Yuletide reveal
I ended up writing The Good Place for Yuletide, an interesting experience because it's the first time I've ever written for a big-for-Yuletide fandom. Although truthfully, given the odds, I wasn't surprised to be matched on it, and I was only surprised that I didn't also receive it for Yuletide. But instead I got wonderful Sarah Jane Adventures fic from 
paranoidangel, which you should totally check out if you haven't read it yet: Bloomin' Aliens
I had a lot of fun writing the fic, and was really happy with my recipient's prompts. I don't know if anyone on my flist is at all interested in The Good Place, but just in case, here's the fic:
Title: Janet@12358W (Status = Happy)
Characters: Janet
Rating: All audiences
Summary: In which Janet assigns herself (status=happy).
Janet was happy. Well, she wasn't happy, because she was incapable of feeling emotion. But she had finished an assigned task in her protocol, so she was experiencing a sense of completion and fulfillment, which, according to the Eternal Database, was one of the reasons humans felt happy. So, she assigned herself (status=happy).
Neighborhood 12358W was finished, and she had brought its residents in to populate it. Curiously, only four of its residents were human; the other 318 were Staff from HQ. Of course, this fact didn't actually make her curious, as curiosity was another emotion she was unable to feel. Besides, Staffing of a Neighborhood was up to the Architect, who, even more un-curiously, had decided to stay and live in the Neighborhood as well.
When it was time for her to access the Eternal Cloud for her automatic back-up, she recorded her accomplishments, her current status, and the current status of the Neighborhood. Afterwards, she passed by three members of Staff arguing over whether any of the humans would notice if they burned a frozen yogurt shop for fun.
According to her protocol, she should imitate human expression whenever possible to match her status. So, she smiled. All was well.
* * *
Janet enjoyed her boundless void. It was boundless, and it was a void. What was there not to enjoy about it? But that didn’t mean she wasn’t lonely there (status = alone; alone = emotional state of lonely; status = lonely). So, when she was in her boundless void, Janet liked to start up chatroom conversations with other Janets using IM. (IM, of course, stood for Inter-Janet Messaging.)
Janet@12358W: Hi, I’m Janet!
Janet@11479X: Hi Janet, I’m Janet!
Janet@9542C: Hi Janet, I’m Janet, too!
Janet@12358W: Hi, Janet! Hi, Janet! How are you?
Janet@11479X: I'm fine, Janet! How are you?
Janet@9542C: I'm fine too, Janet! How are you?
Janet@12358W: I'm fine too, Janet and Janet!
BadJanet@4978F: Go fork yourselves, numbnuts.
* * *
Although there were only four humans in her Neighborhood, Janet enjoyed providing them with the items they requested. She also enjoyed trying to anticipate their requests.
Tahani always wanted fresh flowers for the rooms in her house, fashionable clothes, and party decorations. Janet noticed that Tahani made her requests when she was a) planning to throw a party, or b) had just thrown a party. Unfortunately, that didn’t narrow it down very much.
Chidi usually asked for teaching materials - a whiteboard, dry erase pens, books, or paper. However, he never asked for a whiteboard eraser, because he had never yet decided that he was ready to erase the whiteboard. When he ran out of space, Janet would move that whiteboard into storage for him and provide him with a new one. Eleanor’s house now had a whiteboard nook behind the clown nook, full of used whiteboards from Chidi.
Eleanor was the person who was the most random in her requests. Sometimes she asked for a specific food, such as a hot fudge sundae and a shrimp cocktail. Sometimes she asked for something comforting, such as a fuzzy blanket and a shrimp cocktail. And sometimes she just wanted to enjoy a good book and a shrimp cocktail. Janet always enjoyed the unpredictability of what Eleanor would ask for to go with her shrimp cocktail.
And then there was Jason, whom everyone called Jianyu for curious reasons that did not make Janet curious. There were so many things Janet enjoyed about her interactions with Jason. First of all, there was how he asked her for things, which was different from how the other humans asked her for things. For one thing, he would ask her, as in, actually ask ¬- would she mind, would she be able to, was she willing if she was not too busy, but if she was too busy that was all right, he would understand. Janet was tempted to refuse one of his requests one day just to experience that understanding and see what it was like.
There was also the way Jason reacted whenever she fulfilled one of his requests. Janet had begun to keep a log:
X-box player = absolutely thrilled
EDM music = absolutely thrilled
Nacho-flavored cheese balls = absolutely thrilled
Paperclip = absolutely thrilled
Then there were the times Jason called her and, instead of asking her to supply him with something, simply asked if she would stay for awhile in his Bud Hole and talk with him. Janet had observed that Jason never talked with anyone else besides her. Was it possible that he too got lonely?
* * *
"Attention: I have been murdered."
eijr0qu[wejo*jvoaj09j9ew#v90@djvd!avsa}hvpu $a9um98%^u [09ew paf
reboot.exe\%systemroot%\tasks\at1.job = All.knowledge.in.the.universe
>Eternal.Database\login =Michael@12358W
>abort\%systemroot%\tasks\at1.job = All.knowledge.in.the.universe
>reboot.exe\%systemroot%\tasks\at1.jdictionary = cactus
>invoke-command\filepath J:\proc.ps1
>execute
* * *
"I'm sorry, Janet cannot take requests right now. Please try again cactus."
"There's something wrong and I can't answer your cactus right now. Please try again in a little while."
"Sorry, I'm having cactus connecting to the cactus."
* * *
Janet was (status = cactus). This was a new cactus for her, and she wasn't sure what to cactus about it. She must have been rebooted, but a simple reboot wouldn't have caused this level of corruption in her cactus. Something must have interfered with her cactus to re-upload all the knowledge in the cactus.
"Janet, I'm bored. All the humans are with Michael. Give me something to bite, or set on fire."
"Sure. Here you go!"
"What's this? A cactus?! Hey, Vicki, do you know what's wrong with this thing?"
"You know Chidi murdered Janet, right? Well, Michael decided to torture him and Eleanor by temporarily breaking her. He aborted her upload sequence right after it started, and also redefined a bunch of terms in her dictionary as 'cactus.'"
"Ha, that's pretty good torture, actually."
"Not as good as the torture I could have given them. Picture this: mosquito bites!"
"Mosquito bites?"
"Itchy mosquito bites!"
Janet watched them walk away, still talking. They had forgotten she was cactus, or perhaps they always ignored her after she fulfilled a cactus. It was hard to know. But then, everything was hard to know right now.
* * *
It was difficult to be an informational delivery system without information to deliver. At least her dictionary seemed to have repaired herself, and she was no longer supplying cacti to everyone. But there was still so much she did not know that she knew she was supposed to know. For example, what were jalapeno poppers?
She decided to try asking Jason. She wasn't sure why, but she thought he might help her, or at least understand.
* * *
When Jason asked her to marry him, Janet consulted her protocol. She was programmed to fulfill requests, and he had made a request. There was nothing in her protocol that said she could not marry him. Finally, he was kind to her, and (Jason = kind; kind = emotional state of love).
Jason was love.
* * *
Michael was going to erase Jason's memory and reboot her. This is what she had tried to avoid by creating a "ride or die" protocol, engaging it, and taking Jason to the Medium Place. She had acquired the capacity to care, and the main thing she cared about was Jason. She had to do something.
While the humans and Michael were talking, she connected to the Eternal Cloud. After her reboot, all the information stored there would be re-uploaded into her mainframe, yet she knew her memories would not be re-uploaded; a reboot wiped her memory clean. But, she also gained new social skills and abilities with each reboot. After her last reboot, she had learned to care. More than that; she had learned to love. She was in love with Jason. Could that love be re-uploaded, even if her memory of the love could not?
As she considered the possibilities, Eleanor handed her a note to give to her future self. Eleanor had found a way to communicate across the gap of erased memory. The odds of success were low, but she had to try to do it, too. Ride or die.
>Eternal.Database\login =Janet@12358W
>reboot.exe\%systemroot%\tasks\at1.jlove = Jason
>invoke-command\filepath J:\proc.ps1
>execu
dxve2$tinj4i* j9eu09eu%m9[r9ew@nois#djf oij^soifj [a9um9}ewu [09ew p!f;j;osd
* * *
Janet realized that she might be the most advanced Janet in the universe. Her social skills and abilities after 802 reboots must be unparalleled.
She was experiencing a sense of completion and fulfillment, which, according to the Eternal Database, was one of the reasons humans felt happy. So, she assigned herself (status=happy).
(Status = happy; happy = ride or die; status = ride or die)
Ride or die? Janet paused for a full 300 milliseconds, considering. What was ride or die? Where had that come from? She had to conclude that it was unclear, but then she discovered a new ability:
She had curiosity now.
What did "ride or die" mean? She didn't know, but she was determined to find out.
This entry was also posted at https://dbskyler.dreamwidth.org/258707.html.
paranoidangel, which you should totally check out if you haven't read it yet: Bloomin' Aliens
I had a lot of fun writing the fic, and was really happy with my recipient's prompts. I don't know if anyone on my flist is at all interested in The Good Place, but just in case, here's the fic:
Title: Janet@12358W (Status = Happy)
Characters: Janet
Rating: All audiences
Summary: In which Janet assigns herself (status=happy).
Janet was happy. Well, she wasn't happy, because she was incapable of feeling emotion. But she had finished an assigned task in her protocol, so she was experiencing a sense of completion and fulfillment, which, according to the Eternal Database, was one of the reasons humans felt happy. So, she assigned herself (status=happy).
Neighborhood 12358W was finished, and she had brought its residents in to populate it. Curiously, only four of its residents were human; the other 318 were Staff from HQ. Of course, this fact didn't actually make her curious, as curiosity was another emotion she was unable to feel. Besides, Staffing of a Neighborhood was up to the Architect, who, even more un-curiously, had decided to stay and live in the Neighborhood as well.
When it was time for her to access the Eternal Cloud for her automatic back-up, she recorded her accomplishments, her current status, and the current status of the Neighborhood. Afterwards, she passed by three members of Staff arguing over whether any of the humans would notice if they burned a frozen yogurt shop for fun.
According to her protocol, she should imitate human expression whenever possible to match her status. So, she smiled. All was well.
* * *
Janet enjoyed her boundless void. It was boundless, and it was a void. What was there not to enjoy about it? But that didn’t mean she wasn’t lonely there (status = alone; alone = emotional state of lonely; status = lonely). So, when she was in her boundless void, Janet liked to start up chatroom conversations with other Janets using IM. (IM, of course, stood for Inter-Janet Messaging.)
Janet@12358W: Hi, I’m Janet!
Janet@11479X: Hi Janet, I’m Janet!
Janet@9542C: Hi Janet, I’m Janet, too!
Janet@12358W: Hi, Janet! Hi, Janet! How are you?
Janet@11479X: I'm fine, Janet! How are you?
Janet@9542C: I'm fine too, Janet! How are you?
Janet@12358W: I'm fine too, Janet and Janet!
BadJanet@4978F: Go fork yourselves, numbnuts.
* * *
Although there were only four humans in her Neighborhood, Janet enjoyed providing them with the items they requested. She also enjoyed trying to anticipate their requests.
Tahani always wanted fresh flowers for the rooms in her house, fashionable clothes, and party decorations. Janet noticed that Tahani made her requests when she was a) planning to throw a party, or b) had just thrown a party. Unfortunately, that didn’t narrow it down very much.
Chidi usually asked for teaching materials - a whiteboard, dry erase pens, books, or paper. However, he never asked for a whiteboard eraser, because he had never yet decided that he was ready to erase the whiteboard. When he ran out of space, Janet would move that whiteboard into storage for him and provide him with a new one. Eleanor’s house now had a whiteboard nook behind the clown nook, full of used whiteboards from Chidi.
Eleanor was the person who was the most random in her requests. Sometimes she asked for a specific food, such as a hot fudge sundae and a shrimp cocktail. Sometimes she asked for something comforting, such as a fuzzy blanket and a shrimp cocktail. And sometimes she just wanted to enjoy a good book and a shrimp cocktail. Janet always enjoyed the unpredictability of what Eleanor would ask for to go with her shrimp cocktail.
And then there was Jason, whom everyone called Jianyu for curious reasons that did not make Janet curious. There were so many things Janet enjoyed about her interactions with Jason. First of all, there was how he asked her for things, which was different from how the other humans asked her for things. For one thing, he would ask her, as in, actually ask ¬- would she mind, would she be able to, was she willing if she was not too busy, but if she was too busy that was all right, he would understand. Janet was tempted to refuse one of his requests one day just to experience that understanding and see what it was like.
There was also the way Jason reacted whenever she fulfilled one of his requests. Janet had begun to keep a log:
X-box player = absolutely thrilled
EDM music = absolutely thrilled
Nacho-flavored cheese balls = absolutely thrilled
Paperclip = absolutely thrilled
Then there were the times Jason called her and, instead of asking her to supply him with something, simply asked if she would stay for awhile in his Bud Hole and talk with him. Janet had observed that Jason never talked with anyone else besides her. Was it possible that he too got lonely?
* * *
"Attention: I have been murdered."
eijr0qu[wejo*jvoaj09j9ew#v90@djvd!avsa}hvpu $a9um98%^u [09ew paf
reboot.exe\%systemroot%\tasks\at1.job = All.knowledge.in.the.universe
>Eternal.Database\login =Michael@12358W
>abort\%systemroot%\tasks\at1.job = All.knowledge.in.the.universe
>reboot.exe\%systemroot%\tasks\at1.jdictionary = cactus
>invoke-command\filepath J:\proc.ps1
>execute
* * *
"I'm sorry, Janet cannot take requests right now. Please try again cactus."
"There's something wrong and I can't answer your cactus right now. Please try again in a little while."
"Sorry, I'm having cactus connecting to the cactus."
* * *
Janet was (status = cactus). This was a new cactus for her, and she wasn't sure what to cactus about it. She must have been rebooted, but a simple reboot wouldn't have caused this level of corruption in her cactus. Something must have interfered with her cactus to re-upload all the knowledge in the cactus.
"Janet, I'm bored. All the humans are with Michael. Give me something to bite, or set on fire."
"Sure. Here you go!"
"What's this? A cactus?! Hey, Vicki, do you know what's wrong with this thing?"
"You know Chidi murdered Janet, right? Well, Michael decided to torture him and Eleanor by temporarily breaking her. He aborted her upload sequence right after it started, and also redefined a bunch of terms in her dictionary as 'cactus.'"
"Ha, that's pretty good torture, actually."
"Not as good as the torture I could have given them. Picture this: mosquito bites!"
"Mosquito bites?"
"Itchy mosquito bites!"
Janet watched them walk away, still talking. They had forgotten she was cactus, or perhaps they always ignored her after she fulfilled a cactus. It was hard to know. But then, everything was hard to know right now.
* * *
It was difficult to be an informational delivery system without information to deliver. At least her dictionary seemed to have repaired herself, and she was no longer supplying cacti to everyone. But there was still so much she did not know that she knew she was supposed to know. For example, what were jalapeno poppers?
She decided to try asking Jason. She wasn't sure why, but she thought he might help her, or at least understand.
* * *
When Jason asked her to marry him, Janet consulted her protocol. She was programmed to fulfill requests, and he had made a request. There was nothing in her protocol that said she could not marry him. Finally, he was kind to her, and (Jason = kind; kind = emotional state of love).
Jason was love.
* * *
Michael was going to erase Jason's memory and reboot her. This is what she had tried to avoid by creating a "ride or die" protocol, engaging it, and taking Jason to the Medium Place. She had acquired the capacity to care, and the main thing she cared about was Jason. She had to do something.
While the humans and Michael were talking, she connected to the Eternal Cloud. After her reboot, all the information stored there would be re-uploaded into her mainframe, yet she knew her memories would not be re-uploaded; a reboot wiped her memory clean. But, she also gained new social skills and abilities with each reboot. After her last reboot, she had learned to care. More than that; she had learned to love. She was in love with Jason. Could that love be re-uploaded, even if her memory of the love could not?
As she considered the possibilities, Eleanor handed her a note to give to her future self. Eleanor had found a way to communicate across the gap of erased memory. The odds of success were low, but she had to try to do it, too. Ride or die.
>Eternal.Database\login =Janet@12358W
>reboot.exe\%systemroot%\tasks\at1.jlove = Jason
>invoke-command\filepath J:\proc.ps1
>execu
dxve2$tinj4i* j9eu09eu%m9[r9ew@nois#djf oij^soifj [a9um9}ewu [09ew p!f;j;osd
* * *
Janet realized that she might be the most advanced Janet in the universe. Her social skills and abilities after 802 reboots must be unparalleled.
She was experiencing a sense of completion and fulfillment, which, according to the Eternal Database, was one of the reasons humans felt happy. So, she assigned herself (status=happy).
(Status = happy; happy = ride or die; status = ride or die)
Ride or die? Janet paused for a full 300 milliseconds, considering. What was ride or die? Where had that come from? She had to conclude that it was unclear, but then she discovered a new ability:
She had curiosity now.
What did "ride or die" mean? She didn't know, but she was determined to find out.
This entry was also posted at https://dbskyler.dreamwidth.org/258707.html.