holdin' it

Most ideal is they keep a catheter in me, locked in a way I can't physically go to the bathroom without someone unlocking me. They keep me on a very limited schedule of how often I can empty my bladder. Maybe they keep me gagged or otherwise don't permit me to speak. I go person to person trying to beg to have my bladder emptied. One refuses, the other insists I must have gone already. They torment me more and more, mocking my desperation until I'm willing to do literally anything for even a little relief.

If your bladder isn't cramping, you don't need to go.

If you're not squirming, you don't need to go.

If you're not leaking, you don't need to go.

If you're not holding yourself, you don't need to go.

If you haven't had much to drink today, you don't need to go.

If your bladder isn't bulging, you don't need to go.

If you emptied your bladder in the last hour, you don't need to go.

You can only pee when your bladder is 100% at its limit (when it normally would start coming out on its own without your control). You don't get any special knowledge of when that is, just the regular feeling of desperation. If you try to go to the bathroom, even if you're 99% full, you won't be able to get any out. When you hit 100%, your bladder automatically empties itself completely, regardless of where you are.

You can pee whenever you want, but it comes out one literal drip (~0.05mL) at a time, maybe 2 drips per second if you're lucky, 1 drip per second or even longer if you've really pissed off the curse caster. If your max bladder capacity is 500mL, it would take almost an hour and a half to empty completely at 2 drips a second. You could only get about 30mL out in a regular 5-minute bathroom trip. To keep a regular schedule, you would often have to stop the flow and go about your day, still full to the brim but out of time to empty. And then when you're absolutely desperate, having to suffer through the torment of that desperation releasing itself one...drip...at...a...time...

The person who casts the curse picks an activity of daily living (eating, walking, speaking, etc.: let's say sleeping for this scenario), and now you can only do it if your bladder is at least 75% full. You literally, physically won't be able to do the activity if you're less full than that. Now, when you're tired, you have to drink a bunch and wait to fill up, then get in bed uncomfortably full and try to fall asleep. You'll have to get over your anxiety about wetting the bed, because no matter how tired you are, you physically can't sleep unless you have to pee, so having insomnia from your full bladder just won't do. Maybe sometimes you do wet the bed and then instantly wake up, unable to go back to sleep until you fill yourself up again.

You can only pee if someone else is pressing on your bladder for you. Otherwise, the curse makes your bladder and torso expand indefinitely, so you'll hold it without bursting until you can get someone to help, but you'll be in absolute agony. And how embarrassing and heavy it would be to walk around with a bladder bulge the size of a yoga ball. It's an okay curse if you have a willing friend or partner, but what if you live alone? What about at work? What if you're home alone for the day (or the week)? How would you find someone to help you?

You wake up every morning with a different bladder capacity, but there's no way (except trial & error) to tell what it is. Some days it's huge and you can hold a gallon of water just fine. Other days you have half a cup of coffee and you're wetting yourself. The curse also makes you very thirsty, so avoiding drinks altogether isn't an option. You just have to drink very carefully and hope to hell whenever you take a sip of something that there's a bathroom readily available in case it fills your bladder way more than you were expecting.

The concept for this would go CRAZY.

One designated pisser for an entire room. Everyone sends their piss to one person who has to RACE to the toilet to get there in time.

Someone interested in doing a hold but doesn't want to wait starts accepting every piss request they can get until they're twisted up and biting their lip and stifling their whines because it hit all at once and feels so damn good.

Accepting an emergency piss request from someone about to wet themselves so now you're completely exploding because the amount you agreed to take is incredibly large.

another fun theatre fact: it is HOT backstage, and it’s very easy to go through upwards of 2 750ml water bottles over the course of a 3 hour show.

like being given permission to relieve yourself but only enough to fill a shot glass or small washcloth, then having to stop and hold the rest. relief so tantalizing and close and now you’re even more desperate than before…

ok so I already talked about a historical omo fantasy in my last ask, so i’ll talk about a modern-day but still unrealistic fantasy

realizing your water bottle is full & having to chug it right before the security line — and then having to run to catch your flight without time to stop at a bathroom

a turbulent flight means no getting up to pee. hope the bumps don’t jostle your bladder too much!

window seats window seats window seats

having to tap a stranger on the shoulder and ask them to get up because yes really, you’re about to piss yourself

or the person in the aisle seat is asleep. they finally wake up just as the pilot announces that the plane is starting its descent. seatbelts on! surely you can make it til landing?

- you CANNOT adjust clothing on stage, even during rehearsal, it’s one of the first things we’re taught. So imagine your costume has such a tight belt squeezing your bladder.. there’s nothing you can do to loosen it until you get a second off stage (that is.. if you don’t have a quick change or have to sprint to your next entrance..)

- I remember one time in an audition I was so close to wetting myself, honestly id never had to go that badly before. We were all sitting in the audition room, waiting for our number to be called (this was maybe an hour in, I’d been chugging water to calm my nerves) and I was kneeling on the floor trying my BEST not to squirm because the director was right there.

Anyway my number was one of the last to be called, and while I was waiting I truly thought ‘I’m either going to have to run out of this room and accept I won’t get a part, or I’ll have to hope I don’t leak visibly’. I had my heel under me, pressed on my pee hole, I was sweating and trying not to move. When my number was finally called I’m pretty sure I was leaking a little, but of course it’s an audition, you HAVE to give it everything. I sprinted to those toilets the second it was over.

- In one of the theatres I perform at most, the dressing rooms only have one toilet for the cast, and it’s forbidden to use the Main House toilets, do I’ve witnessed plenty of people running off stage, through the dressing rooms, shouting about how they’re about to wet themselves.

- on stage freezes. Absolutely golden. You can’t move a muscle, you can’t even blink, so imagine someone’s there, frozen in place, they can’t squirm or hold themselves or cross their legs. Maybe they’re slowly leaking, knowing nothing can be done to stop it. Maybe they’re shaking. They’re definitely thibking go the scene ahead, are there any moments they can subtly grab their crotch?

- someone subtly rubbing themselves against the set. One show I did, we had a huge metal frame structure to sit on. Someone with one of those metal poles between their legs, rocking on it slowly.

- directors often give notes after rehearsals, before anyone can leave. A bladder shy person, absolutely desperate to go for the whole rehearsal, which is often 6 hours with one 30 minute break. They’ve been drinking water for their voice all day, you get dehydrated during a physical rehearsal. They’ve been too scared to ask to run to the toilet, not in front of the directors, stage crew and entire cast, so theyve held it through sheer willpower.. but now, during notes that famously drag on.. theyre sweating and squirming. They want to cry. They’re rocking in their seat maybe, barely paying attention.. do they make it to the toilet? Can they stomach using the one in the dressing room?

- cast members are usually very close with each other, literally you do awkward scenes, change in the same room, youre together every day for weeks.. imagine all the ‘god I have to go right now’ ‘mate I’m not sure I’ll make it through the scene’