Princess

David pretty much manages all of the business/managing/logistics of the band and merch, and Bella was very much known for much of the character work, incredibly intricate tie-in lore, the artwork/character designs, and the comics. They are also. critically. twins.

On July 23rd, a notice goes out at 10am PST with zero prior hints that Bella will be stepping down from the band, effective immediately, due to mental health. It is mentioned that this was something that had been discussed for months, but "the immediate transition was not planned". She will not be performing, and by the sound of it will have no involvement with the band for the foreseeable future. Sam Luke, who played Hatchworth (a third robot with the band from 2012-2017) will be returning to fill the third spot with the Spine and Zer0 for the next few shows.

Some context for this could be that this past year has had more performances from SPG than they've ever booked before, which is a massive strain and undertaking on a small band that historically has only ever barely broke even. It's also worth noting that Bella has always been incredibly open about her struggles with mental health and how it impacts her, her art, and her relationship with loved ones. Also noting that on Tuesday the 21st, they all streamed a Patreon rehearsal like usual with no hint of anything being off, and Bella had her usual Twitch movie commentary stream on Wednesday the 22nd with nothing out of the ordinary.

Returning to the events of the 23rd: the official SPG post above is corroborated by Bella's Instagram post (she had eyes on the resignation post and approved it before it went live), and her Tumblr post on her personal blog. Critically, the Tumblr post clarifies that rather than it being a mutual decision by all band members including Bella like the official SPG post implied, she did not want to step down and the rest of the band wanted her to. It is not just performing she is stepping down from-- it is the lore, the Youtube channel sketches, the comics that at this point she runs singlehandedly for the love of the game, everything.

Later in the day, we learn that Sam was asked to step in and return to the band on the 22nd with no context and no prior notice. The poor bastard gets ready to catch a flight because They Have A Show In Two Days (July 25th). It is highly likely that he was uninvolved with the background of this request, and was as blindsided as we were. There is no/very little time for rehearsal and the fandom is petrified at what on earth the show could be with no Rabbit and Hatchworth coming in out of nowhere. It is also fair to point out, IMO, that many of the biggest SPG songs were ones with Rabbit as lead singer (Honeybee, I'll Rust With You, the traditional closer Brass Goggles), and they're considered concert staples. Speculation on the setlist runs wild.

Radio silence on the 24th. More rampant speculation. We in the fandom are burning the house down.

July 25th. First show without Rabbit/Bella. Absolute trooper Sam Luke scrounges together the best Hatchworth costume he can (which is for what it is, impressive). Soundcheck and pre-show Instagram posts come out. Everything on the performing end looks normal. The show kicks off at 7:30PM. Around that same time/slightly earlier, Bella starts streaming on her Twitch.

I was not on for the stream (much to my utter despair), but from what I can tell, the tone shifted drastically from her personal Tumblr post to massively slamming the band. There is very prominently bad blood between them and, from the tone of it, there is no chance of her ever returning to the band either because of inter-band beef or specifically issues with her brother, or both. She mentions a bunch of song and projects ideas she had in the works that will never come to fruition, (many of which, devastatingly, had tie-ins to really cool lore bits that the fandom would've KILLED for). She also mentions that Bryan, who has a separate band he leads and a bunch of other cool projects, wanted to leave the band as well but they convinced him to stick around because they need him. And they do.

The Portland show, from the few reports that came out, went fine. This is maybe the most dead the tag has ever been after a show. Hatchworth "sang based on vibes", performed a few acoustic songs, and didn't play any instruments. He was lowkey just standing there. They did not play any songs where Rabbit was the lead. The closer was the Pink Pony Club cover instead of Brass Goggles. Here's the setlist (I don't think they've ever done Triumphant live, so they were definitely scrounging for songs that Hatchworth could perform that Sam still knew, and songs that Zer0 sang lead on). There were no major announcements. David, in character as the Spine, mentions he wrote "The Steam Rises" for his sister (!) and sings it as a tribute. (Lyrics here. Dear fucking god guys.) Reiterating. She was slamming him on Twitch to an audience of 14 while he sang about how everything's gonna be okay in the end. I still cannot figure out if this was some kind of passive aggressive attempt at damage control, a gesture of kindness, or both.

July 26th (today). Radio silence save for the typical reposting of concertgoers' Instagram stories to the official SPG Instagram, and one post from Bella confirming her ongoing Twitch show will be streaming every Wednesday like usual.

They have 9 shows left for the rest of the year. It's unclear for how much of them Sam or Bryan will be staying on for. We are back to radio silence and deep mourning in the tag.

That's all the factual stuff and I'll try not to get too deep into the speculation, but I do have many thoughts. It seems incredibly apparent to me that the two of them had a bad enough fight that it tanked the group irreparably, and bad enough that it was determined unanimously by everyone else in the band that future projects and updates were worth staying unfinished, in the middle of touring. I cannot imagine what possibly could've been that bad.

Personally, I see two options moving forward-- either they drag the dead body of SPG over the finish line, complete the tour dates, and call it quits after that, or they cancel the upcoming tour dates, lose their funds, and financially SPG goes under. I do not in the slightest see a world where SPG keeps going past this year. I will be amazed if I end up seeing them in September.

In so many ways, Rabbit was the core of the live show-- so many of the big songs were her, she carried so much of the comedy/vamping/bits between songs, and in many ways she set the tone of the fandom for the welcoming of gay freaks and little weirdos. Regardless of how this ended, real people aside-- I cannot see a way for the band to move forward without one of the core pillars. Let alone how she created basically all of the lore and tie-in comics! Which she was actively working on!

The band is functionally dead, and now it's a waiting game to see how much momentum the corpse has. This is way more information than you were probably asking for, but like I said I wanted there to be more writeups.