Cruellanita

Cruellanita is the femslash ship between Cruella de Vil and Anita Dearly (or Radcliffe, for the 1961 movie only) from the 101 Dalmatians fandom.

101 Dalmatians (1961)
The movie establishes that Anita and Cruella went to school together when they were young, with Roger calling her “dearly devoted”, implying that Cruella and Anita were friends at one point. Anita’s dog Perdita is familiar with Cruella, dreading the visit of “that devil woman”, implying that Cruella had visited them once before. Currently struggling to write lyrics for his new song, Roger quickly gets inspired by Cruella’s name and improvises a song about her being a despicable villain which causes Anita to chastise him. Though she doesn’t stop him, merely telling him that Cruella could hear him, with her coming in through the front door. Roger, still singing, goes upstairs to play his piano, leaving Anita to deal with Cruella on her own.

Telling her housekeeper to let Cruella in, Anita is greeted by her friend with “darling” and a big smile. Anita asks Cruella how she’s been, with her answering with a genuine “miserable, as usual”. She then looks around the house, asking Anita where “they” are. As Cruella is covering the house in smoke with her cigar, Anita asks what she means, with Cruella specifying that she means the puppies her dog should give birth to soon. Anita kindly informs her that Perdita won’t give birth for at least three weeks. As Cruella tries to get Pongo’s attention, who is understandably backing away from her while snarling, Anita swiftly changes the subject and asks her if she’s wearing a new fur coat. Cruella takes the compliment and revels in her coat, telling her that she should know how much she loves fur. When Cruella asks her if there’s a woman who doesn’t, Anita admits that she likes fur as well, but prefers other things. Cruella smiles while calling her “sweet, simple Anita”, mocks the humble home she lives in as her “dream castle” and puts out her cigar in one of the cupcakes Anita prepared for her. As Cruella leaves, commenting on Anita’s husband and the beautiful “coats” of her dalmatians, she makes Anita promise that she’ll inform her when the puppies arrive in three weeks.

After Cruella leaves, Roger comes down performing the rest of his “Cruella de Vil” song. Anita gently pushes him away, calling him “no help”, but Roger dances with her while singing and Anita tells him that he really is an idiot after he kisses her and they both laugh. Pongo later confirms to Perdita that Roger and Anita are onto Cruella, telling her that they won’t give the puppies away to her.

Cruella returns in three weeks, as promised, just as Perdita has given birth to 15 healthy puppies, letting Anita know how disappointed she is that all of them are white with no spots. Anita takes the comments in stride telling her that the spots will come in in a few weeks, Cruella is relieved and immediately starts to write a check to buy all of them. She pressures Anita to say yes, even offering double they are worth, but Roger stands up to her, bluntly telling her that they won’t give her a single one. As Cruella storms off, Anita calls Roger a hero.

As Roger and Anita take their dogs to a walk in the park one night, they come back to all of the puppies being dognapped, with the story making the news. Cruella is shown reading the newspaper, laughing at them and calling Anita feigning sympathy, covering her tracks as the one behind the theft. As Cruella hangs up, Roger is suspecting Cruella, but Anita defends her, admitting that Cruella is eccentric, but she is no thief.

At Christmas, Roger’s “Cruella de Vil” song had become Roger’s first hit, bringing the two of them a fortune, Anita tries to cheer Roger up with the news after Pongo and Perdita “ran away”. After Pongo and Perdita return after having gone off on their own to rescue their puppies and the other 72 ones Cruella legally bought, Anita never finds out that Cruella was indeed the one behind the theft.

101 Dalmatians: The Series
Even after Anita moves onto the countryside with Roger and their Dalmatians, Cruella continues to come by and badger her about other things. Since Anita never found out about Cruella's crimes, they are still friends in the series.

Cruella (2021)
With the movie being a prequel to the original movie (though set in the 60's instead of the 20's), Anita is presented as an ally to Cruella prior to meeting Roger.

Fanon
Since most of the ships for the character got a resurgence in the Cruella live-action movie, Cruellanita shippers often pride themselves as having "always been here".

Part of the appeal is how different the two women are, yet how well they get along. It also marks one of the few Hero/Villain ships where the two parties don't actually hate each other.

It is the second-most popular ship for the "101 Dalmatians (Disney Animated Movies)" tag on AO3, after Rogernita, though it has more fics in total. Most of the popularity comes from the 1996 remake, with the Cruella movie only making the ship more popular.

Though people have criticized the movie retconning "Darling" as Anita's maiden name, thinking it cheapens the relationship between them since Cruella is merely saying her last name as opposed to using an endearing pet name for her.

Fandom
FAN FICTION

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