See idk if you’ve posted abt this before (I just went thru nearly all the posts on espa’s worldbuilding and lore) but I’m curious about how they feel about their gender identity and when she began using those pronouns (is it just me or does that sound lowk queerphobic 🥀)
(I SAW <3 IM OVERJOYED RN)
i haven't! espa's relationship with their gender is a bit. odd? it's nothing special. but like
you could call her cisgender. and a girl. and truth be told that's not wrong. but they're a little bit detached from the notion
'coz you see. espa wasn't raised as a girl. it was raised as a weapon
(i like to say they're isogender :) not quite cis but not exactly trans either)
if we were talking in more specific microlabels. if espa knew about them and had to do some introspection to decide a term. it'd be cogender (<- a multigender label sort of like bigender but the genders are a little more interwoven), both nonbinary and a girl. but espa barely knows what "microlabel" is so
pronouns wise: as we see in the escravos de jo drabble :) back then. at least for a while. espa was using solely it/its. when it was even younger, it used she/her, because that was all it knew, but from a while on it was just 'it'
this is partially due to their first handler. i've mentioned cláudio a few times even though i didn't say much about him yet, but he was the guy that espa was assigned to before ann. he was the first to call espa an it. on a daily basis.
it wasn't exactly with the most progressive intent lmao. so yeah. it stuck. even amongst handlers thats a bit uncommon (ann, for example, calls espa a "she" and so do most of them) but he was their primary handler for a while so i think it really shaped how they view themself
once it changed handlers they gradually shifted towards the they/it/she we have today, though
despite that, i don't think the it/its comes solely from a dehumanizing and self-depreciating place for her. to say it has nothing to do with the dehumanization would be a lie, but it goes beyond that. they do genuinely appreciate these pronouns. that first... less-than-ideal situation was their first exposure to them, and maybe espa wouldn't use it/its today if it wasn't by that (maybe they would!), but it does genuinely like them. if espa was a little bit more aware of how fucked up its life is, then maybe it'd feel a bit self-counscious about it, but as things currently are, it's just happy with their three little pronouns
the 'they' came more naturally tho, i think. meeting people. having a vague understanding of nonbinary people from outside. rare instances where someone couldn't gauge its gender and called it a "they" which felt weirdly euphoric. so that's how we get to this :)
so yeah! espa is a girl. but not in a very cisgender way. they're also nonbinary, and having grown up as a 'weapon' shaped a lot of how they view themself. so it's a bit of a mix
