Top/Bottom
Crowley: (to Castiel) Have you forgotten that you're the bottom in this relationship?
Slash fiction in most fandoms is heavily centered around defining the participants as either "tops" or "bottoms".
In fanfiction, the top has the penetrative role in a sexual act (usually both anal and oral), and adopts a dominant role in the relationship. The bottom is the receptive partner, and while not necessarily submissive in a BDSM sense, is usually portrayed as more emotionally vulnerable or fragile.
While certainly not all Slash fic complies to these roles, the majority do. In Wincest in the past, Dean seems to have been mainly portrayed as the bottom and Sam as the top, and correspondingly Jensen as bottom and Jared as top in RPF. Over the past few years this appears to have changed, with Dean (and Jensen) topping far more- possibly due to plot devices such as the Mark of Cain and the Trials. A 2016 poll taken by pathossam came out with 151 people in favour of Sam as bottom, as opposed to the 76 in favour of Dean as bottom.
The introduction of Castiel and the rise of Dean/Castiel as a pairing, did disrupt these designations. A large number of Dean/Castiel authors had not written, or indeed read, Wincest and so were not as restricted by the well-established tropes associated with that pairing. Castiel is usually written as topping when he’s being powerful angel, or as a bottom when the fic focuses on his sexual inexperience. There is typically more variety in the roles in Destiel fic.
In an interview with blogger Carina MacKenzie in 2012, Misha said ""Here's a spoiler for you, Carina. We do learn, definitively, in Purgatory, that Dean is a bottom." source.
Many fans will include a Fic Warning for top/bottom configurations.
These fics will be found in all fic communties, but there are some specialist communities:
- Bottom Dean
- Bottom dean recs
- Bottom Sammy bottom!Sam or bottom!Jared
- Top!Dean and Top!Jensen comm
- Bottom Jared
- Fic recs of stories featuring Top!Jensen or Dean
