#Sameen flashbacks

[themirokai]

POI 02x21: Zero Day

Ok so 2 (two) people, @effervescent-mulder and @sameen-shaww , expressed interest in some thoughts on Zero Day. I didn’t take notes while watching and I’m not doing gifs because that takes more effort than I’m willing to put in at this point. But! For you two lovely folks and anyone else interested, here are some things about Zero Day.

The flashbacks! Omg! So much here.

1. The marriage proposal! I know logically that Harold did it away from their phones because he just didn’t want that conversation recorded, but it did cross my mind that maybe Harold thought the Machine would get jealous if it heard him propose to Grace.

2. The Harold & Nathan dynamic! I knew people shipped them but I didn’t get it. Now I get it. Still not my thing but I totally get it.

3. I am now DYING for the rest of Harold’s backstory!! Sedition and mayhem??? Using pseudonyms for so long that it’s not entirely a joke when Nathan asks if he remembers his real name???? Neeed moooaaarrrr.

There is much to be said (and probably it’s already been said, maybe in fic?) about Harold’s decision to call the cops on John rather than having an honest conversation with him about meeting up with Root. Like Harold knowing that John would absolutely not be ok with it and would likely try to stop him because John is terrified of losing Harold again just makes my Rinch sensors go ping! But also, Harold, you could try talking about it before you call a swat team on your boyfriend!

However that decision lead to two wonderful things:

1. The revelation that John put a tracker in Harold’s glasses!!! I had seen this in fic but loved getting to it in the show. Also, you’ve lost “people,” John? No, you lost Harold and it nearly broke you, you smitten mess of a man.

2. Shaw busting John out. We are going to suspend so much disbelief about Shaw not having to go through a metal detector to go see a detained suspect in a police station. And we are going to suspend that disbelief because the guns taped to her back was hot. The whole thing was very hot. Ya got me, tv show.

And speaking of suspension of disbelief: the Machine can only give out coded social security numbers but… can also create fake identities and hire a company full of people to print out its code and type it back in? But also it could do its core function of monitoring and analyzing all people everywhere while being wiped every night? It’s fine! We’re suspending disbelief because the show is good and has earned that. We’re in the computer science equivalent of magical realism and it’s fine.

Also, this is not the first time that Harold has been just hanging out in the park next to Grace’s house, completely out in the open. Like the odds of her seeing him see pretty damn high? This seems a bit at odds with the “she must think I’m dead!” thing.

But these are all thoughts, not criticisms because this was such a good episode. Really reminded me why I love the show.

What did you think about these things or the episode in general? Come say hi and let me know!

[falsestardust]

not even done the first episode of season five yet and this fucking show (positive)

that opening Root dialogue was severely emotionally damaging even after the emotional destruction that was the latter half of season four and I love it for that

also the Machine going from "I failed to save Sameen. I will not fail you now” to “I failed you. maybe I should die” is driving me up the walls

okay and the motherfucking “but if you erase my memories, how will I learn from my mistakes? how will I continue to grow? and how will I remember you?” in the flashback? god!! the Machine doesn’t even have a voice (except that one time) and still makes me cry!!

[luirlar]

Today I (re)watch: Person of Interest, 3.10

Today I (re)watch: Person of Interest, 3.10

The Crossing may have shattered your heart to pieces, and that’s unfair. Fortunately The Devil’s Share comes in strong, and dark, and ready to avenge my dearly departed queen of my heart. I have watched the whole show before, so SPOILERS MIGHT HAPPEN. Big spoilers will be blanked out but references and irrelevant spoilers are going to be out in the open. The show begins with a cold open, with a…

[blue-american]

an interesting (at least i hope so..) note:

we see flashbacks from harold's, sameen's and root's childhood, but what about reese's? it's only short moment about his dad's funeral in the last episode. i mean, during series we see flashbacks but they are either from military or related to jessica. and only in the end creators show us another really important piece of his life. when reese realises he is ready to sacrifice himself one day for something greater, for someone greater. just as root did. it's so tragically beautiful. i just- i'm gonna cry next 3 hours, thanks.

[mejomonster]

i take back what i said maybe their eng dub in this isnt too bad.

this girl i cant relate to at all. she’s nice but i would never try to talk to a stranger friendly after they said ‘fuck off and leave me alone’ ok i’d be like NOPE i am avoiding potential conflict and just gonna mind my own business then

he is So masculine in this wtf if i saw him in person like this i’d avoid he looks like a rich businessman who is not polite but also not fun

he is? having a headache flashback? bro u ok???

bro. i am just thinking of wenzhou au’s and how zhou zishu would totally be a spy. i mean we knew this but. like he’d be rich and look respectable but just blend into the crowd and if u asked if he was on holiday? actually zhou zishu would handle it BETTER than this guy cause he’d ACT and fake smile and say yeah and gush, then later he’d be at a street with an expressionless face shooting someone. 

i maintain that zhou zishu in a modern au would be living a VERY similar life to John Reese or Sameen Shaw in Person of Interest. (Except even more severe since Zhou Zishu probably would be one of the head people in charge before he leaves)

[asleepinawell]

person of interest episodes: The Devil’s Share: Sameen Shaw (3x10)

“I watch the others. I watch the fear creep into them. I watch them make mistakes, and you think these feelings that I'm lacking make them better?”

[ao3feed-reesefinch]

Running into Luck

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/3byvfLF

by spotlightonmringenue

“Grace. Lives in Italy,” John sighs, feeling his blinking interval decrease. “His second chance - one that he’ll only take if he thinks there’s not a life here. The Machine has to stay dead. I have to stay dead.”

He doesn’t think the words are convincing enough, Joey’s stare still confused and argumentative while remaining silent. The bleach-white color of the hospital room starts to warp and John manages to speak again.

“Because he would do the same for me.”

Or: A fix-it fic where Harold is kept in the dark about John's survival and has to figure out how to live without him.

Words: 2294, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Person of Interest (TV)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: M/M

Characters: John Reese, Harold Finch, Sameen Shaw, Lionel Fusco, Grace Hendricks, Logan Pierce, Joseph "Joey" Durban, Harper Rose, Bear (Person of Interest), The Machine (Person of Interest), Zoe Morgan, Joss Carter, Minor Original Characters - Character, Han (Person of Interest)

Relationships: Harold Finch/John Reese, John Reese & Everyone, Harold Finch & Grace Hendricks, Bear (Person of Interest) & Everyone

Additional Tags: Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Post-Return Zero, Alive John, Light Angst, Slow Burn, light fluff, John POV, Harold POV, Mutual Pining, Flashbacks

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/3byvfLF

[potcpoi]

I love the characters of POI: from the main characters, antagonists & even some of the Numbers. I love how they build characters & in this story about surveillance states & AIs, its about *people* & how aware or not, everyone's actions (or inaction) touches people's lives. I also love how POI structures stories, the flashbacks & how it all comes together full circle in a way that takes my breath away. Of course, last but never least I love this show for giving me Shaw.

Let me take this opportunity to appreciate how beautifully the flashbacks are used on POI, whether they’re used to contrast with a character’s present actions, or to inform them, or to help the audience understand them, or just to flesh out the characters more and give them a rich backstory. I feel like POI would be a very different (and lesser) show if they didn’t have the flashbacks. I also love that they use TM accessing old archive footage as a way to show us past events!

One of the other things POI does really well is build and expand the universe, and create hugely interesting side characters to flesh everything out. POI’s recurring characters are some of the most developed and beloved I’ve seen in years -- right from the major ones like Elias to the relatively minor ones like Harper Rose, Caleb Phipps and Special Counsel.

POI also has this innate gift of introducing people as villains or antagonists that you detest, and then making you cry like a baby when they’re killed off!

And finally, just what is Shaw’s fav colour, isagrim? :P

(Send me the thing you love most about POI and your headcanon for your fav character’s fav colour!)

[dxsole]

Flashback - for Hugo

Send "Flashback" to have your muse see one of my muse's bad memories | Still Accepting

Hugo sits calmly by Sameen. He’s always calm though. Always so quiet, always thinking. It’s not a bad thing, he’s usually thinking of mundane, silly things; what he still has to do at work, wondering if Traugott dreamed at night, thinking about the past--

His hands suddenly tighten. His mouth suddenly feels very dry but he doesn’t seem to move to resolve it.

Because sometimes he was paralyzed by fear. A fresh-faced Hugo flashes across the room. He’s something between man and child, dressed head to toe in dusty camo but face so bright one would think he’s still in high school. He still has a boyish face and boyish heart despite the hardness in his eyes. That was always the thing with Hugo and his patrol; out of all of them, everyone assumed Hugo could take it. He had a sharp jaw, rarely spoke and had eyes that had seen too much. 

But he was scared. He wasn’t ready, no one is really ready for this, though. 

“Hugo, we’re gettin’ a game together. You comin’?” He can hear it. The voice is forever ingrained into his brain, a slight Bostonian drawl that was new to him coming from Gary Weaver. It’s a moment of rest where the men can breathe for a moment, find something aside surviving and killing to fill the time. So they toss around a football, forgetting they were in a foreign country. Forgetting for a moment that they weren’t there to push an agenda they never signed up for. Forgetting for a moment they were all expendable.

Hugo’s lips quirked, a small smile appearing on his face as he agreed, following his friend and getting into the game. He laughs. He teases the other team. He runs across the makeshift field and swears he’s never felt freer.

Then shots ring out. Because that’s what happens when you let your guard down. Everyone’s springing into action, fighting...rebels? Civilians? They were called hostiles and Hugo can’t even see where they’re coming from. All he knows is that the game is over and they’re all running back to the base as fast as they could to grab their gear and get into the fight. 

He feels the heat of the sun above him but it doesn’t deter him from pulling on his jacket, his helmet, his M16-- he feels a spray of something wet on his back but he doesn’t stop, he decides it’s just sweat even though he’s almost positive it’s not. It scares him automatic it’s become once the helmet’s on. How he shoots on command. At...at the movement. He can’t even make out faces, just the semblance of someone not wearing their uniform and aiming a rifle at them. 

What’s worse is that he’s good at it. He’s a very good shot and he focuses on the precision rather than the wetness that still clings to his back. In the corner of his eye he can see the man from before, the one from Boston laying face first in the dirt. Blood pools round his chest and no one helps him. Hugo can’t tell if he’s alive or not but he’s now very keenly aware of the blood that sprayed onto his back is from his friend. Yet he still continues to shoot. Yet he doesn’t move from his post because that’s not what you do. You move and you get cut down.

It goes quiet again. A squad slowly moves ahead, checking the area for any more enemies. Those that weren’t dead had fled and Hugo and the rest of the patrol were given the go-ahead to breathe again. Hugo immediately retches. He didn’t like to tell the others but sometimes he went to puke after firefights-- he hadn’t quite gotten used to the sudden turning off the kill switch in his head. 

“Es tut leid. Es tut mir leid...” He mumbles to himself after he wiped his mouth. Hugo can’t move towards the other, he’s just stuck in his tactical spot, frozen by fear . It’s not the first time he’s seen someone die but it’s the first time it happened...like this. They weren’t ready. Weaver was a great shot, he could have lived if he was just given a chance. What are they going to tell his family? We’re sorry your son died, we were caught off guard? No, they wouldn’t say that. They wouldn’t say they allowed, even welcomed literal children into the Army. Hugo may have wanted this as an attempt to get away from his mother but he’s not sure if he’s better off. 

His hand finally unclenches. He wets his lips and turns himself towards to Sameen, face unreadable and eyes averted. “Es tut mir leid...dass du das sehen musstest.”

[avkwafina]

Take Caution

Chapter (6/10): Revelations, pt. II Rating: Mature Relationships: Alex Danvers/Sara Lance, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Root/Sameen Shaw (minor) Warnings: PTSD, explicit language, war violence (in flashbacks)

After four years, Alex Danvers decided to shed her combatant gear to become a pediatrician in National City. In order to ease her readjustment back to a normal life, she was requested by her commanding officer to attend weekly group therapy at the local community church. Between sleepless nights of combat training and patching up wounded soldiers on the field, group therapy was supposed to be the easiest part.

Cue Sara Lance.

(No Powers AU)

[luirlar]

Today I (re)watch: Person of Interest, 3.12

Today I (re)watch: Person of Interest, 3.12

Oh how I love episodes where we get a lot of Root. Here we get a little unhinged all around, too. Good times. I have watched the whole show before, so SPOILERS MIGHT HAPPEN. Big spoilers will be blanked out but references and irrelevant spoilers are going to be out in the open. We open at the exact spot we left off, with Control having the upper hand, and our two AI masterminds – Claypool and…

[isagrimorie]

[January Meme] - “Most important episode for each POI character and why?”

for @potcpoi

Oh, this is hard but I’ll do my best!

Harold Finch

God Mode

This remains as my favorite season ender of all-- the way this episode, these flashbacks recontextualize Harold is amazing. He is an unreliable narrator, and this episode breaks down all of Harold’s initial pitch to John and it left me breathless. 

I will fight anyone who say flashbacks are useless because in the right hands, in the right story, it can change everything, and this is my go to example for it. It’s just honestly, honestly amazing. 

The Day the World Went Away

God this it’s crafted so well but it also does something so terrible but damn is this episode excellent. Especially this scene. Michael Emerson gives a brilliant and blistering tour de force performance, this monologue was fantastic.  The way his voice shakes at the way he denounces his rules. The very rules I’ve wondered about from the start.

I’ve wondered why he was so unshakeable and steadfast about his rules, and man, does this deliver in every single way. The music, the tense build-up. And I remember on a recent rewatch (knowing what happens to Root, and the distance from the initial hurt really helps), how I felt my heart race just from this scene. I knew what was going to happen, and yet when we reach that moment. 

Damn. 

John Reese

Foe

here

Matsa Nyaya

here

These two episodes remain, in my head, as important episodes for John Reese. This formed the John we get to know and Kara Stanton is an important part of the formation of John.

Kara Stanton was the monster he needed to survive his tenure in the CIA, even as it hurt who he was. John got good at killing people, even to the point where Kara let John took the lead but Kara was also always there to hold him true to the path the moment she feels him stray.

Ordos is the place that breaks both Kara and John's faith with differing results and I just feel like this moment and the episodes in season 2 was part of John's character, seared in blood. Until his work with the team helps him walk the line back out of darkness, and we get this moment:

"But then I realized: Sometimes, one life, ...if it's the right life, it's enough."

from here

Joss Carter

As a whole, all of Carter’s moments from:

In Extremis

by @cocoabuffster

satan’s raisin

This moment and the moment after this, where Carter digs up and moves Stills body was a pivotal moment for Carter, IMO. It’s one thing helping someone out of prison, and another, actively covering up a (supposed) murder to help out someone she now knows was a dirty cop. Carter is forced to choose between the law and what she thinks is right.

This is the pebble that causes the avalanche and where it continues rolling into the moment —

God Mode

Everything that happened before was a lead up to this moment of choice and the moment Carter does it, it’s not a decision that’s out of character. It build off the moments from season 1, to 2 Pi R, In Extremis and then actively intervening to keep Elias alive, caught between the devil she didn’t know and the devil she knew, she chose the devil she knew.

It’s such a turning point for Carter that ends with Carter taking down the head of HR, and earning Elias’s undying loyalty.

Sameen Shaw

Boy. This is… I’m going to have to restrain myself here but:

Relevance

Need I explain how amazing and beautiful this episode is? It's a backdoor pilot in itself, what a fantastic introduction to one of my top favorites. It has everything that is my jam-- the superhero stealth entrance, the espionage, the fierce and fantastic Sarah Shahi as the equally fantastic Sameen Shaw.

And, a beautiful thematic music for both Shaw and the second phase of the show.

Razgovor

I'll be honest from Zero Day up to the episode before Razgovor, I despaired that the show forgot how to write Shaw but this episode assured me, that no-- they haven't.

The Devil’s Share

It’s a brief moment in the episode but it says so much about Shaw, the lengths she goes to save people, and the way she operates after. And how that worked against her in her career and in her life.

If Then Else

This episode distills Shaw down to who she is, and much as I love the kiss, it’s actually the above moment that hit me. Someone as pragmatic as Shaw, she gets to deliver one of the more optimistic statements of the show… “Life is crap… but you’re not alone.”

It felt like such a significant moment not only for what the scene represented but for how, I think it tied in who Shaw is.

6,741

Oh man, what else can I say about this but— this is one hell of an episode, and what a fantastic character study of who Shaw is, at the very core of her. She is a straight arrow, and Samaritan, in all seven thousand plus simulations can’t break that. It is also a brutal study about what happens if a person whose certainty and personal is everything is taken bit by bit— chiseled down to the bone.

Sarah Shahi was phenomenal in this episode and in this season, and I hope Reverie will give Sarah Shahi the material to rise to these heights again.

Root

Root Path

by @asleepinawell

semi-functional nerd | “You want to know what the plan was the day they…

The episode where the Machine not so subtly pushed Root to be more of a team player… and it back fires because at this point, TM is also still learning about Root. And, at this point Root reverted to her usual MO— working alone.

I love the moment where Root really comes face to face with the consequences of her actions pre-TM. And where Harold and Root gets a little closer and Root gets to flirt with Shaw a bit more, but then, because her open book facade really is just a facade and she’s revealed more than she’s comfortable with, she opts to leave instead of take up Harold’s offer to help the Machine and Root then and there.

It’s a series of first steps to the right path with a skittish step side ways until Root finds a bit more equilibrium.

Lionel Fusco

Blue Code

In Extremis

It’s funny how (for me) the defining/important (narrative) moments of our detectives happens in the woods at night. Carter finds herself at a crossroads in God Mode and in Blue Code Fusco accepts his fate but also realizes that no matter what he does, he’s never going to escape what he’s done. Its this moment that propels him to the moment in In Extremis, where he’s willing to get his devil’s share but it’s Carter’s faith in him that carries Fusco through and makes him believe that he can make something of himself, and be better than he was.

dreamwidth

[ao3feed-shoot]

翻译-How Badly Did You Have To Break Her? (Chinese Translation)

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/3eEzxlO

by ClaireQiu

Greer给Shaw装了个神经传感器，她的世界就此变得一团糟。她成了Samaritan的实验对象，大脑的化学反应被强制改写，她不能用自己一贯的方式来进行自我防御。再这样的情况下，救援也没能带来什么太好的结果。Shaw得寻找一个和队伍、和Root重建关系的方式，寻找一条能带来好结果的道路。

Words: 66936, Chapters: 1/1, Language: 中文

Fandoms: Person of Interest (TV)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: F/F

Characters: Root | Samantha Groves, Sameen Shaw, Harold Finch, John Reese, John Greer, Martine Rousseau, Bear (Person of Interest), The Machine (Person of Interest), Claire Mahoney, Iris Campbell

Relationships: Root | Samantha Groves/Sameen Shaw

Additional Tags: Shaws neural transmitter, season4 compliant, Certain to be Jossed, post 4.11, Shaw's captivity and torture, Mind Control, little bit of breathplay, Light Bondage, PTSD, time loss, Flashbacks, shaming

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/3eEzxlO

[ao3feed-shoot-poi]

Fairfield

Read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2AQYhJj

by andthatisterrible

Set in the immediate aftermath of Wǣrloga, on a quiet day in when Root asks Shaw for a favor and Shaw finds herself thinking back over the events that took place in the town of Fairfield over a year before.

Words: 10256, Chapters: 3/3, Language: English

Series: Part 2 of Gods and Monsters

Fandoms: Person of Interest (TV)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/F

Characters: Root, Sameen Shaw, The Machine, John Reese

Relationships: Root/Sameen Shaw, Root/Sameen Shaw/The Machine, Root/The Machine

Additional Tags: Urban Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Warlocks, a prequel, but still set after the first fic, because the main part of it is a flashback, Demons

Read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2AQYhJj

[moriorinvictxs]

Concept: a Person of Interest spin off following crime in New York. Forty five minutes of Elias or Dominic or the Russians or whatever. Give me half of New York being afraid of Sameen Shaw, who had the balls to take on two of the three major crime bosses in the city (and pretty much held both of them hostage) - Shaw who was prepared to fight all of HR. Show Elias being exasperated because John shot someone again. Show me the trial Carter died for, and how HR crumbles around it. Show me Root before she found the Machine. Give me flashbacks for the people who play such a huge part in the city. Especially for Dominic (who we know like three things about???)

[mejomonster]

also just watched first season 5 ep with sameen back and i Need her okay

i need her.

also though i like that simulated reality is introduced as a sci fi element. i liked that as a concept a lot.

i loved root and sameen’s scenes together, i liked that sameen got that initial space to get her bearings and heal instead of immediately making out with root, and then after she felt grounded they connected. i liked that they got the weight and gravity in their relationship to be treated as intimate and whole and nuanced, and got the appropriate time for everything that played out between them. so often shows rush through any kind of romantic relationship, and it weakens the depth of it. i think it’s why pairings like mulder/scully, xena/gabrielle get shipped so much - because they get whole seasons to develop, they get time to feel natural and genuine. 

And i think overall poi does a really good job of giving most of the relationships on the show, friendship or romantic, that same kind of genuine care. Even grace and harold, which feels maybe the most rushed just because like jessica/john its mostly flashback, feels grounded when they do eventually have scenes in the present. The scene where grace is traded for harold, a show looking for cheaper payoff would have them revealed to each other, have them cry and kiss romantically, and possibly kill one of them off. But poi instead does what feels truer to the characters - grace is still very much in love, and fiercely protective of the memory of her fiance and the love they had, and scared and aware something really messed up is going on, and trying to survive; harold is still completely resolute about trying to keep grace out of the harm following him, and wouldn’t risk her safety or her closure by revealing to her that he’s there, because he’s already weighed that choice and he’s not changing it now. That scene was so monumentally great for both of the characters, because they both remained very true to who they were in that hopeless dangerous impossible situation (as did the other periphery characters in the scene). A lot of shows would go for the easier tear-tugger choice, would milk the fact a romantic relationship is supposed to be higher stakes.

Shaw and Root’s end scene in the ep where Shaw is first seen again, where Shaw eventually takes them to the merry go round and terminates herself, inadvertently terminating the simulation - shaw revealing she does in fact care about Root, and that she doesn’t feel safe anywhere and that she’s scared - just every single moment of Shaws experience in that episode felt so true to me to how she is, where her character is at. Her anger towards Harold was completely right to fit in the episode, because Shaw has been gone for months with no rescue. Shaw’s freak out at killing John, at being shakily out of control of some of her own choices. Even though, I think in my interpretation, her mind was self destructing all of those avenues so the simulation would fail and so shaw wouldn’t reveal her friends and the machine’s location, her broken up behaviors all still felt in character. Her moment at the merry go round felt like it connected to her mental flashes there, like it was her conscious self trying to get her out of the simulation. 

I can’t just like explain enough how much i love shaw, how much i love that for a bi character to relate to, she exists and its beyond anything i could have ever hoped for. how much i love the fact the show just treats characterization so genuinely, trying to be fair to all the relationships developing and characters’ inner lives.