#failteacher yuri NOW

[rontra]

Persona failteacher yuri, comic #27: about her breaking point (final part: the tower, temperance reversed, the lovers) [AU masterpost]

this comic is 22 pages long, so i put it under a readmore. LOL also spoilers i guess idk

end of phase three!

this one took me a minute bc i got suddenly obsessed with playing minecraft in the middle of trying to draw it. but i persevered!

i can't believe kawakami has been sitting on this lore for almost 300 pages of comic LMFAO finally the dam breaks 😭

hell of a night huh. but hey! the original plan WAS to sleep together on christmas eve—

[biocrafthero]

"I'd rather have you than three meals a day.": a thematic analysis

In February of 2024, a comic sprung up created by tumblr user Diesel (username rontra) based off of the Persona series. This comic, known under the title of "I'd rather have you than three meals a day." (which I will refer to as "failteacher yuri" for short), follows the story of two characters from the series: Isako Toriumi from Persona 3 and Sadayo Kawakami from Persona 5. These two characters find themselves entangled in each others' lives by complete happenstance, the comedic framing slowly revealing its fangs of intrigue and drama as more and more of both of their pasts come to light. Today, we will be discussing how the author explores themes of self-acceptance and facing one's past.

A small foreword...

As of the time I'm writing this, there are currently only 19 updates out so far of failteacher yuri, with a 20th on the way. I tried not to rush this analysis, but I also got really excited to write it! And also it's 4am!! So if I missed anything I am so so sorry...!!!

Next, I will be partially referring to characters in accordance with this chart, since this is important to the themes of the self in my opinion. Sometimes I don't specify. Bear with me a little please...

The True Self

There is the obvious point to start with, which is Toriumi accepting the fact that she is a lesbian. This is our beginning conflict in the story—quite literally in the very first page of the series—and it is the spark from which this story begins. As the story progresses, she grows more and more comfortable with her sexuality, trying more and more things with Becky.

The opening to #10 puts it quite well:

Toriumi is simply known by that when at work, a formal and polite guise. With her friends online, she's known under her username Y'ko. When fully alone, she is simply Isako. We meet her in the reverse order of this, knowing her first in a causal setting and graduating into higher grades of formality.

On Kawakami's side of things, we see that the idea of the persona is much more literal in the character of Becky. In a way, we meet her in the opposite way we need Isako, the difference between wearing the mask and having nothing to hide behind.

When she isn't under the guise of Becky and known formally at work as Kawakami, we simply are left with Sadayo. We meet her in this order, knowing her first with the mask on, watching it slowly slip as we begin to know more about her personal life.

These lines are neatly drawn for us and the characters at the start, the divide between these social masks cleanly cut. However, as time goes on and the relationship between the two deepen to new depths, the idea of the mask begins to mix with the true self, most notably in Kawakami's arc. As put nicely in #18...

Comparisons to the Satoshi Kon film Perfect Blue have already been made by others, and even though failteacher yuri is noticeably different from the psychological horror story that the film covers, there are those elements of self-identity and the "real you" that make the comparison extremely interesting.

In the comic, it begins to grow increasingly more unclear for our characters which persona they're exactly speaking to in the moment—which words are intended for which mask, both to leave the lips of and fall upon the ears of. Which "you" is the "real you" if they all begin to feel the same—if the lines begin to blur?

The Burden of our Histories

Kawakami is the clear example of the two to start this section out with. The main thing Kawakami is hiding from Toriumi has to do with why she needs all of the money she scrambles for in the first place, which is revealed to us in #17.

Kawakami has a secret to keep, and it's that she has been sending money to a former student's family, the student's name being Taiki. While in the comic it is unclear what may have happened to him, the usage of the word "forgive" implies that he had died, and that incident is either related to or has been blamed on Kawakami somehow.

The family demands money from her, more than her normal teacher's salary could possibly provide, so she turned to working at Victoria in order to make payments on time. With the tolls going up, though, who knows how long she can keep destroying herself...

But, of course, this isn't her only secret that she's kept. In #11, it's revealed that she took the Kanken at Level 1, the highest possible, and consequently the most difficult of all. At first, it's presented like it's an incredible feat, but this perception is shifted by Kawakami's own, believing it to have been something useless for the direction her life ended up going in.

The narration and informative boxes even begin to bend to the character's thoughts, becoming more and more unclear if the information the black boxes give in this update are objective or subjective, blurring the lines.

As much as Toriumi tries to hype up Kawakami and her accomplishments, the latter will simply never be able to see beyond her own self-perception.

Something that I also want to point out is how failteacher yuri utilizes onomatopoeia, creating a sense of pressure on our characters. It's almost comparable to the manga The Summer Hikaru Died, in which onomatopoeia is used to either create or alleviate tension in a scene, the sounds of the environments becoming almost deafening. The specific update from failteacher yuri I want to point towards is #18, which uses the sound of the rain in the background to create a barrier between Kawakami and Toriumi, with a side-by-side with a more recent update of The Summer Hikaru Died:

Kawakami isn't the only one keeping secrets, though. Toriumi, while much more subtle about it, is keeping a key part of her past hidden up her sleeve, and this has to do with the moon. Blink and you miss it, only overtly pointed out in update #13 and then much more quietly in #19, she continuously shows aversion to the moon, specifically the full one.

It's not like Kawakami hasn't caught on, either! During a small scene with Becky talking towards the audience at the start of #15 (the nefarious Becky is known to break the 4th wall), if you look closely, you can see that one of her notes reads "Scared of moon." I haven't played Persona 3 yet, so I can't give any fun lore insights, but what I do know is that the moon in that game is important and that Toriumi likely witnessed something she shouldn't have.

Additionally, there is also all of the stuff involving "A," which heavily has to do with Toriumi's arc of self-acceptance. Likely, something may have happened to "A" outside of Toriumi's control, and thus giving her a lot of complicated feelings about the subject. I personally don't expect a clear answer for what happened to "A," but it's still important to bring up.

Both parties are taking notice of where the other lets a part of their history slip, but neither have enough on them to be able to bring it up reasonably and not sound like they're taking crazy. Although, an inevitable tipping point is bound to be reached, especially with both of their troubles growing and growing. Something is bound to give.

How it comes together, in simple words...

Both Toriumi and Kawakami are dealing with very similar struggles, but they fight themselves tooth and nail on two different fronts, creating miscommunications and conflict between the two of them (and in some cases, outright lying). They are trying to navigate their increasingly dire presents all while their pasts haunt them, figuring things out and what they truly want from both themselves and each orher. What they want may not exactly be what they need, either, leading to further internal and external conflicts.

#13 succinctly states the ideas presented in the whole story so far, along with an amazing visual to boot:

(I can't fit it here, but I highly encourage checking out the tarot meanings from #13 as well, which are linked at the end up the update, which you can view here.)

To put it simply, to lie to yourself and to others means to sacrifice, from relationships to self-perception. The only way to break free is to let go, to be your true self and to accept and face your past. The only way out is through.

[anxious-strawberry-with-adhd]

Failteacher yuri discord out now!

have you wanted to yap about fail teacher yuri to others? do it here now!

[waffliesinyoface]

*thinking about persona yuri* the nefarious becky....

[farewell-superiors]

FAILTEACHER YURI NOW!!!!

Isako Toriumi from Persona 3 x Sadayo Kawakami from Persona 5 vs Elias Bouchard x Peter Lukas from The Magnus Archives

Propaganda for Isako x Sadayo:

there's a comic about them where Sadayo is a sexy maid for hire and Isako is figuring out that she's gay and just have you seen the comic aaaah fail teacher yuri

Propaganda for Elias x Peter:

Take one glance at the big boy man audio, they literally talk like a divorced couple. we all know peter is elias’s sugar daddy, whats more to love in the eye guy x lonely guy

[cadalyst]

Visual Comic - https://www.tumblr.com/rontra/762381003253858304/persona-failteacher-yuri-comic-26-about-her?source=share

Hee hee hoo hoo, guess who decided to do a part two~ (It's me, of course)

The next chapter from @rontra's Failteacher Yuri NOW Persona AU, as always, please go check them out, they do good stuff.

Notes for this are: it is IMPOSSIBLE to find a good sound effect of glass slowly cracking. You know like a crack slowly spidering through the glass until it just shatters. Likewise, it's good to find a good outdoors crowd ambiance. I made do and such but damn man. Where my foaly artists at?

Music used in this one are: 鬱日記 (Bungou Stray Dogs OST) ; Watashi ga Mamoru Kara - (Persona 3) ; Heartfelt Cry (Persona 3 FES)

Sound Effects mostly from Pixabay.

[rontra]

Persona failteacher yuri, comic #26: about her breaking point (part 5: the night toriumi isako went outside) [AU masterpost]

🤔 we kind of alluded to it before but hermit was rank 10

ok sorry that's all isako knows about it if you need to know more you have to just play persona 3 to the end 😭 anyway i've always been fascinated by like. stories about characters forgetting things but their hearts kind of remember anyway...

oh and this is another one where i had to just . stop drawing it before it doubled in size LMAO see you next time (bats my eyelashes)

[rontra]

instead of brain there is kawakami

[rontra]

Persona failteacher yuri, comic #25: about her breaking point (part 4: the composition teacher from persona 3 choosing every incorrect dialogue option) [AU masterpost]

hey! turn that temperance link upside down! (<- this is not a good thing)

oh my god this scene has been planned since like june. oh my god it's finally here. i've been savoring this whole "breaking point" arc SOOO much just to give This Thing room to breathe

give it up for the R&D department who planted the sinister "don't do that" seed in the middle of my existing plans as well. really ascendant stuff. ive been so excited for it all. some diabolical pages here that i really enjoyed drawing. this is what its all about babeyyyy

[rontra]

Persona failteacher yuri, comic #24: about her breaking point (part 3: pot, kettle) [AU masterpost]

i hate when it's one page off from an easily arrange-able number. egh

in case you're unfamiliar: in languages that use more graphemes than can feasibly fit on a keyboard layout, an IME (input method editor) software component is used. in our example--typing japanese on a generic laptop keyboard--the user would type in romaji or kana and the IME provides a dropdown menu to choose which kanji you want to insert. usually you press spacebar to go down the list and Enter to insert the selected kanji. so make sure to spell everything correctly and pick the right kanji at the end... 😤

there are also "thumb-shift" keyboards that are faster when writing in japanese, which are popular with people who write a lot for a living. i think they're very cool

^idk just in case you were curious what kind of frenzied keyboard whoopsies she's having in her Mad Bull haze . im just talking about keyboards and pretending kawakami isnt severely spiraling (and psyching herself up to force toriumi's hand) as we speak. it's fine

[rontra]

not funny. but did laugh

[rontra]

a story about the composition teacher from persona 3 being an incredibly easy mark

(AU tag)

p.s. thank you for the love on the first comic 😂 i honestly thought it'd be a post for me and my 5 most yuriful discord friends but i'm glad to see failteacher yuri is resonating

[rontra]

Persona failteacher yuri, comic #23: about her breaking point (part 2: apartment lore, and the moon) [AU masterpost]

this one alludes to the climax of persona 3, but it's from such a fuzzy outsider perspective that i can't say it constitutes "spoilers" either (due to lacking ... really Any concrete plot details or context). still 🤔 there u go

i think kawakami is not scared of like, ghost stories or horror etc because shes like . there are way scarier things going on in my real life. this is nothing to me. MEANWHILE toriumi's emotions are very easy to stir so she can get caught up in it and get really freaked out. that's how i feel. like kawakami's repressing her romantic side on purpose but i think the resistance to horror is just natural 😂

if i had a nickel for every time toriumi almost told this story but then got scared and backed out of the question i would....well becky is keeping a tally so i'll leave it to her

[rontra]

Persona failteacher yuri, comic #22: about her breaking point (part 1) [AU masterpost]

i decided i would rather split this section up a lot and avoid drawing a Gigantic Comic ! so we'll start with this little bite ^_^

the upside is now you know a convenient excuse for whenever a story has a character dramatically faint and then just like walk it off with no real consequences. UNLESS THEY HIT THEIR HEAD

next time: visiting her house for the first time...

[rontra]

(this is comic #10) [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [all posts] [from the start]

a story about the japanese language teacher from persona 5 being sensitive to the changes...

ambiguity enjoyers when the

god i wasn't prepared for the surprise character feature at all. please forgive how inconsistently i drew her. running on Memory and Prayer there and hoo boy my memory is not very good!

getting both of their "On" and "Off" modes in the same update was fun! anyway (gives them a Look over the rim of my glasses)

[rontra]

SQUEEEEEZE