Just the Way You Are

This volume of RWBY isn't one that I've felt like writing a ton about. It's existed as a bit of background noise to my weekends, a must watch but in passing. It was a wonderful journey, but not as impactful as I thought it should be to me. It hit all the right marks. Well-written, well-animated, great music. It wasn't until the finale, where I was reminded, again, of why I loved this show in the first place.

I've been seeing an outpouring of love for V9 that seemed to spur a re-examination of it as a series, in both what RWBY means to fans and what Ruby means to the audience. This whole volume she's been a proxy facing the show's vocally decried imperfections: for what the could have beens and should have beens keep saying. In Ruby's own personal doubt, we see the seeds of the show's very own history of grappling with fan expectations, critical analysis, commercial success, and the complicated legacy of the tragic passing of the show's creator.

But CRWBY's love for this volume is so evident it seemed to drown out any bad faith arguments: this is RWBY as it was always meant to be.

In finishing this volume, I see once more that fiction can help us suture the parts of us that seep. That its creators are people we may never know but whose ideas we stitch into the membranes of our core. RWBY doesn't have to be a masterpiece emerging fully formed from the minds of its writers and animators. It is a vision expanded upon, a messy beginning built up, a work of surfeit love, flawed and lovely in the mess.

As a perfectionist I tend to chase that critical clout, to draw from external sources the meaning of my own art, to wonder if the interpretations are good enough, if the writing and characters are done with enough mastery that I can succeed in other's eyes. But RWBY will never be a success to some, and in that we see that even the most collectively beloved things are criticized by their detractors. We will never create a bulletproof thing.

Life is exposure. Love is vulnerability and art in service to that love - of self, of others, of vision - exacts the same toll of knowing. Even against the diatribes on Youtube that have stated otherwise, RWBY's heart is worn on its sleeve. It is a show fully sure of its sincerity. This volume seems meant to present that to us and to Ruby, as a character. She has always been the heart of the show. Pursuant of hope in the face of insurmountable odds, always picking up the pieces of others, always with the weight of the world on her shoulders. But, at her core, she has always been a simple, more honest soul.

RWBY and Ruby have faced failure after perceived failure. Ruby always tried hard but never quite got it and now, in the sea of her doubt and the under the current of others' expectations, she sees herself as less than. As incapable of serving the people she loves most. Ruby's fear of failure does not come from her need to be beloved, it doesn't come from a selfish interest in public opinion, but rather from a stalwart need to do what she believes in.

RWBY has long been the scruffy underdog of the animation world, an easy little show to poke fun at. This isn't to say that critiquing is inherently bad faith, or that there's no place for it. There is, and there always will be things that irk or bother us to some degree with every piece of media we consume. But, much like the people we love in our lives, those imperfections are part of them, and we can either take them as is and have faith enough that they'll grow just as we do, that their center is good and worth it, or we can simply let them go.

Choose for yourself one who can leave your burdens behind, or chose one who can be enough to bare them.

There's something to be said about the moral simplicity of a show like RWBY, in which things don't always work out, but in which the characters have enough faith in themselves, and the world, to still seek to save it. This is a fairytale, but it is one that hopes to impart on reality a little bit of that kindness.

It is wholly intentional that RWBY is thus stylized as a children's fairytale. It lacks the tonal shift of grit and anger that adulthood seems to impart on innocence, and posits that: no, you don't need to be anything else, even if others decry that self as naive or emotional or exposed. There is a beauty to RWBY's vulnerability and it's always been there, baked into the show itself.

V9 feels like a love letter to RWBY as a whole. It has always been a show set on positivity, on pursing that goodness at all costs. RWBY does not partake in the labor of being something else more gritty or mature or indifferent. It is what it's always been.

A simple, more honest show.

rwby volume 9 finale tomorrow… i’m so ready to see what’s in store but at the same time i want time to slow down bc i don’t want the volume to end and to be stuck in a hiatus again 😭

So while RTX are still working on V10 and haven't greenlit RWBY V10 YET, they did have a deleted RWBY V9 Epilogue animatic for us!

#greenlightvolume10

POV when you realise v10 isn’t even greenlit yet and we have to live in renewel limbo until July

RWBY is not dead, just on uncertain waters at the moment.

I am getting this out there for you all in this fandom who are feeling uncertain and scared for RWBY right now.

And maybe in the near future this fall and winter.

Or maybe even next year, in 2024.

And spoilers for RWBY up ahead.

RWBY is not dead.

Rooster Teeth did not cancel it or else, everyone would have been talking about it and I would , even at an later date from that hypothetical, disheartening announcement.

I ain't all that worried from V10 from getting greenlight at RTX this year, which was last month from this post being made.

Why? Crunchyroll might have made a deal with RT on V10 being greenlit AFTER the RWBY X DC crossover movie's 2nd part get released.

I know that it is speculation right now, but that is a high possibility.

Alongside that Red Vs Blue is still going, Let's Play is still up, and they are still being talked about.

By both fans, non-fans, and haters.

Even with their failings and all that. They still have to make money at the end of the day and go for supply and demand, even with having to make compromises.

But, as it stands right now, as we are in yet another RWBY hiatus, as it is the norm, just a little more uncertain than the other hiatuses-

We don't really know.

But, I don't think we should be really be worried about RWBY being 'dead' just because

Do keep going at it at trying to convince RT to finish RWBY by releasing V10 and onwards, which could be finished in 2 to 3 volumes. 2 to 3 years I think.

And always remember what the message of Ruby Rose to all of the world in V8 did to its people, which got shown at the end of V9.

She brought hope to all of

Even in this uncertain time of fear, despair, anger and bitterness of 'what could have been' for this fandom, especially with the massively uncertain time when Monty Oum died 8 years ago (R.I.P. always), and business happenings that we don't know, that are not being said online, all of that-

Don't give up hope.

Even if in a decade or two, when RWBY continues after an hypothetical hiatus that spanned sooo long.

And perhaps the writing on the wall of RWBY being 'dead' or 'dying' was written by those who have given up and not given hope to those who want to watch RWBY and enjoy it for what it is.

Even when they have left the series.

Even with those who think hope is a dangerous thing and can drive someone insane.

And get an man's project finished for all to experience. I don't know the full vision of Monty Oum and I wouldn't pretend that I do.

But, his story getting out there and being understood and cherished, even with life's ups and downs, even with him being dead, is what I think he would want as he was making it.

And that's all I have to say on this matter.

So, we will continue to wait for the day we all have been waiting for and the revolution that Team RWBY and friends bring to Remnant against the walking *cancer* witch, that is Salem.

When that days does come-

~Hades-Hando~

ftr it isn't rooster teeth that decides if rwby gets greenlit or not. it's hbo, their parent company, which is worse given how they love to fuck shows over mid-run.

last i checked, rwby is fully funded by rooster teeth, and gets no additional funding from warner bros discovery:

"Many folks assume that, given that RT is wholly owned by Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), that we have an endless pool of cash just laying around. You could not be further from the truth. While we are indeed owned by WBD and love being a part of the family, we typically tend to run RT as an independent business within the larger framework of the organization. Contrary to popular belief, we do not receive an annual bucket of money to fund the show." [source]

now, i'm not going to pretend i know exactly how all of this works so i could very well be wrong here, but i'm assuming that the entity that actually funds the show gets to decide whether more is made or not. if rooster teeth doesn't have the money to continue making rwby—let alone keep all the people who worked on it hired even during the interim—then they're obviously not going to force it and drive the whole company down while at it.

in the above source link they also talk about the exclusivity deal with crunchyroll and the reasons for it: that is, wanting to find a long-term home for rwby where it can continue to thrive and expand, implying that it cannot do it any longer on rooster teeth's own site.

in doing that, rooster teeth decided that instead of driving fans to watch it on their own site and using their subscription to watch the show legally, they sent fans to crunchyroll—which isn't to say they didn't get any money out of it, you don't give away exclusivity for free, but rooster teeth quite literally had a "i'm here just for rwby" option when prompted to give a reason why you won't continue with your first subscription; they know how important rwby was for first. they willingly tanked their own subscription in an attempt to ensure rwby would continue.

i mean. from what i've heard and understood (again, could be wrong here, or misremembering), the production during V9 went like: work on majority of V9 (funded by RT) -> work on jl x rwby movies (funded by WB, not RT, kept people employed) -> back working on the last couple episodes of V9 (funded by RT). and, like. i don't really see any reason to suddenly, mid-V9 production, to swerve to the crossover movies if they weren't having problems with funding V9 on their own—in the commentary they were literally talking about how they considered making the summer, tai, & raven scene in 2D instead of 3D as a money saving measure—, hence the exclusivity deal with crunchyroll.

and last i checked, crunchyroll isn't owned by WBD, it's owned by sony. yet, when it came to greenlighting V10, crwby were directing people towards crunchyroll, not WBD, and certainly not HBO, which as far as i know doesn't even have rwby on its streaming service and is also owned by WBD.

which doesn't sound like WBD or anyone else is holding rooster teeth back from greenlighting V10; if anything, RT is looking for someone to partner with them to cover some of the cost—in this case, most likely crunchyroll—and whatever discussions and negotiations they may or may not be having at the moment haven't bore fruit yet.

obviously most of this is speculation—i'm just a person on the internet with no inside knowledge, only able to make assumptions based on information that has been given by those actually in the know—so don't take it as a gospel. however, i don't think creating boogeymen out of other companies who have nothing to do with funding rwby is a way to go either; focus on the company actually making rwby, first.

The text reads:

" BREAKING: RWBY Volume 10 may be the FINAL VOLUME of the series, says the show's senior brand director. ☹️🚨 It's looking possible, according to RWBY's Senior Brand Director, that RWBY Volume 10 may truly be the final volume. Although, the brand would live on through spin-off material. They released a statement via Reddit: 'Vol 10 may be the final season of the initial arc of Remnant. But there's plenty of other stories to tell with a vast timeline and massive character base. (For instance Team STRQ) We've already seen additional content not necessarily part of the core show done in the YA novels and DC Comics (not the crossovers) expanding on the universe. Nothing to say RWBY will die out as a brand, it just may not be with Team RWBY. It may not be with RT or WB. Who knows. If the fans show up and want more there's still hope. I'm the Senior Brand Director for RWBY, can't say anything about news.' Disclaimer: This doesn't confirm V10 is greenlit yet. 🌹"

. . .

Firstly I am so confused why a Senior Brand Director is saying something like this. I found the original comment they made on Reddit and it's so odd. I had a hard time believing it was a real person from RT saying this, but apparently, they do work there.

At the same time, V10 being the finale episode for the initial arc sounds like it's a real thing. Also-also, totally called it that they would probably do more RWBY content via books and comics.

There was also this other comment they made:

So they have worked on the writing part of RWBY V10, but I guess they're just waiting for that greenlight and they'll start working on everything else.

From what I've seen on Twitter, it seems they are doing what they can, but V10 hasn't been greenlit yet. :(

Man, it never ceases to amaze me how the anti-RWDE crowd are all fake ass progressives that care more about projecting than anything else. RWDE does not care about the workers? Back when RT drama came out we are the ones who organized to actually help the victims, linked their donation pages, donated etc. YOU people in that moment instead thought it prudent to attack RWDE and did not even talk about RT at all! In fact, some of you even decided to DEFEND RT abuses!

I know that you hate Ironwood and Adam, but can you take your hateboner for those characters (That are not real people) out of talking about the abuses of workers by RT?

Your narrative that "RT is not CRWBY" is false to anyone who can open up google. Its EASY to see that Multiple FOUNDERS of RT or other high-level workers were involved in CRWBY.

Miles was the HEAD WRITER OF ANIMATION. Hes not some random writer. He was responsible for RT as a whole in terms of writing of animated shows.

These people KNEW what was happening around them and said and did NOTHING or even PARTICIPATED in it.

And once again Xelianthought the fake ass "progressive" then decides to lie that people are buying merch. I will need a source on that. I will need a source that RWDE people are buying merch. Because this is yet another narrative, another lie you are clinging onto to have ANY excuse to defend RT (Which you DO).

In reality, its people like YOU who are buying the merch and supporting RT. All so V10 would get greenlit. Because you dont give a shit about the workers, you just want product to be consumed.

All of this bullshit you just stated? Its just projection. Projection from people who do jack and shit besides DEFENDING corporations you love. Fake ass progressives.

It is about the workers. Those who you abandoned the exact time they quit. The people the RWDE people supported.

The only people who are being played are the people listening to your lies in defending a corporation. This is why people like you are dangerous. Just like corporations you pretend to be on the side of the progressives, while arguing for the status quo. You fake ass progressives sicken me.

Now either provide proof that RWDE people are buying merch as you say, or piss off back to your corporate overlords.

(And you know what you are doing, Xelianthought is adept at creating new narratives for corporate defending anti-RWDE ppl to focus on, he knows thats hes lying, he just doesnt care, because being a consoomer is more important to him)

And that is why you people are frustrated. Because many dont believe you. Because many more people know the truth about RT and CRWBY. And you cant stop them. Because your narratives dont work on everyone.

v10 wasn't greenlit??

not yet, they've asked us to keep the #greenlightvolume10 campaign going until crunchyroll gives them the go ahead

Watching the Always Open and reading up hearing them talk about the end of V3, V4 and 5 about how Yang was so upset and angry that Blake left, even if Blake thought she was doing the right thing, and how you can see the depth of a relation up if they’re able to get over and come back from those strong emotions. Yang was hurt, but Blake proved that she wasn’t going to leave her again. Blake was so anxious that Yang could turn out to be like. Adam but she proved that whatever positive or similar traits they had it was All Yang no hint of Adam at all. It’s just I’m only 7 minutes in but hearing THEM talk about their characters and how they got to see things play out Knowing the whole time it wasn’t just fandom speculation it wasn’t just the regular kind of shipping where you know the characters aren’t gay but you build your own narrative. They are a Canon Couple and have been Written to be a Canon Couple just like Pyrrha and her feelings for Jaune, just like Renora. They were written to fall in love and it’s been confirmed by the voice actors and Kerry. I hate ppl who use Monty’s name in their arguments but if Kerry says so that means obviously Monty thought of it too. The Together Together joke in Volume 1 AND Yang introducing Ruby to Blake and having that little “I like your bow it matches your pajamas” ARE BOTH THE BEGINNINGS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE ON SCREEN ROMANIC BUILD UP THE BEES AND RENORA DEVELOPED AT THE SAME TIME ON PURPOSE AND ITS CONFIRMED!! AND THE SEASON ISN’T OVER YET EE HAVE FORU MORE EPISODES and hopefully the rest of the series but I’m crossing my fingers. I know it doesn’t live in a vacuum and ppl will say this doesn’t excuse all the shit that went down at RT but I need thought it was meant to do that. The ppl making the show who still work there and many who aren’t were so happy to see the Bees and WANT to make the show despite the company they work for it’s not just everyone is evil. So I’m hoping so badly we get to see the conclusion of this show but V9 has been so incredible and depending on the last episode if this is all we get for the rest of time. It might be ok once the dust settles.

But I need the bees meeting the parents so V10 greenlit manifestation

This is quite the ask but I'll answer what I think your real question is.

I want the rest of the series too, I know RT is a shit company but the fact of the matter is (and I'm sorry to be so blunt about it) almost ALL entertainment companies are shit.

That doesn't make the people working for them bad, it doesn't make the shows they produce bad and it certainly doesn't make us bad people for loving those shows and wanting them to continue, It's been BLATANTLY obvious that nearly everyone who worked on V9 did it as a labor of love.

I think, with any luck, we'll hear something about v10 being greenlit after V9 is over, especially if the viewership numbers are as strong as I think they are after this past chapter.

In an ideal world I'd love to hear the news that 10, 11 and 12 are greenlit because I feel like they could tie up the show nicely, even if I'd always want more. Also, yeah, at minimum we get four episodes of Blake & Yang being an actual couple and I hope so, so much that we get more.

hrm hrm

okay so if i may. be honest. iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii am very torn abt still making rwby stuff for like idk 3 or 4 different reasons. Maybe More. and its something ive been picking at for a hot minute and i still dont have an answer nor do i expect to get one any time soon BUT. whatever. what is a blog but a place to shit my thoughts onto.

i've been feeling bad lately abt tagging my art and fic as rwby because lets all be real here. me and canon have been divorced for a few years at this point. and as fun as it is to run around with my interpretations of these characters as i have been doing since like 2018 i do feel like im at a point where its like. Why Am I Even Tagging It. its basically not even. rwby any more. lol.

"so why not file off the serial numbers yanno? make em yr ocs and do shit with em that way" Well The Thing Is It's Not That Shrimple, You See. cause i've built this interps around the canon of rwby right. like for the way i write blake and velvet and so on so forth the faunus are like a THING. that i cant REMOVE. FUNDAMENTALLY. like if i take them from there into a new ecosystem (my brain) they're gonna die. and you might be like ah well you can make them into animal people with a different cause!!!!!!!! it's not copyrighted!!!!!!!! you are you Right but also i'll b honest team. that tightens up the audience like a butthole. most people would see a bitch with funny ears and literally feel too divorced from reality to care abt em. which is. a problem.

anyway. i also didnt watch v9 of rwby and dont intend to tbh. ive really stopped caring for a long time and now that v10 is probably never gonna get greenlit because of. The Problems. im like. hm. this feels like im gonna start drifting hard and find something else to occupy my brainhole more than rwby but im also SO ATTACHED to my beans............ like the reason im even still writing shit for rwby is because i love the characters and the way i write the characters and a few select others (kiss kiss to my fwends) and whilst i wont stop. loving them. it's hard to let them go. because even if i make an oc tomorrow who is basically my velvet in every way Well. It Still Ain't Velvet. and she'll lack all the things that made me LIKE velvet. yanno. so.

anyway this isnt meant to be a conclusive series of thoughts. its more like. hhhhh. i have a lot of personal projects on the go that're sort of expanding in my brain (follow @mundanearcane if you wanna see my slowly updating devlog on my terrible idea for the ttrpg that nobody has stopped me making yet) and obviously fallout is always my baby over on @nishaapologist and im never gonna stop loving fallout on account of. sarah lyons. existing. BUT. basically if i seem less like. enthused abt rwby. its cause. of the above. yah.

This might sound flippant but I don’t think we should worry Too much just yet. Not only did we have the Justine league crossover movie this year, we ALSO had volume 9! And that was after a two year wait period. RT had a lot of pies and also with the reputation thing it’s probably not wise to hold the convention because if people only come for rwby, they’re paying a lot of money for essentially empty spaces. Not that ppl still don’t like stuff AT RT but in terms of rwby yeah.

We’re used to quick turnarounds when it comes to the volumes but that was also Not good for the people making it. It’s still way too soon to consider rwby canceled considering it hasn’t even been a full year since the last volume wrapped. We don’t have any Good News, but we also don’t have any Bad News which I think is good to keep in mind

And who knows maybe we’ll have information in the summer or fall despite no convention. Don’t lose hope just yet. It’s not over until we get the word.

And even if V9 is the last season while bittersweet it doesn’t detract any of the joy we already have and can still have by rewatching and talking to others in the community <3

rooster teeth as a company is crumbling. if it doesn’t have the funds to justify hosting the convention they’ve held since rwby’s debut, then it certainly doesn’t have the funds to justify hiring back the entire animation team, paying the prominent out-of-house voice talent, and selling their biggest moneymaking ip off to another company.

and while that would be the best case scenario, likely being sold to crunchyroll, that still doesn’t give rwby stability for the future beyond v10. and production would likely be very different, and we wouldn’t be able to solidly predict the quality we would typically expect from a volume.

states fearfully at gen:lock season 2

i truly don’t mean to fearmonger, but i’ve been one of the more hopeful people about a rwby renewal. at this rate, with how much work it’s taking to get v10 even greenlit, the possibility of v11 happening is even more shaky. the crew knows this, which means the writing will probably be framed in a way to wrap up the story in just one volume, which is impossible.

that wouldn’t be the writers’ fault, but it’s not what the show deserves.

either way i look at it, there are aspects that aren’t ideal. it’s not in question that rwby’s production will drastically change from here on out, but it’s just so hard to begin thinking about that when it’s been so long without the announcement that v10 is even happening. i’m just trying to prep myself for the worst case scenario.

I’m not a huge fan of rwby anymore. But, do you think v10 will happen? What are your thoughts? (I honestly kinda hope it doesn't get green lit.)

I'm honestly on the fence simply because they haven't even greenlit V10 yet, and there's so much push for both V9 and the movie to do well that was never there before. So it seems that it's not a sure fire guarentee that V10 will happen.

But with the fans, I'm sure they'll put together enough views and bees merch to fund it. The only fans still there are the hardcore stans with no standards.

So... I don't agree with Lilith Farren on a lot of things but she's spot on about the RWDE being full of it. I mean, they want to make her out as the real bigot while not once looking at the company they keep. Even if Lilith holds these secret prejudices... she's got the real receipts on them.

I've generally avoided talking about this, but here we go, I guess.

I'm so fucking tired of receipts, and discourse, and debating whether or not RWBY is good, (it's not perfect, neither is it the animated spawn of satan or whatever) or debating whether or not Rooster Teeth is evil, (they are, but they ain't special) or the suspecting everyone and their mother of secretly being a bigot or creep over their opinions on fiction, and just the endless pointless fighting over shit that really doesn't matter at the end of the day.

The world is burning down around us, queer people are under constant fucking attack, racism and antisemitism are having a resurgence, (not that they ever really went away in the first place,) the politics of imperial countries like Britain and America and Russia still have outsized ability to ruin the lives of people all over the rest of the world, and neoliberal capitalism is slowly killing us all with the constant monetization of basic survival. And yet, some people apparently have nothing better to do with their lives than either bitch about a show, or bitch about the people bitching about a show. It's so. Fucking. Asinine.

I will be honest, I do not particularly like or respect Lilith Fairen, any more or less than the 'rwde' people she's constantly picking fights with. I did follow her for a while at the start of 2021, because I was in a different headspace back then and that stuff felt like it mattered more, but honestly? Even when I was following her and considered her 'cool', something didn't sit right with me about the way she talked.

Whenever she was dunking on rwde takes, there was an even mix of really strong points she made, and arguments made purely using in-universe information without considering the OOU reasons for those things, then needlessly hostile assumptions being made about the other party. Sometimes they were retroactively validated, but not always, and either way they were usually completely insane things you would't just assume of someone out of the fucking blue.

It's really only since the big RT controversy that the why has come into focus. Because at the end of the day, with her response to that it's become clear to me that she cares about RWBY and defending everything about it, even the genuinely bad stuff, more than she cares about real people. She talks the social justice talk, but does not walk the walk.

I don't completely agree with the people who have gone the other extreme as a result of the controversy and insist continued engagement with the show makes you just as bad, (because like I said, RT are awful, but they aren't special in this) but I do still get where they're coming from and agree with them on not supporting RT financially in any way anymore. (Whether V10 should or shouldn't be greenlit, I'm still conflicted on, but also that's ultimately out of my hands to decide, so I plan to just roll with whatever does or does not happen there.)

LF's response, from what I saw, (for better or worse, I wanted to see how she was faring after the news broke and still offer some kindness if needed, hoping to see better of her I guess, so I logged out to go check her blog since I was blocked by that point) was to wring her hands a bit about how this would impact the show, then insist rwde were to blame somehow and go right back to her usual behavior.

Do I think she's secretly bigoted or something? Not really. (And the recent claim by someone that she was totes a neo-nazi definitely raised some eyebrows as a result, that's a very serious claim to make.) I don't think she has the capacity to care enough about real-world issues to have those kinds of beliefs, honestly. And on the flipside, I don't think she cares about social justice as much as she claims to; it's all props for her to justify harassing people over a show.

Which brings me to the other big reason I don't particularly care for her, which is her behavior in the magical girl community. I won't belabor the point, since I really don't want to make this some big callout post, (deserved or not, those have already been made about her, and I don't like the concept either way) but between her awful takes on PMMM and fans thereof, and actual harassment campaign against the creators of Sleepless Domain, she's been consistently pretty unpleasant-at-best over here.

I don't disagree with everything she's ever said, and I do agree that a lot of the post-Madoka grimdark Magical Girl trend has been pretty bad on the whole, (though at least some good stuff has come of it, like Symphogear) but her hardline refusal to see anything good in it, along with her sometimes completely insane bad-faith readings of Madoka in particular, is such an ironic echo of the same sort of behavior she claims to hate about rwde. And even then, it would be fine, if annoying, if she didn't then also go and mistreat people over it. It really boils down to the same thing as with RWBY, just in the opposite direction; "I like this show, show is good, people who don't like the show are bad and evil" and "I hate this show, show is bad, people who like the show are bad and evil", and then using social justice language to justify and prop up her arguments.

It was all that stuff, not so much the RWBY discourse, that led to my disillusionment with her, and her eventually blocking me. I guess if one good thing came of it, was spite powering me to work on my own magical girl stuff again, and the resurrection of a friend's dormant story that I proofread for. But on the whole, that period of life where I was really paying attention to what she had to say, just feels now like a waste of time.

I don't hate her, and I don't think she's secretly evil or whatever like that one person suggested, and I definitely don't think she should be harassed, despite her own behavior. I just think she's a kinda mediocre human being who really needs to get her priorities straight, and probably work through some insecurity issues or something. (It's not my place to diagnose, but like, therapy could probably help with whatever she has going on, if she ever becomes receptive enough for it to work.) As much as rwde people can annoy me too, her whole moral crusade against them feels like a waste of time and energy that could better go to other, bigger things, and her moral crusade against dark (or even moderately-toned like Sleepless Domain) Magical Girl stuff, her response to the RT controversy, and how she ignores or speaks for other marginalized people, shows it all to be ultimately hollow and shallow, more about opinions on some shows she likes or hates, than anything meaningful.

In the end, she's just not worth my time.

I really hope the hiatus isn't like... as long as the hiatus for V9 was, because in the back of my mind, I knew the Little is Penny theory could be considered far fetched, but I do also agree with your opinion that there has been little hints littered throughout V9 pointing to Penny's return, most likely in V10. Manifesting that we get it by fall :')- Penny 3.0 Theories Anon

While I agree, a shorter hiatus would be nice, I definitely wouldn't get my hopes up that high, V10 hasn't even been greenlit yet. I do have some hope that we might not be waiting as long though, since V9 was heavily impacted by the initial lockdowns and getting used to working from home, and while V10 will have another whole new setting with Vacuo, I don't think it would require the same sheer volume of new assets as the Ever After did