Blue Sky
| Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Blue Sky |
| Author(s): | Wafflestories |
| Date(s): | Oct 2, 2011 - Apr 1, 2012 |
| Length: | 169,766 words |
| Genre(s): | Gen, Het, rated T |
| Fandom(s): | Portal |
| Relationship(s): | |
| External Links: | FFN Link |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Blue Sky is a popular 2011 novel-length fanfic by Wafflestories, based on the Portal video game (2007). The story is divided into 15 chapters, each of considerable length, and includes a wide cast of original characters. While there are hints of romance and a sub-plot involving Wheatley/Chell (Chelley), the bulk of the work revolves around an original plot and character backstory.
Blue Sky was posted to fanfiction.net between 2011 and 2012. As of May 2022, it had 1,200+ reviews, 3,700 favorites, and 1,200+ follows. It was also posted on Wafflestories's Livejournal.[1]
The story is well-known in Portal fandom, and has inspired numerous accounts of visual fanart and spin-off fanfiction.
Plot Summary
Meteors, signals, apologies, and that tricky little thing called humanity- four years after the events of Portal II, Wheatley's been handed a second chance, but it's not going to be plain sailing…Description of Blue Sky on Fanfiction.net
Blue Sky is set four years after the end of Portal 2. Wheatley (an AI) falls back to Earth and is rescued from GLaDOS by Chell. During the rescue mission, Wheatley's consciousness is transferred into a small cigar-shaped device which projects a hard light hologram of a human’s body, which Wheatley can now control. Chell takes Wheatley to a nearby human town where she'd been living for some time, called Eaden. The original character Garret Rickey and his communication tower Foxglove also live there.
Wheatley begins having dreams of a human man who looks like his hard light hologram and a woman who looks like Chell. While Wheatley sleeps, Chell views some of his memories, using a laptop, and she begins remembering her past life. Eventually, Wheatley is upset that he may have been human and, even more, that she has been viewing his memories.
Wheatley helps the OC Garret with Foxglove, but that also allows GLaDOS to spot the tower’s signal. GLaDOS sends testing bots, who capture everyone while Wheatley and Chell are away. Chell goes on a rescue mission, but Wheatley stays in Eaden thinking the mission is a “bad” idea but eventually realizing he has code that reverses “good” with “bad”. He uses the tower Foxglove to download himself into Aperture Science’s mainframe to free the humans and put GLaDOS to sleep, but he loses signal & appears dead.
Wheatley's code meets Caroline's code (a human connected with GLaDOS), and she puts him into his old human body which was in a long-term relaxation pod. Wheatley wakes up, Chell finds him and tells him he’s human, and they kiss.
Response
Blue Sky became popular enough to have its own Tumblr tag. "Blue Sky," while containing numerous images of sky photography, also has a handful of fanfic fanart and pictures of Wheatley. Narrowing it down to "Blue Sky Portal" comes up with dozens upon dozens of fanwork. One user made a Blue Sky themed quilt. Archive of Our Own also has a "Blue Sky (Portal)" tag, though Blue Sky is not on AO3. As of June 2020 Blue Sky has 16 spin-off fanfics on AO3 using this tag, some of them having been written in 2020, seven years after the original fanfic was completed. There is also a Blue Sky fan made web comic.[2]
Some fans of Blue Sky have had the fanfiction printed as a hard back or paper back book.[3][4]
There is a reference to Blue Sky in the Geekender's Portal, the (Unauthorized) Musical.[5] The Geekenders acted out some scenes from the fanfic, using the author as a consultant. [6]
Harry101UK, a popular Portal YouTuber who continues to make Portal videos in 2020, voiced a handful of scenes from Blue Sky.[7] Fans often use these to make animatics and animations. Though there isn't a full podfic version of Blue Sky, the one that exists has Harry101UK voicing Wheatley.[8]
Influence on Humanization
The Portal fandom has a high level of fan humanization of the game's robot characters, including Wheatley. In Blue Sky Wheatley is six feet tall, wears a tie, has short blonde hair, blue eyes, and glasses. His color scheme is mainly white and blue. This humanization design resembles his voice actor Stephen Merchant.
It is possible that Blue Sky's immense popularity also influenced the popularity of this specific type of Wheatley humanization design. There are some references online that suggest a humanization of Wheatley that was around before Blue Sky gave Wheatley brown or white hair and a more sci-fi looking outfit/body.[9] Blue Sky, having revealed Wheatley's human appearance roughly between Oct 2011 and Apr 11, would have had to begin its influence around that period. However, there is evidence that Wheatley's design from Blue Sky was based on a popular interpretation of human Wheatley, meaning that his humanization design came before Blue Sky. This can be seen in a collaborative art work from Aug 1, 2011, two months before Blue Sky.[10] This art piece depicts exactly 87 interpretations of human Wheatley, and many of them are similar to the design in Blue Sky. While Blue Sky certainly did not start the trend of drawing human Wheatley blonde, with glasses, and a tie, it no doubt made it even more popular, solidifying it as one of the most popular design for human Wheatley.
Reviews
Hey I absolutely LOVED this story! Very well written! It did not seem far-fetched at all. Wheatley sounded just like he does in the game, and so did Glados. It was funny, smart, and written with a lot of description. I didn't see many errors. I honestly can't give any tips for improvement. Great job!kiwipixel77, on Chapter 1, Oct 3, 2011[11]
This is one of those books I would have devoured in a three-hour sitting if it had been a finished paperback or something. Unfortunately it is a series of weekly installments, which means that my experience is divided into 20-minute periods of euphoria followed by days of cliff-hanging. Basically what I mean to say is good solid job of writing here. Just very good, generally.The Guy, on Chapter 1, 2011
So I thought after sleeping on it and rereading the chapter I would be able to form a more coherent response, but maybe not.Just... go Wheatley! He is so awesome here, taking charge but not in a bad way... finally doing what he was supposed to do, forcing GLaDOS to have terrible ideas. Brilliant stroke of writing, there, turning his greatest weakness into a strength. I was inwardly cheering throughout, especially when he gave GLaDOS a talking-to. All things considered, he has a right to be annoyed with her. "You called me a tumour, well, Miss-High-And-Mighty, thanks to you, I'm worse than that. I'm the world's most perfect generator of terrible ideas and I've got your number." :D
And then the last bit, the moment when Chell realizes something is terribly wrong and we get a glimpse of the charred lightbee swaying in the breeze... gah. D: D: D: He wants her to leave without him. It's the most selfless thing he's ever done, and it's heartbreaking. He won't even let her TRY to come back for him. ::sobs::
I can see dozens of ways for this to end, some good, some bittersweet, and some downright depressing. I know which one I'd prefer, but I have absolutely no idea which direction you are going to go in. My apprehension level for Monday has hit the roof.
Anyway, have a song: watch?vK6sMuNuBlQo Here's to hoping Wheatley makes it through.Anonymous-cat, on Chapter 14, 2012
I read this fic twice over the weekend. I *never* reread stuff, because I feel like after I've read it thoroughly once I've gotten most of the good stuff out of it and rereading it would bring diminishing returns. Not so with this fic. Not by a long shot.When I reacquainted myself with Portal 2 the game a couple months back, it really struck me how *different* Wheatley was from the other cores Chell has interacted with throughout Portal-how much more personality he had, how much more *human* he seemed. With this, a backstory began forming itself in my mind, one in which Wheatley came about in much the same way GLaDOS did, one in which his old body was still squirreled away in an employee cryochamber somewhere, ready for use...
What I am trying to say is that your fic read my mind :) I realize this story has been finished for over a year by this point, but I think it still counts :P This fic contained everything I had ever wanted for Wheatley's backstory, realized more fully and beautifully than I could have ever dreamed of doing...as well as a few things I didn't know I wanted beforehand :)
I've never read Portal fanfic before, admittedly because I was not interested in the slightest in the hackneyed ways people paired up Chell and literally any other character they could find, including a spherical robot who, while lovable in an annoy-the-pants-off-you kind of way, did become uncomfortably murderous and then a lunar satellite. Not exactly prime boyfriend material there...without an absolutely killer redemption and character-development plotline, which you succeeded at tremendously.
Part of the reason I needed to reread the fic was to trace again the gradual, natural, and completely sensible way Wheatley grows throughout the story, from a deeply-flawed, cowardly, selfish, and *guilty* individual into someone who is capable of bravery in the face of probable death, who is aware of his flaws and works to overcome them, and who is a powerful source of good in others' lives-particularly Chell's. I generally abhor shipping, but I unashamedly cheered for Chell and Wheatley at the end of this fic...and then fervently wished there were more chapters ahead. I'm cool with them living happily ever after too, though :)
I've been going on and on and could continue to do so for a while yet, but I'll spare you the continued gushing :) To sum up: Thank you. There is so very much right with this fic, with its perfectly-realized characters, beautiful narration, gradual and sweet romance, and compelling plot in which absolutely everything is supported by prior threads. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And I'll certainly be back to read it again :DDaftProdigy, on Chapter 15, 2013
This is my review of the entire book... it's too short first of all. But it's extremely well made this fan fiction was the best idea ever even better than explosive lemons...you're take on Chell was interesting and your wheatly theory was extremely well thought out. But another downside is that what about the OTHER cores such as space core (or Kevin) or the signing turrets I think you should right ANOTHER fan fiction about that. My overall review is that your fan fiction changed my perspective of other people... anyways blue sky a portal2 fan fiction was the best book ever. (That I have actually read)Leon, on Chapter 15, 2016
The only Portal 3 I will ever fuckin accept.Waffle, you... You are a fucking genius, dude. Holy fuck. That was a fucking rollar coaster. Are you kidding me? My God... It felt like I was right back in the world of portal, even the crazy stuff about Blue Sky are brilliantly melded into the story that it doesn't matter if someone had a plot synopsis, They have no idea what kind of Song of Ice and Fire levels of writing can do to similar concepts you can find in other fanfics.
5 stars 10/10 100/100 you pass A This was fantastic. You took every trope that was shamefully put into lesser fanfics and with your amazing writing you managed to pull it off.ScottBruckner, on Chapter 15, 2020
Fanworks
Visual
Art by Salatushka, Archived version (2018)
Fanfiction
- Blue Sky AU Masterlist, Archived version- A list of fanmade Blue Sky AU fanfics posted on Tumblr
- Wheatley's Awakening, Archived version
- Ready or Not, Archived version
Videos
- TWO TIME MEME PORTAL BLUE SKY, Archived version
- Blue Sky the Animation (anamtic) updated, Archived version
- Blue Sky - Portal 2 - Fan Teaser, Archived version
- As one door closes (blue sky portal animatic), Archived version
- Portal 2 - Blue Sky Animated (collab), Archived version
Music
- Original Blue Sky- Orchistarted!, Archived version
- From the Monster with Love, Archived version-Referenced on TV Tropes, but the song is deleted
- Blue Sky the Score, Archived version
Meta and Further Reading
- Chell appreciation, Archived version (2016)
- Blue Sky Analysis, Archived version (2016)
- OK, but can we really appreciate the fact that..., Archived version (2016)
Links and Resources
References
- ^ wafflestories, Livejournal. (Accessed 8/3/2021) (Archived 8/4/2021)
- ^ Blue Sky: the web comic, Tumblr. (Accessed 6/20/2020) (Archived 8/3/2021)
- ^ ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-look-what-came-in-the-mail, Tumblr. 2018 (Accessed 6/20/2020) (Archived 8/3/2021)
- ^ Its Been Years Since I First Read this Amazing..., Tumblr. Sept 16, 2019 (Accessed 6/20/2020) (Deadlink)
- ^ He capitalized it, Tumblr. Apr 3, 2018 (Accessed 6/20/2020) (Archived 8/3/2021)
- ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YACn0Tudg1E
- ^ Portal 2 - Blue Sky|Oracle Turret Scene, YouTube. Jan 23, 2012 (Archived 7/27/2021)
- ^ Blue Sky- The Podfic, Podbay. Apr 5, 2014 (Accessed 6/20/2020) (Archived 8/3/2021)
- ^ Human Wheatley, Portal Fanon Wiki. (Accessed 6/28/2020) (Archived 8/3/2021)
- ^ Wheatley collab, Aug 1, 2011 (Accessed 8/3/2021) (Archived 8/3/2021)
- ^ kiwipixel77 comment, Fanfiction.net. Oct 3, 2011 (Accessed 8/3/2021) (Archived 8/3/2021)
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