monstroooo In reply to Sleyf [2016-02-19 13:47:13 +0000 UTC]

Thank you!

Interestingly, there's only one gender implied here. Which felt important to me when I wrote it - I certainly pictured an adult male talking to an adult female, but liked that the the second person was genderless.

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I could easily change it to be genderless:

"You look beautiful," I said sadly.

That's a very different story. To me, at least. And because it's more open, it's maybe a better one. But it isn't the story I wanted to tell.

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Sleyf In reply to monstroooo [2016-02-20 09:21:59 +0000 UTC]

You're welcome!

I did actually think about it briefly as genderless, or reversed, there's so many possibilities!  But i do also understand how it could come across if you did change it to be genderless in both respects, it is indeed very different and has a completely different feel - though to me it feels less emotive in a way, I don't know why!

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