Webcomic / Foxes in Love

Blue and Green, in the middle of a mundane adventure.

I wrote a list of all the things I love, in order. You are still #1.

Foxes in Love is a simple four-panel comic by Finnish artist Toivo Kaartinen, which started in 2019. The comic mainly focuses on the relationship and simple adventures of two foxes (representing the author and his partner), in a lighthearted and wholesome way. The comics usually have no continuing storylines or narrative, and besides the protagonists Blue and Green Fox, no other character has an assigned name.

Three physical compilation volumes have been released so far, which include exclusive comics.

Can be found on Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram.

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Foxes in Love contains examples of:

• Adorable Abomination: This comic's last panel shows a pair of what the image description refers to as "creatures beyond our comprehension", who exist on another level of reality and are so huge that Green and Blue are smaller than an ant relative to them. Despite their size and otherworldliness, they look remarkably like our two cute vulpine protagonists, but differently-colored and with three eyes.
• The Alleged Car: In this strip, Blue refers to Green's car as "a dingy nightmare" and questions its safety. Green claims that he'd rather not get used to luxury only to lose it and end up miserable, which is why he doesn't upgrade to something better.
• Analogy Backfire: Green notes in one strip how having nice things requires maintenance to keep them that way, including having a car, having houseplants, and being in a relationship.
  Blue: All your houseplants die and your car is barely street legal.
  Green: Obviously you are the most important.
• Art Evolution: Compared to earlier comics, later ones make the foxes a bit slimmer, their snouts and ears a bit more rounded, and their eyes slightly bigger.
• Author Avatar: The artist identifies himself with Green and his partner with Blue in the comic about his top surgery.
• Bait-and-Switch: Green tries to console a sniffling Blue... for having allergies.
• Beautiful Dreamer: Green loves looking at Blue while he sleeps.
  • The very first strip consists of Green cuddling Blue while he sleeps, and thinking about how beautiful his partner is. Then he wakes him up by licking him.
  • In this strip, Green thinks Blue is so beautiful while he's asleep that he decides to paint him. Unfortunately, Blue is insecure about his weight and thinks he looks fat.
  • In this one, Green admires the sleeping Blue and contemplates cuddling with him, deciding against it only because he doesn't want to wake him up. However, resisting the temptation to cuddle makes Green vibrate, and his trembling wakes Blue up anyway (not that he seems to mind).
• Be Careful What You Say: In this comic, Blue gets a lantern... which explodes as soon as he mentions he got it because it's pretty, as the instructions say it's not meant to be used decoratively. Apparently, the lantern can tell whether it's going to be kept hidden in a closet, or displayed on a shelf.
• Big Eater: Green, who is able to eat a whole cake in a single gulp by unhinging his jaw like a snake, and still have room for fries, and orders a "Giant Rocky Two-Layer Meteor Splash" at the ice cream shop even when he's not really in the mood for ice cream.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick:
  • Blue lists off Green's blanket collection, with a rather sinister one thrown in there.
    Blue: You've got a wool blanket, three cotton blankets, a silk and flannel blanket, an electric blanket, a weighted blanket, a magnetic blanket, a blanket with an ancient curse...
  • A gentle version with Green describing Blue: "This is my favorite person. This is my favorite smile. These are my favorite ears. This is my favorite butt."
• By "No", I Mean "Yes": One strip has Blue asking Green if they want to go out for burgers. Green first protests that they have food at home... then complains the question was unfair because of course he wants burgers.
• Call-Back: In this comic, Green keeps jumping at random because of Blue thinking of his "ticklish spot". This is a reference to this older comic, where we're told Green is so ticklish that he can be tickled simply by thinking about the left side of his lower back.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Green, whose bizarre solutions to things somehow manage to work.
• Color-Coded Characters: Green and Blue, as well as most other characters that are seen, all have very similar body shapes and are visually distinguished mainly by their colors, which in the case of the two main characters are also literally their names.
• Delayed Diagnosis: Throughout the comic, Green often acts like an impulsive Cloudcuckoolander with memory and attention span issues. This 2022 comic shows Green being formally diagnosed with ADHD.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Many of the 2019 comics had more than four panels, something which is extremely rare in later comics. One of them also shows anthropomorphic species other than foxes as Green's friends, while later comics have foxes as the only human-analogue species.
• Ear Worm: In this strip, Green apparently had a song stuck in his head for the past five hours because of Blue mentioning it. Although Blue feels guilty about subjecting his boyfriend to an ear worm, it turns out that Green doesn't mind because he likes the song.
• Elevator Going Down: This comic says that while Blue doesn't do public displays of affection, elevators don't count as public to him.
• Everyone Knew Already: Blue's family is not surprised at all when he tells them he has a boyfriend.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: There are two foxes. They are in love with each other. There's not much to the comic aside from seeing the foxes do in-love stuff together.
• Exhaustion-Induced Idiocy: This strip has Blue talk about how sleep deprivation causes only the most basic and instinctive brain functions to remain active... which in Green's case is unintelligible lovey-dovey mumbling about Blue.
• Extreme Omnivore: Green has been known to eat things as weird as roadkill with two-week-old mac n' cheese and hot sauce. Blue can get sick just thinking about his partner's diet.
• Fire-Breathing Diner: In this strip, Blue, who doesn't like spicy food, spits flames after kissing Green, who'd just eaten a very spicy meal. Interestingly, in another one, it also happens after Green eats simple barbecue chips.
• Fix Fic: In-Universe, Green Fox decides to rewrite the fable of The Grasshopper and the Ants to make the grasshopper more sympathetic.
• Hypocrite: In this strip, Blue is very insistent that Green takes his medicine, while Green protests and hides under the couch. Then Green points out that Blue hasn't eaten anything today, and Blue is shown hiding under the couch in a similar way, showing that while Blue is very insistent that Green takes proper care of himself, he fails to practice proper self-care himself.
• Informed Deformity: On several occasions, Blue has been described as having an abnormally huge head, which makes it hard for him to find hats or helmets that fit him. Despite this, he is drawn with a head the same size as most other characters.
• Invisible Anatomy: The characters have no visible limbs. Held items look like they're floating, and the foxes "hug" by coiling around the other like a snake.
• Isn't It Ironic?: In this comic, Blue is singing "You Are My Sunshine" to Green while they cuddle, not realizing how dark the lyrics are. Once he gets to "Please don't take my sunshine away", Green starts crying and Blue has to reassure him that he's not going anywhere.
• Lethal Chef: Green is apparently a terrible chef.
  • His attempt at baking Blue a birthday cake looks more like a rock. At least Green is aware that it's not edible and doesn't take offense when Blue declines eating it.
    Blue: Is that a dead spider?
    Green: I'm bad at baking, too.
    Blue: Do you mind if I don't eat it?
    Green: No, I like you alive.
  • When the foxes get an air quality meter, they notice that it skips over red and turns purple with a picture of a gas mask whenever Green is cooking.
• Loophole Abuse: Blue's little brother's gaming crimes, making him the richest man on the server.
• Manly Tears: Blue and Green are watching a movie and get to a very emotional scene. Green's response is to focus entirely on not crying, disregarding the fact that Straight Gay Blue is next to him sobbing his eyes out.
• Metaphorgotten: Sometimes Green's rather obscure metaphors for his attraction to Blue land. Frequently, however, Green's mental train means they fall here. For instance...
  Green: I wish I could do the alien symbiote thing with you. I could fuse into your body, see everything you see, do everything with you, meet everyone who has ever been mean to you... and EAT THEM.
  Blue: Please do not.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: Blue's grandma is depicted as half his height, and she claims she's taller than her own mother was.
  Green: How tiny was your great-grandmother?
  Blue: No idea.
• Motivation on a Stick: When Green is diagnosed with ADHD, his doctor prescribes him a "shiny thing" on a stick which he can aim towards where he wants to go, which helps motivate him to move forward.
• Mundane Utility: When Green is haunted by the darkness within his soul, he retaliates by... using it to chop vegetables.
• Nervous Tics: Apparently, Green's reaction to a stressful situation is to weave an entire rug.
• Noodle Implements: This comic has Green listing off a long grocery list which includes several seemingly unrelated items, and the purpose of which he forgets before he's done listing them all.
  Green: Hey, when we go get groceries, can you remind me to get duct tape, bleach, tin foil, fake fur, eyelash glue, seven lemons, a watering can, shoe polish and a nail gun?
  Blue: What for?
  (Beat)
  Green: I already forgot.
• Not Me This Time: This strip.
  Blue: If I didn't know better, I would suspect you're behind this.
  Green: It would never have occurred to me to do something that funny.
• Not So Above It All: Blue is the more traditionally sensible and reserved one of the two, but often indulges or joins Green in some of the weirder ideas.
  • When Green mentions he has a safety blanket, Blue asks him what it's for. Green notes it's for "existential dread". After a moment, Blue joins him under the blanket.
  • One comic has Blue listening to advice from his therapist and talking to his inner child. On Green's asking what it wants, Blue's inner child states it wants to eat glue.
  • The two foxes can't decide on what to eat for dinner. The eventual winner is a place that gives little paper hats with the meal that Blue recommends.
  • Usually, Blue isn't too keen on public displays of affection. However, when they're in an elevator, that's an exception (note that elevators have security cameras in them, so someone is seeing them make out).
• Official Couple: Blue and Green are happily in love with each other, as is perhaps noticeable by the title.
• Only Sane Man: Blue tends to be the more down-to-earth fox compared to Green's Cloudcuckoolander tendencies, though his cautiousness can sometimes become unreasonable.
• Opposites Attract: Green is zany, lighthearted and impulsive, while Blue is more held back, cautious and reserved.
• Painting the Medium: In one strip, Green mentions that a certain cashier at their grocery store has the prettiest voice he's ever heard. To get this across through text, she says "Hello!" in cursive.
• Precision F-Strike: In the first strip:
  Green: If daylight hurts your eye, I'll eat the fucking sun.

• Really Moves Around: Green mentions that he used to move around a lot, never staying in the same place for longer than a year or two because "there just never was anything worth staying for." Of course, this changed once he fell in love with the sedentary Blue.
• Riddle for the Ages: In this comic, Green and Blue are cuddling. Green starts laughing, and when Blue asks why, he whispers something into his ear that suddenly has him screaming to get away from him (while Green keeps him trapped in his embrace). What Green said that grossed out Blue so much is left to the reader's imagination (the author has claimed on Twitter that it has something to do with pickles and feet).
• Scary Stinging Swarm: Blue and Green are jogging and getting exhausted. Although Green asks for a break, they both get a second wind when Blue points out that stopping here will leave them at the mercy of a swarm of mosquitoes.
• Straight Gay: Blue is Straight Bi. He has rather traditionally masculine interests, like guns, camping and video games, but is in a relationship with the transmasculine Green Fox.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: As different as they are, Blue and Green clearly share a wavelength when they simultaneously mistake the sound of a malfunctioning automatic door, sight unseen, as a baby seagull in distress.
• Tears of Joy:
  • Green visits Blue's family for the holidays, and is moved to tears when he sees that Blue's mom made a gingerbread figure of him, showing that she sees him as part of the family too.
  • Green is again moved to tears when Blue shows him a picture that reminds him of their relationship. Blue tries to comfort him despite Green insisting that he's happy.
    Blue: [hugging Green] Nooo! No. No crying. Don't cry.
    Green: Too late, and you're just making me happier.
• Together in Death: Invoked by Green, who discusses how he'd like them to be buried together if they die at the same time... so he can be the big spoon forever.
• True Love Is a Kink: Green tries to "torture" Blue, and he thinks it sounds kinky... until it turns out that the torture consists of compliments and gentle validation, which gets him begging for a safeword.
• Uncanny Valley: invoked Discussed in this comic, where Green makes a plush doll of Blue. He wonders if the unblinking eyes look wrong, but Blue points out that it would look even worse if it did blink.
• Weight Woe:
  • In this strip, Blue feels insecure about his weight. But when he asks Green what he'd change about him, Green says that he'd make Blue slightly fatter.
  • In this strip, Green paints a picture of Blue while he's asleep, but it makes Blue feel insecure because he thinks he looks fat.
• Wildlife Commentary Spoof: This comic has a nature documentary-style narration describing the foxes sleeping under a pile of blanket and cuddling.
• World of Funny Animals: The comic is set in a world much like ours, except that every human is a fox instead.

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