I know it's been like half a year, but I still can not believe that they didn't have the Dungeon Master running the dungeon crawls. Mike has the most defined roles out of any of them, DM, Paladin, Leader, Heart, and yet they refuse to let him fully inhabit any of them

every time my period hits I start feeling maternal about Mike Wheeler

I understand why some people invent a deeper relationship between Nancy and Mike, but I honestly find their distance to be really interesting. there's a really distinct type of tension that exists between people that are supposed to care about each other but know so little about each other, especially when that distance has existed for so long. do you love them because you're supposed to, or because of who they are? how do you bridge the gap? do you want to know them or do you want what other people have with their siblings? how long can you be distant from someone before it stops mattering that you used to know them? Nancy and Mike exist in these stereotypical roles in each other's minds, annoying older sister and bratty younger brother, and they never really manage to break out of them. they don't see how similar they are, or the ways the Upside Down and society's expectations weigh down on them. based on how long Mike says it's been since Nancy participated in the Eldertree campaign in s1, it's a fair guess that Nancy hit middle school and started getting caught up in social politics and what it means to be a girl society's eyes. she started sanding herself down, and she decided that the parts of her that likes things for kids and boys had to go. probably the same with the part that made time for her younger brother. she doesn't see Mike doing the same thing in s3, and he never realized that she had done it before him. neither of them are able to put themselves in each other's shoes enough to understand why they are the way they are, despite the fact they're in deeply similar positions. I just find that to be a much more interesting place to start working from