Re: power bottoming, I wouldn't say they're technically the same thing. Usually, I've seen gay guys use "power bottom" to just denote someone who's a very active and energetic and enthusiastic bottom. And "bottom" is more analogous with a sub than with a dom/top. I've never heard of "power bottom" being used in the sense of someone outright *dominating* from the bottom (which is not the same as someone being "a bossy bottom" or "trying to top from the bottom" when it should be the dom who's in charge). If you're a power bottom, you're enthusiastic and energetic about being bonked, but you (usually) aren't calling the shots the way a dominant bottom would be. TL;DR I've usually just seen the "power" prefix meaning one's level of energetic enthusiasm rather than what role they take (psychologically or physically). Not that all kinds of uses don't exist, of course, because people use every possible kind of sexuality term in the weirdest and most contradictory of ways these days, but this is how I've usually seen it go down. It's all very jumbled up these days.
Now, if there only were a clear-cut way to tag for those instances when a dom is forced into subbing (or bottoming at the very least). I have used the tag "Dom Forced to Sub," but I'm sure there are a gazillion ways to tag this, too, as it's definitely a common trope. Maybe there IS a tag already, but I just haven't found it yet.
I think you might've misread? I said they're not technically the same thing. 😅 Because I totally agree, they're really not.
Personally, I've often seen "power bottom" used to refer to a bottom who's taking the leading role — not necessarily dominating, , but still kinda in charge? I'm lacking words, apologies.
I've also seen "topping from the bottom" used in a way to indicate power bottom and it irks me every time! Like nooo that's not what that means! (The one that gets me the most is the confusion between edging and edge play. They're not the same thing, not even close. 😭 )
Honestly it all boils down to lack of knowledge regarding queer / fandom terminology. When your only resources are yourself and the vast abyss that is the Internet, it's not hard to get some stuff wrong lol
Thats a dynamic I haven't considered 😯
A dom being forced to submit sounds hella intriguing!!
Maybe "Forced Submission" as a tag? It doesn't indicate that the character is dominant, but still gets the point across?
When in doubt, I like using the tag search: canonical & non-synonymous sorted by most used in descending order. Really helps when trying to figure out how to tag a particular thing!
I think the tag wranglers are magicians tbh. No idea how they do it but so glad they do.
Oh bugger, my bad; I think my brain's melting from the heatwave! 🥵The "conversational" question mark and "Dominant bottom" being used synonymously with "power bottom" probs threw me, so my brain read that as "aren't they the same thing?" 🤦♀️Sorry!
I totally agree with you on people just not knowing any sexuality terms anymore, just going with what their mates on Tumblr say and not bothering to do any research:P I constantly see people using terms in contexts that *nobody* would've used them in, back in 2000 or so. It's just mind-boggling to someone like me, who grew up in a world where the WWW wasn't a thing yet, not until I was in my late teens. So, having almost all the information of the world at your fingertips, having access to almost all the books you could ever want to read and *still* not wanting to do even the tiniest bit of cursory research (which can take just a few minutes, now, instead of weeks of poring over 20 books at the library to find that one reference buried in a footnote) is just plain weird to me. Especially when we're talking important things like identity terminology, and things that people get into heated debates about! But ah well. Rant over :p
"Forced subbing," hmm. That can be done to anyone, though, irrespective of their preferences. So it's not quite as specific as the context I mean with "dom forced to sub."
Let me try and sum up the relevant fic as tightly as I can (caveat for the heatwave brain fondue, however! 🥵)
So, in my current fandom, there's a bad guy, a sexually sadistic cavalry general, who's cruel with women and even brags about it (unfortunately, he's also *hot*). In the original show, he often likes to force people to submit to him in various ways. Like he makes the heroine dance on hot coals in the name of interrogating her, and we see him perving her while she does it (cool as a cucumber, the badass she is). In the original novel, if one of his soldiers says something stupid, he thwacks him with his horsewhip. So that's what he's like--he'll use any excuse to torture women (sexily) or to bully other men.
So, you can imagine what the fanfic is like, right? 🤣 It's basically just an explicit version of the same. I often write guilty-pleasure PWPs where he tortures women with pain *and* pleasure, forcing them to submit to his evilsexy ways (in exchange for screaming orgasms and, y'know, getting out alive). Others have written slash where he bums various heroes at swordpoint for fun. Like if you walk into the Cavalry HQ, Mr. Handsome Sadist WILL "interrogate" you by nailing you in front of his men, no question about it. So, that's what the fic version of him usually does: forcing others to sub.
So, I once wrote a story where the big bully gets captured by a devious courtesan from the same show. He wakes up in her dungeon and she--very much a dominatrix in this one--interrogates and punishes him for his sins against women, and does *not* let him off easily. It turned into a very morally complex exploration of sex and violence, gender and power, pleasure and pain. (It's not like she's this proud feminist avenger, though; she's a ruthless bitch herself, and they powerplay and manipulate each other all night--because people are messy and complicated like that, and my brain simply refuses to write simplistic b/w morality plays.) So it's two warped people negotiating sex and violence in a world full of both--particularly when one is a sex worker, and the other an elite soldier.
So, like with so many tags, to reduce a complicated fic like that to just "dom is forced to sub" doesn't do it full justice. But of course, tags will help people find it, so...
Sorry for the convoluted explanation! I just wanted to give the background as to why him being, specifically, a "dom forced to sub" is more fitting. A powerful person forced into relinquishing that power is definitely a trope and a kink of its own (not that I think you were insisting otherwise, JSYK). That trope--just like anything else where a character is forced into acting in an uncharacteristic way--is such great fic fodder, and such an old trope that I'm sure there must be a very specific tag for it, too.
I know about exploring the synned tags, yeah, but sometimes I'm not happy about what gets synned with what, and I avoid using a particular tag so as not to misrepresent my fic. I know, I know; this is an inevitable problem with so many tag variants, and you can't satisfy everyone. Role Reversal may be closest (I use that, too), but it's still not quite the same. But of course, *throws hands up* it's out of my hands. I know the wranglers are doing their best. So, I'll keep looking!
And yeah, the tag wranglers are total superheroes. They really are. We're not worthy! 🙇♀️
Comment on Updates to "No Fandom" Additional Tags, June 2026
Snowgrouse Wed 01 Jul 2026 09:01PM UTC
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korangi Wed 01 Jul 2026 11:30PM UTC
Last Edited Wed 01 Jul 2026 11:32PM UTC
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Snowgrouse Thu 02 Jul 2026 05:58AM UTC
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