#12 hours later! while I'm actively stressing about how late it is and how it will impact my obligations tomorrow!

[demo-ness]

my sleep schedule is already so fucked and now I'm sitting here having anxiety heart palpitations

[kristlewrites]

“Baby I’m ready for take off”

CW: Cock Warming ,Chest Riding, Fluff(?), Poorly written smut, comfort(?) nicknames ( ma, mamas, papa, and baby)

PAIRING: Connie x Black!FemReader

WC: 0.9k

🫧🗯️: Test run post! Don’t judge🤒 ALSO! first time writing smut so if it’s bad i’m sorry, it’ll probably remain like that for a minute…(title is from a wayv song.. doesn’t have to do anything with the fic🪦🪦)

MINORS DNI

(take off!)

It's been a long day, long week even. School has been beating your ass with essays and finals..this was your only chance to relax. You enter connie's apartment around 6 pm, he wasn't there because he's also been busy but not with school. The team made it to regionals and the coach has been working the team the bone with drills everyday.

     You use your key that he lent to you and make yourself at home, he lived off campus. You make your way into the shower and clean yourself up real quick and change into his pajamas, although a lot of your clothes is in his room, hell ! you even have your own drawer! But you love the way his clothes feels on you and his scent makes you feel safe. You were absolutely starving by the time you got dressed and decided to go order some food, wing-stop you finally decide you got yourself a 12 pc hot and lemon pepper with a side of fries and A sprite. When the food came around it was almost eight and Connie should be on his way home.

   After you finished eating you cleaned up super quick and went to bed, connie showed up about an hour later. He knew you were here but seeing you in his sheets and pjs made his heart falter. He went in the shower quickly and joined you in bed. He tried his best not to make any noise but regardless you still woke up 

    "Sorry ma, didn't mean to wake you up"

    he said so gentle, 

      "how are you? I'm sorry I came home late.. i didn't expect coach to keep us so long"

   he caressed your cheeks trying to get you back to sleep. You looked up at his beautiful freckled face, you missed him so much you guys havent been able to see each other at all this week with being so occupied with your own personal activities and affairs. Small tears stream from your eyes, he wipes them away with such care and delicacy.

   "I know, I know ive missed you too, baby"

    You turn towards to him and indulge into his chest , he's not wearing a shirt which is normal since he gets really sweaty at night (😭😭🪦🪦🪦) you start talking about the events that happened that week, how your essay went, how you absolutely failed your stats test, new books you bought, girl drama, and how stressful it's been for you. He nods occasionally and throws in a couple of "mhms" to let yk that he's still listening. This goes on for about an hour and at this point you're just rambling, but connie understands how much you love to talk and let's you continue without complaint, that is until you ask him about his week and what he's done. 

   At this point he's practically knocked out. 

   "Hah, What was that baby what did you say??" he said a little bit groggy

   You repeat your question, but while you do you see that he's HARD??? No way this man was hard from just hearing you talk.But then he must've been backed up from this whole week because of how rarely he saw you or had anytime for himself. When you think about it has been a while since y'all had sex, because of how seldom it's been to even talk to him on the phone 

   "Hey con.. You're hard, how long has it been?" you ask while playing with his nipples. (🪦🪦🪦)

   "Baby you don't even understand how much i've missed you..c'mere" He pulls you closer to his penis.

  Slowly he removes his pants and boxers, revealing his hard leaking cock.. good lord it was so much prettier than you remember. You slowly enter his dick into your hole, surprised by how wet you were.

   "Be careful mamas I could jizz into you at any point" you laughed at his choice of words, it was clear that he hasn't been relived in awhile..and while you were also tired doesn't mean you could at least help him out!!?? and you were on the pill so that should count for something..right??? Continuing you grab ahold of his tip and insert it, until fully seethed into your pussy. It felt so good, you grabbed his hand and placed it on your stomach showing him where his dick is. That really pushed him over and sprayed your pussy through and through. your poor baby he was so sensitive. You guys stayed like that until morning.

   Waking up, you find yourself looking at connie sleeping so soundly and peacefully. You reach for your phone but feel restricted once you've realized the man got a whole ass dick in you. omggg

  "Baby wake up" you whisper yell, tapping his chest. you roam your fingers on along his abs, a few seconds later connie shifts a little bit to remove his cock from you and lifts you up and places you down on his chest. This all happens so quick that u immediately shiver, with your wet slicky pussy on top of his chest he begins move you up and down while his dick teases at your ass crack. Your nails dig into his abdomen while you grind your silky pussy over his abs. Connie's hands take pleasure in your tits while they bounce up and down, twisting and turning you nipples putting you into over drive. Your cum glazes over his abs, you panting hard. First thing in the morning... You rest your head on his chest finding his heart beat while he rubs your head calming you down. 

   "I love you ma" he whispers, he feels your smile into his chest and laughs a bit. He raises your head, "did you hear what I said?" He leans in for a kiss and you return it. "I love you too papa"

(Think of this as a soft launch ijbol)🫧🗯️

[msommers]

14, 18, 23, 27, and 30 for elena and val!

thank you!!! xxx // questions for ttrpg characters

14. what keeps them up at night?

ELENA — it could be so very many things, from little to big problems or her remembering how dumb she sounded in a conversation that morning or realizing she has a big day of socializing ahead of her blah blah blah. very anxious and active mind, it keeps her up at night for a good while. usually reads a book or pets her dogs to help relax enough for rest.

RIYA — literally nothing for 25 years, she's lived on fuckin' easy street her entire life and not worried about a thing. if you wanna be a goofster then the answer is whatever lover she has in bed that night lmao (as of right now, a lot keeps her up because she's not equipped to deal with genuine stress and fear and being on her own, it's terrifying and ruining her sleep career. -12/10, would not recommend)

18. what dish brings back the best memories for them?

ELENA — probably something like an apple pie. brings her back to baking with her parents, sharing a dessert at the dinner table with donny and bianca, dropping off some sweets around the city as gifts or donations, etc etc. always a gentle, happy memory dotted with joy or satisfaction or the like.

RIYA — i have no idea 💜 she's probably the type to not care much about the dish anyway, just the company she had while eating it. closest thing would likely be some kind of potential mini feast her family hosted after her first tourney participation, she didn't win but it was still a joyous celebration of her Getting There and tbh was probably an entertaining trial by fire for her future boytoy of getting through an entire event with her dramatic family. 

23. in what moment did they consider themselves to be “grown up”?

ELENA — oh boy, i'm not sure. probably something dorky in her late teens like deciding "actually, mom and dad, i Will stay out an hour later than usual to hang with my friends" and thinking that made her feel so grown up lmfao 

RIYA — she is 100% that type of girl who had her first hook-up at like sixteen or seventeen and was full on I'm A Woman Now. I'm Grown. My Power Is Infinite.

27. how do they usually dress? why do they dress the way they do?

ELENA — for lazy days i think she enjoys a cute blouse and flowy skirt with minimal accessories. in general a lot of boat neckline, loves herself some little cap or flutter sleeves on short-sleeved articles but a lot of the times ends up in long sleeves because of whitestone weather.  ends up with a lot of layers most of the time, the type to have simple things underneath and over the top outer layers to display her whole divine deal. which means a lot of intricate detailing, fancy corsets, expensive fabrics, occasional pearls adorning the top, etc etc. wardrobe full of whites, golds and light blues, with some sprinklings of pinks. has That One very fancy, very detailed golden get-up that gets whipped out for occasions where she needs to show off her sunblessed status, which is mostly why a lot of her clothes are so Extra and Excessively Beautiful to begin with because her parents and the pelorians love to see her so bright and in the spotlight. she doesn’t entirely dislike it because she does enjoy the clothes and likes feeling pretty, but sometimes she likes lounging in simpler clothes. an absolute hoe for having flower patterns over anything tbh. prefers earrings and hair pins over any other accessory, rings after but not big on necklaces as she’s quite fond of her pelor amulet. 

RIYA — almost always dresses or skirts, 50/50 on having either a more form-fitting cut or flowy fabrics if she’s feeling bubbly. cleavage 90% of the time, as well as any other way she can show off some skin here and there—usually slits down the legs or on the sides of her dress. favorite colors are purple, red and black. frequently blinged out to the max with fancy designs, gems, jewelry and whatever other accessories you can think of. a big slut for those lengthy and flashy body chain necklaces, as well as any long chained necklace to match her usual v-shaped or plunging neckline. loves loves loves cuff bracelets and bangles, as well as the ones with chain or gem designs over the back of the hand which link to a ring on a finger. shoes depend entirely on her vibe when she makes the choice tbh. she dresses this way because 1) her family is rich, 2) she was raised by two parents who care deeply about appearances and displaying status through wardrobe, 3) she's a hoe, 4) more genuine than the last one there is that she genuinely enjoys showing off her status and her body; she wants to turn heads, craves being the one people are unable to take their eyes off of when she's in the crowd, and these bold outfits that loudly declare her confidence get the job done.

she's going to be absolutely miserable with the default babey warden recruit armor :')

30. how do they handle confrontation?

ELENA — oh, terribly. she doesn’t like it one bit. she becomes withdrawn and her sensitivity really starts to shine, as well as her habit of halting speech and hesitation to fully commit to strong negative emotions. (ie: not being able to fully lash out at donny during their last encounter, even while she was feeling all kinds of upset, hurt and frustrated.) she’s always let bianca handle anything resembling confrontation, her strengths lie in peacemaking and healing.

RIYA — answered here!

[almasexya]

Carnivorous Plants and the Things I Know About Them

I've been kicking around the idea of making a post like this and I figured it was of enough general interest to folks on Tumblr to go for it.

So

One of the things I do is grow carnivorous plants, like these

From top left to bottom right we have a Venus Flytrap, a North American Pitcher Plant, a Sundew, and a Butterwort. All of these are pictures I've taken of plants during the growing season.

Now if you look at these weird looking plants you probably wouldn't expect them to be native to North America, but they are. You can find pitcher plants all over the southeast up to the northeast into Canada, flytraps in the Carolinas, and butterworts and sundews all over the continent.

These plants are a lot of fun and easy to grow once you understand their requirements, but before we get into that, I want to take a moment and explain how they came to be in the first place.

To keep it short, carnivorous plants are carnivorous because they grow in soils that are lacking in the nutrients plants need to put out new growth. Because of this, they evolved to find their nutrients a different way - by luring, trapping, and digesting insects. While these plants still photosynthesize, they supplement this with the nutrients they absorb from insects.

Now that we've got that out of the way, I'm going to go into the basics of growing them, point by point. A short disclaimer - I'm specifically talking about temperate North American plants, since they're what I have experience growing. I can provide basic info on how to take care of tropical plants like the southeast asian pitcher plants, but as of this post I don't have experience with them yet.

Soil: For carnivorous plants, a good soil mixture is a must. These plants grow in nutrient-poor marshes, and the soil they call home is constantly wet. The main ingredient in basically any carnivorous plant soil mix is sphagnum peat moss, which is slightly acidic. The second part of the mixture is often perlite or horticultural sand. Some nurseries use a mix of equal parts peat and perlite while others use 80% peat and 20% perlite, but I've had success with both. The most important thing to ensure is that your soil doesn't have any fertilizer added to it. Because carnivores grow in low nutrient soil, any kind of medium that contains fertilizer can actually kill them.

Water: The other vitally important part of the equation (and the one that kills lots of plants when incorrectly applied) is water. Generally, unless your tap water is soft, water carnivores with distilled or reverse osmosis water. The minerals in tap water or even bottled drinking water can eventually build up and kill your plant in the same way fertilized soil does. Carnivores love waterlogged soil, and some even get flooded in nature. To approximate this, set your plant in a tray of water no more than an inch or two high. This ensures your soil stays wet without having to constantly water it.

Containers: Plastic pots are your friend. Avoid terra cotta clay pots, since they can leech minerals into the soil and also tend to dry out your substrate faster. Glazed clay containers can also work. If you're using the tray system, make sure to buy pots with drainage holes, so the water can get in. Also, a trick that lets the water in but keeps the soil from escaping is to line the bottom of the pot with long-fibered sphagnum moss. If you go with an undrained container, make sure to keep the soil wet at all times, but allow some of the water to evaporate in order to keep the water table fluctuating.

Sunlight: Since carnivores evolved their leaves to catch insects, they're pretty poor at photosynthesis. As a result, these plants love sun - the more the better. Many a store bought flytrap has perished as a houseplant due to lack of sun, so if you can, put these plants outside, in the sunniest spot you can. Generally, it's good to give most carnivores around 6 hours of sunlight per day. Many can get by with 4, but they don't often thrive with that amount of light.

Dormancy: Plants that grow in temperate or warm temperate climates tend to buckle down and hibernate during the late fall and winter months, conserving energy until spring. Generally speaking, the large traps die off, or in some cases the plant dies down to the roots, or forms a small bud that rests on the ground. Plants grown outside respond to colder temperatures and shorter photoperiods, while plants grown inside usually need some help. If you're growing your plants on a windowsill or in a terrarium, move them somewhere cold or cut down on their heating, and also diminish the amount of daily light they receive. You can also slow down on watering, though they still need some water to get by.

Temperature: Temperate and warm temperate carnivores can tolerate a wide range of temperatures, despite what you might think. My pots survived the freak snowstorm the Pacific Northwest got this February without a single dead plant. Most species can tolerate temperatures up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit and down to 20 degrees, though not for prolonged periods of time. If you see long spells of hot or cold weather coming, try and move your plants to a protected area until they pass.

Feeding and Fertilizing: Now I know what you're thinking. Fertilizer? He just told us that stuff was death! And it often is, but there are ways to fertilize your plants. Generally, a fertilizer made for acid-loving plants can be diluted and applied to the leaves during the growing season. I use Maxsea 16-16-16 on plants that are too young to easily catch prey (diluted down to a half teaspoon per gallon) and haven't had issues. Try not to spray the soil unless you frequently water your plants from overhead, as the dreaded mineral buildup can still occur. That said, if your plants are outside, they'll fertilize themselves. You can also "feed" your plants insects using tongs - keep in mind that some plants require their prey to be alive in order to secrete digestive enzymes. I'll get into prey in more detail in other posts about specific types of plants.

Flowering and Propagation: For a lot of carnivorous plants, flowering is an exhausting effort that tends to deplete the energy they would use creating traps. As a general rule, if you're not interested in seed, clip the flower stalks off. Many plants can be propagated through leaf or root cuttings, which produce genetically identical plants. Some plants also clump and form their own divisions over time, meaning all you need to do to get more is wait for a year or so, depending on the age of the plant.

Pests: Carnivores can be targeted by various pests. For insecticides, I've seen neem oil recommended, as its generally less harmful to the plant and the environment. I haven't had to make much use of these yet, so my information on insecticides is a bit of a blind spot. Generally, try and stay away from soap insecticides and aerosols, and stick to less concentrated varieties. If you're dealing with squirrels or rodents digging up your plants, I found a generous sprinkling of cayenne pepper around the plants works wonders, and does no harm to the plants.

This is a basic rundown of carnivorous plants and how to take care of some of them. I must stress there's a ton of information out there - this post is geared more towards starter plants that are fairly forgiving and simple to grow.

So why grow carnivorous plants when you can just go out and buy some petunias?

They're active: Carnivores are showy, unique plants that can move on their own through some incredibly unique and complex evolutions. Watching a Venus Flytrap snap shut or a Sundew curl around an insect is a truly special thing to see.

They're a conversation piece: The relative rarity of carnivores in cultivation means the average person doesn't know much about them, despite maybe having heard of a Venus Flytrap before. A 12" pot of flytraps, sundews, and pitchers is a surefire way to grab attention.

They can control certain pests: Carnivorous plants can act as natural pest controllers. North American Pitcher Plants gorge themselves on flies and wasps, and considering some pitchers can grow over two feet tall, they can hold plenty of them. Sundews and butterworts specialize in catching smaller prey, such as fungus gnats, fruit flies, and even fleas. These plants can work as limited, natural pest controllers, though they won't eradicate a yellow jacket nest for you.

They're endangered in the wild: The wet, marshy habitats carnivores call home are rapidly dwindling due to improper land management and development. Some are nearly extinct in their home ranges, kept going through dedicated nurseries and attempts to naturalize them in other locations. By caring for carnivorous plants, you're raising awareness of these unique, underappreciated organisms and aiding in their conservation by keeping them alive.

Phew, I realize this was a lot, but I hope it was a fun read! Let me know what you think about carnivorous plants, or if you have any questions about them. I'm going to try and go into more detail on specific plants later, but for now, I wanted to bang out the basics.

If you're looking for more information, Flytrapcare.com is a great forum, and the r/savagegarden subreddit is very helpful as well. For books on the subject, the Savage Garden by Peter D'Amato is the go to source. Nurseries I've used and can vouch for are Sarracenia Northwest (located in Oregon) and California Carnivores (located in California).

[haydenstudiesblog-blog]

i'm starting my sophomore year of high school soon and i'm completely stressing out. i finished freshman year 4th in my class and a uw gpa of 98 and w gpa of 103.3. (my gc hasnt converted it to the 4.0/5.0 scale for me yet). i'm beyond nervous for this year because i now have such high expectations for myself. i'm also taking 2 college level classes and i don't know if i will be able to handle the workload. can you give me some tips on handling stress/doing well in rigorous courses ? thank you !

Well first let me just say this: you remind me so much of myself and my boyfriend right now in the fact that you’re giving yourself such high expectations and you’re already stressing about meeting them! Take a moment to relax; a tip I have yet to actually practice myself is to relax. If you aren’t relaxed, you’re just going to stress yourself out even more, if that makes sense. If you walk in with a bunch of stress and worries, they will only get worse.

I, myself, am in college and am taking on an overload and I took 2 summer classes, neither of which I have ever done before. I was nervous and I really needed to do well, and I knew that. I had my heart set on doing well, and I took/am taking the time to sit down and give all of my attention to the work I need to get done... and I did well, and I’m still doing well!

Relax. Don’t worry before you have anything to worry about.

Make sure you make time to do the things you enjoy doing, whether that be reading, binge watching some Netflix, vegging out on the couch for a couple of hours. A lot of people say that you have to stay productive 24/7, but in my experience that’s not the case. That’s how you get burnt out. Stay productive, maybe, 12/5?

Obviously, put your work first. It sounds like you know this and have put it into good practice, since you did SO SO SO well your freshman year, but I’ll hammer it in again anyway. Do any readings you have ahead of time so that once you’re in class or you finally get to that section/chapter, you already have at least some understanding of it and you can have questions prepared in case something doesn’t get covered in class. Get your homework done as soon as possible. That may not be directly after school because some people (like myself) have to eat something before they can be productive, or have extra curricular activities, or whatever. As soon as you are home for the evening, get your work done. If you don’t have anything due the next day, get a head start on projects or homework that is due later on. Always do at least something productive at the end of the day.

Important: have a planner, especially since you are taking a heavy workload! It will be important to have all of your assignments listed in one place. I’m not sure how your high school works, if you will know your assignments ahead of time or not. If you know them ahead of time, write them in your planner. If you don’t know them ahead of time, write them in as you hear about them.

Your college classes will probably have syllabi and will hopefully have due dates listed. When I write in my due dates, I prefer to write the assignment under the day that I want to work on it, not the day it is actually due. So if I have homework due on a Thursday, I would write it in my planner on the Tuesday before so I know to work on it. If that makes sense.

Stay organized. If you are losing assignments left and right you’re going to stress even more. Also, I like to keep all of my assignments even after I’m done taking a class because you’d be surprised at how many classes in college actually kind of overlap a little in terms of topics that are covered. Anyway, I’m taking 6 classes, so I have 2 separate 3-subject notebooks and each class has its own section. I would probably recommend getting a folder for each class as well. You could also get a binder to keep everything in so it’s all in one place, but that’s not required; I personally don’t use a binder, but that’s just personal preference.

After that, if you have time (which I hope you do, you should definitely TRY to make time), do your fun stuff. Do your vegging out in front of the TV or free-reading or what have you. You need to make time for the fun stuff, even if it’s just reading one chapter of a book before bed or watching one episode on Netflix. Even hanging out with friends, because that’s important in high school. Mental health is important as well, don’t forget. CRUCIAL. Mental health is CRUCIAL. If you need to take a mental health day, take it; you’d be surprised at how understanding teachers/professors can be when it comes to mental health.

Incentives: in my creative writing class, our professor gave us little calendars and each day we sit down and write (or are productive in some form that relates to writing, like jotting down ideas or something), we can mark off the day. I gave myself incentives to write. For example: if I write every day for a full week, I can pick an evening to binge-watch my favorite show all night, BUT I have to plan accordingly (do homework the night before or just plan it for a night I know I won’t have any homework). I have other incentives that get better and better the longer I go without taking a day off from writing. This could be hard for someone in high school to do, because it might be hard to tell when you’re going to have homework or not. My recommendation would be to get all of your homework done the day it is assigned, and if you do that every day for a full week then maybe give yourself a night off or plan a night with friends or something. My incentives go: 1 full week, 1 full month, 2 full months, 3 full months, 4 full months. I stopped at 4 months because that’s how long a semester is, and that’s when I would potentially get my biggest reward (order Stitch Fix because I’ve been wanting to try it). After 4 full months the cycle would start over, assuming I made it 4 full months of writing every day. It should also be noted that I have weekends as exceptions, but they are bonuses if I choose to write on the weekends.

Most of all: don’t get discouraged if you don’t do quite as well as you hope. I have total confidence in you, my beautiful little Anonymous land mermaid, but you need to have confidence in yourself. This is something I have learned the hard way. Have confidence in yourself, and if you don’t do as well as you hope, don’t get down. You have a heavy load, and if some things fall through the cracks (maybe you forgot to do a little assignment), it’s not a big deal. Because you’ll nail all the other assignments and make up for it. If you allow yourself to get down and discouraged and worry too much (worrying when necessary is okay, worrying when not necessary is not healthy), it will have a negative effect on your work and your well-being. Believe me, I know, it’s a slippery slope. Of course it’s easier said than done, but as long as you make sure you give yourself plenty of time at the end of the day to get those assignments done and then have a little free time to do your fun stuff, you’ll be okay.

Just a side note: if you go through my #haydenstudiesblog tags you can see a couple of posts I made about how I have been taking notes lately in terms of color-coding them to stay engaged both in class and at home while I’m just doing reading assignments. I’ve found that using fun colors actually has been helping me stay productive, surprisingly enough.

I hope these tips helped at least a little! If anyone would like to add, feel free! I’m sorry that it’s kind of all over the place, but I wanted to do it off the top of my head and just keep adding based off of my own experience and what I personally do. I may have left some things out that I wanted to include, but hey, being scatter-brained goes hand-in-hand with taking on a heavy workload (just a warning, I promise it won’t last forever).

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

I used to be a competitive runner and I have a degree in exercise physiology. I coached track for over 15 years, including the UCLA and USA Olympic women's teams. When my running career was ended in 1994 by a drunk driver, my body went into severe chemical withdrawals as my running mileage went from 130 per week to zero. I became arthritic almost overnight and sometimes needed help crossing the street. This also led to a psychological depression, something I had never experienced before.

While I spent some years rebuilding myself physically, I ended up spending a lot of time playing computer games. The advent of online gaming, and especially competitive MMO's, allowed me to compete again without the use of my legs. I believe my endurance training, especially my neurological and endocrine adaptations, gave me an edge. Playing for long hours gave me a high that was not unlike the high I would get running ultra marathons.

I began playing longer and longer hours, and by the time I co-wrote the first paper on virtual good sales with Ashley Dunn of the Los Angeles Times in 2000 I was "...playing 12 hours a day..." which was a conservative estimate. It was my new profession and I was really enjoying it. Given my background, I was under no illusions about just how punishing this was on my body.

When World of Warcraft was released in 2004, I was well trained for the big day. I had been an alpha tester and knew exactly what to do. I was one of the first 100 players world-wide to L60, I did not use the "bare handed rogue" cheat that was in the game the first week, and I started several days late because I switched servers when I realized my start server was hopelessly congested. To achieve this goal playing solo, I played 22 hours a day for 8 days straight. The second player to hit 60 on my server arrived there more than two weeks later.

Playing 22 hours straight for just one day is enough to cause death as described by this article that came out in March of this year.

This article, the lack of public knowledge of what happens in your body when you do extreme endurance gaming, and some recent new trends that will make deaths more common are what prompted me to write this article. Hopefully the information herein can be used to not only improve the performance of cyberathletes, but also save lives.

Exciting games will trigger the "fight or flight" mechanisms of your nervous and endocrine systems. Real time competitive performance-measured games with audiences (like World of Tanks or many multiplayer FPS's) really are capable of pushing us to our absolute physiological limits, which is in part by design since these games are intended to be very exciting and engaging. For short durations (less than an hour) this is not a problem, and can even be healthy.

When dealing with longer durations, participants should be knowledgeable about General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS), which is a pleasant sounding name for something that has three stages. The last stage is generally fatal so I think as more people decide they want to become cyberathletes, education will be important. When I use the term cyberathlete, I really mean these participants are athletes. In traditional athletics, the respiratory system and/or skeletal muscle is highly trained and stressed. When they become exhausted the participant is forced to stop but this is not life threatening. In cyberathletics, the endocrine system is the primarily stressed organ system and when it becomes stressed the General Adaptation Syndrome is initiated. The problem here is that training this system though game play generally makes this system weaker over time, not stronger. So the better you become at cyberathletics, if you dip into ultra endurance activities, the more likely you will have a mishap as you approach elite status.

Cross training as a physical endurance athlete may help strengthen the endocrine system but I think this is essentially non-existent in gamer culture. In my case I started as an endurance athlete and then following my accident crossed over into cyberathletics. I also had the education and clinical experience to take as many protective measures as possible while I engaged in extreme endurance play and my partner during those years was a crack trauma nurse that literally kept an IV set up at my game station. I never ended up needing it, but it was there to threaten me into keeping my fluid intake up. I absolutely would NOT recommend anyone attempt to reproduce any of the feats I describe myself as doing in this paper.

As gameplay continues the human player will progress through the states of the GAS. Epinephrine and norepinephrine will be released early on, giving the player the edge in focus, reaction time, and alertness they need to win. Antidiuretic hormone will also be released to conserve water, lowing urine output. The body will tap into its stores of glycogen in order to guarantee an increased supply of glucose to the brain. Glycogen stores are very limited and generally run out during running marathons in all but the most efficient athletes, causing "The Wall" to be hit. The Wall causes a disruption of glucose supply to the brain and the result is depression and confusion in the early stages. This example from the 1984 Olympic marathon shows what can happen neurologically when you run out of glycogen during competition. I was there in the stadium crying that day as I watched since as a competitive marathon runner competing for Santa Monica College where that race finished I knew exactly what Gabriela was going through and she was an amazing athlete.

I once staggered into the burger joint next to the Venice Pier looking like that and started ripping open all the ketchup packets trying to get glucose. The workers looked really scared and probably thought I was high on PCP. Nostalgia isn't the main reason I use this example though. I want you to look at the crowd. I'm going to come back to that and it is important.

Extreme competitive endurance events also trigger the release of your body's endorphins. These are natural opioids that reduce pain and cause numbness. As a former ultra endurance runner, I can attest that after about two hours you are high as a kite. After 5 hours and 64km (40 miles), like when I was asked to escort the torch bearers into Los Angeles in 1984 (I was an officer on the Olympic security team) the euphoria makes you 100% fearless. I've never tried opioids for recreational purposes, but beta endorphin has (according to the wiki) "approximately 18 to 33 times the analgesic potency of morphine". You can imagine how addicting this could be even though your own endorphins are much safer than any injected opioid. Trying to get that high using morphine would almost certainly kill you. There is also evidence that endorphins improve brain function and I always felt smarter on long runs, at least until I hit The Wall. I would often use that time to try to solve complex problems that were vexing me.

Endorphins are also released during game play. I'm sure this is why competitive endurance gaming ended up replacing my running addiction. I doubt there is any real research on what happens during extreme endurance play. The problem with such research is that it's generally regarded as unethical to conduct research on humans that could cause the subject to die or suffer significant harm. Thus some of what I may describe from first hand experience may not be rigorously supported in research yet, or any time soon.

As your gaming session goes on, the effects of Antidiuretic Hormone (ADH) become more pronounced even though they are largely invisible to the player. The effect we are concerned with here is that while this may conserve water to slow dehydration, it also slows kidney function. Thus toxic urea levels are building up in your blood stream during this entire process, even if you go to the restroom regularly.

As you become fatigued your body will start dipping into the nuclear weapon of stimulants, cortisol. Under the effects of this chemical humans are capable of nearly super human feats of focus. Your brain actually speeds up, making the world around you appear to slow down. It's basically a minor form of bullet time. It doesn't mean your body will speed up like Neo in The Matrix, but the rest of the world definitely seems to move slower. This gives you a lot more time to mentally react to various threats. Cortisol also impairs your immune system and reduces pain.

ADH also affects how electrolytes are excreted, which can in extreme cases (like these) cause an electrolyte imbalance that can disrupt heart function.

Biomechanically, sitting in a chair for a long time will lead to back fatigue and hip flexor shortening that can make standing up difficult and painful. Over several days this can lead to chronic back pain that might require rehabilitation.

If all of these warning signs are ignored then the body will move to the third stage of GAS in a last ditch attempt to overcome threat and avert death. The liver is trying desperately to maintain elevated supplies of glucose to the brain. Fatty acids are broken down to keep your muscles alive and maintain a glucose trickle, resulting in a buildup of poisonous ketones which make you smell sweet, sort of like acetone. You won't notice since it is hard to smell your own blood. Amino acids will be broken down to make extra glucose, especially when cortisol is high, causing urea to build up faster and making renal failure more likely.

Death is certain if the third stage of GAS is maintained, though how long that takes can vary widely depending on the circumstances.

As any parent with gaming children can attest, when a gamer gets "into it" they have a hard time noticing what's going on in real space. After a few hours of high intensity play the effects of cortisol and endorphins mean the gamer is high as a kite. This is a really pleasurable experience, and one that the player is not going to want to voluntarily stop. Players of "casual" or relaxing games may never have this experience.

Under natural conditions a cyberathlete will eventually have to get up to go to the bathroom. At this point, once immersion is broken they might realize that they don't feel good and call it quits. They might "just lie down for a second" and be out for hours. That's good because that is almost always enough to prevent the third stage of GAS. They might not even make it to the bathroom and just pass out on their computer. I've had many a World of Warcraft raid (which in the old days could last 8+ hours, I don't know if that has changed...) where one or more members of the raid became non-responsive because they passed out right there in their chairs during the raid.

The typical solution to the "problem" of sleep is to use a stimulant. There are many legal stimulants that can be used for this purpose, some even marketed specifically for this purpose. Like Red Bull, which I've seen promoted at several E3 conventions. This child decided that was his solution during a 14 hour Call of Duty marathon.

Our World of Tanks player on Twitch decided he just needed more cigarettes.

I never used stimulants during my extreme endurance competitive gaming. Thanks to my degree in exercise physiology and my time doing research on corticosteroid mechanics, I knew that if my own cortisol was not enough to keep me going then I was way over my head. As a good general rule, if you are under threat (including in a competitive computer game situation) and you still are nodding off, then you are in stage 3 of GAS. That stage is called "Exhaustion" for a reason. At this point the clock is ticking. In both of the cases I linked to in this article, the players were dead before they even got out of their chairs. In both cases they felt so bad that they got out of their chairs and started to die. The Twitch player collapsed off camera, did not receive immediate medical attention, and died. The child playing at school went into a coma, got immediate medical attention, and survived after 13 days in the hospital.

If you are going to use a stimulant to improve performance, then you absolutely MUST GET REST AFTER 8 HOURS. If you don't, or if you start using them after 8 hours, then you are playing a very serious game of Russian Roulette. And, every time you play this game, there are more bullets in the barrel because of progressive kidney damage. So it's only a matter of time before you lose.

If you have any related pre-existing medical conditions, then even that 8 hour guideline may be way too much. Being addicted already to caffeine, nicotine, or any other stimulant is a pre-existing condition since these addictions wear you out and leave you "pre-exhausted" before you even start. As with any other athlete, players wishing to compete at this level should see a physician and get a complete physical. You can't adjust for a pre-existing condition if you don't know it exists.

I must add that if a player has hit "The Wall" and is compensating with fat to glucose glucogenesis, and then consumes even a small amount of alcohol, the liver will switch to alcohol glucogenesis as toxin metabolism is prioritized. This is a much slower process and will cause glucose levels to get critically low. The one time it happened to me, when a teammate handed me a wine cooler after a long race, the initial result was severe convulsions. This was the most painful thing I had ever experienced, which is saying a lot. This same teammate (a notorious "drunken runner") identified the crisis immediately ("I've seen this before, this is bad...") and shoved a piece of candy in my mouth. This was exactly the correct response. In this situation glucose or sugar must be administered by IV or orally (sugar can enter the blood stream across the mucous membranes even without being swallowed) immediately or hypoglycemic coma (often called "diabetic coma") will result.

I have not reproduced this effect while gaming because I've never consumed alcohol while gaming. Alcohol would just make an extreme endurance gamer more tired unless it was in a caffeinated alcoholic beverage like Four Loco. Such products were essentially banned in the USA in 2010 but I do not know if they are still available to gamers outside the USA.

Remember Gabriela from the 1984 Olympics? Yea she totally should have stopped before doing her death march to the finish line. She knew it. The audience knew it and was mortified. The medical team there knew it but they could not intervene unless Gabriela gave them the okay. But...she couldn't do that. Not only was she representing her country, but there were thousands of people in the stands clapping and cheering. Hundreds of millions were watching on TV. This moment would define her life. This is an example of what I call Peer Effects, which are central to my personal research. I'm convinced that Peer Effects stimulate oxytocin, a hormone that might induce an even more intense "high" than any other chemical mentioned in this paper.

The body is incredibly resilient. There is no point in stopping if a tiger is chasing you, no matter how tired you are. We are a winning species because we have cortisol and endorphins that let us keep going even in extreme conditions. Peer effects also push us to fight for each other so that we sometimes win against tigers. In a game of World of Tanks, Call of Duty, or a World of Warcraft raid, you've got teammates that are counting on you. This creates a Peer Effect that can push you to keep going.

When I was studying Chinese competitive pay to win game models in 2009 in order to write my thesis paper (Sustainable Virtual Economies and Business Models, never published) I ended up being the top Western player in a game called Galaxy Online. I didn't have any money, I was a starving student. You know how they say you can still win without spending, but you have to invest more time? Well it was still true in 2009 but that's probably why IGG retired GO and rolled out the inferior GO2 which was impossibly P2W. The rest of the industry followed suit if they weren't there already.

In order to be the top player I played round the clock in addition to being really good at these sorts of games. Ultimately the only way the other team could beat my team was if they could attack me while I was sleeping. So they attacked me literally constantly 24 hours a day. I trained myself to sleep with the volume turned up and to automatically wake up (I lucid dream) if the attack ping frequency exceeded a certain rate. This indicated that it was probably hundreds of players attacking me simultaneously in a real attack, instead of the usual background fakes.

The result was continually elevated cortisol levels over a period of weeks. I had heart "wobbling" for hours every day that felt like premature ventricular contractions which I knew was not by itself immediately life threatening (this was during an 18 year period where I didn't have health insurance, but I previously taught cardiac rehab) for me as long as the PVC's did not get too close together. [Again, I must emphasize that if you get chest discomfort during extended game play, you should seek emergency medical attention immediately] I also developed a very unusual auto immune reaction that, after being misdiagnosed three times, caused an Ebola-like reaction that almost killed me while spraying blood in all directions. Cortisol interferes with proper immune function. I knew I had to quit and I did and my faction was overrun shortly thereafter on that server. Looking back, I was pretty lucky I didn't die back in 2009. I can get a little competitive and now I generally avoid playing FPS's or real time competitive games like World of Tanks even while I am in studios making them. This has caused me to be laid off from more than a couple jobs because "Ramin just wasn't into our game" or "part of the team". The truth of the matter is that I'm really good at these sorts of games but for my health I need to be very cautious about not getting sucked into them again on that level.

The most dangerous kinds of games in existence now are those that put you under threat while you are offline. Other than Galaxy Online (and GO2), the games I mention in this article are not those kinds of games. This class of game includes some of the most highly marketed games in the world including games advertised during this year's Super Bowl. The problem is that they encourage you not to sleep. The idea is that if they can keep you playing, they can keep you paying. They also charge you to sleep through the use of "Shields" that prevent you from being attacked for 8 hours or more. Honestly, it's cheaper in the long run (even if you get free medical care) to pay for one of those shields every night and that cost should be factored in if you want to see what the real cost to play is for these "free to play" games.

Some of these games are very popular with children, are made with cartoonish graphics, and are made simplistic enough to be played by even very young children.

Peer Effects can also backfire, encouraging players to play much longer than they otherwise would. This was a problem in both of the situations linked to here. It used to be that in the past these sorts of deaths were much more common in Asia than in the West. There they tend to play in internet cafes where there is an audience, especially if the player is good. This sort of attention can make you play longer, and pay more. This is a big part of why pay to win performs so much better in the East than it does in the West. In the West we play alone which causes us to have more anxiety, depression, mental illness, drug abuse, and we don't spend as much on F2P. But we are also less likely to "play till we drop".

Twitch and the era of eSports (which I've certainly been working to promote) might be changing that. If a player has an audience while they play, are paid for that audience, and there is anxiety that if they stop broadcasting at any time they will lose audience, then there is strong pressure to not leave the seat. Strong pressure to use stimulants. Strong pressure to ignore those warning signals the body is sending. Players could self regulate but that's probably not going to happen as long as the business and social model rewards them for entering the danger zone.

Amazon (the owner of Twitch) could introduce play caps for those they are paying, similar to what airline pilots have for their work hours. Educating them with something similar to this article might also help too. Have they had a physical? I'm not sure if the lawyers would feel this would limit or enhance their exposure, that's really beyond my expertise. My concern is player safety.

Personally, as a designer, I obviously want to be successful. I realize that getting players more engaged, for longer periods, might mean a lot more money for me especially if I am receiving a royalty. I just can't do this in a way that will jeopardize player health. I can't feign ignorance, this is my area of expertise. On my last project (that reached market) where I used secret sauce to improve commercial performance, I only had 10 weeks to build the meta game for World of Tanks Blitz. That product has become the world's top grossing F2P mobile eSports game and is now going multi-platform.

For my next project, which is completely of my design, I'm going to change some things. I'm lowering the adrenal axis stimulation to put less stress on players and require lower levels of engagement. This will allow the game to be played in a much wider range of environments and conditions. It will also allow it to be played longer with lower cortisol levels. At the same time I am introducing new Peer Effect technologies that should make order-of-magnitude changes to how engaged players feel to the game environment even with those lower cortisol levels.

The risk here is that if we use science (especially neuroscience) to making games vastly more engaging than they are now, we could put player health at risk. This process has already begun all over the world in many if not most leading game development studios. Thus my design has built in mechanisms to cut the player off when they've had too much. Sort of like a bar does if a patron drinks too much. I also anticipate warning players not to try to bypass these protections in creative fashion. I won't reward them for it, certainly. Designing these controls has taken me just as many years as designing the lures. If I didn't do this, I fear that if I am as successful as I would like to be then I could harm people. I realize others won't really care and may copy my future designs without these protections. My hope is that consumers will avoid these products if they have a more consumer friendly alternative, and that by that time regulators and platform operators (and of course lawyers) will be sufficiently sophisticated about these technologies that they will be able to intervene.

In an effort to promote consumer and medical education in this area, I'm determined to open source as much as I can about my methods if they prove to be effective. Thus I've been very careful over the last five years when signing agreements with companies to make sure I still maintain ownership of my technologies even while lending them out.