... You know, from this thread and other ones on this site, I get the feeling that a lot of people frequenting this site have a thing against non-yuri stories in general. Is that right?
I mean, I get the complaints about this author's other work ending with a non-yuri relationship after spending the vast majority of its storyline giving the strong impression that it's going to end with a yuri relationship, and that's really shitty. But holding a big enough grudge that you'd never read another story by the author just because they might pull the same bait-and-switch ending again, even if the work has a unique/interesting premise?
A lot of people come for yuri so they don't necessarily wanna read something else. I do think the hate usually seen against het stories is pretty unreasonable though. In regards to this particular author, one work can show a lot about how they think about certain issues, so i can understand people's reservations about him.
How Idol pretender was handled was just....bad. It's biggest problem wasn't even the yuribait, but how he handled gender identity and roles. In Idol pretender the pairing everyone was rooting for was actually the het pair since MC was originally male and identified as male. The problem was that MC suddenly became "girlier" and "weaker" (went from beating up creeps to being scared and useless and needed to be rescued) the longer he was in a female body and ended up with his male best friend not because he identified as gay, but because he was in a female body, he had to end up with a male.
Hell i think the best friend and yuri love interest were done properly (they both accepted mc regardless of his body). Being with the best friend wouldn't have been so bad if MC was the same person throughout the story, but it was portrayed as MC seeing friend be more attractive as he became "girlier" to the point he didn't want to take the medicine to change back to a male so they could be together.
With such a fuck up like that, it's hard to believe the author understands gender and sexuality. I personally am willing to give him a chance, but if it turns het, I won't be surprised.