The host is Jack Patillo, voice of Junior in V1 and V2, and the Yellow trailer. The roundtable is Eddy, Barbara, Kerry, Lindsay, and Art Director Erin Winn.
-Kerry says that The idea for a tangible Alice in Wonderland themed place (which became the Ever After) first came about between V1 ad V2, and the idea was always for it to be between the fall of Atlas and what comes next. When CRWBY got to writing the end of V8, they still wanted to do it, but decided to do something "different".
-Eddy says that the idea of V7-V9 would culminate in a personal story for Team RWBY, and that the island could be a place to reset and get away from the main narrative and let Team RWBY have some time together. The panel agrees the idea is "extreme visuals, simple themes".
-Kerry says that before writing them, CRWBY knew V7 and V8 would be a low point and a lot and V9 would be a breather and a way to do something different. He adds that it can be hard to do character driven things when the world is ending , and wondered how to take away that threat, at least temporarily, and the Ever After is a way to address those things and balance things. Eddy says that CRWBY wanted time for Team RWBY to press pause with themselves and try to figure things out, and that it'd be hard to do that with everyone still on Remnant.
-Lindsay says from an acting standpoint, she likes how Ruby attempted escapism, or at least getting away from all the chaos of the world by pressing pause with Jinn in V6, and now that gets to be experienced in a bigger world that allows you to divulge into your feelings, such as rain coming down when you cry. Kerry says maybe that they'll get into some feelings.
-Eddy says that it felt good to get pretty meta by having the characters be in a fairy tale setting, and that V9 and the Ever After seemed like a pretty appropriate place to do that, with Barbara that fairy tales have been such a core of RWBY adding how all the characters and plotlines were inspired by stories like mythology and storybook characters, so that to dive into the fairy tale atmosphere is really cool for the volume.
-Kerry says that for the ninth volume, CRWBY wanted to take a look at the series themselves and look at the series and the characters and the world, and do a little commentary on those things, and with all that and the production going on during the pandemic, he thinks that this a volume everyone needs, and that feeling will become more clear as people watch.
