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Who plays as kitsune what are your thoughts? Also..who'd like to rp with one?

I would RP with one

I'll play with you if you're interested I'd probably use Elemeno for one of her age.

Regarding the "your thoughts" part of it-

I can only respect mythological characters if they're close to the mythology they originated from. I cannot, however, respect things people see in Anime, movies, TV, books, and think they're "cool-looking" and don't do research on (ex. People who stick animal ears and tails on people or give them the power to control an element and call them "demons," vampires that suddenly have black hair and red eyes when they're turned, etc.). Needless to say, I keep my "Mythological Creatures Bible" close at hand rather often. (Great book, by the way, fellow fantasy and mythology nerds!)

I'm a complete and total research, logic, and detail whore, so I could just be being picky. But, as a huge mythology geek, I like keeping things as traditional as possible (and sometimes, like in the case of my own vampire, adding a little logic into the mix), and I cringe when people completely butcher it. I'm also a moderator in the most advanced RP room on deviantART's chat service (meaning, we are very militant when it comes to sheets- no angsty, cliches allowed, lol), soooo it could be my "moderator side" showing when it comes to this, too, haha!

I personally am not fond of kitsunes because they are very over-done, like Anime characters. Everyone's played one, and most don't play them as very well thought-out characters with much depth to their personalities and adventures. I often see RPs die out super fast because it gets stale almost instantly after the initial encounter's specialness wears off.

Howeverrrrr this is true for even regular OCs, not necessarily kitsunes. I just haven't seen one that looks like more than a standard cookie cutter throw-away character in a while.

I certainly would roleplay with one if the character had more to it than being a mysterious multi-tailed fox with no apparent goal or direction for plots!

Most of our mythological creatures probably originated from someone deciding that animal x would look way cooler if it had the head of animal y.

Human beings in general have a much higher opinion of their ancestors than they really deserve. There have always been angsty twelve year olds, and there always will be.

There are no sacred texts detailing what combinations of horns and wings are acceptable and which are blasphemy. There is no objective metric to determine how many tails you can have before you're silly. We have only traditions, each one equally arbitrary.

I used to believe the opposite, that werewolves and nebulous forces of darkness and sonic recolors are always terrible a priori, and I still roll my eyes at better than nine tenths of the characters people send me links to. But sneering cynicism serves no purpose. It won't help anyone improve, and in fact usually just makes people more determined to keep sucking.

If we won't sincerely try to help others improve, then at least let us not stifle their creativity. Every potential writer discouraged is a collective failure.

Speaking of cringing...

It's all relative.

...kitsune are just straight up awful though.

I don't think any character type is straight up awful, some do have a tendency to be abused tho. Generally the more popular the mythological creature, the higher the chance it's going to be used by less....experienced rpers. That doesn't mean that the whole creature is terrible, just that there will be a lot of bad characters.

It's the ugly side of popularity. When something gets popular, there will anyways be some bad things attached to it.

Personally I did create a kitsune character in part because they have such a bad rap. I wanted to really test my skills as an rper by making and using a character that people would discriminate against because it was a kitsune. If I could make a good kitsune character then it would really be a sign that I had really progressed from the newbie godmodder that I was years ago. Of course I also did a kitsune because I really like the myth of Kitsunes. :p

I also deviate from the myths sometimes because that's one of the benefits of rping. You get artistic license. The world would be boring if we all atuck to the norms. Of course some creations will be absolute monstrosities. Twilight vamps anyone? Yet some are ingenious like alien chestbusters, and Okami.

On another note..who wouldn't want all the fluffy tail

I personally like the whole 'trickster' thing. Adds a bit of unpredictability...so I think?

if any of you would like to go ahead and look at this one and maybe give some tips etc. I'd very much appreciate it! First mythological character and i rarely touch fantasy.

Shall I sink or swim I wonder?

PS...still a work in progress! very bare bones here and tried to keep from being over powered or anything.

I stopped reading.

Ok I think i fixed that.

The human/fox part is slightly confusing as well; is she a hybrid, or is she a kitsune? Is one her actual species, and one is what she is most often assumed to be? Differentiating the two a little better would make a touch more sense.

As much as I love Kitsune mythology, I usually cringe when I see one floating around because it clearly shows the ignorance of the player - especially when said kitsune is male. Even a glance through the Wikipedia page would enlighten would-be kitsune roleplayers to some degree, and whilst I believe personal adaptation is important (as there would be no point in playing a character you don't find interesting or like, for most people at least) I think it's good to stick, even if only marginally, to the original mythology of the creature you want to roleplay, which is a kitsune in this case. A little research goes a long way.

Like werewolves, I have always liked kitsunes. I've always been more so attracted to their malevolent counterparts, the nogitsunes. But just like the majority of people here my opinion has been tarnished by the amount of crudely made kitsune characters about in the web. Just like dragons, and vampires, and most other supernatural creatures I held a biased nature against them simply because there was never any depth to the actual character. I soon realized that it wasn't the species I hated, but the characters themselves, and I've been actively trying to move away from the biased against species and look at the actual characters themselves. I know what it's like for people to outright refuse roleplay with you just because you play a specific race or creature, and it's lame. You shouldn't judge a character for its species, but how they're played out.

On saying that however, I have recently made a nogitsune character myself. I decided to do a little research into the lore since I wasn't as well versed with kitsune/nogitsune lore as I am with, say, werewolf lore. I didn't want to make her an all powerful nine tailed and generally unplayable, but I find myself preferring to play characters that are a little older. I haven't played her much for the sole reason that people have pointed out in this conversation, because the general opinion of kitsune types are frowned upon or ignored and I'm not as confident with my Japanese lore as I am in other areas. Her profile is here if anyone wants to take a look, give constructive criticism or if you'd like to roleplay.

I've been a little hesitant to comment, but I'll go ahead and put in my two cents, I suppose.

Personally, I think it's not really right to overlook certain individuals just because of the species they chose to make their character(s). It really just seems to come off as a little... well, rude? I'm not saying this to point any fingers or anything, though. xD I happen to have also done similar in the past to other people - it's something that just kind of happens from personal experiences, I think...?

Instead of expressing dislike or just saying something uncouth to the individual though, perhaps it would be better to try and gently nudge the person in the right direction?

Obviously, reading lore on (pretty much) any species is very helpful when creating a character that's engaging and played very well. A tendency not to read or know the history of the species/alleged origins of the character may, however, become a barrier between the player and his/her counterparts that creates divides like this in communities between the uneducated and the knowledgeable. Too, rudeness tends to drive newcomers away because of the judgement cast upon them by the senior members of said group. And, likewise, some people don't want to make/have characters of the designated species because of the "bad rap" they may get from such individuals. It's something that I've noticed seems to happen in most roleplaying communities, no matter the genre/plot/etc.

A fix, I might suggest, is stepping back and realizing that we're not perfect creatures. We each have our strengths and faults and picking at those of another isn't really... well, fair.

After all, we wouldn't want someone to call us out on our favorite pony/werewolf/dragon/human/demon/whatever character and call it stupid or say that they didn't even read the profile information just because of what species it happened to be... right?

Kindness and generosity go a long way, within reason.

What do you consider 'the right direction'? Who are we to decide what is the right or wrong direction in the first place? I'm all for being helpful and teaching people new things, but only if they want to improve and ask for the help.

Everyone has the right to play their character the way they want to, even if this means it doesn't reach to our personal standards or is true to lore. Yes, I'm often frowny faced at the way people play their characters. At a lack of background, a lack of motivation and goal, their species. But I will never deny someone the right to play their fictional creations in whatever way makes them happiest.

It's not what I'd choose, but if they're happy, then who am I to pass any kind of judgment on them and shove it into their face with (unwanted) advice to 'do better'?

I've had this happen with anonymous characters of mine, where I was told "You should play x such or so because that makes more sense". No I shouldn't. And I didn't remember asking anyone for such an opinion.

Unwanted advice makes me balk very quickly, even more so because many people don't know how to be tactful in delivering it, no matter how good their intentions are. It's very difficult to be delicate with communicating the concept that one's character is inadequate in some ways in your eyes without making someone instantly raise their hackles in self-defense. If the advice is unwanted, then there's a big chance they won't take your words into consideration anyway. They have to want to improve their character in order to make use of your advice after all.

It is very different when someone asks "In what way can I make my character better/more believable?". Even then it's difficult to phrase your suggestions right without tearing everything they worked hard on down.

As much as it everyone's right to play their character however they want to, it's also my right to choose not to RP with them for having what I consider a very poorly designed character compared to my standards. I won't be nasty about it - that doesn't help anyone and is just mean - but I won't lie and pretend I like the character either.

I'm with Sanne on this- giving unasked-for advise on character building is a great way to cause some nasty explosions. Whole boards in flames, man. It ain't pretty.

On the subject of kitsunes, I judge characters more by their player than their species. If the kitsune is horribly cliche and inaccurate, but the player is someone I know to be an engaging partner, I'll give them a chance. If the kitsune is completely accurate but the player is someone I don't want to play with, I won't even bother reading the profile.

So I wouldn't want to roleplay with you, not because your character is a kitsune, but because I have no idea who you are ,what you're like, how we'd get along, or what your usual standards are. I'm weird that way.

Haaaaah. Oh, do I have opinions on this one. (I promise they're not inflammatory, though! I think.)

Years ago, I used to co-admin a kitsune roleplaying group on Furcadia (A Kitsune's Paradise, for those of you that might recall it.) I had some really fun times in that dream, played myriad kitsune and nogitsune characters (and still play one or two today), and played with a lot of interesting, fun folks. Shenanigans were had all over the place, let me tell you.

But there were always arguments. So many arguments! What kitsune were, what was 'real' vs fantasy, what they could or could not be, if they had elemental affiliations, and if they did have elemental connections, to which elements... Oh, man, the list went on. AKP's owners eventually just laid down the law and said 'we're playing it this way, because that's our continuity'. It wasn't myth-accurate. It couldn't really be myth-accurate, to sustain roleplay in our community. When I wrote our dream continuity-guide, I tried to point out where I could where things deviated from myths, what was embellished, and so on. It didn't satisfy everyone, of course. To some people, kitsune in general were still overpowered, or cliched; a perhaps lesser variation of god-characters. To others, we weren't playing them 'correctly', and therefore we weren't worth playing with. Others still took what I/we compiled together and followed it as some version of gospel truth and continued perpetuating arguments about it, which was never, ever intended on my part.

I used to be something of a hard-liner, myself, about who and what kitsune were, and had super set-in-stone standards about what sorts of characters I would play with. I am not like that any more. I realised a few years ago that it ultimately doesn't matter. We were playing creatures of myth; they're no more 'real' in our day to day lives than dragons or titans or vampires. Even with what myths we have of them, it's incredibly hard to pin down what makes a kitsune, other than 'fox, maybe spirit, maybe not, sometimes multiple-tailed, sometimes not, sometimes trickster, sometimes guardian, sometimes malicious, often feminine, but not always'. Holy contradictions, Batman! I think all that's 100-per-cent non-debateable about that is 'fox'.

And, honestly, the fact that none of us even were Japanese made it even harder for any of us to definitively say 'this is how it is'. I didn't grow up in Japanese culture; I've never been to a Buddhist or Shinto shrine at all, much less an Inari shrine. It doesn't strike me, these days, as right for someone who is so far removed from that to try and present themselves as an expert on a cultural subject. We used to decry the foxes on Naruto and how they were presented, but wouldn't the creator who grew up in that culture know so much more than us? And even if they did take artistic liberties or portrayed kitsune in something other than their traditional forms, so what? It's their mythology; they can do what they like to it. Mythology in general is fun like that; there's tradition, but it's not like it's set in stone forever. You can interpret and tweak differently as you go along, and it harms no one.

tl;dr, I feel like kitsune (like any cultural-based thing) is a subject that interested western RPers should approach with respect, and certainly do research on, but ultimately not get too worked up about with the fine details. As a race of creatures or fey-things, they're neat for a starting point in character creation, but like with any character, it's a kitsune's particular character traits and portrayal that makes or breaks them.