Being a Zootopia fan on the internet is like being god’s strongest soldier fighting the uncaring deity’s toughest battles. You can’t talk about how much you like Disney’s politically-charged take on the animal kingdom without it somehow veering into the topic of furry porn or a buckwild fan comic about aborting a fox/rabbit hybrid.
Despite Zootopia not really getting into cross-species romance, something that has followed the franchise since the 2016 original is that a large, very loud side of the internet ships ex-con fox Nick Wilde and his bunny cop bestie Judy Hopps, and there’s no shortage of art, fanfiction, and fan theories about the two pining for one another. Infamously,, someone wrote a viral fan comic starring the two in which their relationship unravels over Judy wanting to abort their fox/rabbit hybrid baby that has become such a prominent meme in pop culture that it has its own Wikipedia page After seeing Zootopia 2 twice, I’m pretty confident someone at Disney has read that comic or is at least aware of it, and all the other nasty things y’all have been saying about these two for nearly a decade. Disney may not be looking directly into the abyss, as a lot of big studios won’t read fan works for fear of potential legal trouble if their stories end up overlapping with something an admirer wrote or drew, but Zootopia 2 has all the makings of a movie almost winking at its fans in an hour-and-a-half-long metatexual tease. Despite this, the studio refuses to give WildeHopps shippers the catharsis they so desperately crave.
Zootopia 2 is straightbaiting, or using a potential romantic pairing like a carrot on a stick to draw in an audience they won’t actually satisfy. After living decades watching pairings of men with a ton of chemistry not end up confessing their love for one another in a sloppy on-screen kiss, I think that’s beautiful. Don’t come for me, saying that “straightbaiting” isn’t a real thing because straight ships aren’t victims to the same societal stigmas as queer ones. This is too funny for me. Let me have this. The movie begins with what feels like a direct homage to the abortion comic by having the pair do some undercover cop work, masquerading as a couple with a baby (Nick’s ex-crime partner Finnick, also in disguise). Their perp acknowledges the interspecies pairing is a bit different, but not unheard of in the city of Zootopia, where predator and prey live together in harmony. But when one of the most viral fan creations is about these two as would-be parents, leading your long-awaited sequel with a scene of these cops cosplaying as mom and dad to a little fox baby feels very intentional, and Zootopia 2 doesn’t let up with one gag.
If you ignore what Nick and Judy actually say to each other, Zootopia 2 has all the makings of a slow-burning enemies-to-friends-to-lovers arc a decade in the making. They’re constantly referring to each other as “partners,” as they’re the Zootopia Police Department’s newest duo, and they’re celebrating their week-long anniversary while trying to sort through their differences. They go to partner counseling, when Judy makes a joke about their anniversary while they ride on a Walrus’ belly, their chauffeur puts on mood lighting and plays one of Disney’s most iconic love songs, “Bella Notte” from Lady and the Tramp, and there’s a scene where mountain goats send the pair up to a honeymoon suite likely assuming they’re heading up to make a hybrid baby.
#z2spoilers #zootopia2spoilers
i don’t see anyone freaking out over this yet so allow me bc this is one of my many new roman empires:WDYM THEY PLAYED BELLA NOTTE FROM LADY AND THE TRAMP ONE OF THE MOST ROMANTIC MOVIE SCENES EVER??? pic.twitter.com/P3CKTNh6iD
— caro 🐾 #z2spoilers❗ (@pumpkinberryxo) November 28, 2025
The brilliant part of this is that these assumptions play out without Nick and Judy ever acknowledging them. It would be so easy for the two to get really animated about these moments and be like, “No way! He’s just my partner. We’re just friends who have never even considered each other like that.” Instead, Nick and Judy let these moments go and focus on what’s actually important. Even in the height of the two’s crisis point, Nick refers to Judy explicitly as a friend, and when all of these conflicts come to a head in a glorious overshare of therapy speak, the two never even say a word about any romantic feelings. They talk to each other the way two secure, platonic individuals do: with an open, honest apology for their respective flaws, and a hope that they can work together better in the inevitable next movie.
That’s not to say that Zootopia 2 doesn’t have moments that could absolutely be read as romantic tension. Early on in the film, when the pair is scoping out a gala, Nick sees Judy yapping it up with Pawbert Lynxley, the awkward rich kid who seems to be an outcast in his evil rich people family. He gets so distracted by what looks like a fit of jealousy that he runs into a fellow party patron. It was in that moment that I worried that Zootopia 2 might actually go down the romantic road, but even when Nick is having a major confessional moment, much later, after Judy runs off with Pawbert to try and salvage their larger case, he doesn’t confess any romantic feelings.
Fans will inevitably read Zootopia 2 as another chapter in a decade-long slow burn, but as someone who finds Nick and Judy’s security in their friendship to be one of these movies’ greatest strengths, I gotta give Disney props for keeping their love platonic. That’s after a decade of earnest shipping and also a whole fucking lot of fan works. There are literally thousands of fanfiction entries of the two’s hypothetical relationship, and the Nick and Judy tags on Rule 34 both have five-figure post counts of illustrated smut. But in Zootopia 2, Nick says, “Love you, partner,” at the end of the movie, and he means that platonically. Jury’s still out on how he feels about abortions, though. But hey, he has some very weird hangups about reptiles that are giving “conservative cousin at Thanksgiving,” so maybe he’s anti-choice, and we’ll find out when Zootopia 3 comes out sometime in the 2030s.
