the_ragnarok | (no subject)

this concept has been conceived by

bemusedlybespectacled, then i squeed about it a bunch with

findundergrounddragoutofwater and, well.

so basically the idea is that in the D/s au there's this division - in the original concept it was only a thing for super rich americans, but

findundergrounddragoutofwater and i expanded it to be a general society thing - where subs are divided to upstairs and downstairs subs.

upstairs subs are pretty. they are decorative and highly mannered and presentable. they are status symbols.

downstairs subs take the heavy punishment and do the heavy labor. they are the ones who get shared with other doms/households. they can serve as whipping boys/girls for upstairs subs.

if going for the wider-society thing, one can postulate subs who are sort of "in between", ones that became more common with the rise of the middle class - stairwell subs, who do white collar jobs.

to get fandom-specific, the original idea contained some nice Leverage headcanons, centralizing on downstairs sub Eliot who has strongly internalized the upstairs/downstairs division - of course he's the one who'll take the punishment, would it be better to let some pretty, delicate upstairs sub take it instead of him? and please let us consider: some upstairs sub catching Eliot's eye before he's about to be punished, the upstairs sub looking concerned if not horrified, and Eliot smiling to set them at ease.

other leverage character headcanons include Hardison who believes all subs should be upstairs subs; Parker who often goes undercover as an upstairs sub, but has a lot of experiences with doms treating her like a downstairs sub; and nonsexual mommy dom Sophie. and stairwell sub Nate.

for POI, there is a plethora of possible readings: John of course sees himself as a downstairs sub in a way very similar to Eliot. Harold can be a dom, or a stairwell sub, or made to be an upstairs sub and going slowly insane with boredom. (He can organize parties and pick nice outfits with the best of them!)

another thought we had was - upstairs subs are not supposed to have sex with anyone but their dom, they don't get shared, but they might have nonsexual romance with other upstairs subs and have that treated as cute and nonthreatening. So upstairs sub harold having courtly love with Grace, the upstairs sub from next door - consider john going on hands and knees so Harold can climb over him and kiss Grace through a window.

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I like bringing in the socioeconomic implications, I mean, we're talking about how the family unit is structured! Stuff that's going to have a deep impact on how labor is organized in this society. I can see this going two ways, like you said. One option is there's a higher ratio of subs to doms and being a dom at all is associated with a higher social class. In this case there are class differences within families as well as between them. How do children, then, get assigned as doms or subs?

I like the idea that only the rich can afford multiple subs. If it is a class thing, and "downstairs" subs are constructed more as domestic servants are in real-world societies... hmm. Well, first off, you don't have as much of a service-based economy because social reproductive labor is being done mostly within the family. I think there's less of a "middle class" as we think of it in the West and a more clear distinction between upper class and working class, where upper class households have multiple subs who don't work outside the home, and lower class households are one dom/one sub and usually both have to do wage labor most of the time and have more significant intergenerational and community ties to get things like child care handled. Possibly to support this there's state funded child care from a young age... for the working class of course, taught by working class teachers, because both upstairs and downstairs subs have a role in childrearing and older kids go to private school. Hmm, is being a downstairs sub a method of class mobility for the lower class, maybe the only one? Are there rules about who the genetic parents of children are supposed to be, and are there rules about who in the family is considered a parent socially? This is super interesting to me as a highly stratified society where the rich control the economy and have larger households and more formal D/s. They don't even necessarily have jobs per se, maybe there aren't as many white collar jobs in this economy. They own businesses or investments and make their money that way, so probably rich doms and upstairs subs are both doing work to manage that but not being paid a wage for it and not having a boss.

oooooooh.

Speaking of rules re: genetic children and parents...I'm wondering how the staircase system of subs might affect or be inspired by things like royalty, and kings who had queens and then mistresses, with both of them occupying roles in court. It isn't an exact parallel, cuz downstairs subs wouldn't be expected to get the kind of behind-the-throne respect that king's mistresses would get, but...huh.

AND ON THE FAMILY UNIT NOTE AND LABOR ORGANIZATION NOTE...how would a BDSM AU, even without the staircase system, have ARCHITECTURE differences from our own?

All bedframes might just be built with the expectation of bondage, but would there be things like leash hooks everywhere? Would a really posh place put recesses for pillows beside the chairs, so that high class subs don't have to kneel for long boring society events on the marble floor? Would there be designated play/punishment rooms in every building? To what extent is all space "dungeon space," and how are subs you claim for sex different than those who are just in your household because in this iteration there are more subs than doms?

zerah came up with the amazing idea of Public Enforcement, and

theragnarokd has written fabulous fic for it, so there is also that

And to what extent is kink seen as a Sex Thing like it is in our world, vs. something performed in public? What expressions of D/s are considered appropriate around children? Heck, how do kids learn about these roles and how do they get the practical skills?

I was kicking around the idea of sex education in school with

ardentintox, where there were really terrible 90s lab safety style videos shown to a bunch of bored teenagers about The Wonders of the Stoplight System! How to Negotiate Limits! (flash animation of a form d/s contract) Here's a poor quality video of a guy in khakis and a polo shirt demonstrating how to use a flogger on a neon blue mannequin!

But re: Sex Things, and public play: maybe in a BDSM AU, where it is assumed that everyone has an inherent desire to be in a 24/7 power exchange relationshp, kink is less strongly correlated with SEX specifically in people's minds, and more strongly correlated with ROMANCE?

Like...maybe having your sub give you oral sex in the middle of the sidewalk might not be acceptable, but people would wear collars openly all the time (leashes only for formal events). Nudity and genitalia might not be acceptable in public, but a sub kneeling for their dom outside might be the equivalent of a couple holding hands outside. More a sign of intimacy, less an overt sexual act.

Sex is still something people generally expect in relationships, but kink is more widely seen as non-sexual and appropriate to practice in public, with specific things being dependent on region and culture.

Makes sense! And how about if there were some things that are appropriate in (some of) our world, like public kissing, that weren't in this one?

Oooooooooh

I..,hm.

I’m just spitballing here, but maybe, in a world where some people have given up very deep control of aspects of their lives to other people, there would be a stronger taboo against speaking to subs who were out with their doms before asking permission?

Like in our world, if I see a couple, I assume I can talk to both of them no problem. But in a BDSM AU, depending on the formality of the event or how the relationship presented, I might not consider it good etiquette to speak to the sub without addressing their dom first?