I've read stories in most of the BDSM au's that are out there, even in fandoms I don't normally read fic in. And a lot of it is dead boring to me. When I wrote "Hope There's Someone" I intentionally left out a lot of the tropes--people walking around on leashes, public corporal punishment in professional environments, etc. It was actually etothepii's stories that made me feel like it was a universe I could write in, because in those stories most of the formal play is kept to the bedroom, just like in real life, and the only significant outward difference is the way that doms and subs relate to each other, protectively, deferentially, and struggling with or against the expectations that come with their roles. To me, it's just a giant metaphor for how men and women are socialized to relate to each other, only with gender made irrelevant to the role.