u/Unnamed-Fruit

I saw that one of my favourite stories updated yesterday, so I clicked in, watched the ads and then it asked for a passcode, so I assumed it was an accidental update because I’ve never seen that before and left it alone. Checked again today, it said the episode had been updated, refunded my pass and I re-watched the ads only to get hit with the option to unlock the episode for 8 gems?

I’m familiar with early access and even though I dislike it, I can usually get around it with pass-free reading, so is this a new way authors are trying to get early access but with an in-game forced gem option? Am I right to feel kind of annoyed by that? What are y’all’s thoughts?

Where is the best place to spend gems in a story?

Is it better to spend them on things like skip the wait or early access? Or do you prefer readers spend gems on in-game choices, bonus content, author support?

Ideally, it would be all of the above, but for those of us who are gem poor, I’ve heard a lot of conflicting things lately about where readers should spend them, so I’m just wondering what the best use of gems to support authors we love would be?

Can we please stop LI favouritism in stories that are marketed as a love triangle? 😩

I have posted this before, but I feel like a reminder is needed because every “love triangle” story I pick up, I build points with the LI that fits the vibe I’m getting only to have the LI I don’t care about constantly shoved down my throat and the LI I’m building points with hasn’t interacted with the MC for multiple episodes 😭

I need authors to understand that who the MC ends up with only matters if they actually had a story before they got there and you can’t do that if they go 5+ episodes at a time without even talking which brings me to my next criticism that I have also posted about before: it’s not a slow burn just because it takes a long time. They. Need. To. Interact.

/endrant

What are some stories (completed or ongoing) that you initially dropped and then came back to and ended up loving? My tbr is already crazy, but I am inhaling stories lately so looking for some “trust the process” hidden gems that I might be missing 👀

Been noticing that there are 3 tropes that are super popular on this app and they’re rarely done right so I want to yap about it 👀

1. Slow Burn

I live for a good slow burn. The slower the better! HOWEVER I feel like it’s a common misconception that taking a long time = a slow burn and it’s always a miss for me. I find a lot of “slow burn” romances are full of other character interactions, excessive side plots and the main couple often gets pushed to the side and only interacts once in a blue moon and that’s just not a slow burn. Limiting their interactions and filling up screen time with other stuff to make the romance take longer is just not it.

2. Love Triangles

Love triangles are probably the worst offenders because I have yet to see a solid love triangle where the author didn’t have an absolute favourite LI that they shove down our throats CONSTANTLY. Don’t sell me a love triangle if you aren’t actually interested in writing one ✋

3. Enemies To Lovers

This one is frustrating too because in all the stories I’ve read on here, they’re never really enemies. They usually just insult each other very lightly while finding each other irresistible immediately and then we have to pretend we don’t know that they already have feelings for each other so the build up isn’t a complete let down. Add to that the “morally grey” men in this trope are always just generic rich boys with tattoos who never do anything truly “wrong” so I struggle with this one.

Anyways, that’s my rant. If anyone has any recs for stories that do these tropes right, I’d greatly appreciate it 🙏