Tonight's random thought: The Dark Hour must be longer than a strict 60 minutes.

Main reason: THEY HAVE TO WALK EVERYWHERE.

The only mission they start on-site is Empress-Emperor, because they have reason to believe Fuuka's trapped in Tartarus.

Otherwise, they either don't know anything's happening or start scanning from the dorm, and then have to WALK SOMEWHERE ELSE IN IWATODAI/PORT ISLAND.

October might be the most egregious. Start at the dorm, walk to Iwatodai Station, fight a boss, walk back to the dorm, high-tail it back to Iwatodai Station because INCIDENTALLY THAT'S WHERE THE FUCKING BACK ALLEY IS...

welcome to Liminal Time pursehavers

it's like liminal space only it's the longest hour of your life

(Which is a connection I didn't make until I saw an LP that prodded the punks back there on the regular for flavor dialogue.)

Thanks, Shinji hates it.

Tartarus expeditions taking a wibbly amount of time could be handwaved away, since they at least go there before the Dark Hour starts. Otherwise, they mostly can't.

But yeah, October gets eve dumber when you realise Shinji and Ken were right there the whole time.

It's already pretty 'don't all of you assholes HAVE HEALING SPELLS.'

Ken at least could be excused given the circumstances, but...

yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah.

I can't blame Ken or Aki for not thinking of it, or protag give or take the circumstances (dudetag has fewer excuses).

But someone should have thought of it.

(I do love that you can tell Yukari you knew which lever was the monorail brake by way of women's intuition.)