#evilpuppy

[gavillain]

I was talking with @marciabrady the other night about ships and the aesthetics of our favorite couples, and it made me really want to do a break down of one of my obscure crossover OTPs:

Grimhilde/Cruella, a.k.a. EvilPuppies!

Because I feel like Grimhilde/Cruella, out of all my ships, looks the most like crack at first glance, but there is so much more to it than just sticking two random Disney Villains together.

So, first and foremost, I started shipping them because of Kingdom Keepers Book IV, Power Play:

Despite the fact that Frollo is on the cover of the book and was the heavily promoted new Overtaker before the release of the novel, the main villains of the novel are actually Grimhilde and Cruella. The premise is that after Maleficent and Chernabog were captured at the end of the previous book, the Disney Villains who are trying to take over the parks have had to take on new leadership to get Maleficent and Chernabog out of Imagineer-prison. Grimhilde is the next in the chain of command, so she's in charge and has Cruella De Vil as her companion who follows her everywhere. They are ALWAYS together in the book, and Cruella, naturally, has a very flirty and complimentary demeanor towards Grimhilde that the Queen naturally just adores. Their chemistry is great, and there is even one part where the main hero finds the two of them asleep together on an air mattress and a bundle of furs (it makes sense in context) and, well... yeah XD The novel really glued the two of them together in my head.

And that togetherness, as you can see above, blends over into the parks. Grimhilde and Cruella are the only two main Disney Villainesses who are out with some regularity as face characters in Disneyland. All of the villains in the Disney Parks have a familiarity with each other, and you can get similar gal pal dynamics with them and Maleficent (and Lady Tremaine) around Halloween time. However, because Grimhilde and Cruella are out together for so much of the year, they tend to carry the brunt of that sort of "evil besties" friendship, leading to cute photo op moments like this...

So Disney is already doing a lot of the leg work to make them come across as girlfriends and to give them chemistry and a ship dynamic. However, if that was all there was to it, I probably wouldn't love this ship as much as I do. I need that interesting and thought through layer of shipping, and thankfully, these two have it in spades.

So, despite being from different time periods and wildly different worlds, Grimhilde and Cruella are aristocrats through and through. Grimhilde is literally royalty, and Cruella an over-financed heiress to the remnants of England's aristocracy (and she's the head of a corporate fashion empire in the Glenn Close movies). The House of De Vil dates back to medieval times, and evidence of that extensive and wealthy history is littered all around Cruella's mansion.

Cruella is in essence, the remnants of an old world that no longer exists, one of royalty and station that Grimhilde herself was a part of, and though the times have changed, Cruella keeps that class and regality alive. In that way, I think it blends perfectly with her taking on a lover who is quite literally OF that time period, and it also helps tie Grimhilde in with the modern world, giving Grimhilde a sort of immortality and transcendence that I think she'd very much value with her desire to be eternally young and beautiful. And, along those same lines, they are both very strong examples of matriarchal authority and power with Cruella bemoaning the uselessness of men and the pitfalls of women losing themselves to marriage, whilst Grimhilde murdered her own husband in order to reign alone without a man over her. They fundamentally get the sort of twisted villainous feminism that they are peddling.

Next is the themes of beauty and glamor. These are two women who are fundamentally motivated by vanity - Cruella wants to design her original Dalmatian puppy coat and stun the art world with her ruthless originality whilst Grimhilde wants to kill her stepdaughter so that she can reign as the Fairest One of All. For them, beauty and aesthetics are absolute, and they share a willingness to buy their glamorous ambitions with the blood of the innocent. They would fundamentally GET each other in that regard. However, and this is important, they GET that same motivation for vanity, but they don't COMPETE with each other. Cruella is a pretty woman, but she's older and she's a chain smoker whose habits have caused her to become a bit emaciated. She's beautiful in her own way, but she's never going to rival Grimhilde as the Fairest One of All. Likewise, though Grimhilde has extravagant fashions and jewelry, she's not setting out to be at the forefront of clothing design and art. She would certainly WEAR outfits Cruella designed for her, but she wouldn't want to supplant Cruella either. They're going to make the world kneel before their beauty, but they're going to compliment each other rather than rival each other or have to set aside their vanities for each other.

Then one of the big important elements that makes this ship appeal to me so much is the motif of DUALITY. Cruella is noteworthy for her hair that is half-black and half-white. It's her signature style, she's well known for it, it ties in with the black and white dogs, and it ties in with how she has her likable and admirable public face but also her sinister and dark side that the rest of the world doesn't see. Grimhilde also has the duality motif. Hell, she has BLACK HAIR as the Queen and WHITE hair as the hag, and the whole black and white motif shows up in her potions ("Black of Night" and "To Whiten My Hair, a Scream of Fright"). Grimhilde literally has two faces and two forms. She is two villainesses in one, which is such a tasty match for the woman with infamously two-toned hair. And what I like about that too is that Cruella BLENDS with both the Queen and the Hag. With the queen, she has the aristocratic and blue blood regality and beauty that I mentioned before, but with the hag, she has the cackling maniacal bloodthirsty side that would have an absolute riot bringing death to innocents. It's so symbolic, and they're the only Disney villains who have that duality motif in that fashion.

And the fact that they have all of these interesting parallels and motifs while also being from two different worlds and two different time periods (medieval and modern) is a lot of fun purely from a crossover perspective but also as ANOTHER manifestation of their duality motif! And THAT is the type of tasty shipping fuel that I LIVE for!

So with Grimhilde and Cruella being of two different time periods, they also simultaneously coexist in one time period. Cruella in the original animated film may have been released in the 1960s, but her animator, Marc Davis, designed her to be a throwback to the old Hollywood glamor of the 1930s. Most specifically Tallulah Bankhead...

And Marlene Dietrich...

Cruella is pure Old Hollywood 1930s glamor trapped in a late 50s/early 60s modern domestic setting. And you know whose movie was made in the 1930s and has a very 1930s cultural aesthetic to it?

And Grimhilde herself is designed based on ANOTHER 1930s film villainess, She (Who Must Be Obeyed):

A movie that was famous for its Art Deco sets, and Art Deco is one of the main aesthetic motifs attributed to Cruella in the Glenn Close movies. So stylistically speaking, the two of them despite coming from different time periods and different worlds coexist in a way that is very old Hollywood. And with that combined link to the 30s, it helps the two of them to coexist peacefully and harmoniously in the same time period. They meet in this glamorous and mythologized liminal space. Heck, with Cruella's aesthetic links to the 1930s, I personally headcanon that she grew up absolutely obsessed with old Hollywood and making a concentrated effort to emulate that energy in her own style. Since Grimhilde is kind of an Old Hollywood character come to life, it's almost like Cruella can be a fangirl of something that she's admired for her whole life when she gets with Grimhilde, and you know Grimhilde is gonna LOVE that attention.

In addition, I personally like to be very cognizant about my ships with regards to what the individual character is going to look for in terms of a romantic partner and why the character that I've chosen for them suits that specific need. With Grimhilde, we know that she was married to Snow White's father and that she killed him, so we know that she didn't have any real love for that man, possibly any man. She rules over her kingdom alone and doesn't want anyone to rule beside her. In the Snow White comics and deleted scenes from the film, she showcases a sort of romantic rivalry for Prince Florian, but her affections for him are never about wanting an equal. She wants him because he is young and handsome and compliments her beauty and elevates her image in a way that helps give her more power through her beauty. So for Grimhilde, she needs a lover who can fill that niche - not someone to rival her or rule beside her, but someone who can be a perfect accessory to her beauty. Cruella being all about fashion and style is absolutely that person. She's very cognizant of appearances and what can accentuate or take away from beauty and aesthetics. That inherent utility to their relationship means that it would be something that Grimhilde would be open to indulging, and from there deeper feelings can develop under the right circumstances in a way that they wouldn't without having that utility first.

So that's Grimhilde's side of things. But what about Cruella? Well, we see Cruella's relation with love mostly revolving around this sort of one sided attraction that she has to Anita. And at first glance that seems contradictory to her getting with the queen, because Cruella is obviously going after a dainty and demure woman who she can kind of steamroll and collect as another fashion accessory. However, I think what makes this work so well is that it really showcases that Cruella has an attraction to traditional feminine beauty and women in general, and Grimhilde is of course is the fairest woman of all. The Glen Close movie adds an interesting dynamic to Cruella's attraction to Anita in that she enjoys the creative interaction that she has with Anita. Never really noticed Anita until the two of them started to collaborate creatively, and I feel like that's a big thing that Cruella needs and wants in a partner, someone who engages that creative side of her brain and understands her drive for aesthetics and beauty. And, as previously stated, who better to do that than the Queen of beauty herself? Grimhilde is a perfect model of unlimited dramatic creativity wrapped in a feminine and beautiful package that would set Cruella's heart ablaze.

Together the two of them fulfill that perfect niche for each other and foster a creative, beautiful, and bloodthirsty ruthless energy that would make them feel seen and supported. They effectively create their own little world of 1930s fantasy glamor when they come together, and that's just beautiful to me.

Those are the biggies, but some other really fun pieces of shipping fuel: *I love the aesthetic they have with them both being tall women with dramatic almost drag queen makeup and outfits that have tones of black, white, and red in their own signature styles. And Cruella has the flowing fur coat with the red liner and Grimhilde has the flowing cape with the red liner and so they can be very flouncy and twirly with their styles. *Grimhilde keeps a royal huntsman who can kill all of the animals for Cruella whenever she wants. *They both have similar structures to their stories - they start out on friendly or familial terms with the protagonists before they show their true colors, then they entrust men to kill the innocent creatures needed to enact their plan but those men fail them, forcing Grimhilde and Cruella to take matters into their own hands, and then the finales showcase them both transforming into frightening demented versions of themselves (old hag and crazy demon eyes Cruella during the car chase) madly pursuing their goals until they ultimate bring about their own defeats by the environment turning against them *Cruella has the green smoke of her cigarette which echoes the green and smoke of the Magic Mirror, and also Cruella's chain smoking being a sort of poison in and of itself links back nicely to Grimhilde's literal poisons. *OUAT gives Cruella magic powers and ties to the Author, and Grimhilde also has magic powers and is a literal storybook villain.

So, yes, at first glance, EvilPuppies may seem like just a crackship, but it's really not. There is SO much here in both their canon interactions and in their numerous parallels, and there are honestly probably even more that I'm forgetting. They are the crowning queens of femslash for me for good reason, and I adore them, darlings!

[laylolife]

Do not let the cuteness fool you! #trumanthegriff locked me in the garage this morning - in my bathrobe - with the deadbolt! Hubs couldn’t hear me banging on the kitchen door so I had to go to the front door - in my bathrobe - and repeatedly ring the doorbell to get back in! #evilpuppy 🐾🐶 #laylolife #fitness #wellness #preresponder #wpgofinstagram #wirehairedpointinggriffon 🦏 https://www.instagram.com/p/CH0aZKJJ8jS/?igshid=4xeok29m321c

[evildisneydorks]

Medusa: Hey, Ella, are you free on Friday? Like around eight? Cruella: Yeah. Medusa: And you, Grimhilde? Grimhilde: Umm... yes? Medusa: Great! Because I'm not. You two go out without me. Enjoy your date! Cruella: Did she just-

[darkmagickingdom]

Grimhilde: Would you pass the salt?

Cruella: What's the magic word?

Grimhilde: [starts chanting in Latin]

Cruella: [Nervously] Never mind, darling, just take it.

[guestbusters-blog1]

Whatever you do... whoever you face... no matter how cute this puppy is... do not trust him.

This little beast, more commonly known as our house pet, Dax, packs more than just a lovable “surprise”. Yes, indeed, DO NOT TRUST THIS PUPPY

[auttiemusic-blog]

I had a bit of fun with the Snapchat filters

[jcmorrigan]

I dunno if this is legal for the brutally honest thing buuuuut can you do the main QAGA ships?

Hadeficent: I’ll admit it took me a bit to warm up to this one - I was locked into Hadecilier for so long, and I liked to play Maleficent around the field (remember our Maleficent/Blackheart night, GA? Remember it?). But after reading your sweet writing of it...gah, I am SOLD. It still feels kinda “new” to me for that reason, but I really enjoy indulging in it now.

Doomki: Yes. Good. OTP. 100%. Probably my favorite Loki ship you’ve ever had now that I’ve seen their MUA and comic interactions. It allows them to be portrayed as both fluffy AND bitter in the same ship.

Rulin: I mean this is True Blood canon and my only knowledge of True Blood is the clips you’ve shown me but...this is me talking a big talk for someone who hasn’t seen everything in context, but I’m actually MAD whenever I see Russell/Talbot or that scene where Steve dies proclaiming his love for Jason because YOU TWO...ARE SUPPOSED...TO GO...WITH EACH OTHER. DANG IT.

Fishsula: Not as strong of a love for it, but it’s probably my favorite Ursula ship nonetheless. (Can’t speak as to Fish ships without having experienced her in canon, which I think I’m locking as more of a matter of “when” than “if.” I’M GONNA TRY AND DO IT Y’ALL) It’s good and I like seeing it! And you write it really well. Like, REALLY well. 

CaptainSerpent: HOW? HOW DID YOU TAKE A CRACK CONCEPT LIKE THIS AND MAKE IT SO ADDICTING? When you first put them together, I was SURE they weren’t gonna last. But reading your writing of them I’m suddenly like WHY DO THEY...GO? THIS IS SO CUTE. It’s the same “fluffy but bitter” principle as Doomki, but trending more toward the bitter. A good bitter, though.

EvilPuppies: Admittedly not AS jazzed for this one either - I think it’s just because I haven’t seen them together in your fic or worked with them in mine in a while. But it’s still my favorite ship for either, and I like seeing it. Maybe I just need to schedule them for a mission in TBTC soon.

ArDaken: Okay, so this one’s not QAGA canon yet. But it will be if all goes according to plan. See, the thing is, I know on the surface that all of their similarities make them an ideal match, but I don’t have an ardent (GEDDIT) passion for this one either. I’m more curious than anything to see how it plays out in practice. Reading and/or writing it will probably push me toward being more endeared. I do like it, though! There’s certainly nothing wrong with it!

Pete/Mary: THIS IS THE CUTEST SHIT I HAVE EVER SEEN. MORE PLEASE

Winnie/Davy: Also not canon yet and I’m aware it may change. It’s...it’s such a crackship I have to love it on principle. I never would’ve come up with it on my own, not even if I’d been playing on the same logic line you were to get here. It’s so ridiculously mismatched-looking that my adoration for pairings that don’t look like they go but actually have mad chemistry just goes WILD over this concept.

[imnotlynx]

periiiiiiiiiii

:3c hey 

[gavillain]

Queen Grimhilde/Cruella De Vil aesthetic

[darkmagickingdom]

Gush hours! Tell me your OTPs and why you love 'em

You have opened the floodgates now

I'll only talk about my Disney Villains ones for now because that's all that relates to the blog, but if you want to hear about the ones I have outside of the disney fandom I would be more than happy to gush about those too.

The Lich's Dark Fairytale--aka the Horned King/Maleficent

- Okay, I talked about this one a bit a while ago. But unsurprisingly, I have more to say. So this wasn't my first enemies-to-lovers ship--I think my first one was created at least four years ago, but it's probably closer to six, and even that might be undershooting it--but this was my first "oh they'd try to kill each other, that's spicy" ship.

It started as a thing that wouldn't last, just a way to explore the kind of pairing where they're both trying to kill each other while trying to ignore their less-murdery feelings for each other.

It was a pairing dynamic I didn't really explore before then. Then I ended up liking both characters, their similarities, their shared dynamic--so much that I just had to make it a sincere enemies-to-lovers. And I'm a sucker for villains that have a soft side for someone but are still, y'know, evil. And given how Maleficent's whole thing in her movie is sticking it to the "true love conquers all" trope, I like the idea that a relationship wouldn't magically make her good. Sorry, Jolie, but she's just more fun of a character to me as a bad girl.

I would also love to see someone as gleefully evil as Maleficent try and lift the King out of his bitter and somber little grave. It'd be good to hear him maniacally laugh more often. Or really, at all. Maleficent's come back to life a ton of times, and might not be fully killable, while at least in my personal headcanons, the King can't ever fully die, being able to remain aware and keep his soul in his body no matter how horribly its damaged. So there's none of that immortal's angst that either of them would get from a relationship with a mortal.

I also love seeing characters be ruthlessly protective of one another, and I think these two have great potential for that. They both have potential to get absolutely bloodthirsty on the battlefield, even if Disney never really let us see either of them doing that. But you don't get a reputation like Maleficent's by sitting on a throne all day, and you don't achieve a reputation like the Horned King's by never riding into battle and cutting a few thousands down upon an accursed, blood-soaked blade. In fact, book-accurate depictions of the King have him surprisingly jacked, and looking a lot more battle-ready than his animated counterpart. I like to think that's how he was when he was much younger, before he started rotting. So if it comes down to it, they'll both wreak havoc on a battlefield, or they'll form an impenetrable defense to shield the other. And that is my JAM.

If I had to pick one song for them, it would be Love Me Dead by Ludo. But I have a whole playlist for them tbh.

Cards & Dice--aka Facilier/Oogie

Now this one is just. Fun. These two have such a similar aesthetic and flair for elaborate jazzy song-and-dance numbers (with use of blacklight!) that I just had to have them become friends. And gradually I decided "okay. But what if...they were friends-to-lovers?" And thus, Cards & Dice was born.

Honestly I think they'd be the most fun of my OTPs to play third-wheel to. They'd get up to all kinds of villainous shenanigans, make a TON of enemies, and make a narrow getaway every time.

Also? Considering they're both more nervous on average than the average Disney villain (with Oogie being one of the only ones actively terrified of his hero, and Facilier one of the only ones seen nervous and afraid before his demise) I like to think they could help each other with their respective fears. Facilier standing up to Jack, Oogie standing up to the "Friends" (even if neither are actually powerful enough to win). Oogie just sitting and hearing Facilier out when he's freaked out about how the "Friends" might still be searching for him. Facilier saving the HBIC (that's Head Bug In Charge, aka the Brain Bug, aka the green earwig Santa squished) just in time when the rest of Oogie's body gets destroyed. That's all just so good to me.

And don't get me STARTED on them singing and dancing together, completely stealing the floor every time! They're WONDERFUL, Your Honor.

If I had to pick one song for them, it would be Poker Face by Lady Gaga. But I got like a whole playlist for them in the works lol

A New DIRECTIVE--aka AUTO/Doris

Yes, I did just come up with that name. I think it's quite good.

So this one started as like. A joke. A what-if. A "hey, they're the only robots so they oughta stick together". How did it end up like this? It was only a kiss, IT WAS ONLY A KISS

So I am a sucker for the trope where the more chaotic one breaks the orderly one out of their shell and gets them to be less rigid. What if that, but evil?

"Hey boy, how would you like to go from lawful neutral to chaotic evil?"

"I don't suffer from 'I could fix him' disease. I think I could make him worse."

Theirs is like the inverse of the "love makes the bad guy turn good" trope. Love makes the robot disobey his programming, go rogue, and help his girl take over the world.

They're like the evil version of WALL-E and EVE. Except with the roles reversed, because the guy is the one from space who wants to follow his DIRECTIVE while the girl is the one from Earth trying to be like "no dude, check this out, I can control people and stuff all by myself. We should totally rule the world, it'll be awesome."

I usually imagine this pair with humanoid android forms because it's. Kind of hard to get invested in a ship's wheel and a hat. They're both a lot less expressive in their base forms than either WALL-E or EVE, so giving them cool android forms helps. I don't imagine them as super human-looking droids though, cause if they're more obviously robots it looks cooler. Though I DO think Doris deserves a face so she can go >:D sometimes. And AUTO deserves the ability to go >o|

If I had to pick one song for them, it would be Daisy Bell by Harry Dacre. Because they're both HAL 9000 references (Doris a lot less obviously so, but she's still got that one red eye), and evil robots the way HAL was, and that's the song HAL starts singing before he's deactivated. Which in and of itself is a reference to the first speaking/singing computer-generated voice program, IBM704, which famously sang the song Daisy Bell. (there's also a Futurama episode where Bender dates a HAL 9000 reference character, and there's a montage of them doing romantic things set to Bender singing Daisy Bell. For all my fellow Futurama fans out there ;) I'd especially recommend this version, where someone had both the original IBM704 and VOCALOID4 sing the song as a duet. (Because I like the idea of Doris getting a Vocaloid or Vocaloid-like voice if she was able to speak actual words instead of that admittedly really cute droidspeak language from the movie)

There are also plenty of villain ships in this fandom that I've seen that I love (such as FireSerpent--aka Jafar/Hades--, EvilPuppies--aka Grimhilde/Cruella--, and SeaDragon--aka Ursula/Maleficent) but I wanted to talk about only the ones I developed myself, since I think the creators of those ship names would be better equipped to talk about them.

[erniebilko]

happy birthday !!

THANK U LEELA!!!!!!!!!! :DDDD

[gavillain]

Grimhilde, Cruella? Is there anything in your childhood that stuck with you?

Grimhilde: “Apart from the obvious, the way mother used her beauty to underscore her power. Even as a little girl, I marveled at the way that her very radiance could sway men and women alike. She often told me that rouge was her war paint even though the battles she fought were decidedly different from those the unwashed soldiers would endure.”

-----

Cruella: “I spent most of my childhood locked in a wretched attic, kept a prisoner by my mother’s mangy mongrels. There wasn’t much else to stick with me.”

[slugshifter]

evilpuppy replied to your post “What kind of bugs do you guys like?? :0”

lightning bugs, lady bugs, beetles, and rollie pollies

Oh I love fireflys/lightning bugs!! I see them a lot especially around this time of year.

[shinymareanie]

evilpuppy replied to your post “nymphrdite replied to your photo “finally tumblr has an april fools...”

a good and trustable business

nymphrdite replied to your post “nymphrdite replied to your photo “finally tumblr has an april fools...”

smiles nd happiness shes in the business of smiles nd hapiness

NGnAHHAhhhhhhhh

but her blog is boring i would vote for her if she would kiss me though

[mymelodypng]

💚 ?

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[i-likethedark]

Whyyy?!!?!?!? #evilpuppy #buddy #ouch