When you're on the verge of doing something awesome but back out at the last second or fail to accomplish your objectives due to cowardice.
Whether it's gaining a sizable lead during a Street Fighter match but ultimately losing or posting an inflamatory response on the forum then deleting it are two common examples of how to bottle it.
In a deployed HQ, there is one person who's job it is to make shit happen. This is the Battle Captain & it is a thankless task, involving many hours without sleep, trying to get more senior officers to stop dicking around & actually concentrate on the task in hand. If everything goes swimmingly, the same senior officers get the credit but if it all goes to ratshit, the Battle Captain has his or her buttons cut off, sword is snapped & they are sat on their horse backwards & paraded out of camp
"This is arolling goatfuck & we are all going to die" followed by "let's blame the Battle Captain".
With roots in the Japanese Edo period (1603-1867), and popularized by the daily fart battle web site, FartBattle(dot)com, a fart battle is a flatulencecompetition where 2 or more participants expel flatus and a winner is deemed based on several criteria such as length, vibration, volume, frequency, smell, or dampness.
Why are you guys farting into your smart phones?
Oh, we're having a fart battle, recording our farts to be put up on FartBattle(dot)com for judging. We must settle this score!