ok, since there are such cool cooprey posts in the cooprey tag rn cus of @little-audrey-horne i am kinda inspired to write my own meta bc i've thought about their relationship soooo much as well 😭people always stop at their age gap and never go further on to explore their dynamic and why they may like each other or be drawn to each or may be perfect for each other actually so i am so glad that its being talked about 😭
but anyway so...i also want to say that they very much actually remind me of cathy and chris from the dollanganger series! idk if anyones read those books but i highly recommend! cathy and chris are basically mirrors of each other! their anima and animus to each other! v.c. andrews talks about this and high lights this a looot through cathy's thoughts etc and its why they are so wildly attracted to each other despite being siblings! they feel that they understand one another deeply and the intense trauma they go through seals their bond!
anyway, they remind me of them because chris is seen as like... a golden angel halo kind of boy and he wants to be a doctor and cathy is seen as like the "bad girl" and the aberrant one! she's even called a witch by someone in the second book!
my point is that, thats sort of how i see cooprey...they are mirrors of each other, anima and animus to each other. everything she does outwardly he wants to do or feels inside. audrey is always looked at as aberrant in some way, or witch like! she's seen as mischievous and seductive, and dale is not seen this way. he's perceived (even by the audience, but tbh its the same w chris) as this good boy, golden boy. different from audrey but audrey on the inside is like dale. same with cathy. they are mirrors and anima and animus to each other. its one of the reasons i find their relationship so fascinating and i really wish they went through w it...now onto spoiler territory...
SPOILERS: this golden boy persona from dale is something that is later on deconstructed. and we find out that he has this like...aberrant white knight syndrome where he feels like he has to save the women around him, fixing and mirroring his relationship w his mother, to the point where he alters time and fucks everything up. something that i personally feel would have been much more constructive and put into better use w audrey! he would have been able to save her but through saving her save himself. their relationship in my opinion would have been incredibly cathartic and therapeutic, but this is something no one talks about.
sorry that you can't read past the spoilers yet @little-audrey-horne ! but once you finish the series, i'd really love your thoughts! (and hopefully read dale's autobiography because actually that has a lot in it too thats incredibly important!) cus i just feel like we'd probably agree! but ye, just...thanks for inspiring this!