History Main / TripleShifter

** Oddly enough, Tokine seems to have the same schedule, but she's depicted as a model student.
*** That's because Yoshimori usually goes all out, exerting his energy while Tokine thinks things through and only does what she must. Yoshimori outright exhausts himself.

->''I have a recurring nightmare that I'm never going to get a good night's sleep and then I wake up to find it's a recurring reality.''

Compare and contrast PlotPoweredStamina.

* ''Manga/SpyXFamily'': Loid is often overworked and exhausted by his spywork, with his [[TheAce Ace]] status requiring him to take on more missions than the average agent due to WISE being understaffed. Once he starts living with Anya and Yor, the stress of also being a husband/father and a psychiatrist consistently exhausts him.

* Hermione does her level best to achieve this in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'' with her time turner, but can't quite pull it off. She receives special dispensation to use the time turner to travel backwards in time in limited amounts in order to take more classes than there are scheduled periods in the day. Being a thirteen-year-old girl with (aside from the whole magic thing) no other special abilities, the stress of keeping up with her schoolwork takes its toll. Harry and Ron, not privy to what she had been doing all term, notice that she becomes increasingly distracted and short-tempered, culminating in a fairly minor nervous breakdown. At the end of the book, she turns in her time turner and does not use it again for the remainder of the series. Presumably, she is restricted in its use and cannot, for example, use it to extend the sleep and/or leisure time that she cuts into keeping up with her heavy workload.

* In ''VideoGame/SakuraWars: [[VideoGame/SakuraWarsSoLongMyLove So Long, My Love]]'', Sagitta Weinberg ([[DubNameChange Cheiron Archer]]) is actually more like a [[UpToEleven quadruple shifter]]. She's a lawyer, and a stage actor, and a mecha pilot for a secret anti-demon force. And in her spare time that somehow exists, she's the leader of a Harlem biker gang ([[spoiler:though it takes her a little while to pick up that particular mantle again]]).

** In the reboot season Dexter goes through at least a 60 hour period without any sleep at all despite multiple injuries, extreme emotional distress, fighting, and spending a few hours at his girlfriend's house on Christmas Day.

* ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'' used to have no problems with this -- he did his crimefighting thing at night and slept during the day. Now that he has to be a single dad during the day, one has to wonder when he gets to sleep. Although if you've seen seen Goslyn in action, it's obvious parental supervision is a sometimes thing.

** One of the episodes "Getting Antsy" shows this outright. With Darkwing and Launchpad coming back after a night of patrol and just planning on going to bed and leaving Goselyn on her own, getting annoyed when she says they promised to take her mini golfing that day.

* In ''Manga/{{Bakuman}}'', the main characters, collectively known as Muto Ashirogi, start drawing manga late in middle school, and first get serialized in high school. The manga clearly shows that a manga artist's work week is ''extremely'' strenuous, and [[RealityEnsues the strain of keeping up with school and his manga results in]] [[spoiler:Mashiro being hospitalized for overworking himself]].

** In the new comics, it's revealed that SHUSH gave Darkwing a pension.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'', the Ecosystems Unlimited executive Bill Raibert pulls triple shifts during the [[spoiler:Gardener in the Dark]] crisis, which threatens both his company and the planetary colony under its supervision, and ultimately passes out on his computer even after downing enough caffeine to give a whale the jitters. Several characters comment on how unhealthy it is.

* ''ComicBook/PaperinikNewAdventures'': Paperinik, the superhero identity of DonaldDuck whose authors generally know how ridiculous they're being, gets off easy: his regular identity is a layabout loser who arouses no suspicion by catching "Z"s during the day.

** Likewise, ''VideoGame/Persona5'' has the dungeon crawling during the day. While you normally have to go straight to bed if you spend the day in the Metaverse, maxing out Kawakami's Confidant unlocks the ability to get special massages that put you back in the fight and let you do stuff at night.

* The girls get hit on both ends in ''Anime/DemashitaPowerpuffGirlsZ''. When they have to fight at night they're look exhausted the next day, and they're show having to take a supplementary class. On one occasion they actually have to leave the professor to fight monsters while they take their school finals.

** ''VideoGame/Persona3'' features a group of (mostly) high-school students who can only fight the world-threatening evil during a slice of non-time accessed at midnight. The resulting exhaustion is a status effect that puts a massive crimp in a Tired character's performance. The status effect lasts into the next day as well, can degrade further into being Sick [even worse than tired], which further interferes with classwork for the day. Bit of an aversion compared to the usual "Doze off in class, feel 100%".

* ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'':
** The matter of sleep was actually addressed in the third episode of [[Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha the first season]], with [[MentorMascot Yuuno]] telling Nanoha to take a break since she's exhausting herself. Naturally, that led to her missing a [[MineralMacguffin Jewel Seed]] [[MyGreatestFailure that proceeded to damage her town]]. Also, in [[Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs the second season]], the Wolkenritter go out searching for Linker Cores at night causing them to wake up late the following morning, because they spend their days with Hayate, who is not supposed to know about their nightly trips.
** And then there's Teana in ''[[Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers StrikerS]]'', who puts herself through a rigorous training regimen (in addition to her regular training which in and of itself is very demanding) resulting in only sleeping four hours a night. At the end of it she's so exhausted her body needs 30+ hours of sleep to recover.
* As the ''Anime/SailorMoon'' English ExpositoryThemeSong tells us, the titular heroine is "Fighting evil by moonlight, winning love by daylight..." Even before becoming a warrior of love, she was having problems getting to school on time, but somehow being ''Franchise/SailorMoon'' doesn't compound it at all.

* ''Anime/FreshPrettyCure'' actually showed the end result of an action such as this - Love, Miki and Buki actually got themselves ''hospitalized'' because they pushed themselves between dance practice, school and being Pretty Cure.

* Manga/{{Kekkaishi}}'s Yoshimori is constantly falling asleep in class, since he's in school during the day and hunts Ayakashi during the night. His 'breakfast' is often coffee-flavored milk.

* The girls get hit on both ends in ''Anime/DemashitaPowerpuffGirlsZ''. When they have to fight at night they're look exhausted the next day, and they're show having to take a supplementary class. On one occasion they actually have to leave the professor to fight monsters while they take their school finals.

* While Anime/SuperSonico is not a heroine, she is still a college student, a band member, part-time model, part-time waitress and lives alone with five cats. The first scene in episode 1 shows how it affects her, as it takes several alarm clocks and the aforementioned cats to even wake her up.
* In ''Manga/{{Bakuman}}'', the main characters, collectively known as Muto Ashirogi, start drawing manga late in middle school, and first get serialized in high school. The manga clearly shows that a manga artist's work week is ''extremely'' strenuous, and [[RealityEnsues the strain of keeping up with school and his manga results in]] [[spoiler:Mashiro being hospitalized for overworking himself]].
* ''Manga/KaguyaSamaLoveIsWar'':
** Shirogane rarely has time to sleep due to having to attend school, study hard enough to keep his position as the number 1 student, do all his duties as StudentCouncilPresident, and work multiple part-time jobs to support his family. As a result, he has permanent ExhaustedEyeBags and relies on [[MustHaveCaffeine a constant supply of coffee]] to keep himself from passing out.
** Hayaska also attends school, works as Kaguya's full time valet, and is the de facto head servant of the household due to seniority. Chapter 179 establishes that she only gets about 4 hours of sleep per day and has no social life that extends beyond seeing her friends during school hours.
* In ''Manga/MissionYozakuraFamily,'' Taiyo has to juggle his schoolwork, spy training, and missions every single day. As a result, he shows up to school exhausted and falls asleep on a roller coaster because of how relaxing it is by comparison. This also becomes a plot point in one chapter, as Kyoichiro tries to force him to go to sleep as an excuse to rough him up in class.

* ''ComicBook/MsMarvel2014'': Kamala Khan, like many teen heroes before her, runs into this. It's especially a problem post-''Secret Wars'', as she now has to juggle high school, solo heroics ''and'' being an Avenger. It's costing her a lot of sleep and time with her friends, to the point that she's the ''last'' person to learn about her best friend dating someone. It ''really'' doesn't help that her powers drain a lot of stamina.
* This point also applies to the two other teens on the ''ComicBook/AllNewAllDifferentAvengers'' roster, [[ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan Miles Morales]] and Sam Alexander. All three had running themes of being overworked in their solo titles, and during ''ComicBook/AvengersStandoff'' Deadpool, of all people, pointed out that expecting teen heroes to meet the obligations of being on Earth's premiere superhero team was insane.
* ''ComicBook/PaperinikNewAdventures'': Paperinik, the superhero identity of DonaldDuck whose authors generally know how ridiculous they're being, gets off easy: his regular identity is a layabout loser who arouses no suspicion by catching "Z"s during the day.
* The ''ComicBook/DuckTales'' comics imply this to be the case with Launchpad. He continually drops references to his other life in St. Canard while he's with Scrooge and his family, which seemingly indicates that the pilot skips back and forth between the two cities to keep up with both of his "families." How he manages to do this without collapsing in exhaustion (or being absent very often from either Duckburg or St. Canard) is never explained.

* The 2016 annual of ''ComicBook/MightyMorphinPowerRangersBoomStudios'' includes a short story that shows one week in Jason's life as he juggles high school, running an after-school karate class and saving the world from monsters. He just about manages it, but spends most of Saturday dead to the world in bed.

* ''Fanfic/UltimateSpiderWoman'': Mary Jane Watson starts to suffer from this trope when she becomes increasingly unable to juggle her acting career, her waitressing job, her mother's therapy bills, her superhero career, and her failing grades. She's increasingly stressed out due to a lack of sleep, and when a particularly UnsatisfiableCustomer becomes too much of a pain in the neck, Mary Jane finally snaps.
* In the ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' fanfic, FanFic/{{Intrepid}}, Sophia is a student by day, a Ward by night, and goes out in a SecondSuperIdentity behind her bosses back.
* In ''Fanfic/LastChildOfKrypton'': Shinji goes to school, works for Misato and is a super-hero. Since he's Franchise/{{Superman}}, he doesn't need to sleep.
* In ''Fanfic/SOE2LoneHeirOfKrypton'' Asuka is a thirteen-years-old kid that goes to school, pilots mechas and at the night dons her ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} costume and saves people.

* ''Fanfic/DateALiveAlteredTimeline'': Not only is Nia a Manga artist, with many all-nighters needed to meet her deadlines, she is still a high school student, which does causes her to be nearly late to school on a common basis.

[[folder: Light Novel]]

* In ''LightNovel/{{Ark}}'', the titular character grows so dependent and focused upon New World that he gets by on about 2 hours of sleep a night - which, at one point, drives him to a ''severe'' illness which is only helped by Justiceman's posse.

* Averted in ''Literature/{{A Clockwork Orange}}'' when Alex skips school and stays home the day after a night out with his droogs, to sleep it off. And, well, by the fact that he's a sociopath by night instead of a hero by night.
* A common problem for the ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}''. They often casually mention failed tests or sleeping in class due to night-time missions. Sometimes they just get the [[RobotBuddy Chee]] to double for them when a mission requires them during odd hours. In one book [[StandardizedLeader Jake]] mentions that he's managed to get by on random power napping whenever he has twenty minutes or so free.

* Hermione does her level best to achieve this in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'' with her time turner, but can't quite pull it off. She receives special dispensation to use the time turner to travel backwards in time in limited amounts in order to take more classes than there are scheduled periods in the day. Being a thirteen-year-old girl with (aside from the whole magic thing) no other special abilities, the stress of keeping up with her schoolwork takes its toll. Harry and Ron, not privy to what she had been doing all term, notice that she becomes increasingly distracted and short-tempered, culminating in a fairly minor nervous breakdown. At the end of the book, she turns in her time turner and does not use it again for the remainder of the series. Presumably, she is restricted in its use and cannot, for example, use it to extend the sleep and/or leisure time that she cuts into keeping up with her heavy workload.
* The heroes in ''Literature/{{Relativity}}'' all suffer from this to varying degrees, and have different ways of handling it. For example, Michael has Yule to cover for him at meetings. However, Ravenswood and Melody run a business together (a coffee shop). If they're both out crimefighting, there's no one left to run the shop. In one story, "Exit Strategy", this leads to a fight between the two of them: Ravenswood is on a case and has to stay on it several nights in a row, meaning that Melody is stuck running the shop instead of crimefighting. Eventually they promote some of their employees to managerial positions so they can both be absent at the same time.
* Hawthorne from ''Literature/RumorsBlock'' joined the support group because she has trouble balancing her hero life with her day job.
* In ''Literature/{{Renegades}}'', Nova leverages her power as TheSleepless to fill her time with work - a Renegade hero at day, an Anarchist in the evenings, and a number of odd jobs, from helping the Renegades file evidence to working on her own projects, during the night.

* Everyone on ''[[Series/TwentyFour 24]]'', it seems, mandated by the format of the show. Jack Bauer only gets to sleep between seasons. This may be more justified than other examples as it is only one long day, usually with a few year's gaps between. With caffeine and adrenaline, most people can function on one missed night of sleep and everyone aside from Jack has opportunities to stop and catch their breath at some point. Jack usually shows the toll by the end of the day.

* Deconstructed in ''Series/{{Arrow}}'', where Oliver is trying to be a vigilante and the CEO of a Fortune 500 company simultaneously, and is entirely incapable of it. The joint-owner Isabel ends up doing everything, and when he skips out on the annual board meeting, the one meeting she insists he absolutely needs to come to, [[spoiler: she convinces the board to remove him and make her the sole owner. While this was part of her evil plan with the season's BigBad,]] it's hard to argue that his removal wasn't completely justified.
* ''Series/Daredevil2015'': Matt Murdock's nighttime vigilantism as Daredevil can interfere sometimes with his day work as one of the partners at Nelson & Murdock, like when he oversleeps the night before he's supposed to deliver the opening statement at Frank Castle's trial, forcing Foggy to improvise on the spot.

* ''TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness'' games with living protagonists (''Werewolf, Mage, Hunter'', ''Changeling'', etc.) are set up like this, with the heroes balancing their supernatural lives with mundane jobs and relationships. Werewolves born as wolves don't really have this problem, but it's a wonder everyone else can get up for work after spending all last night fighting the Sabbat, Technocracy, and/or Black Spiral Dancers, let alone [[CutHimselfShaving hiding/explaining away any wounds]] from such a battle. However, creative Storytellers can make this part of the challenge. On the other hand, werewolf society generally puts the money-earning burden mostly on the homid Kinfolk (werewolves' human relatives) so the Garou don't have this problem and don't have to worry about frenzying and mauling their coworkers.

* {{Averted}} with the Space Marines of [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer40000}} Warhammer 40k]] sleep four hours per 24-hour day. They are capable of taking a twenty minute nap to keep them refreshed for hours afterwards; or they can alternate resting each half of their brain to keep vigilant for days on end without proper rest, but doing so causes them great fatigue. They use the four hour regular sleep period for a proper measure of sleep, even though they can cheat around this.
* {{Averted}} in ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'': most transhuman [[BodyBackupDrive bodies, or "morphs"]] have it as part of the standard suite of upgrades to require no more than four hours of sleep per 24 hour cycle. This is {{averted}} with [[BeingHumanSucks the unmodified Flat morph]], who are commonly owned by eccentrics, throwbacks, or [[NoTranshumanismAllowed bioconservatives]]; and {{exaggerated}} by Hibernoid morphs, who can enter hibernation for space travel, or run off of two hours of sleep for a 24 hour cycle, or shift into a four hour sleep cycle for every 48 hours.
* ''TabletopGame/D20Modern'' games can run into this as well. The game is meant for "cinematic action" so it openly acknowledges that there are significant AcceptableBreaksFromReality along these lines, though if you run a game where the players are directly employed by Department 7 or some other mysterious patron, it's a lot easier to justify.

* Video game example: ''VideoGame/Persona3'' features a group of (mostly) high-school students who can only fight the world-threatening evil during a slice of non-time accessed at midnight. The resulting exhaustion is a status effect that puts a massive crimp in a Tired character's performance. The status effect lasts into the next day as well, can degrade further into being Sick [even worse than tired], which further interferes with classwork for the day. Bit of an aversion compared to the usual "Doze off in class, feel 100%".
** The ''Persona 3'' manga adaptation nods directly to this trope as well, as Minato (the PlayerCharacter) dozes off all the time even when he's been getting a good amount of sleep otherwise. His daily life is already busy and add on the sheer stamina-draining wear of constant fighting in the Dark Hour, and he's pretty much what you get. In the game and manga both, the PlayerCharacter's endurance improves as he gets used to it all, but it still takes a toll.
** ''VideoGame/Persona4'' has the dungeon-exploration take place during the day, avoiding this (and if you do it you can't do anything that night out of exhaustion). But the characters seem to have no trouble staying up until midnight several nights in a row to watch the Midnight Channel. It's possible that they also took a nap and set the timer to wake them up in time, or sleep in until the very last minute the next morning. It's also an infrequent event(a few nights a month) and a lot of reasonably healthy teens have little problem staying up until 12:05am and then getting by on 5 or 6 hours of sleep for several days every once in a while.
** Likewise, ''VideoGame/Persona5'' has the dungeon crawling during the day. While you normally have to go straight to bed if you spend the day in the Metaverse, maxing out Kawakami's Confidant unlocks the ability to get special massages that put you back in the fight and let you do stuff at night.

* Part of the game mechanics of ''VideoGame/TwilightHeroes'' - the justification for limiting the number of turns your character can play per day is that they have a day job; caffeine and sugar allow you to stay up later each night.

* Between the start of [[{{VideoGame/Crusader}} No Remorse and the start of No Regret]], six months pass. Though never spelled out, this is alluded to in ''No Remorse'' by the player character being able to go to the bar to catch up with his fellow rebels, go to his footlocker (presumably at the foot of his bunk), and so on. However, there is no such downtime in ''No Regret''. After spending 48 hours in a cramped lifepod, the Silencer then appears to go full-tilt for the next few days to a week, depending on how quick you play through each level. This understandable; he's one of those SuperSoldier shooter-protagonist types. What's not so easily explained is how his entirely human VoiceWithAnInternetConnection companions not only stay on the line the whole time but, when they trade off, also go on missions of their own (including two of them who were just in the not-so-tender care of the Lunar Mining Cartel for months...).
* In the maze level of Watcher's Keep in ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIIThroneOfBhaal'', the party runs into a mad elf [[ThirdPersonPerson referring to himself in the third person]] as Yakman. He's so paranoid about the dangers of the maze that he hasn't slept in all the time he's been there. [[OurElvesAreDifferent Elves]] don't ''sleep'' as such in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', but they do need to enter a meditative trance for a few hours a night ([[SuperiorSpecies half as long as humans need to sleep, naturally]]). As [[AnAdventurerIsYou CHARNAME]] can note, "You can't just not sleep for two years, you'd...go...crazy."

* Apparently, there is an "Ancient [[HiddenElfVillage Skifandrian]] Technique" that allows that in ''Webcomic/GirlGenius''. Hardly ever taught to outsiders. And the Baron taught it to Gil.

* ''Webcomic/{{Oglaf}}'''s tale of [[http://oglaf.com/sircoffee Sir Coffee]] is about a knight who is simply too good at saving fair maidens and whose reputation -- and whereabouts -- are too widely known to allow him any rest. Or sleep.

* Most {{Magical Girl}}s in ''Webcomic/SleeplessDomain'' don't have to worry too much about this. Their school hours are adjusted to allow them to spend days in school, nights fighting monsters, and mornings in-between sleeping. They're also perfectly free to take nights off as needed. Those, however, are the ones who register with the government and attend a specific school. Magical Girls who don't register, but still fight monsters, like Tessa's classmate Rue, have to cope with normal school hours along with nighttime monster fighting. Rue has worked out a system for sneaking naps throughout the day, such as in the first few minutes of class where the teacher regularly talks about her life before going into the lesson.
* The hero of the comic ''Webcomic/HeroByNight''. He's a LegacyCharacter with a MagicRing, which grants him superhuman vitality. This translates into enhanced physical abilities and toughness, but also a removal of the need to sleep. He does need to meditate, as his predecessor did, to stay sane with no ability to dream.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' used this as a plot point once, as the Girls started sleeping in class after fighting crime all night. Miss Keane convinced Professor Utonium to establish a curfew, which results in the City of Townsville being overrun and nearly destroyed by villains deciding to take advantage of it.

* On ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}},'' villain [[WellIntentionedExtremist Demona]] is a gargoyle who magically [[BlessedWithSuck turns into]] [[CursedWithAwesome a human]] during the day, which means she loses the [[TakenForGranite stone sleep]] that most gargoyles use to recharge. And rather than rest, she uses her human form to run a vast corporation. WordOfGod says that the magic spell compensates somewhat while she manages to get the odd couple of hours of rest in, and no, this isn't helping her general lack of mental stability.
** Elisa comes pretty close to this at times. True, she works the night shift, but during the Avalon Voyage, she seems to be pulling day shifts as well as staying with the gargoyles at night. This is also true when Elisa is suddenly (though temporarily) shifted to the day shift.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Homer has a plan to do this when he has to get a second job at the Qwik-E-Mart to pay for Lisa's pony. His productivity immediately plummets to new lows as he falls asleep at both of his jobs, and even the drive home.
-->'''Homer:''' I work from midnight to eight, come home, sleep for five minutes, eat breakfast, sleep six more minutes, shower, then I have ten minutes to bask in Lisa's love, then I'm off to the power plant, fresh as a daisy.
* DC Animated Universe:

* The first episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'' has Bruce Wayne commenting to Alfred that even though it's been 3 years since he donned the outfit, he still can't get used to being tired during the day.
* In the MusicalEpisode of ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'', Larry briefly mentions having to deal with this in the CrowdSong.
--> ''My fifth\\
all-night shift\\
my mind is starting to ''(twitches)'' [[SubvertedRhymeEveryOccasion bamboo]]\\
but I'm singing!''
* WesternAnimation/{{Stripperella}}: Stripper by night. Superhero later at night.
* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' gives us Mr. Smiley, a PerpetualSmiler who runs the local arcade and theme park. By himself. As he manically announces in one episode, "I haven't seen a bed in six days!". He finally gets a break in ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverseFuture'' when Amethyst starts a retraining program for Gems and hooks several of them up with jobs at the theme park.

-->'''Fry:''' Gotta go!

* In the maze level of Watcher's Keep in ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIIThroneOfBhaal'', the party runs into a mad elf [[ThirdPersonPerson referring to himself in the third person]] as Yakman. He's so paranoid about the dangers of the maze that he hasn't slept in all the time he's been there. Elves don't ''sleep'' as such in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', but they do need to enter a meditative trance for a few hours a night ([[OurElvesAreBetter half as long as humans need to sleep, naturally]]). As [[AnAdventurerIsYou CHARNAME]] can note, "You can't just not sleep for two years, you'd...go...crazy."