reading this? *clicks the next chapter*] sent five days ago. 20 people agree with this comment. There is 1 down vote. No comments.

Without much else to do, I scrolled back a couple of years ago and checked one of the top comments.

-[I’ve been a long time fan of XXX for two years but after coming back to this novel, I’m sad to say it’s lost my interest as the story continues to stretch aimlessly with no direction. Doesn’t Calisaya have enough gods with five already? Why does she need two more??? She only plans to fight her mortal family, not crack the world in half] sent two years ago. 50000+ people agree with this comment. 30000+ people found this comment funny. There are 29 down votes. 70 people commented on this post.

--shanhaXXX [OP I think you need to reread the story. Much happened between Calisaya and the gods that deepened their relationship and desire to help her. She wants to become the strongest to take back her kingdom. No one has ever been given the privilege of contracts with the gods before so I think it's quite reasonable] sent two years ago.

--LeonXXX [It doesn’t matter because this story has been going for two years and doesn’t plan to finish soon. Take this as the advice from an experienced novel reader, we're going to be here quite a while] sent two years ago.

--MightyX [@shanhaXXX protagonist halo]

--GTube123X [@MightyX LOL]

--OP [@shanhaXXX I still feel like this reason is stupid, but I understand what you're saying now. I went back and reread the last fifty chapters] sent two years ago.

--nobodyX [@LeonXXX man I feel you and you're a Leon shipper which is an extra up vote from me] sent two years ago.

--YourMom [Are we going to forget Sagittarius?? LOL] sent two years ago.

--nobodyX [@YourMom ??? When was Sagittarius a main character or did I miss something?] sent two years ago.

--dewyChan [@OP @YourMom he’s a member of a local church] sent one year ago.

--OP [@dewyChan don’t ping me wtf… it’s been a year and I have moved on from this novel] sent one year ago.

--dewyChan [sorry OP *sad face*] sent one year ago.

--XXXFan [Does anyone know why OP stopped reading the novel? I just started a week ago and I really love it] sent seven months ago.

--nobodyX [@XXXFan I came back to reread the novel and found your question by chance. Pretty sure OP got bored of the updates, I can relate] sent seven months ago.

There were fifty seven more replies left but I didn’t feel like reading them right now. I tried to stay away from the comment section, knowing that’s a good rule of thumb for content creators, but sometimes I found myself giving into the temptation. No matter how hard I tried to not care about others' opinions, my moms words would ring in my ears about why I’d never be good enough. Even my grades suffered sometimes because of her lengthy tongue lashings. She reminded me of an overgrown lizard.

I put down my phone and buried my face in my hands, feeling embarrassed.

If I had written a harem of women, I wouldn’t feel like such a laughing stock among my peers. My fans never cared about my gender. They actually supported the fact I was a rarity among the harem writers catering towards women, but unfortunately, those closest to me and my coworkers weren’t as accepting about this fact. They already thought my long hair was too feminine, but that joke died down after a while. Now they just tried to avoid me because they thought I might hit on them.

I’ve always known people in my life had a tendency to be toxic, but with my sudden popularity on my second novel, they became much worse.