RWBY: Lex Talionis - Male Reader x Harem (Complete)

Preface

I know what you're thinking, the part count is pretty intimidating. And it's probably worse when you know that it's 500k+ words. But here's an explanation and my thoughts.
Anime's cool, but I don't watch a lot of it. The tropes and dialogue is a huge turn off. I like realism, and it's what I mostly prefer.
So that makes things tricky when you're writing a full blown novel between RWBY and Bloodborne. And the harem is the cherry on top.
I avoid typical anime tropes or, from what I've seen, a lot of routes fanfic writers go. I went the extra mile by building relationships from the ground up and making sure they're unique. So this naturally led to 50~ parts of buildup to its soft peak while also dealing with the fallout of being in a relationship with two, three, or even six other women. It's not easy to make it feel real but I'm told I managed to nail it so I'll take it as a victory.
If you're interested in seeing the love interests, or don't really care for spoilers, check the tags.

That brings me to my inspiration. I use that word lightly because I don't want it to seem like I based this off of victims or those still suffering to this day.
This story tackles a pretty heavy theme where hopelessness reigns supreme. Where it feels like everything is in the shitter and you just want the main character to prevail.
PTSD, depression, and suicide. It's not an easy thing to go through. And that's what this story is about, a man suffering those deep effects while going off on his own adventure. Yes, that means the 'RWBY' is more of a setting than the main characters hovering around him.
But that's not to say it's a massive AU. The parts you read through build up the story, creating foundations for the eventual moment where everything catches up to the show.
I suppose this is your warning because if you didn't notice, this story is labeled mature.

As a small side note, life comes up as a writer. And in my early days of writing this story, which was two years ago as of December 2023, I didn't care much for official formatting or chapter numbers. One day I'll get to it, but not now.
Also, there's mild typos here and there that I've never caught while editing. Nowadays I double check my work, but back then it was a casual scroll then publish.

That's about it. I figured I should put this out there since a lot of authors do it. And to explain the insane amount of work put into this from over a year of writing.