u/Sufficient-Bid-9805

I’ve seen the same argument reused over and over again in support of Ai art (which, let’s be real, is quite a theme among the community), and I just wanted to speak out against that. I’m not saying that painting like this is easy, but telling disabled people that they “can’t do something” because they weren’t born with “the right parts” is ludicrous. I’m not even gonna get into the fact that most Ai artists aren’t disabled in the slightest. It just irks me.

Empowerment shouldn’t require shortcuts.

Quaber

UNBEATABLE is messy. It's a lot of character drama, and missing story aspects because they weren't mandatory, and optional pointless side missions. But I love it for that. It feels like living. We don't always show up for the critical moments, we don't always say the right thing. In fact, we say the wrong thing more often than not. We stutter, we lose our train of thought, and there isn't always a point to our conversations.

We play UNBEATABLE from one perspective: Beat's. (No shit.) We miss out on so many things that happen within the world because Beat isn't from that world. Seeing Beat for who she is, is a perspective that we are allowed to have. Beat spends *so* much of this game trying to rid herself of her messiness, her flaws, her humanity, because she's been taught that perfection comes from appearance, and image. It's why she lashes out at those close to her: she can see their flaws, and they can see hers. We play as Beat, but we don't always agree with her.

It's why Treble talks to Beat, it's why painting with dirt is a beautiful representation of the game (and my biggest complaint with UNBEATABLE is that not everyone who plays the game hears it). It's why I love this game. Going back to my opening rant, we are flawed. It's the one thing we can't change about ourselves, no matter how hard we try. Achieving perfection is counterproductive, because perfection comes from accepting that you can't be perfect, and loving yourself anyway.

Eve's (and by extension, Quaver's) "only sausage, no make" represents that desire for perfection that Beat (and a lot of the cast) chases. They live by the motto, because appearance is everything to them. Eve spent her entire life hiding her flaws from her own daughter, so much so that Quaver didn't even really know her. "Only sausage, no make", while silly, is a harmful, yet real way that people think. We don't want to know that something isn't perfect. It's so prominent in modern society that getting the truth, or anything other than something furthering some agenda is incredibly hard to find. It's why actors in a movie where the characters are stranded on an island have perfect makeup and perfectly messy hair: because they're supposed to look perfect. We don't want to see the muck and grime that goes into making a sausage, so we don't. Where "painting with dirt" encourages the acceptance of your flaws as an extension of yourself, "only sausage, no make" encourages stripping away life in the pursuit of image.

When I see complaints about the story of the game, they focus so much on the stringy pacing and lack of convincing character growth. But we can't be there for every crucial moment, because we're playing as one person. The complaints about this game represent this desire to achieve something perfect, to be omniscient. Something that we couldn't experience from one perspective. And they're wrong (on some accounts. Because obviously this game isn't perfect in a normal sense, but it is perfect in the way that it wants to be).

Beat's seemingly out-of-the-blue caring has been built up for the whole game. It's just hidden. When she listens to the Brain Poison demo with Quaver, she sees that even Eve, the embodiment of perfection, isn't perfect. When Rest talks to her about this, how Quaver always saw her mom as a character rather than a person, Beat finally gets it. She's living in a flawed world, and she hates herself because no matter what she does, she'll always see her flaws because they are a part of her. And to remove her flaws is to remove herself.

That's why the ending sequence hits hardest. Because Beat accepts herself, and her flaws. She accepts that the hole in her heart doesn't have to grow bigger, but she doesn't have to make it look smaller either. Beat can finally continue being human. That's also why Quaver's hair, usually perfectly made up and tied in a cute little bow, is shown down in the ending scene. She can shed the illusion of perfection and see herself for herself, and not just for her flaws.

Look at the art I made above. I can do so much better. It’s scratchy, it’s rushed, the linework is rough, the handwriting is terrible, it's not even centered, but I still put my signature on it. Even while making that, I had the urge to redraw it, to erase, to make the linework clean, to make it look better. But I didn’t. Because I wanted to feel what it felt to paint with dirt. I have spent my life living like “only sausage, no make”, and it felt so good to just, draw. I think that was what UNBEATABLE was trying to tell us: that we can take pride in ourselves without being a perfect version of ourselves.

Thank you all for playing and appreciating this game. I'm not a dev or related to the devs in any way, but I know that they poured their heart and soul into making something real. I'm so grateful to be a part of this community, and I'm so grateful that UNBEATABLE exists. Thank you Beat, for changing my life.

I’m gonna have to do something about this.

WARNING: IMPLICATIONS IN THIS MAY SPOIL ANYONE WHO HASN'T FINISHED STORY MODE

Honestly, I thought it was perfectly flawed. My interpretation of the game might've been skewed by the fact that I only ever played it really late at night (meaning I'm more emotionally open), but I really did love it. I came into it with no expectations, and it changed my perception of myself.

I've never experienced anything as emotionally taxing as Beat, Quaver, or anyone else did, but the story was so genuine and the voice acting was so amazing that I understood the feeling. My single greatest fear is losing someone that I love. And to see that topic treated as a legitimate mess of grief just felt... real.

I've seen so many movies and books where the loss just feels surface level. Like it's an event just dropped in to give stakes, or set the tone. And I can't express how I felt when UNBEATABLE made it matter. It was amazing to see a story care for its narrative, but it was so heartbreaking.

Tying in to my previous point, the characters felt like people. Despite their flamboyant, anime-esque designs, they felt down-to-earth. Even the most surface-level side characters, like DC, still gave that feeling that they had more to reveal about themselves. Even the background characters had interactions that made my day.

The story is about an outsider who is trying to find their footing in a harsh and unfamiliar world. It's such a common premise, but it's treated with just enough seriousness to matter, and just enough humor to cheer you up without removing that feeling of dread dawning on you.

I love this game. D-CELL, please make more merch.

So, peace is cool and all that, but we’re approaching peak slander. True, consistent, peak slander. It’s beautiful. We’ve passed the whining stage, and evolved.

Hear me out, Gege, being a reasonable and loving author who cares for each of his characters deeply, was utterly disturbed by the sheer amount of potential man memes and, as an extension, criticisms of his writing, so he decided to see how far the community was willing to go. Since the “potential man” slander has been reproduced for years at this point, he figured that in order to beat the slander, he must go further than any slander ever could. He wrote Megumi out of the story in an attempt to shock the fanbase, and postponed his unannounced upcoming adult Megumi spinoff that would reveal more about every character in jjk just out of love. He knew that he would eventually bring Megumi back in his prime once the fanbase lost all hope, just to revive the entire community. He hasn’t forgot about the deuteragonist of the story, and will reveal that he’s just been undercover, not dead, which is why nobody knew where he was. (“If only Fushiguro was here” was said because she didn’t know where he was.) Megumi will come back when Gege drops the installment, maybe even allowing Mahoraga to adapt to death so he can talk to Gojo, giving us more Gojo content at the same time.

This WILL happen.