[spoilers for takedown chapter 14 below]
ahh thank you!!! all of this is so incredibly kind 😭 i'm actually not sure which part of the scene you mean by **! i feel like there are a few things in there that could've been surprising. honestly, i often find smut difficult to write because like, there are only so many ways to describe sex (sex is inherently kind of a repetitive act!) and it's easy to veer into cringe "throbbing manhood" kinds of flowery language if you try too hard to come up with new ones. so writing smut can, for me, be this weird mix of dull and also stressful, because i have to keep myself interested and engaged but i also can't just skip the slightly repetitive parts where i describe what's happening or what it feels like because then it's not hot. so anyway, all that is to say, i often find i have to either introduce a new interpersonal dynamic or new acts into the smut just as a way of keeping myself interested in writing it. i need it to feel like something new and not just kind of a re-skinned version of every other sex scene i've written. i also find it a fun personal challenge to figure out how i can get myself into certain things, like finding an angle of approach that makes something erotic when i might not have thought it was before. for example, i don't find the idea of dick piercings to be hot at all really, but i DO find the idea of takedown jungkook specifically getting one to be hot and compelling, because of the reasons behind why he might do it! the pain of it, the ornamentation, the desire to show off, the need to be visually appealing -- it's all such a good soup in the context of his character.

also you're so right about them having all these arguments that don't go anywhere but somehow still develop their relationship lol! i was complaining to my beta angel about that while writing this chapter, that all they seem to do is have these conversations where they DO learn new things about each other and see each other in a different light, but somehow it doesn't put them on the same page still. it's super frustrating!! which i guess is a weird thing for ME to complain about lmao, because i'm the author, i could just CHOOSE to put them on the same page! but idk, it wouldn't feel right. i'm really glad they feel like different unique people! i've spent a lot of time thinking about what jungkook and namjoon the real people have in common and what they seem to do and think about differently -- they each have such different ways of thinking and speaking about the world. so some of the inspiration for their characters comes from that! and some of it also comes from being in my mid-30s and being able to look back on how i acted and thought in my late teens/early 20s versus now. it helps for me to illuminate where some of the points of conflict between them might be, or the things they might have trouble understanding about each other.

also like, with jungkook at least, i didn't start to consider his inner life in a deep way until like chapter 6! sometimes when you're writing it's like, okay i want the love interest to act in x y z ways because those are charming and endearing and will make the pov character react in a way that i think will be fun/hot/compelling/etc. but then i got to this point where jungkook had been rejected by namjoon and kind of had his world shattered and so it was like well shit, now i HAVE to really empathize with him and figure out how he might process this. so i don't want to make it seem like i'm ever just flying blind with either of them, because i do always feel like i have a fairly solid grasp of what they're feeling or why they're acting a certain way in the moment, but i'm also discovering and building things about them as people as i go to some extent! slotting new things into place! it makes it fun to write, because as i write i get to know them more and i discover unexplored parts of them that i get to fill in.