"Despite 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 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 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."
Internet fandom around Zootopia has developed a loud, persistent WildeHopps shipping subculture centered on ex-con fox Nick Wilde and bunny cop Judy Hopps. Fan output includes art, fanfiction, theories, and explicit sexual material, including a notorious viral comic about Judy aborting a fox/rabbit hybrid. That comic became a prominent meme with its own Wikipedia page and appears familiar enough to studio observers. Major studios often avoid reading fanworks due to legal overlap concerns. The Zootopia franchise sometimes teases fan expectations without committing to romantic payoff. The studio's approach is described as straightbaiting, implying deliberate flirtation with potential pairings without fulfillment.
Read at Kotaku
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