Jahani

Jahani is the het ship between Jason and Tahani from The Good Place fandom.

Canon
Jason and Tahani are soulmates and are introduced by Michael to their neighbours, Chidi and Eleanor. Tahani talks to them and when she asks Jason, who goes by Jianyu, for confirmation on her statements, he simply nods. Tahani explains to them that Jianyu is a Buddhist monk, who has taken a vow of silence, which he continues in death. Therefore, he smiles and nods as appreciation of things. Tahani seems a bit dismayed at this. She moves on to inviting Chidi and Eleanor to a welcome party that she and Jianyu are throwing at their huge mansion that night. When the evening begins, Tahani and Jianyu descend their grand staircase in the foyer to greet the guests. Michael welcomes the guests, with Tahani watches alongside Jianyu. The morning after the party, chaos reigns as there are flying shrimp, giant frogs and ladybugs, packs of giraffes running around, a storm and loud Ariana Grande music playing. Everyone's wearing blue and yellow striped clothing and Tahani asks Michael what to do, while Jianyu is seen by himself, looking worried and running away like everyone else.

Everyone gathers in Tahani and Jianyu's mansion, where Michael holds a meeting. While being nervous and not knowing what to do, Tahani's original outfit suddenly returns and everything starts to go back to normal. Everyone's invited to the town square where Michael gives a presentation of the day's activity: they get to fly. Tahani asks if she may say something and ascends the stage with Jianyu. She offers to assemble a team along with herself and Jianyu to clean up the mess from the panic and people volunteer. Tahani again informs the crowd that Jianyu is maintaining his vow of silence and gets a bit more frustrated as the asserts that he's even keeping in up in The Good Place. While she and Jianyu clean up, Tahani intimates that her Godmother was Princess Diana, but is a bit perturbed that he doesn't have a big reaction to her namedropping or can say anything about it.

Michael drops by and Tahani name drops again while praising the neighbourhood, but Michael's distraught about the glitch and leaves. Tahani tries to get Jianyu to talk by asking him to say what he's thinking as she says they should help Michael. Jianyu says nothing, and Tahani tries to play it off as an in-joke, but feels disconnected. To try and cheer up Michael, Tahani and Jianyu get ice cream with him, but it doesn't work and they watch as a crazed Michael kicks a dog into the sun. After rubbish starts raining from the sky, Michael gets further frustrated and Tahani continues to try and comfort him, back at their mansion. She tries to use Michael's defeat to get Jianyu to speak, but instead he gets up from meditating on the floor, sits down next to Michael and puts a hand on Michael's chest. Michael gets back to his old self and leaves, with Tahani saying she should attempt silence, which she does for about two seconds and Jianyu observes her, puzzled.

After spending some time with Eleanor, Tahani has her over for tea and offers some to Jason, who nods solemnly and leaves. Tahani says that must've meant no, a bit sad. Eleanor later drops by to return something she stole and finds Tahani crying. Tahani tries to pretend that everything's alright, but lets her guard down as Eleanor offers to listen. Tahani tells Eleanor that she understands and respects Jianyu's choice, but at the same time is devastated that he won't even talk to her when they're supposed to be soulmates, especially since she really likes to talk. Eleanor assures Tahani that she's great and that her and Jason belong together and Tahani feels a little better. That same night, Eleanor gets a note saying to meet her in town and learns Jianyu's real identity - Jason Mendoza. Jason then gets invited to the party after all, where Eleanor and Chidi spend their time trying to stop him from revealing his true identity.

Eleanor learns that Tahani doesn't know and that Jason doesn't understand much of what's going on in The Good Place. Tahani's asked to plan a party, but sad to learn that Jianyu's not invited because he doesn't talk. Jason wants to start being himself, but Eleanor tells him that he has to keep pretending to be Jianyu. He soon starts playing EDM loudly, which Eleanor and Chidi hear and go over to the mansion. Before Eleanor can explain to Chidi what's going on, Tahani walks in and greets them. Tahani asks Jason how he is and Jason answers, stopping Tahani in her tracks. Eleanor tries to dismiss that it happened and Tahani surmises that they're helping Jianyu be comfortable with speaking. Tahani's overjoyed and hugs Jason, who looks at Eleanor, confused. Chidi offers to also teach Jason ethics and, although Jason declines at first, he eventually joins Chidi's class. This leads Jason to keep up the appearance of being Jianyu, hovering in the background eating mini-waffles as Tahani hosts the neighbourhood. "She's so pretty, like Nala from "The Lion King". And she talks so smart, like, um -- Nala, from "The Lion King""

- Jason to Chidi

Jason starts to talk a bit, using a magic 8-ball for inspiration, and accidentally says yes to a couples spa retreat with Tahani. He asks Chidi for help, who reluctantly invites himself along to do so. At the spa, Janet has trouble understanding Chidi's presence as part of the couples spa deal, and Tahani is further annoyed at the situation. Chidi tries to guide Jason on what to say, but has to intervene during the massage when Tahani asks Jason about art and he starts to talk about Pitbull. Chidi inspires Jason to get Tahani a gift, misunderstanding Chidi's mention of the Impressionists. With Chidi's help, Jason gets an Impressionist painting of Tahani as three dancers and she's overjoyed, saying only her real soulmate would know to give such a lovely gift. Tahani and 'Jiyanu' are good from then on, Jason helping Tahani with various events she throws for the neighbourhood and being by her side, such as when they bid Eleanor farewell, after learning she's a fraud. While hosting the Bad Place demons to try and negotiate for Eleanor to stay in The Good Place, Tahani sees Jason help a demon tap a keg and starts finding his crips packages strewn around their mansion. After the demons have left, Jason walks into his 'bud hole' with more crisps, thinking he's being surreptitious. He's shocked to find Tahani there, saying she found him out and demands he tell her the truth about who he really is.

Jason does so and Tahani's furious that he lied to her, not to mention is asking her not to reveal his true identity to Michael. She leaves in a huff and Jason's worried for his future in The Good Place. Jason goes to talk to Tahani, who's looking at the painting he gave her, disappointed at another lie. Jason reveals to her that he wanted to give her a painting of a stand-up comic, that Chidi made the painting and helped Jason with things to say to Tahani. Tahani rolls her eyes at Jason's misunderstanding of the painting Chidi made and is convinced that Chidi's in love with her. She tells Chidi that he's in love with her as Eleanor has just confessed her feelings for Chidi and they quibble, but soon start bonding on Eleanor's initiative. Jason, meanwhile, is sure that he's getting kicked out of The Good Place and asks Janet to cheer him up. She brings him food and he asks her to marry him, having her show up to invite Tahani and Eleanor to the 'wedding'. Tahani and Eleanor are obviously against it, but it happens anyway as they watch, amused. Tahani tells Chidi that she's taking back her declaration that he loves her and mentions that what Janet and Jason have is real, in a very confusing day for Tahani.

While Tahani tries to help Eleanor stay in The Good Place, Michael finds out that Jason and Janet are 'married', but they escape to The Medium Place with Eleanor, to avoid Janet being rebooted. Tahani and Chidi still work to convince The Judge that Eleanor deserves to stay in The Good Place, and Jason too, but The Judge uses Janet to send a message to Eleanor and Jason that Tahani and Chidi will be sent to The Bad Place if they don't return. Despite his fears of The Bad Place, Jason eventually agrees with Eleanor that they should go back and save their friends. They arrive just after the clock runs out and The Judge decides that they will have to choose two of them to go to The Bad Place.

As they begin to fight over who goes, Jason tries to defer that he go and Tahani contests his 'marriage' to Janet, saying there's a Janet in every neighbourhood and he can't be married to her. Eleanor takes Jason aside to remind him that Tahani and Chidi deserve to be in The Good Place, while Tahani talks to Chidi about her fear of being alone in heaven without a soulmate. Jason says goodbye to Tahani and apologises for everything he put her through. Real Eleanor busts in sacrificing herself, starting the arguments up all over again. Tahani loses her patience with Jason and calls him 'robot lover', which starts a fight between all of them. Eleanor figures out that they're in The Bad Place and asks Michael why Tahani and Chidi are there. Jason wonders too, mentioning that she raised some money for charity. Tahani clarifies how high the amount was and realises that she did for herself. When Eleanor boasts that the team they formed is what brought Michael down, he goes off to ask Shawn for a second chance and when he returns, he snaps his fingers and they're all rebooted.

Starting over
In the first reboot, Tahani is assigned a different soulmate while Jason is assigned a friend soulmate who is also supposed to be a silent monk and the demons try to keep them from interacting with each other. After Eleanor figures it out, they're rebooted again, and then go through hundreds of attempts as they realise time and again that they're actually in The Bad Place.

Moments
THE ETERNAL SHRIEK

Jason helps Tahani plan the retirement party for Michael. When they learn what retirement means for universal beings, they need to change the theme. Tahani tells everyone to start over and Jason to get rid of the party poppers. He promptly starts popping them, although Tahani tries to tell him that's not what she meant and Jason keeps going, much to her discouragement.

Fanon
A common ship in the fandom, and rivalling Jason's other canon ship, Janason. The fandom tends to have every ship under the sun, given how well the various characters are developed and fit together, but these two have a place in their own right, both due to being canon, at first assigned as soulmates and later, when they start hooking up, shown to be a classic opposites attract pairing that actually benefit a lot from being with each other. The show seems to have settled on Janet and Jason in favour of this pairing, however, which is decried by Jahani shippers; however, it should be stressed that there are no flame wars in this fandom.

Fandom

 * FAN FICTION


 * TUMBLR

Backstage

 * Jameela Jamil (Tahani Al-Jamil) posted a photo of them together captioned 'Jahani'.