Beneath a Phrygian Sky
(formerly "Under the Milky Way") is an original Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic is written by Jack Wayne, where the setting of the story takes place in the real world, but with its own minor differences.
Raymond Novak is a poor Canadian teenager who is struggling to get by while paying for his older sister's hospital bills. One day, he came to the altar and prays to "Jack" for a chance to save his sister, and not a second later, he spots a flyer that shows Konami hosting "Duelist Kingdom-themed" tournament. The grand prize is 3 million to the first-place winner, and Raymond couldn't decline and sees this as his destiny. At the same time, however, he's obviously not the only person who is gunning for that prize.
Can he really win the money to cure his sister, or will he fail miserably?
The sequel to the original fic, Of Father's Sin Begotten, can be found here.
Spoilers near the ending of Beneath a Phrygian Sky and entirety of Of Father's Sin Begotten will be marked.
Beneath a Phrygian Sky provides examples of:
- All for Nothing: In the end, Raymond not only have failed to win the 3 million grand prize to pay for his sister's operation to save her life but he also Never Got to Say Goodbye as Raynelda dies before he got back to the hospital.
- Because Destiny Says So: It's what jump-starts Raymond's journey to travel to New York from Quebec to attend the Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament and win the grand prize to save his older sister.
- Best Friends-in-Law: In Raynelda's Near-Death Clairvoyance, she sees a possible timeline where Raymond wins the Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament; she gets introduced to Dylan by her younger brother and later falls in love and starts a family with him. Unfortunately, this is averted due to Raymond losing the Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament and her dying sometime after or during his loss.
- Born Lucky: Travis E. Lawrence is known to be the "King of Games" for his insane luck, being the first place world champion for two years in a row; as Dylan describes him to be "winning jackpot lucky". When he loses to Raymond in their climactic duel, he also have lost his luck to the latter.
- The Casanova: Along with his incredible luck, Travis is also popular with the ladies to the point where he Really Gets Around. However, Raymond deconstructs this as when time flies and regret starts to sink, no women will ever trust Travis' commitment as he wasted away his youth doing this, and he'll be even terrified of Dying Alone in his own house. Once Travis loses his Born Lucky status to Raymond in their final duel, the strong possibility of this happening to him is coming sooner than later.
- Enlightened Self-Interest: Raymond reconstructs this with Dylan after the latter admits that the true reason why he's been helping him was so that God would let him win the tournament.Raymond: Don't let anyone demonize you just because you have some side motive for doing good deeds. Anyone who does that is an immoral vampire who wants to drain all of the benefits from you and contributes nothing back while simultaneously having an orgasm on the false premise that they have the moral high ground.Dylan: But—Raymond: No buts! Look me in the eyes Trudeau as I say this. You are a good man.
- Expy:
- If it wasn't obvious, Raymond entered the Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament to win $3 million to pay for his sister's life-saving operation is a reminiscence of Joey Wheeler's motivation to pay for Serenity's eye operation. The similarities are quite strong as both characters have family and financial problems, along with becoming Delinquents at a young age. Unfortunately, Raymond becomes a What If? Shadow Archetype of Joey as he failed to win the prize money, Never Got to Say Goodbye to Reynalda dies before he could see her one last time, and becomes a Revenge-driven shell of his former self.
- Being a Born Lucky Jerkass who literally believes himself to be invincible, Travis is reminiscent of a lesser depraved Ryuichi Fuwa from Yu-Gi-Oh! (first anime series). Also, like Ryuichi, Travis gets a Beat Them at Their Own Game moment from Raymond and loses all of his "winning jackpot lucky" good luck.
- The Magic Poker Equation: This is a Yu-Gi-Oh! story after all, and anything involving the Duel Monsters card game is to be expected with this trope.
- Nerves of Steel: As Raymond took notice, Travis had a lot of guts to sit there acting all smugly as he collected his cards while his Sore Loser opponent is very likely to beat him up, especially since Raymond describes the latter as an out-of-control monkey. Considering Travis' incredible luck, this is justified.
- Never Got to Say Goodbye: In his backstory, Raymond failed to see his mother one last time before she died from her chronic illnesses caused by overworking. It makes it more tragic as the same thing happens with Reynalda at the end of the fic, especially since all the crap he went through to legitimately earn money became All for Nothing.
- One Degree of Separation: The final chapter reveals that Travis E. Lawrence, the Born Lucky Jerkass, who gives much trouble to Raymond and Dylan through the fic, is friends with Raymond's half-siblings. In hindsight, this makes Travis' defeat all the more catharsis as his "winning jackpot lucky" good luck is now in the hands of a vengeful Raymond on a life mission to ruin his father and the latter's current family.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Raymond displays a notable Madonna-Whore Complex, as the result of his Christian upbringing along with not having a positive father figure in his life according to the author.
- Pride Before a Fall:
- This happened to Dylan long ago. Despite being an expert in the card game, he can never beat Travis, and with no drive or talent for other things in his life, this only sends Dylan into a This Loser Is You Heroic BSoD.
Raymond (About Dylan): No direction. No talents. Only the game. Travis demolished more than Dylan's win streak, he demolished Dylan's pride. Dylan's only pride, his greatest accomplishment he had so far in his life. Steal a dollar from a rich man and he wouldn't care. Steal a dollar from a homeless man and he would go hungry for a night, possibly even die. That was, of course, assuming the poor man didn't fight to the death to reclaim that single note.- In the climactic duel against Travis, Raymond manages to defeat him once and for all by using a rare Fusion Monster given to him by Dylan and the intervention of God. To say that Travis is simply "shocked" upon being defeated by a complete nobody is severely an understatement.
- Protagonist Journey to Villain: By the end of the fic, Raymond went from a sympathetic Anti-Hero trying to win an official Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament to earn money for his sister's operation to becoming a revenge driven Anti-Villain after ultimately losing the tournament and the last of his loved ones to a terminal illness.
- Rage Against the Heavens: A recurring aspect throughout the story, as Raymond blames "Jack" for letting his family torn apart and repeatedly curse His name.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Mrs. Ramsley only appears in two chapters, but she is the one who inevitably steals Richard away from his family and indirectly condemns Raymond's mother and his older sister to die from their chronic illnesses of overworking themselves. Furthermore, her own family is going to be in danger now that Raymond has nothing to lose and is seeking revenge in the sequel.
- Sore Loser:
- The unnamed Duelist in chapter 4 didn't take his loss against Travis well, at all, especially with how the latter's Born Lucky status won him the duel with ease. If anything, the former is only described to be a "stereotype" by Raymond for his temper tantrum, even remarking how "mature of him to be taken seriously by adults by reacting this way and if he needed his mommy to hold his hand".
- This Loser Is You:Dylan: After all this time, I still can't beat [Travis] in the ONE DAMN THING I'm good at... Besides this game, I'm a fucking loser...
Of Father's Sin Begotten provides examples of:
- Downer Beginning: Similar to the start of the previous fic, it begins on a low note as Eugene loses against Raymond in a Yu-Gi-Oh! duel during a live demonstration of the virtual reality. Jumpstarting Eugene's original idyllic life slowly crumbling and suffering like Job.
- Expy: Ironically, Raymond has become one for Seto Kaiba by the time of the sequel fic. The only difference is that Raymond is playing his new role of being a puppet of God to become an instrument to someone's tragedy (i.e. his father and his new family) whereas Kaiba is known to not let higher powers dictate his fate (and would capitalize on these forces for his own convenience).
- Have We Met?: Upon reuniting with Raymond again after the end of the previous fic, Eugene only got a familiar feeling that he had met him before. It's only until Raymond stated that "God was watching" is where Eugene quickly remembered him.
- Rags to Riches: As a result of gaining Travis' Born Lucky status, Raymond manages to go from a poor teenager to a founder of a start-up tech company called, "Neural Virtual Kinetics". The icing on the cake is where Raymond's company has gained more stock upon defeating Eugene in their Yu-Gi-Oh! duel on a live demonstration of the virtual reality technology he created and won the divine bet he made his half-drunken half-brother sometime before the fic; gaining Eugene's birthright and now Eugene having to suffer a similar fate to the biblical Job.
- Revenge of the Sequel: At the beginning of the fic, Raymond has jumpstarted his revenge plot by beating Eugene in Yu-Gi-Oh! duel using virtual reality. Along with winning a divine bet that he made with an unknowingly Eugene sometime before due to the latter being drunk.
- Riches to Rags: As of chapter 1, Eugene loses his birthright to Raymond in a half-drunken bet he made with the latter sometime before the fic, and things just spiral from there on out.
- Sins of Our Fathers: It's in the title. The premise of the sequel has Eugene dealing with the fallout of his father's infidelity to Raymond's late mother; losing his birthright to Raymond in the first chapter and now having to suffer a Trauma Congo Line in a similar vein to the biblical Job.
- Virtuous Character Copy: Downplayed. By the time of the sequel fic, Raymond is one for Seto Kaiba; a Self-Made Man from Rags to Riches and running a company that creates Hard Light holograms. However, despite Raymond being a villain on a revenge mission similar to Death-T!Kaiba, he's far more sympathetic and is only aiming at ruining the lives of people who are guilty of leaving his late mother and sister to die from chronic illness.
