#!oshi

[this-iswhywefight]

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Seconds turn!Martek: Matt credits him with being the reason he was able to feel like a person. Martek was his assigned roommate when he first joined the Coalition, and they bonded pretty quickly, even when Matt was holding everyone at arm’s length. He was Matt’s first friend, and his first point of “I’m really out, I can maybe be okay again”, and Matt didn’t hesitate when asked who he wanted to make his second in commander. Before Kartok could even finish his question he’d chosen Martek. Ortraz: Ortraz was unknowingly helping members of the Blade of Marmora when he was quietly sowing dissent in the Gladiator pits when he was still among the Empire. If the Coalition hadn’t gotten to him first, the BOM would have snatched him right up. !oshi: They are the most essential cog in the Coalition’s diplomatic works. Nothing happens on board concerning diplomatic relations that they haven’t had a hand in. From organizing meetings, full on trip and events to making sure that the chains that Matt wears with his cloaks are polished, it’s !oshi. And they do it damn fucking well. Omontu: She never meant to stick around with the Coalition for as long as she has. She’s a medical researcher by trade, and joined up after an offer from Valdis like a year into the Coalition existing, when they’d liberated her planet pretty early on. It was supposed to be short stint, no more than a year, but she was needed, and she wanted to help so she stuck around, made friends with Leilani when they were Akello’s second, and stayed close when Akello died and Leilani became Commander and needed her at their side. It’s been years and years and she can’t imagine being anywhere else at this point. 

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if you're doing requests, maybe: seconds support group is in session?

Omontu bursts forth into the meeting room with a scowl, and a sharp glare that she aims directly at Martek. “You need to control your damned Commander!”“Hello Omontu,” Martek says mildly, not bothering to look up from his work. “Nice to see you. Are you having a good morning? These are just a few acceptable greetings far more appropriate than simply shouting at me upon entering a room.” 

“What did he do now?” Ortraz asks, leaning across the table to grab the pitcher to refill his and !oshi’s glasses. They trill at him softly in thanks, cheeks glowing a sweet pink. “I resent that you think he did something,” Martek notes dryly. “Omontu has a rather quick fuse, my friend. How do we know she is not-”

“Martek,” !oshi chides with a laugh. “Come now.”

“Yes Martek,” Omontu snarks, throwing herself into a chair. “Come now, and enlighten us with tales of Commander Holt’s newest bout of reckless endangerment to his own health and well being!”

Martek purses his lips, finally looking up from the slices of data reports before him. A long moment of silence hangs delicately in the air, tinged expectant, amused, and frustrated all at once. He sighs, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.“…He tried to break out of the infirmary.”!oshi blinks. Ortraz schools his face into a mask of calm. Omontu seethes. 

“He what?”

“I don’t– He woke up after being healed from the head wound after his helmet malfunctioned, had a bit of a panic when he didn’t immediately recognize where he was, and he… are you really going to make me say it?” Martek opens his eyes and the look he shoots them all is beyond plaintive. “It’s Commander Holt, what do you think he did when presented with the possibility of suddenly finding himself in an unfamiliar environment?”

“He re-injured himself, somehow worse than before, and destroyed two cots!” Omontu snaps. “Two! Not just the one he was resting on, but one on the other side of the infirmary! I don’t even know how he did it! It’s not like he had his damn weapons!”

“Oh dear.” One delicate hand covers !oshi’s mouth. “What did Commander Leilani have to say?”

“Nothing!” Omontu throws a hand in the air. “Commander Holt is a menace to himself and everything around him and Leilani finds it precious!” She makes a show of going wide eyed, getting her hands folded up under her chin and sweetly cooing, “Oh Starling! Come now, darling, let me drown you in citrus and honey. Let us be easy. Bah!” Omontu breaks the imitation with a huff, sinking back into her chair. 

Martek closes his eyes once more, and sighs. “Well,” Ortraz says, after another stretch of silence between them all. “That’s certainly a start to the day.”

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how do you pronounce !oshi's name? ive been saying it as "i-oshi" because i keep reading the exclamation mark as an "i" but i was wondering how you guys say it

So I’m going to just paste in what Em has said about it before because I’m gonna be honest guys..... I still think I’m saying it wrong. It’s been over a year and I really think I say !oshi’s name 100% wrong. Em’s the one who named them, and she’s brilliant and a linguist and just a lot smarter than me, haha. 

But here!

The /!/ is a post-alveolar click - you can hear it pronounced here (http://www.ipachart.com/) by clicking on its symbol in the non-pulmonic consonants chart.

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What does !oshi's day to day rountine look like?

It changes based on the day and what events or meetings are planned, but mostly it will go as follows:

- !oshi wakes up fairly early, only needing a handful of hours of sleep really to be well rested, and the first thing they do is skim through any messages or notifications that have been sent to them after they went to bed. They get check-ins from all different working parts of the Coalition so on a given day they can wake up to as many as fifteen or twenty messages of varying importances.

-They respond to as many as they can in the moment before getting up and getting ready for the day.-They dress in their preferred wardrobe of loose, flowy fabrics, and they call in an order of Kartok’s preferred warm drink of choice for the morning, and Leilani’s favorite juice to be sent to the room the two Commanders share. -!oshi calls Martek, to either see if he is awake or to wake him up, and makes an appointment with him to steal some time for breakfast uninterrupted and to go over any new data the Hub received overnight, updates to ongoing missions, and any other information he might have to share.-They go to Kartok and Leilani’s room, usually arriving just as the tray from the kitchens does, and knocks on the Commander’s door. This will wake Leilani, if not Kartok, and they make sure both Commanders are roused and ready for the day. -!oshi retreats to their offices to review more messages and check any diplomatic inquiries before gathering their things and going to meet with Martek, who they know will have poked and prodded at Commander Holt at this point, and shoot a message to check in with Ortraz, who will be getting ready to make an attempt to wake Zarra, if Holt has not already done so.-Breakfast with Martek becomes breakfast with Ortraz, and eventually Omontu, and they discuss the day’s outline briefly before parting ways to attend to their separate duties. -!oshi joins Kartok and tends to whatever it is he could ask of them, usually giving a run down of the diplomatic queries for the day.

-From that point it’s really a free for all what they could be doing. !oshi is the base’s steward as well as Kartok’s second, so anything and everything that is happening in the general day to day of the base, falls under their attention. Some days that means greeting and guiding dignitaries and allies, sometimes it is helping Martek and Ortraz process and sort recruits. And they are always at the beck and call of the four Commanders, happy to do whatever they need to insure that the day runs nice and smoothly for them all. 

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Why did they keep their relationship a secret for so long? Surely after they bonded (?) they will want to share a room or something?

Oh sharing a room wasn’t a problem. They spend nights together all the time once they get their relationship to that place, and no one ever noticed or questioned it. But making it official and all nice and neat and proper was easy. It was as simple as Martek asking !oshi to move their room assignments around. They weren’t really surprised that something had been going on with the two of them in the end. Martek and Ortraz think they’re subtle, but they are really very not, at least not when it comes to the four seconds and their time alone together.Ortraz is the silent and deadly type, but he’s got the biggest puppy eyes for Martek when he doesn’t think anyone is looking. And with most people he gets away with it. It’s not his fault that !oshi is always watching. It’s what makes them so damn good at their job. !oshi just smiled, moved their rooms, congratulated them both, and that was really the end of it. (I’m also gonna link this ask HERE, because I talk little more about the whole secret thing :) )

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How do people voluntarily join the Coalition? I know Martek left acedemic work to join it, and I know !oshi left thier planet to join it, but how?

Most recruits join the Coalition after it passes through their star system or their planet. Sometimes it’s after they’ve been liberated, with the Empire forces chased off, or wiped out, sometimes it’s a planet somehow untouched that the Coalition finds and reaches out to join the fight.

The Commanders will go and speak to the leaders and see if they are interested in joining the Coalition, and then speak openly to the people to see if there is interest among specific individuals. That’s how they got Martek. His people and planet weren’t interested in joining as a whole, but he sure was. Whereas !oshi used the Coalition as an escape. Their planet is part of the Coalition, a strong and trusted ally. They left because they both believed in the Coalition’s cause, and because they didn’t want to be forced into their family’s responsibility. The stories all vary, really.

We a different take on that whole thing in WWLA with Jion and Zetri. They were refugees who wanted to join the Coalition when it came to the planet they were staying on. It’s a story that’s really familiar among a lot of the Galrans in the Coalition ranks, either having been refugees or defectors, like Ortraz or Baerl.

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what kinds of things do the other seconds bitch about?

Oh lots of things! They work for a very unique and frustrating batch of people. Here are just a few examples:

-Omontu is a hardass with a heart of gold. I think I wrote that in tags somewhere. Leilani is literal sunshine. Sometimes their personalities clash. Leilani is just... a lot sometime. Omontu loves them, adores them, and is wholly and completely loyal to her commander, but she’s been with them since the beginning, and oh God, it can be too much some times. Too much brightness, too much sweetness, too much too much too much. Omontu needs like. A detox. 

-!oshi’s bitching is more fretting. They have been with Kartok since shortly after his command, when he was still very much dealing with the lingering effects of his torture and his injuries, so they are very adept at seeing the signs of when he is having trouble again. Kartok doesn’t like to take breaks when these things hit, and he tries to work through them, often making them worse. !oshi worries, and they are always dropping hints to the other seconds to keep an eye out on Kartok for them. 

-Ortraz is wholly and completely devoted to Zarra. Has been since he was freed and joined the Coalition. He is also overprotective. Like really overprotective. He knows she can take care of herself, has fought beside her and had her save his ass more times than he can count. But that doesn’t really change anything. His biggest complaint is how quick she is to bristle and antagonize sometimes. He would be really happy if she found some chill sometimes. And tbh... they’ve all had their moments about Matt. He is the most unpredictable of the Commanders, and that can lead to some complications. Like the time he executed someone? Yeah !oshi about had a coronary.