User Name/Nick: Alexis
User DW: N/A
E-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM to a character journal/alternate method of contact: punnyinpink @ plurk
Other Characters Currently In-Game: Natalie Scatorccio

Character Name: Root
Series: Person of Interest
Age: 36 or 37 idk
From When?: 5x10, when she dies in the hospital from taking the bullet meant for Finch

Inmate Justification: Sure, Root is working for the good guys by the end of her run on the show, but she's morally gray at best. She doesn't show remorse for all her pre-show murders (except for one or two), and she continues to cause harm, even when she follows the Machine's instructions and avoids killing. She also still lacks faith in people, saving them only if the Machine tells her to, or if Root getting their number is what puts them in danger. Further, she will do anything to save her friends, even if they beg her not to. She also needs to come to see herself as more than just a soldier in a war, a chess piece to be sacrificed if need be. She's gotten a start on her path to redemption, but she's still got a ways to go before she builds herself a new moral compass.

Arrival: Root agreed to come to the Barge in the hopes of going back to her life and mission once she graduates.

Abilities/Powers: Physically, Root is a little above average as far as endurance and pain tolerance. Most of her very high level skills are mental, namely in programming and... plotting... and guns. She's very good with guns, especially with the Machine's guidance. She is deaf in one ear and got a (modified) cochlear implant placed but does not have its external component. She used it to communicate directly with the Machine. It will be silent on the Barge. She's also good enough at ballet that she can perform with professionals at the behest of the Machine, so like, okay lol

Inmate Information: The first immensely pivotal moment in Root's life was the kidnapping and unsolved disappearance of her childhood friend, Hanna. Young Root, then known as Samantha Groves, did exactly what she was supposed to do: she reported what she saw to a responsible adult, and then to the authorities (in the form of a 911 call)-- and the system betrayed her. The librarian called her a liar, and Root learned that people are unreliable, willfully blind, and overall terrible. As an accident of evolution, they are simply bad code. By that point, she was already computer savvy, so in a few years' time, she used her hacking skills to get Hanna's kidnapper in Big Trouble. She has presumably been going by Root where posible ever since.

Her mother died when she was on the brink of legal adulthood. Root left the small town of Bishop, TX (btw, growing up gay in Texas in the 90s is bad enough, but Bishop is also a small town, so yeah that has had an effect on her, even if it's never directly addressed in canon), and made a career out of hacking. This could only have led to seeing more of the ugly things humans do, making it easy to add 'assassin-for-hire' to the services she offered. It's this role that leads her to cross paths with our protagonists, and to discover the existence of and become devoted to the Machine. Being a fan of computers over people, she switched gears and focused her energy on locating the Machine's physical servers and "setting her free" - removing the constraints that Harold Finch put on the Machine in his quest to keep it out of the wrong hands.

This new cause saw her continuing to commit crimes such as breaking and entering, kidnapping, identity theft, torture, and murder. She didn't enjoy the torture and the killing, but the bigger picture, the story or quest she was on, was fun. In a way, her engagement with it was childlike-- that twelve-year-old girl whose innocence died when Hanna did was still alive in Root.

As mentioned above, even toward the end of her run, she was more than willing to do murder et al, and she was only stopped by the repeated insistence of her new friends, and perhaps most especially by the Machine. All of them served as her moral compass, which got shattered when Hanna was abducted. She was especially likely to ignore collateral damage when it came to searching for Shaw, who she very quickly fell in love with once they started hooking up offscreen.

Path to Redemption: More than anything, Root needs to develop an internal moral compass rather than rely on her friends for guidance. This will involve addressing her disregard for causing collateral damage and finding inherent value in people and things. She's part of the way there, what with her new friends and outright saying she's in love with Shaw, but by and large, she lacks conviction for a life beyond fighting a war to save the Machine and destroy Samaritan. Root needs to find purpose within herself.

She'll benefit from breaches and floods in particular because both will force her out of her comfort zone. Getting to know fellow weirdos on the Barge, and hearing all the different points of view they have, will broaden her understanding of right and wrong and the gray area in between.

History: Root @ POI wiki

Sample Network Entry: network and log samples

Sample RP: see above

Special Notes: My apologies for any and all autocorrect snafus, including those in languages other than English, rip